In a violent relationship, it takes a mother’s strength to save herself and her children from the man she loved. Once Were Warriors is a violent love story set against a contemporary urban backdrop.
When an arranged marriage brings Ada and her spirited daughter to the wilderness of nineteenth-century New Zealand, she finds herself locked in a battle of wills with both her controlling husband and a rugged frontiersman to whom she develops a forbidden attraction.
War journalist Paul Prior returns to his New Zealand hometown after his father’s death, rekindling strained relationships with his brother and memories of a troubled past. He befriends Celia, a curious and aspiring writer, who shares a fascination with his world. When Celia mysteriously disappears, Paul becomes the prime suspect, forcing him to confront buried secrets and uncover the dark truths of his family and community.
A contemporary story of love, rejection, and triumph as a young Māori girl fights to fulfill a destiny her grandfather refuses to recognize.
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.
Set in post-war (1949) rural New Zealand, this film traces the efforts of two con men to run a betting scam in a small town (Tainuea) already rife with illegal gambling corruption, and eccentricity.
Family drama set in New Zealand about Geoff Crome, a young boy (Fulford) who immerses himself in his own private fantasy world where he meets Firpo (Papps), a strange being who dreams of being an Olympic athlete. Together, the two begin a close friendship as Geoff attempts to help Firpo realise his dream. However, it is not long until the adult world begins to impinge on his fantasy.
Recluse Smith is drawn into a revolutionary struggle between guerrillas and right-wingers in New Zealand. Implicated in a murder and framed as a revolutionary conspirator, Smith tries to maintain an attitude of non-violence while caught between warring factions.
When young Brian discovers plans to close a convent of delightfully eccentric nuns, he sets off with them on a wild road trip across New Zealand to save their home.
Fifty-six-year-old Perianayaki contends with the difficulties of fitting into her new home, especially at the local supermarket where she works. Eye-opening and brimming with compassion, the latest film from director Bala Murali Shingade is a slice-of-life character study that provokes questions about multiculturalism and our assumptions about the people we encounter in daily life.
A baby is washed up on a Pacific Island and is adopted by a childless woman. The tribal priest takes an instant dislike to the child, proclaiming him a demon. The child is deaf and mute and therefore excluded from hunting with the other young men. Out of loneliness, he befriends a white turtle. When a drought befalls the island, the priest blames the silent one. When the chief protects the boy, the priest plots the chiefs' downfall.
The vampire myth is given a stylish 1960s treatment, where a human cop partners with a vampire cop to stop a vamp bent on creating a war between the two "separate but equal" races.
In November 1947 forty-one people died in a massive blaze that gutted the huge Ballantynes Department Store complex in the heart of Christchurch’s business district. This is the tragic story of New Zealand’s worst fire disaster.
Eight Pan-Asian female filmmakers’ powerful anthology film illuminates the immigrant experience in Aotearoa New Zealand through the lives of eight Asian women connected by the house they call home.
Constance is a bored, movie-loving schoolteacher in post-WW2 New Zealand who begins to fantasize that she's a Hollywood star - with tragic consequences.
Timothy and his family is expecting a French-Canadian male exchange student, that turns out to be an attractive girl, to which Timothy proceeds to make a fool of himself, trying to impress. When Michelle becomes ill from drinking spiked punch at a party, Timothy notices a tattoo while helping her to bed. He foolishly tells a friend about the tattoo, who proceeds to tell the whole school, which does not go down well with Michelle.
One-time Maori speed-chess champ, Genesis Potini, lives with a bi-polar disorder and must overcome prejudice and violence in the battle to save his struggling chess club, his family and ultimately, himself.
A documentary team in small town New Zealand investigate claims by scared locals that their kids have turned into devil worshipers, only to find out the truth has been grossly overstated.
Lost somewhere over the Pacific in a single-engine Cessna with low fuel, a pilot (Scott Bakula) awaits rescue.
In 1916, the New Zealand Government secretly shipped 14 of the country's most outspoken conscientious objectors to the Western Front in an attempt to convert, silence, or quite possibly kill them. This is their story.