Discoveries from New Zealand World Cinema

Will Bastion returns home from the army after an absence of 20 years to bury his father, the former chief of thee Maori tribe, Ngati Kaipuku. The eldest son, he is reluctant to inherit his fathers role, so it is taken more willingly by his younger brother, Kahu. Kahu is the leader of a band of drug dealers and trouble-makers who ride horses through the middle of town, wrecking peoples gardens. Under the guise of refusal of a land settlement, Kahu makes a large marijuana deal with some murdering city folk. Will must choose between loyalty for his brother and his father, Maori tradition, and contemporary financial issues.

A bittersweet love story told through enchanting re-imaginings of popular and iconic New Zealand songs.

Wife of successful NZ businessman is seduced by fellow American after "chance" meeting in park. However, Greg has more than love-making with the beautiful Christine in mind.

Documentary about the making of the 1996 horror-comedy.

An island paradise, big business, complex characters, love and betrayal set the scene for this light-hearted romantic action adventure film. Set in the stunning scenery of the South Pacific, with drama, action and comedy at every turn, it tells the story of a woman who learns that her life is half lived, and a man who has closed himself off from the world to hide from the pain of his past.

Sweet, chubby, theatrical Billy was never cut out to be a farmer or a rugby player, but as the only son of a ‘good kiwi bloke’ he’s obliged to try. The cows are stubborn and the chores gruelling but Billy finds escape in a fantasy world playing Lana, heroine of his favourite TV show Adventures in Space. Not everyone approves of Billy's transformation. On the brink of adolescene, he discovers growing up is more complicated than he could ever have imagined.

A couple, secretly on the verge of announcing plans to divorce, reluctantly depart for a second honeymoon after their family surprises them with a tropical trip as a gift for their 20th wedding anniversary.

The same night as a girl is slain in the woods, the teenagers Sam and Les are robbed of all of their hard earned hens. In the quest for their hens they cross the murderer's path.

A nightwatchman who works at a pesticide plant manipulates chemicals (of which he treats a strange garden of marrow-like vines in his apartment) , causing evolution to accelerate, in this short illustrating the harmful effects of human interference with nature.

Lucinda lives a fairytale life with dairy farmer Rob, and his 117 cows. But after a freak car accident she decides to test Rob's love for her by trying to make him angry. He passes her tests until a quilt goes missing from their bed and the price of getting it back is high.

On the Western Front in the web of trenches, stretcher-bearers must choose between their humanity and their job.

Eight Māori female directors have each contributed a sequence to this powerful and challenging feature which unfolds around the tangi of a small boy who died at the hands of his caregiver.

A couple buys a blow up doll as a joke, but soon the doll begins to reveal that it has a consciousness to one of the boyfriends, the man begins to have full on conversations with said blow up doll, leading the other boyfriend to think he has gone insane.

The owner of a quaint New Zealand yarn shop, Sophie Dale, gets her world flipped upside down after learning her top supplier of yarn, King Farms, is stopping production. Much to her surprise, the charming yet stuck-in-his-ways Samuel King has traveled all the way from New York to audit the business model of the farm. Desperate to keep her shop going, Sophie convinces Samuel to give her two weeks to learn the ropes of yarn spinning and raise enough money to buy the mill herself.

Melanie Fraser has a problem. Her mother, Dr. Janet Fraser, thinks that she can bond with her stepfather by accompanying mom and dad on a simple business excursion to see if a small tour guide company is a good investment for clients. The fact that the trip will take the threesome to the site of a volcano in New Zealand is nothing for Melanie to worry about. Old "Mount Extreme" is inactive and mom is a former volcanologist who should know a safe hill when she sees one. So what's the problem? Answer: somebody forgot to tell the gods in charge of lava control that they were about to host a family therapy session. Mount Extreme decides to live up to its name just in time to make Melanie's quality time with the folks seem like a big mistake.

The tragedy of Gallipoli is exposed

While a group of Special Forces train a village to defend itself against Terrorists, the Captain of the group locks horns with the resident America Nun, who seems to be slightly better at everything that he is good at.

It is not easy to find love, especially if you are falling apart, stinky and a little bloody around the edges. Welcome to Rotting Hill, where the extinction of humanity has led to the rise of a new species - ZOMBIES.

Two best friends, Grant and Paul, hita country road for a night of fun, but unfortunately take a short cut to their fate...where they meet the Locals.

This is the story of daredevil stuntman Randy Cambell and his quest to follow in his late father's footsteps and become New Zealand's greatest daredevil stuntman by performing the ultimate daredevil stunt: jumping across Cook Strait in a rocket car!

