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PRODUCER'S NOTES - Glenis Giles Shoes evolved from The Refugee Shuffle, a simple but powerful theatre performance by Sally Rodwell, Robin Nathan and Madeline McNamara using just sticks and shoes. When I first saw this work (as part of a...

The jazzy score and trench-coat wearing protagonist in this claymation short promise film noir.  But it soon becomes apparent that the room for rent has something more sinister lurking in it to explain its availability and lack of furnishing. When...

No-one ever spoke about how he lost his voice… Miranda Harcourt’s lucid tribute to her broadcaster father, Voiceover explores the trauma suffered by a young radio announcer with a golden voice as he broadcasts World War II messages home...

Joey and Will make a dawn pilgrimage to fish on the wild and brooding west coast. Swept into the sea by a sudden wave, Joey desperately fights for his life - a struggle with a savagely unexpected outcome.

In an untamed colonial landscape, a Victorian lighthouse engineer struggles to complete the light beacon that will ultimately test the very core of his being.

A book falls from above, instructing Ivan to prepare an intimate dinner for two.  This humourous vignette explores the anticipation of an evening with a much-awaited and prepared-for guest. Writer/director John McAloon is a graduate of the...

They are dropped into a pure digital environment and are literally trapped inside the matrix. They must make sense of the signposts which appear around them in order to escape. These engaging characters propel the viewer into a fascinating story. You...

Tallulah lives alone in a caravan in the middle of nowhere.  the horizon stretches endlessly. Not a creature stirs.  Not a voice is heard.  Nothing much happens. But that's not how Tallulah sees it.  She thinks her life's a...

The success of animator Euan Frizzell's wry adaptation of Margaret Mahy’s picture book, The Great White Man-Eating Shark, saw four more Mahy tales follow (collected on DVD as The Magical World of Margaret Mahy). Ray Henwood provides...

Heavenly Creatures, set in Christchurch in 1954, is based on the true story of two girls, Juliet Hulme and Pauline Rieper, who murdered Pauline's mother - one of the most bizarre and notorious cases in New Zealand's history. Both girls...

The Beach captures the drama and poignancy of a single event wherein reality shifts and people are changed forever in a fundamental way. Although this is a first film from director Dorthe Scheffmann, The Beach has a proffessional polish which betrays a...

Eighteen years after Jake and Beth Heke married in the first flush of teenage love, it's easy to see why Beth found him irresistible. Jake is a muscular handsome man who exudes an explosive sexual energy. Even now, five kids later, he can still...

Made by Peter Jackson's Wingnut Films in the very early days of FX company, Weta, many of Jackson's longtime collaborators worked on this film, including Richard Taylor.  Directed and written by Grant Campbell who worked on Bad Taste, the...

Part of the groundbreaking Pacific Island series, Tala Pasifika, Brown Sugar is the story of three young Polynesian girls, confident in their identities, who are about to perform their first 'upmarket' gig.  Their cousin is dazzled by a...

Part of the groundbreaking Pacific Isalnad television series, Tala Pacifika, The Hibiscus tells the story of Sefo who arrives in New Zealand after his wife's death to live with his daughter and her family. The hibiscus flower is a symbolic...

The film arises from the unique perspective of contemporary New Zealand where an extraordinary exchange of cultures is ttaking place - a co-existence of the imagination.

Taking its title from a famous photograph by Russell Corgi, published in the 1942 Buffalo Courier Express, the film is made up of a series of close-ups of the photograph as it unfolds to reveal the full image.  Accompanied by film-noir styled...

Through the eyes of the main character, Cindy, who is preparing for her big cabaret show and with all her experience and streetwise glamour, she tells us of some of her experiences which have led her to the showbiz scene. Talk of the Town won an award...

In middle class Auckland vulnerable passions break the surface as Laura agressively pursues love and acceptance, finding something very like it right next door. A plain tale about the swollen secretions of suburban love. This one-hour drama was...

Part of the Tala Pasifika series, this award winning episode first screened on TV One in 1996.  It tells the story of parental pressure in a minority culture where polynesian families have moved from the Islands to give their children a better life...

What happens when Isabel gets a new lover, Paul gets keen and Ruth's mother gets cancer? Leap into the murky swamp of feamle friendship.

Tim Balme narrates this film-noir styled film about being left behind in a world without women.  Rain creates a grim atmosphere remiscent of Blade Runner,  and the tough-talking dialogue sprakles especially after Balme meets the woman and...

Niki Caro’s (Whale Rider) fourth short film is made up of six vignettes about six different old men.  Speaking either to themselves or the camera, there are only a few supporting cast members. Shot on Super 8, the film gives a dark view on...

This groundbreaking Pacific Island drama series first screened on TV One in 1996 with 6 short dramas.  Another two were screened in 1999.  it was the first drama series to showcase Samoan culture and experience onscreen and gave Samoan writers...

The claymation anti-hero in 5 new adventures. Decaff has a short fuse and he's not having a good day.... Decaff's creator, Greg Page, went on to make horror flick The Locals.

Born and raised in the city, Mana takes leave from his middle management job to seek his cultural roots and Maori identity by immersing himself in the ways of his rural tribe.  He soon learns that being tangata whenua (people of the land) involves...

Part of the groundbreaking Pacific Island drama series, Tala Pasifika, that screened on TV One in 1996, this is a moving story about a tragic accident that leaves a woman dead and a family finally facing the truth. A mother's worst nightmare comes...

From the hotel being a hole in the ground to the arrival of its first guests, the process takes a lightning nine minutes to complete.  it is followed by a colourful animated credit sequence which is almost a film in its own right. The film was shot...

Crush is the debut feature from Alison Maclean, who would go on to direct episodes of hit TV shows Sex and the City, Gossip Girl and The Tudors. Maclean's feature was the third New Zealand film to be part of the Official...