This Is Where We Take Our Stand

In March of 2008, 250 veterans and active duty soldiers marked the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq by gathering in Washington, DC to testify from their own experience about the nature of the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. Inspired by the 1971 Winter Soldier Investigation held by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, they too sought to express their opposition to those wars with their first-hand accounts, bearing witness with voices not generally heard. Our documentary is a portrait of three participants. If follows their lives for 6 weeks leading to the even and afterward; an active duty female soldier, a 9 year National Guard Veteran, and a 3 tour former Marine. This is their story.

Taking Back Our Beach

This is a film about the response by a community to New Zealand’s largest environmental disaster, seen through the eyes of that community. The film captures the shock, anger and grief driven into the heart of the local community, but also the humour, purpose and overwhelming positivity when people join together with a common goal.

Rendalf the Wizard

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

Erebus: Operation Overdue

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.

Pirates of the Airwaves

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.

Wildcat: The Struggle for Democracy in the New Zealand Timberworkers' Union

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.

The Volcano: Rescue from Whakaari

A close examination of the Whakaari / White Island volcanic eruption of 2019 in which 22 lives were lost, the film viscerally recounts a day when ordinary people were called upon to do extraordinary things, placing this tragic event within the larger context of nature, resilience, and the power of our shared humanity.

New Country - New People

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

Flare - A Ski Trip

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

Four Shorts on Architecture

A visual essay on contemporary Kiwi architecture.

Dame Valerie Adams: More Than Gold

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

Bastion Point: Day 507

Merata Mita, Leon Narbey and Gerd Pohlmann’s powerful documentary Bastion Point: Day 507 depicts the eviction of protestors from Bastion Point during the struggle for Māori land rights.

Kinleith '80

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

Someone Else's Country

Someone Else’s Country looks critically at the radical economic changes implemented by the 1984 Labour Government - where privatisation of state assets was part of a wider agenda that sought to remake New Zealand as a model free market state. The trickle-down ‘Rogernomics’ rhetoric warned of no gain without pain, and here the theory is counterpointed by the social effects (redundant workers, Post Office closures). Made by Alister Barry in 1996 when the effects were raw, the film draws extensively on archive footage and interviews with key “witnesses to history”.

Toy

An short anti-cruise missile film created in collaboration with a group of filmmakers.

No Māori Allowed

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.

Hillsborough

A look at the April 15, 1989 tragedy at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, England, where a stampede in the stadium's standing-room-only areas killed 96 people and injured 766. The film also examines the ongoing efforts of victims' families to seek truth and justice, as well as tangible effects on English football, including stadium upgrades and the emergence of the English Premier League.

Quest for the Ring

Môžeš

A Year With the Penguins

Southern New Zealand is home to an incredible diversity of penguins; each species has its mode of reproduction, its habits of brooding and teaching its young.