Al Shaw's life revolves around motor racing and his back country junkyard, the "Smash Palace". His French wife, Jacqui, doesn't appreciate the lack of attention due to Al's obsession with cars. When Al finds her in the arms of another man, he takes his daughter, Georgie and heads for the bush, desperately hoping to hold on to the only family he has left.

Set in 1965, a true story of one man’s struggle to bring rock music to a nation, an iconic New Zealand story with a universal ‘David and Goliath’ theme. The youth will find it incredible this actually happened and existed as part of New Zealand society in the 1960′s. It’s a titanic struggle for freedom and ‘the choice to choose’.

When all the earth's fire begins to go out, Hercules and Deianeira must go in search for fire to stop the world from cold. "Hercules and the Circle of Fire" is the third movie-length pilot episode of the television series "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys".

The Orator (O Le Tulafale) is a contemporary drama about courage, forgiveness and love. Small in stature and humble, Saili lives a simple life with his beloved wife and daughter in an isolated, traditional village in the islands of Samoa. Forced to protect his land and family, Saili must face his fears and seek the right to speak up for those he loves.

Following the immense success of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Peter Jackson directs King Kong (2005). This documentary follows him, and the immense project from start to finish. It turns out that this one film may actually be a larger task to complete than all 3 of the Lord of the Rings films together.

This docu-drama dives beneath the sensational headlines to unravel the truth about a murder case that rocked New Zealand and catapulted teenage dominatrix Renee Chignell and cricket umpire Peter Plumley Walker into the national consciousness.

Lucy and Tom are best mates running a tiny, broke theatre. But when an accident forces them to shut down and Tom threatens to leave, Lucy realises she would do anything to save the theatre and keep her friend... who she might be in love with.

Wound is a supernatural horror that explores the dark worlds of mental illness, incest, revenge and death. We follow Tanya as she searches for the mother she has never met – a mother who gave her up for dead after being abused by her own father who remains stuck in her present life. Tanya returns from the dead to confront and possess her mother with all her deepest fears and desires, sending Susan into a state of madness and gore filled retribution. A dark, disturbing look into a haunted woman’s mind. This is one terrible dream you will never wake up from.

Teenage twins battle dark forces hidden beneath Auckland's volcanoes.

Influencer bloggers evoke spirit of vanished "black countess" during ritual at her mansion. She disappeared playing dimensional game. Their ritual unleashes otherworldly demons, and survivors must banish them back.

The feel-good atmosphere of the wellness resort cannot calm the tense mood between mother and daughter. They relentlessly criticise each other. Ultimately, in the hot sauna, there is no escape for either of them.

A boy from California goes to visit his grandfather in New Zealand, where he learns that the frail old man is a fanged flier by night.

Sam is a sound technician, who must literally walk in the footsteps of the characters on the screen. A "film within a film" that connects the world of modern film-making to the Paris of painter Toulouse-Lautrec and his model/lover Mireille.

In this short James Rolleston (Boy) stars as a Kiwi lad who banters with an elderly bearded fulla (Bruce Allpress) who claims to be God; the 'BMX Kid' challenges him to a Lake Wakatipu bomb competition to prove it. Kiwi stuntman/director Tim McLachlan's film was a finalist in Your Big Break, a filmmaking contest run by Tourism New Zealand which attracted over 1000 scripts from around the globe. Five finalists were given the chance to turn their scripts into a short film. The brief was to "capture the spirit of 100% Pure New Zealand — the youngest country on earth".

Jack, Thomas and Wayne are the Stickmen. They like nothing more than having a beer in one hand, a pool cue in the other, a coin on the table and a sexy bird or two. They play pub pool for fun and money at Dave's bar. Desperate to get out of debt, Dave gets the Stickmen entered into a high stakes pool tournament run by vicious crime boss "Daddy". He also gets them into a whole rack of trouble.

In Dark Places is the gripping story of an innocent man, imprisoned for two decades for a crime he did not commit, and an ex-cop's heroic battle to win him his freedom.

The story of Dame Whina Cooper, the beloved Māori matriarch who worked tirelessly to improve the rights of her people, especially women. Flawed yet resilient, Whina tells the story of a woman formed by tradition, compelled by innovation, and guided by an instinct for equality and justice whose legacy as the Te Whaea o te Motu (Mother of the Nation) was an inspiration to an entire country.

A scientist in New Zealand has a secret lab where experiments are performed on humans. When he is assassinated, opposing forces rush to his hideaway to suppress or expose his secrets.

