Discoveries from New Zealand World Cinema

Horror short.

In the 1960s, the United States Information Service (USIS) mobile film units travelled around the northeast region of Thailand showing their self-produced propaganda films to rural audiences as a part of a psychological operation.

A man runs away from the sun in the desert

A slice of bi-cultural life in New Zealand - Hindu and Kiwi served up in the wine country environment of Hawke's Bay. The story revolves around the various cultural differences and serious matters of those differences being exposed and examined, mostly with a sense of humour. The Kiwis are introduced to various Hindu social conventions such as `mother in law rules' and the visiting Hindus are introduced to outspoken children, all while the Kiwi wife is about to have it out with the arrogant Hindu mother-in-law.

Hands turn slowly, releasing the sole recording of his voice into the air — Glimpses of what a mother saw through the viewfinder of her 8mm camera as she filmed her daughters in the years following their father’s departure — Daughters, aglow in a purple afternoon, picking flowers amid the brush — The Mediterranean sea, golden — The Atlantic sea, blue — Hands, revealing a silvered talisman — The Moon, who has been watching — The Sun, who has been watching — The inexplicable softness with which things occur once the Sun has passed the horizon — Voices, telling stories, singing, calling for her as she searches for traces of her grandfather in present-day Sénégal. Filmed across Tournon-sur-Rhône, Aix-en-Provence and Dakar, Dombrowsky-M’Baye’s Seuteu unravels an archaeology of her matrilineal ancestry. Carried by the air, we drift in and over homes, bodies of water, landscapes and atmospheres – contemplating the space between memory and lived experience.

Inside the hidden world of a New Zealand funeral home.

A retired explorer is convinced to take up one last expedition with an old friend, to chart the never-before-explored Fuerte Valley. But when the expedition leaders turn against them and kidnap their friends to take a treasure, they must race against time to stop them.

“The Man in the Black Suit” recounts the tale of Gary, a nine-year-old boy, whose brother died, not long ago, due to a bee sting. One day, Gary goes out fishing and encounters the devil.

After a number of donut related robberies occur, Dorman and his co-worker, Dean, are tasked with discovering this donut bandit. However, the culprit seems to be under their noses.

Welcome to this inside look at a West Auckland Theatre, where we discover what goes on inside and out. In this episode we'll meet the Theatre's Head, B.J Jones, as he gives us a tour of the Theatre. We also meet Adam Speed, the Theatre's Nightguard.

This impressionistic, late 1960s survey traces Auckland from volcanic origins to a population of half a million people. Produced by the National Film Unit, it finds a city of "design and disorder" growing steadily but secure in its own skin as its populace basks in the summer sun. A wry, at times bemused, Hugh Macdonald script and an often frenetic, jazzy soundtrack accompany time honoured Queen City images: beaches and yachting, parks and bustling city streets, and an unpredictable climate given to humidity and sudden downpours. Awards: 1970 Edinburgh Film Festival - Certificate of Merit 1968 Pacific Asia Travel Association Conference (Taiwan) - Third Prize 1967 Venice Film Festival - Lion of St Mark Plaque 1967 Tourfilm Festival (Czechoslovakia) - Tourism Film Prize

A woman wakes up in the morning to an excessive number of phone messages from her ex-boyfriend.

He loves her - she loves him - there's only one thing missing - his trousers. A woman unhinged, strangely tied to her ex-husband. A man obsessed, strangely dressed in his y-fronts. Love, hate, fish, music, a flaming pram, flying pasta and a rendezvous with fate!

The Hitman "Zion" has seemly escaped from the experiments that had been done on him, but as usual, something else is going on...

In the beginning was the apple ... Adam and Eve, the Apple, the Worm, Seven Deadly Sins and Cupid. Get ready for creation!

Indigenous curator Nigel Borell’s groundbreaking Māori art exhibition becomes both a cultural triumph and a battleground for power, captured with extraordinary behind the scenes access in Chelsea Winstanley’s directorial feature debut, TOITŪ: Visual Sovereignty.

