An early case of a Kiwi play being adapted for the screen, Middle Age Spread asks whether adultery is inevitable (and whether it can stay secret). Grant Tilly won acclaim as "an antipodian Woody Allen" for his philandering deputy headmaster fearing a future of stress and marital dissatisfaction. Roger Hall's hit comedy was adapted in the first flush of the Kiwi film renaissance. It marks the movie debut of many talents — including Tilly, director John Reid, writer Keith Aberdein, and cinematographer Alun Bollinger. Middle Age Spread was the first Kiwi feature to screen on the BBC.

On the 3rd of September 1974, Niueans voted to self-govern in free association with New Zealand. Inquiry visits the tiny Pacific Island atoll one week before this hugely significant referendum, to take the mood of the people and observe how the island, which relies on shipped imports, keeps its economy afloat. Reporter Joe Coté interviews future Niue premier Robert Rex and Hima Douglas, a future politician. Coté investigates if the decision to self-govern will affect the large number of Niueans who leave each year to settle in New Zealand.

Whale Rider director Niki Caro’s fourth short film is comprised of six vignettes — each focusing on a different elderly man. With minimal supporting cast (Joel Tobeck has a cameo as a competence-challenged waiter), the men talk mainly to themselves or the camera. Shot on Super 8mm (with graphics from an overhead projector), Old Bastards attempts to “subvert our kindly and slightly condescending view of old men”; its dark alternative view instead paints the aging male as vigorously intolerant, lecherous, impotent, trapped or just lost.

This 1985 film spins off Katherine Mansfield's request to her husband John Middleton Murry, to burn "as much as possible" of her letters and writing after her death. Three decades later Murry (Sir John Gielgud) is still haunted by Mansfield, as he works on a collection of her work. Brit Jane Birkin plays both Mansfield, and a Kiwi expat who reminds Murry of his ex lover. Initially charmed, she grows annoyed at Murry's narrow-minded view of Mansfield. John Reid took over directing two weeks before shooting began in France. Variety rated the Pacific Films drama nuanced and intelligent. 

Young Geoff Garlick reckons he's developed a game-winning move - the 'Garlick Thrust' - for his schoolboy rugby team, but the Saturday he hopes to show it off to his dysfunctional family they're more interested in the Springbok match. The national loss of innocence the '81 tour represented is captured in an end scene, where Geoff and his weeping Dad (Michael Noonan) are intercut with clips of a notorious stand-off between tour protestors and rugbyheads. Written by playwright Bruce Mason, this was one of a three TV dramas written as he was battling cancer.

This animated series stars a shed of friendly machines who live on Murray and Heather’s farm near Kumara Cove. In this episode Beaut the Ute goes through a midlife crisis when he meets a younger ute — Flash — in town, and worries his time might be over. But the machines soon learn that a slick new number plate isn't everything. The colour palette of this animated series makes it clear that the machines are the characters that matter. The show is narrated by broadcaster Jim Mora (Mucking In), who created it with Brent Chambers.

Nothing Trivial followed the lives and loves of five friends in their 30s and 40s, who compete in a weekly pub quiz. In this first 10 minutes of the debut episode, the Sex on a Stick team — played by Shane Cortese, Tandi Wright, Nicole Whippy, Debbie Newby-Ward and Blair Strang — gather at The Beagle to wrestle with John Wayne Bobbit trivia, and the trials of nearing middle age. The show was created by Rachel Lang and Gavin Stawhan (Go Girls). In the background piece, Lang explains how the show came to be, and argues Kiwis could give its professional actors more credit.

This short documentary observes a day in the life of Auckland’s David Lange Care Home. Near wordless, the impressionistic film tracks the residents, workers, sounds and rhythms of a world many New Zealanders inhabit: aged care accommodation. Directors Nick Mayow and French-born Prisca Bouchet met while working as editors; both have grandparents in rest homes. Today follows on from their award-winning doco Le Taxidermiste. Chosen for the London Short Film Festival, Today was made as part of Loading Docs, a series of shorts created for online screening.

Set in the East Coast town of Whāngārā, Whale Rider tells the tale of a young Māori girl, Pai (Keisha Castle-Hughes), who challenges tradition and embraces the past in order to find the strength to lead her people forward. Directed and written by Niki Caro, the film is based on Witi Ihimaera's novel The Whale Rider. Coupling a specific sense of place and culture with a universal coming-of-age story, Whale Rider became one of the most successful and acclaimed New Zealand films released internationally. It also won audience choice awards at the Sundance and Toronto Film Festivals.

Feeling burnt out, director Tony Williams takes his seachange literally and sets off with three mates in his recently restored 66-foot motorboat, with a grown-up son as cameraman. The plan: journey from Sydney to the Coral Sea. They witness an eclipse, find paradise in Vanuatu, and island-hop their way through New Caledonian reefs, soon after witnessing French victory in the 1998 (soccer) World Cup. Near journey’s end, a reflective Williams realises that he has experienced not just a holiday, but also “an opportunity to look at your own world from a distance”.