A thousand years ago, in England, the crazy monk Elmer wears a pair of wings and tries to fly from a high tower. He dies, and his soul is doomed to the eternity in hell for committing suicide. In the present days, in New Zeland, Elmer has the last chance to prove that men can fly and save his soul: his spirit enters in the brain of a very intelligent inventor, Jack Brown, and forces him to try to fly. Jack uses his last creation, an amplifier in a tape record, to succeed in the journey, but his invention is strongly desired by his former boss and his lover, who want to sell it to a Chinese investor. Jack's girlfriend helps him to accomplish his intent.

An orphan weds an older man in circa-1900 New Zealand, then finds out he's a miser who spies on her.

Cumberland, 1348. The plague is spreading in medieval England. The remote village of little Griffin is also threatened. But the 9-year-old boy has a recurring dream that holds the key to a tiny hope of survival: a lake with a coffin floating on it. A white church with an iron cross. A falling glove. A falling silhouette. A torch tumble through a dark shaft into infinity. With his brother he recognizes in it a prophecy to escape the Black Death. So they embark with a few men on a journey to a distant cathedral, where they want to set up an iron cross as an offering to God. Her path leads them through a deep and dark mine shaft into an unknown land and completely outlandish time - into the present-day New Zealand of the 1980s.

First-year acting student Stanley mines his girlfriend's family scandal as material for the end-of-year show at drama school. The result is a moral minefield.

Jack and Dora, abandoned by their parents as babies, are desperate to find each other after years of adoption. Jack's young life has been spent with a sadistic family. Dora, whose life has been somewhat better, has developed extra-sensory powers which tell her that Jack's in danger and drives her to search for him.

An Anglo-American indie rock band winds up stranded in Epecuén, where their internal conflicts and the bad luck of their tour quickly lose importance before the hell that awaits them.

A pregnant woman returns to her recently-deceased grandparents’ old family home to spend time with her estranged mother. What begins as a tenuous reunion slowly turns terrifying.

New Zealand’s 4th Most Popular Parody Duo are back for a mutha-uckin’ special concert live at the London Apollo.

Fleeing a painful past, Nico travels from Spain to New Zealand to start over, but when a vibrant young actress pulls him into an ambitious student musical film competition, he’s forced to face his fears, open up to new friendships, and rediscover the spark of storytelling that might just heal him.

In a violent, post-pandemic world, a peace-loving man is forced on a desperate journey to find life-saving drugs for his wife - but to get them he must first help an ornery old man defend his cabin against all-comers.

The documentary looks at the rise to celebrity status of NZ actor and musician Bret McKenzie, who appeared for 3 seconds as an extra in "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring", during the Council of Elrond scene. His brief appearance sparked a huge internet fan-base dedicated to his "brooding pout" and "elvish good looks". McKenzie has been dubbed "FIGWIT", an acronym of "Frodo is Great; Who is That!!?"

In a distant future, a mysterious boy becomes the central figure in the search for a new hope. Who is this kid? Why is everyone looking for it? Sometimes it is better not to know certain answers…

A retired couple spend their time digging into the earth beneath their house in search of treasures, until a tremor shakes things up.

A young woman battles against a series of giant spiders, spawned by toxic waste, in her new suburban home.

This dark comedy is set in Dunedin, New Zealand. A university student finds an old "abandoned" house and proceeds to invite other students to share. It even has running electricity. But what is the catch?

When Kelsey's magazine approves her pitch about a sceptic's take on love and horoscopes, she is teamed up with Astrology guru, Carter. Clearly from opposite worlds, they put their competing perspectives aside to work the story around a local meteor shower festival. Through both fact and fate, they soon unearth that love really can be written in the stars.

New Zealand's first slasher movie! The Hash House Harriers ("a drinking club with a running problem") encounter a killer Bee Keeper in a crazy Kiwi horror-comedy that is part Animal House and part 80's slasher movie.

Turei, a talented young musician, dreams of his band winning the audition to be the support act for Bob Marley’s 1979 concert in Auckland. Part of a Māori family of contract potato pickers in Pukekohe, Turei’s desperate ambition clashes with his whanau’s traditional values, leading to an emotional showdown and powerful change.

A woman struggles to survive in the Alaskan frontier after separating from her family because of an earthquake.

A psychological drama of a family in crisis. Kawa, a successful Māori businessman in Auckland, New Zealand, is forced to reveal his lifelong secret - that he is gay.

Crippled by loneliness, a woman is prescribed a drug that gives her an imaginary friend. But this new relationship becomes more complicated than she could ever have imagined.

Mirabelle and her traveling family band, the Veggietones, are determined to make their next gig at Vegtable Square Garden. On their journey, a fierce winter snowstorm hits, and the family gets stuck at a run-down resort! Mr. Beet, the grumpy manager makes me sing - and clean - for their supper. Why is Mr. Beet such a beast? And can Mirabelle's kindness change him? Find out in this hilarious and heartwarming tale of unconditional love!