This 2018 feature follows ex gang leader Logan (Josh Calles), who has ditched gang life to raise his daughter. When she is murdered by a rival gang, Logan is forced to choose between vengeance – and all-out gang warfare – or forgiveness. Also starring Dark Horse discovery Wayne Hapi, the Gisborne-shot drama marks the first feature directed by pastor Tarry Mortlock. It is a modern interpretation of a true story about a girl killed by a raiding party in the 1800s. Broken is presented by City Impact Church, although Mortlock says he "never set out to make a Christian movie for Christians".

In this special Easter episode of TVNZ’s Sunday morning mainstay, original Praise Be host Graeme Thomson introduces hymns from some of the country’s oldest churches. Throughout the country church choirs deliver praise, while Thomson offers intermittent quotes from the bible to remind viewers of the true meaning of Easter. The special includes a hymn performed inside Christchurch’s iconic cathedral, before it was destroyed in the 2011 quakes. Praise Be first debuted in 1986, and has been on air ever since, apart from two years off the air in the mid 2000s. 

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.

Coverage of a major event in the history of the NZ music industry — the pressing of Ruru Karaitiana’s timeless classic ‘Blue Smoke’ — is the highlight of this NFU newsreel. It was the first recording of a local composition performed by local musicians to be manufactured in NZ (in a very exact and highly labour intensive exercise involving men in white coats). The country’s biggest airlift of sheep, sharp shooting army cadets, high flying painters redecorating a Wellington church and heavy machinery being moved across Auckland by barge also feature.

In this highlights special culled from the first four years of Eating Media Lunch, presenter Jeremy Wells manages to keep a straight face while mercilessly satirising all manner of mainstream media. Leaping channels and barriers of taste, the episode shows the fine line between send-up and target. The 'Worst of EML' tests the patience of talkback radio hosts and goes behind the demise of celebrity merino Shrek; plus terrorist blooper reels, Destiny Church protests, Target hijinks, and our first indigenous porno flick (you have been warned: not suitable for children).

English pastor John Catmur moved to New Zealand in 2007 after getting a "call from God". Working and living in South Auckland amongst a big Māori population, he was inspired to learn te reo. Says Catmur in this Loading Doc: "When I stood to speak a hunger was fulfilled within my heart. A hunger I never knew I had." Director Kayne Ngātokowhā Peters made this short te reo documentary to help change people's perceptions, so they could see the Māori language as a "valued treasure". Peters was a presenter on TVNZ channel Kidzone, before he did two years reporting for Marae.

This Weekend item from 1986 meets the team behind Radio New Zealand’s flagship show Morning Report, from hosts Geoff Robinson and Maggie Barry, to reporters and programmers. Robinson — who would host or co-host Morning Report for 35 years  — talks about listener loyalty, the intimacy of radio, and rejecting BBC style delivery. Meanwhile co-host Maggie Barry — at 26, the show’s youngest host and its first woman presenter — reflects on the importance of being a morning person. Barry would later host a popular garden TV show, and became a National Party MP in 2011.

Taufa'ahau Tupou IV was crowned King of Tonga on his 49th birthday. This NFU film covers the lead up to and the entire ceremony on 4 July 1967. It was the first coronation in the island kingdom since Tupou’s mother, Queen Sālote, in 1918. Tongans from the outer islands had been arriving in the capital Nuku'alofa for a month. Dignitaries included the Duke and Duchess of Kent and New Zealand’s Prime Minister Keith Holyoake, plus opposition leader Norman Kirk. Director Derek Wright covers the ceremony with decorum, reflecting the dignity of the occasion.

The often controversial beliefs of Sir Lloyd Geering, New Zealand’s best known theologian, are examined in this Top Shelf doco. In this excerpt, he visits Jerusalem to advance his view that the resurrection of Jesus should not be interpreted literally. Forty years earlier, this assertion divided the Presbyterian Church (where he was Principal of Knox College) and led to his heresy trial on charges of “doctrinal error and disturbing the peace of the church”. There is archive footage of an unrepentant Geering from the two-day trial which the NZBC televised live.  

This booster's gem was produced by the NFU to mark Canterbury's centennial. The original Canterbury crusaders' dream of a model England colony is shown in settler life re-enactments. The importance of meat and wheat to the region's prosperity is extolled and a progressive narrative — "in one brief century they've turned the wilderness into fertile farms and built their red-roofed homes" — underpins contemporary scenes (cricket, church) and much bucolic (plains, alps) scenery. Trivia: Peter Jackson used an excerpt from the film to open Heavenly Creatures.