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On 13 November 1991, Helen Todd received a phone call every parent dreads.  Her 20 year old son, Kamal, had been injured, shot on a small island the world knew little about – East Timor.  The nightmare of the next few days intensified,...

Accidents is a tale of masculine relations going wrong in a work gang on a remote and spectacular New Zealand construction site. Jack, a young city boy, finds himself out of place amongst his hardened work-mates. Chug is charismatic but a bully. Tamati...

A single movie-goer enters a cinema, popcorn in hand.  He settles into a seat near the front after trying several others on the way.  When the movie starts, a couple come and sit right by him, despite every other seat in the whole theatre being...

Magik and Rose began as an idea for a short film, then became a TV Sunday Theatre treatment, and like a snail, slowly evolved in to a 90 minute feature script. Unable to just file the idea away in the obttom drawer, writer/director Vanessa Alexander took...

Written by sisters Anne and Athina Tsoulis, I'll Make You Happy centres around around a stylised version of Auckland's red-light district. Like many innovative Kiwi films of the 1990's, I'll Make You Happy was made on a shoestring...

What Becomes of the Broken Hearted is director Ian Mune's sequel to the international success Once Were Warriors (1994, directed by Lee Tamahori), based on the book by Alan Duff. Duff also took on the role of script writer...

In Scarfies, five Dunedin students find themselves in a free squat - and a dark place - after taking a criminal captive in their basement.  The debut feature from Robert Sarkies starts as a comic tribute to Otago student days, then turns into a...

THE LUNATICS’ BALL is an extraordinary story about an obsessive and charismatic psychologist, Charles Duron (RUSSEL WALDER), whose unorthodox treatment of patients results in both triumph and catastrophe. The film stars US actor RUSSEL WALDER (...

It is 1971. New Zealand soldiers are heading off to Vietnam amidst hordes of peace protesters and the heady excitement of a solar eclipse. In a column of soldiers stopped to board a military truck, Geoff (Kevin Smith) catches sight of Bunnie (Danielle...

In the striving suburbs of New Zealand in the 1970s, grace was never mentioned. A stranger visiting those places for the first time could have been forgiven for thinking that amongst the optimism and ambition of the new subdivisions any kind of elegance...

Five year old Charlie arrives home from school one afternoon to find her mother, Fay, in the throes of another one of her moods. Charlie leaves her alone, but later that night Fay goes too far. Overcome by a delusional paranoia, she forces Charlie to...

Using a hand-held camera to act as a fly-on-the-wall, Gregory King observes the connections between three groups of people living in a city.  There’s an Asian family encountering Auckland for the first time as they journey from the airport in...

DIRECTOR’S NOTES: March, 2000 Infection is my third short film and my first fully funded theatrical short film, and looking back I am happy with the work I have done. The first time I watched a print of Infection, the hired theatre was peppered...

Set in the final minutes before a girl goes on stage for a ballet contest, Point Your Toes, Cushla, perfectly captures the nerves and emotional fragility of that moment where any wrong move could lead to humiliation.  Cushla’s experience is...

Billy’s opportunity to redeem himself comes when Agnes Morrison, the driving force behind the Waimatua School 75th Jubilee, is killed in a tragic bovine semen extraction accident. Billy gets lumbered with the task and he’s determined to prove...

Far from the cafes of the Seine’s Left Bank, Uncle Blick pursues a rich intellectual life. The caravan park, suburbia shrunk and transported, is Uncle Blick’s domain. A lesser mind may have succumbed to the grotesque proximity of fellow...

This short doco about the making of Forgotten Sliver is included as a DVD extra on most versions of the film.  In it, Costa Botes looks at the way he and co-conspirator, Peter Jackson, put together the preposterous story of Colin McKenzie and his...

Ben’s love-life is complicated by his attraction to Aleo, a beautiful but oblivious Brazilian exchange-student who seems to fulfil all his fantasies. But Aleo is best friends with Ben’s ex-girlfriend, Wendy. Ben tries to break through Wendy...

Fizz was shot on less than three rolls of borrowed film stock on the coldest day of the winter of 1998. The budget was $2000, which had to pay for everything. The film took two nights to shoot. The end result is a colourful 35mm, larger than life,...

Awakening from his dream, he is surrounded by onlookers who harass the boy into a state of guilt for the inconvenience that he has caused them. Later, he is back in his mother’s loving arms, contemplating that the world around him has profoundly...

DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT - Murray Keane “There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow. Ham. V.2 Falling Sparrows is a thirteen minute drama on 35mm, written and directed by Murray Keane. Murray.s background is as an actor but since...

When she sights 17 year old Dan caressing her older sister’s breast, Billie’s jealousy and exclusion become tinged with disgust. Dan is playfully pushed away by a reluctant Sonia and, once he’s gone, Billie...

DIRECTOR'S NOTE “Home Kill is part of my on-going quest for an answer to the question: what does it mean to tell a cinematic story?  Previously, in my other works for cinema and television drama, I have sought to “tell a story...

DIRECTOR'S NOTE - Brent Roderique   The Ritual is a simple premise that builds up the audience’s expectations with the use of ethereal visuals and dramatic sound. I wanted to create an atmosphere that had viewers believing...

Mesmer is an Auckland street performer with a difference.  Her performances move people in ways that can’t be explained as she whirls around, her metallic costume shimmering and shining in an almost inhuman way.  This first film from...

Things get dark when Dad discovers the stash and administers a beating. The child’s voice works as a distinct contrast to the drama appearing on-screen.  Shot using mainly hand-held cameras, this is a grim and affecting drama about domestic...

Moko (Maori facial tattoo) has been a Maori tradition since the beginning of time, becoming almost non-existent with the advent of colonisation. In more recent years a renaissance has taken place in Aotearoa, New Zealand/ Now, a ten minute documentary...

Room Tone is a black comedy about an obsessive-compulsive interior decorator, Geoffrey (Jed Brophy). Geoffrey has difficulty managing his unruly dog .Pockets., his nosey neighbours and his live in partner. His career is in danger as his abusive boss...

An empty V8 Holden sits cooling on an isolated road - post crash - with no other vehicle in sight.  A young woman walks down from the road, deep into the bush. She finds a red car - upside down - wheels still spinning.  As she approaches it...

DIRECTOR'S NOTE - Felicity Morgan-Rhind "If this film has a positive effect on one person, then we’ve succeeded."

Grace has a bleak daily existence in a future world, going to work in an anonymous virtual space and returning home, alone. She escapes the routine by entering a virtual world, where she meets up with her virtual boyfriend.  These encounters...

Saving Grace was first produced for a play at Wellington's Bats Theatre in 1994. It was an immediate success, and won its young author, Duncan Sarkies, the prestigious Chapmann-Tripp Award for Best New Play, consolidating his reputation as a rising...

He tells her of a terrifying force within him, which drives him to destroy those around him. He says this force has gone. Karen listens to his story. At first she trusts him, even believes him. But then her trust gives way to scepticism. His...

9 Across is a short film about choices. Incarcerated in a maximum security prison for robbing a bank, Leo is an inmate with a secret. Day and night he fills in the questions to a crossword puzzle, encrypting into his answers the materials he needs to...