Not Just Another Mountain

Delegates and workers discuss the issues that effect the Timberworkers’ Union, the reasons for the formation of the Combined Council of Timber Workers Delegates (CCD) and their industrial action.

Quest for the Ring

Covers the 12-week-long strike at Kinleith Pulp and Paper Mill, owned by New Zealand Forest Products in January 1980.

Olympic Champion, Kiwi Icon, Tongan Leader, Orphan, Mother...winning was just part of the journey.

A short documentary about freestyle skiing made for the New Zealand Tourist and Publicity Department.

A visual essay on contemporary Kiwi architecture.

A documentary exploring the human-cat love story amidst a movement to eradicate cats in New Zealand.

When an academic unearths a forgotten history, residents of the small township of Pukekohe, including kaumātua who have never told their personal stories before, confront its deep and dark racist past.

On 28 November 1979, an Air New Zealand jet with 257 passengers went missing during a sightseeing tour over Antarctica. Within hours 11 ordinary police officers were called to duty to face the formidable Mount Erebus. As the police recovered the victims, an investigation team tried to uncover the mystery of how a jet could fly into a mountain in broad daylight. Did the airline have a secret it wanted to bury? This film tells the story of four New Zealand police officers who went to Antarctica as part of the police operation to recover the victims of the crash. Set in the beautiful yet hostile environment of Antarctica, this is the emotional and compelling true story of an extraordinary police operation.

This chronicle of the Christchurch Commonwealth Games marked one of the National Film Unit's most ambitious productions. Though a range of events (including famous runs by John Walker and Dick Tayler), are covered, the film often bypasses the pomp and glory approach; instead it dares to talk to the injured and mention that most competitors lose. The closing ceremonies of the "friendly games" feature the athletes gathering to — as the official song's chorus put it — "join together". Four directors joined together to work on it: Arthur Everard, John King, Paul Maunder and Sam Pillsbury.

A documentary about the history of settler groups that came to New Zealand from Europe.

A documentary about the threat posed to New Zealand's Kaipara Harbour by rapacious commercial fishing and development.

BEYOND CONVERSION is a deep-dive into conversion therapy in Aotearoa through the eyes of Kiwi conversion therapy survivors.

In the years since New Zealand politicians began to grapple with climate change our greenhouse gas emissions have burgeoned. Alister Barry’s doco draws on TV archives and interviews with key participants to find out why.

Max Gimblett: Original Mind documents the life and process of eccentric, creative genius Max Gimblett. One of New Zealand’s most successful and internationally prominent living painters, Gimblett has been working in America since 1962. The filmmakers spent a week in Gimblett’s Soho loft where he and his devoted studio assistants generously revealed the techniques and philosophy behind his beautiful art.

Researchers investigate whether orcas have begun hunting great white sharks off the coast of New Zealand.

A Lord of the Rings tour guide in New Zealand processes his grief in a wonderful way.

Whoever came up with the term 'bird brain' never met these feathered thinkers, who use their claws and beaks to solve puzzles, make tools and more.

Seeing is to painting what listening is to politics. Survival as an artist demands both. Paint Until Dawn is a documentary on art in the life of James Gahagan (1927-1999), who painted all night to push the limits of vision. His life and thought reveal a correlation between art and activism through an interesting angle: the creative process itself.

In 1966 a group of determined young men defied the New Zealand government and launched a pirate radio station aboard a ship in the Hauraki Gulf.