The St Heliers Bowling Club is the setting of this episode of First Hand, a series dedicated to giving young directors a shot at making documentaries. A triples team from the Remuera Bowling Club have made the short journey to the Auckland seaside suburb, and aim to prove their superiority on the club’s fast greens. The documentary takes time to observe the culture of the club throughout the day’s play, from the variety of whites the players wear and the backgrounds of the members, to their lunchtime rituals and the role of women at the club. It’s all in a lively day’s play. 

A jandal-shod journey through Kiwi pop culture. Kiwiana takes a light-hearted look at the fashion, art, architecture, attitudes, and icons (Buzzy Bees, Edmonds, Swanndri, Pavlova etc) we call our own. Directed by Shirley Horrocks, and shot by Leon Narbey, it featured personalities Gary McCormick, Ginette McDonald, John Clarke, Peter Jackson, and others. Screening at a time (1996) when New Zealanders were just beginning to appreciate these neglected everyday objects as ‘collectibles,' it rated highly, and inspired a sequel, Kiwi As.

This 70s current affairs show does a cost benefit analysis of Trade Minister Warren Freer’s Maximum Retail Price scheme (MRP), which capped retail prices. Drawn from an era of economic theory poles that was apart from the market deregulation of the 80s, the investigation sets out to poll opinion in supermarket aisles, a grocery in Glenorchy, and factory floors (Faggs coffee, Cadbury chocolate). The checkouts are a battlefield between red tape and free range retail. The early animated sequence by Bob Stenhouse marked an early use of animation in a local TV documentary. 

Liv (Beth Alexander) is keen to start her own food business. Then her sister Frankie (Lucy Suttor) crashes into her life and demands a room. Across eight episodes of this comical web series, the two battle over personality differences and the family home. Frankie fakes a wedding to score drinks; Liv endures a series of embarrassing incidents while trying to win a major contract, meets an unusual pop star and learns surprising news about her boyfriend. Oddly Even won a TVNZ competition aimed at finding new screen talent, from 163 entries. The crew and many of the cast were under 25.

Strange things are going down at the Bailey farm in this deadpan short film. A pile of mysterious crates requires some serious detective work: small-town cop Darryl Kitchen (Roy Snow from Go Girls), ably assisted by best mate Brian and a stash of sandwiches, is up for the challenge. Officer Kitchen's dedication to getting his catch includes a chase that could be used in police recruit videos. Serve and Protect won audience choice awards at both New Zealand's Show Me Shorts Film Festival, and Nevada's High Desert fest — among the 16 festivals it was invited to around the world.

TV personality Jaquie Brown plays (and plays up) herself for further delightful comic effect in the second series of The Jaquie Brown Diaries (renamed The Jaquie Brown Odyssey for DVD release). In the Qantas Award-winning TV3 satire Brown is an egomaniacal reporter looking to climb the media ladder any which way she can. This episode sees Brown googling herself, and a late-night forum post sends her spiralling towards celebrity booze binge self-destruction on K Road. In her wake Auckland’s Metro social pages set are skewered with self-referential glee.

This NFU production covers the Shah of Iran’s first tour downunder, and uses the occasion to showcase New Zealand to international viewers: from scenery to topdressing, dental clinics and Wellington Girls’ College. The four day visit could be seen as a symbol of globalisation: NZ had been cut adrift by Britain and was looking for markets for its lamb, cheese and wool, and to secure oil supplies. The Shah needed food for his modernising petroleum exporting country. (The booming trade was to be curtailed by the 1979 Iranian Revolution, when the Shah was exiled.)

Roving Maori chef Pete Peeti finds himself on Rakiura/Stewart Island in this instalment of his long-running te reo based cooking series. The area has kai moana in abundance, but Peeti is interested only in the rich orange flesh of the salmon. Following an entree of cream cheese and smoked salmon pate, the episode’s main course is a tour of the offshore sea-cage salmon farm at Big Glory Bay. It stocks 900,000 Chinook or King salmon — less one, which features in a Thai curry (with a side dish of sashimi) prepared for Peeti by the farm’s supervisor.

Billed as "an unusual mix of realism and absurdity", Penny Black follows a materialistic supermodel (Astra McLaren) who is forced to become guardian to her superhero-obsessed sister. When the two set out from Auckland for Wellington so Penny Black can try to win back her modelling contract, they meet an anarchist who offers them a whole new angle on what really matters. Partly crowdfunded, partly improvised on location across the North Island, the chalk and cheese tale marked the big screen debut of Joe Hitchcock, who based it partly on road trips he'd taken as a teen.   

Four decades before starring in The Last Samurai, New Zealand’s most symmetrical volcano stole the limelight in this NFU short. Extolling a mantra of progress and change, Taranaki presents New Plymouth as regional hub and suburban paradise, surrounded by bays and gladioli. Narrator Paul Ricketts touches on a conflict-soaked past by recalling his great grandmother’s nightly refuge in a central city stockade, during the 1860s Taranaki Wars. Back in 1954, a fishing license costs two pounds, and co-operatively-run dairy factories produce over half the nation’s cheese.