From my recent trip to New Zealand's east coast and sounds. One of my favorite places I have visited.

After the publication of her semiautobiographical debut novel, a girl comes into conflict with her mother over how the book portrays her upbringing.

Vampire Luka Markos cruises in an unknown city, seeking men for his harem. This ancient wanderer courts three men: The Twink, The Bear, and The Jock. Encountering each man in different corners of the gay nightlife, Luka first seduces, then brutally emasculates them. This sets the stage for a life-and-death power struggle between the men.

A young Man frustrated with the world around him, spirals into a chaotic theatrical-like transformation into a Sigma Man, guided by other Sigma Males dressed in black suits.

With unprecedented access, filmmakers Noel Smyth and Fergus Grady lift the lid on the secretive Gloriavale Christian Community following a family of survivors searching for justice.

Wilbur Force, the former king of NZ pro-wrestling, is provoked to break out of the cage of his worst self and reconnect with his glory days of battle.

Kurī hasn't been back home to Te Urewera since she was bitten on the face by a dog as a child. She must return home and face the uncertainty of grief - whether she's ready to or not.

A young woman, Yim Wing Chun, must fight a feared tyrant who she does not want to marry. Her only way to win freedom is to win a challenge fight. But against all odds and an opponent twice her size, she must summon all her inner strength to be triumphant.

An ode to anger.

Chimney Book takes rubble from the Christchurch earthquake, and turns it into the building blocks of a film exploring life in the quake zone. Christchurch musician Blair Parkes took bricks from his chimney — destroyed in the 22 February 2011 aftershocks — painted a letter or symbol on each, then scanned them into his computer. Sound and word form the spine of the result, which is part diary, part experimental film. Parkes explores his experiences of living in Christchurch since the quake through words like 'dust', 'memory', 'place', and a question: 'is it over?'

This promotional travelogue, made for the Christchurch City Council, shows off the city and its environs. Filmed at a time when New Zealand’s post-war economy was booming as it continued its role as a farmyard for the “Old Country”, it depicts Christchurch as a prosperous city, confident in its green and pleasant self-image as a “better Britain” (as James Belich coined NZ’s relationship to England), and architecturally dominated by its cathedrals, churches and schools. Many of these buildings were severely damaged or destroyed in the earthquakes of 2010 and 2011.

An egocentric drama teacher passes wisdom gained through a career of failure to a paying class of idiosyncratic young people.

Haunted by what happened next door, a woman searches for meaning in the love story of a friend from her days in international student housing.

Review of the political and artistic life of Nelsonian Mike Ward.

Scientists recently documented that pods of orca hunt blue whales. Cetology uses this hunt to explore contemporary human brutality at a corporate wellness retreat.

A poet forewarns their next lover of what lies ahead.

A 17min live action short. Based on the epic poem by Christina Rossetti, Goblin Market is a dark fairytale about two sisters who live together sheltered from the world, until one falls prey to temptation and is trapped in a web of seduction and betrayal, and the other must risk everything to save her.

It takes bravery and guts to perform on stage to an audience… but Lusi does it all the time. Despite growing up with a disability, Lusi has been breaking boundaries as a loud and proud Samoan dancer and actor in the theatrical world. Becoming Masina is a documentary that takes us behind the scenes into the creation of her latest project ‘Masina Returning Home’ and highlights the crazy characters that have stepped beyond their comfort zone to take part in a type of theatre that truly makes a difference.

Costa Botes’ portrait of New Zealand writer Michael Morrissey is indeed a tiger-ride – an up-close encounter with an extremely intelligent man in the grip of bipolar disorder. It’s also a harrowing portrait of marriage vows tested to the extreme. Morrissey was diagnosed with manic depression in 1999 but long rejected available medication, believing it would stymie his genius. Having failed to find a publisher for his written account, he invited the filmmaker into his house to record his battle to ‘tame the tiger’ through willpower.

