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Gaylene Preston's insightful documentary about writer Keri Hulme was filmed two years after the writer's Booker Prize win for The Bone People.  It is partly a love story to Hulmes hometown of Okarito and a musing on the writer's creative...

When a young woman returns to the Greek island where her family came from to visit an aunt still living there, she discovers the contrasts between the life-styles of two women living in different cultures. . A personal and poignant documentary film...

Footage shot for this revealing documentary became the basis for Herbs' music video for their hit, Sensitive to a Smile. When Herbs made the decision to celebrate their record release in Ruatoria, a town divided by a Rastafarian sect whose actions...

It is 1930. The Great Depression has spread far afield from its Wall Street beginnings to wreck havoc on rural New Zealand. The land is rich but the money has gone. Farmers who can afford it are living off their savings but others have already been...

In this dark comedy about obsession, people reach absurd states in search of their unique little highs. Music, oddball characters and weird noises combine to create fully realised and recognisable world in which the pursuit of pleasre is all...

Award-winning filmmaker Gregor Nicholas and celebrated contemprary dancer and choreographer Douglas Wright collaborate in a film which evokes Brassai's Paris, Orson Welles's Vienna and W. C. Handy's New Orleans. The dancers split and merge...

Revenge of the Word Processors  is the story of a man who, while playing video games in his office computer, is attacked by creatures from it. He escapes and bumps into his boss in the corridor. She does not believe his story and returns to his...

A documentary showing the undertaking of a ten hour celebratory canoe voyage by the Tai Tokerau people of Northland. 100 paddlers journey from Waitangi to Whangaroa in a giant war canoe on a voyage of discovery and fulfillment. 

The brains responsible for (and subsequently seen in) Bad Taste belong to Peter Jackson - weaned on home movies, he became writer, director, actor and cinematographer. Then there were his mates - from their various different jobs, they...

Today's the day that the custody of Clare's son will be decided. Her son loves gorillas, but lawyers think they belong in a zoo. So does Clare's estranged husband, but he's the man who's ordered a singing valentine for his computer....

Waves have measured your arrival From the mirrored hearts in the moon Where the shores lap the skin Gods And all heaven cries in tune For blue Gods of mornings past Shall tonight dance in waters of fire Shattering veins of golden lust Sustaining...

Part of the E Tipu E Rea series, Eel  is the story of a teenage boy who learns about the bush and old Maori ways from his great uncle while he's skipping school. This experience prepares him for life in ways traditional schooling may never have...

Part of the E Tipu E Rea series, in Variations on a Theme, actor and Play School presenter Rawiri Paratene adapts three short scripts to suit a marae audience.  In one a bored schoolboy exchanges verbal barbs with a teacher.  In another a...

Part of the E Tipu E Rea series, Roimata tells the story of half-sisters, one raised in a rural area, the other in the city. The pair recoonect when the country-born sibling arrives in the city.  Before long, she has learned some harsh life lessons...

In a seedy waterfront bar, sometime during the '70s, a sideburned, bellbottomed singer begins his song. Sheltering from the rainy night, a man and a woman meet for the first time.  Or is it? Who are they? What brought them here? What bizarre...

A common garden sanil sets off on an epic adventure to claim a faraway lettuce. Many difficulties await him but nothing will stand in the way of his lunch... A quirky action comedy showing the world from a snail's perspective. This film uses time-...

Part of the E Tipu E Rea series, Thunderbox tells the story of a boy learning about hypocrisy through his unusual relationship with his father. This was the film debut for director Lee Tamahori after a long career in television commercials. Tamahori...

It's the 1870s, and charismatic Māori leader Te Wheke is fed up by brutal land grabs. He takes up arms and leads a bloody rebellion against the colonial NZ Government. In the process he provokes everyone affected by his actions — threatened...

"Here's a film about a place you've probably never been to; possibly never heard of. A place of peace and beauty surrounded by the South Pacific Ocean.It has snow-covered mountains, lakes, sub-tropical beaches and a modern economy. Its 3...

Death Warmed Up was a grand prize-winner at a French fantasy festival, David Blyth's splatterfest marked the first of many horrors funded by the NZ Film Commission. It was also the first local showcase of the smoothly-flowing Steadicam camera.

Sam Jamieson, Basil Beaumont-Foster, Brendon O'Keefe, Spud McGhee and Shorty Larsen eke out an existence in the small town of Kurikino, working seasonally at the local freezing works. The end of each day sees them gather in the local pub, the...

Life for Liz is circumscribed by the respectable veneer of an affluent community. The streets she walks are clean and safe. She sleeps between matched sheets, eats at good restaurants. She has never told a deliberate lie or used foul language in public...

The screenplay for Mr Wrong was based upon the story by well-known English writer Elizabeth Jane Howard. Director Gaylene Preston used the genre of thriller to examine sexual violence towards women, and what she calls 'the cinderella...

Part of the About Face series.

This series of seven contemporary dramas showcases the fresh, up-and-coming filmmakers of the 1980s.  The seven stories fit into various genres and of the seven filmmakers, five went on to make feature films. My First Suit - directed by Stewart...

An obsession with the the American cowboy as portrayed in countless westerns attracts members of both sexes to a club in the outer suburbs of Auckland. Dressing up in western garb, complete with holsters and guns, is a weekly form of escapism for club...

Sculptor-Composer Phil Dadson and his two musical colleagues, Wayne Liard and Don McGlashan overwhelm the senses by producing percussive and other sounds from musical instruments of their own devising - large plastic tubes combined with drums and other...

The feature film Should I Be Good is based on the actual events of the New Zealand based drug scandal which exploded into the news media with the brutal murder of Martin Johnstone in Britain in the early 1980s. He had already been dubbed 'Mr...