Some day we’ll be able to measure the power of words but in the meantime let’s be careful about the words we use.

Another day at the work... of robots.

Rita, a 15 year old girl who dances to a different beat, is relentlessly bullied by the queen bees. When they kill her cat, they go one step too far.

A local football team defines what it takes to win. Through their ups and downs they train through the tension leading up to the most important game in the season.

“I’d never share a rope with him” is about as damning a comment as anyone can make about a fellow mountaineer. Sir Edmund Hillary’s words about Earle Riddiford in his last autobiography set the uneasy tone of this nuanced documentary by Earle’s son Richard Riddiford.

A lonely woman turns to a cutting-edge dating service, hoping technology might succeed where love has failed.

The story is set in the Wairarapa region in the shadow of the Great Depression. We follow two brothers drawn into the illicit world of illegal alcohol production within the Prohibition era.

Follow the journey of Kiwi rally star Hayden Paddon as he strives to become a World Rally Champion. A motorsport documentary.

When American tech billionaire Jack Maurer pays for an elite prediction service for global threats, he receives a warning that takes him to Queenstown, New Zealand.

A glitchy AI love companion from the 'semi-mature' range and her lonely final customer confront mortality, second chances, and life on the scrap heap.

The House Within is a feature length documentary film on the internationally celebrated New Zealand writer Fiona Kidman. It examines the way in which life and fiction collide and how, with time, they become inescapably braided together.

In Hugh Macdonald’s fascinating and inspiring doco, his cousin, writer and illustrator Sheila Natusch retraces a long life dedicated to sharing her understanding and love of New Zealand’s nature and history.

Alex Gilbert travels over 14,000 kilometres from New Zealand to Kazakhstan to seek out a family connection.

An independently shot pilot for what, eventually, became THE MILLEN BAIRD SHOW.

Set in the Bay of Plenty in 1864, the story dramatises an event which occurred at a small settlement called Mill Farm. Seven people in the settlement are attacked by 100 of Te Kooti's warriors.

Just A Scratch follows Noelle, a naturally reserved person, on a gloomy night that will change everything. When her older sister, Dinah, visits to discuss funeral plans for their deceased younger sister, Candace, Noelle struggles with her guilt, buried deep inside. The narrative escalates when she receives a mysterious phone call from her dead sister. What starts as a normal, gloomy evening soon spirals into madness, as Noelle’s fears and regrets start manifesting into something real and inhuman. As the night unfolds, she is faced with painful truths about her family, her grief, and herself. Blurring the lines between reality and the supernatural, Just A Scratch is a psychological horror short film that explores the darkest spaces of human emotions, loss, and the terrifying ways guilt can take form.

In Dizzy, we encounter a woman lying on a bed in a strange room who repeatedly performs the hypnotic Epley manoeuvre designed to relieve the symptoms of vertigo.

In a mockumentary uncovering greed, delusion, and decay, a crew devoted to flipping trash for profit hides a dark secret that threatens to tear them apart.

Best friends, Kaitlyn and Kiara, organise a picnic in the park with their friends. A game of hide and seek in the bush triggers old memories. The deeper they hide in the woods, the deeper this story gets.

Two high schoolers experiment with the means and ways of traditional witchcraft, a bride with a secret has second thoughts on her wedding day, and a loving couple quietly prepares their family for the cataclysmic event to come. Six spellbinding stories about private passions, stolen moments and the bonds we form when the world isn't looking.

There's no place like home...because it doesn't exist. After living in New Zealand as an immigrant for over 20 years, a young filmmaker takes a journey back to Iran after a 17-year absence to find out whether or not she would still be considered an outsider even in what is termed her 'homeland'.

Experience the days, minutes, and seconds leading up to the 2019 White Island Eruption that killed 21 people through the eyes of survivors, rescue workers and the scientists who have been studying the volcano for years.

A young woman surprises her brother and friends when she suddenly turns up in her small home town with a secret.