Open Door is a community-based TV series where groups or individuals make a documentary about an issue that concerns them. This episode is about Adults in Motion (AIM) - an organisation helping intellectually disabled young adults by giving them social interaction, education, life skills, and the possibility of future employment. The doco interviews AIM founder Sally O’Mara, and other parents; as well as volunteers and participants. Former All Black Robin Brooke features as the owner of a local supermarket offering work to an AIM participant.

This 1972 NFU documentary looks at the care of children born with physical disabilities. Aimed at families with ‘crippled’ children, the film was directed by Frank Chilton for the Crippled Children Society (now CCS Disability Action). Parents, doctors, teachers and field officers are shown engaging with children and young adults at home and in the community, from spring-loaded splints for spina bifida patients to Māori stick games as therapy for cerebral palsy. It is introduced by Mrs New Zealand 1970, Alison Henry (whose son was born with a congenital foot defect).

“Mental subnormality here is no higher than in other countries. Still it strikes more than one in a thousand.” The subjects of this 1964 NFU documentary are intellectually disabled patients (mostly children) at a Levin psychopaedic hospital, and the trainee nurses who care for them. The narration embodies contemporary healthcare ideas where “retarded” children were seen as patients to be kept “happy among their fellows”, and sheltered from the outside world. By the 90s, institutions like this one (later renamed Kimberley) were overtaken by assisted living.

Open Door is a community-based TV series where groups or individuals make a documentary about an issue that concerns them. This episode is about The Papermill - a charitable organisation based near Whangarei, where artists with intellectual disabilities create decorative paper products. Papermill Creative Director Trees van Ruth, along with parents of the disabled artists, and the artists themselves talk about this thriving small business and tourist attraction, and stress the positive impact it has on the self-esteem of its workers.

Armed with laser beam-firing crutches and computerised wheelchairs, 'The Kids' are a crime-fighting duo of physically-disabled teenagers working for O.W.L. (Organisation for World Liberty) to defeat the evil S.L.I.M.E. (Southern Latitude's International Movement for Evil!). Directed by Kim Gabara, this opener for the second series of the fondly-remembered show sees the kids foil a kidnap, enlist a new member, and steal a dangerous weapon: the 'Stickling Solidifier'. Neon alert: aficionados will note the early use of graphics from Apple 2 and Apple 3 computers.  

Kerre McIvor (then Kerre Woodham) hits Cambodia in this full-length Intrepid Journey. After sampling Vietcong tunnels in Vietnam, the self-confessed lover of home comforts crosses the border and confronts Cambodia's rough roads. Feeling guilty about complaining in a country that has endured so much, she is moved by the strong and joyful spirit of the people: 'they don't need pity, they just need a break.' Woodham visits former Khmer Rouge prison S21, makes a friend at "the Queen of Cambodian ruins", Angkor Wat, and has a memorable visit to an isolated, decaying French hotel.

Attitude is a weekly series looking at the issues and interests of people living with a disability. This Attitude special follows the Wheel Blacks wheelchair rugby team over four years, as they prepare for the upcoming 2008 Paralympics in Beijing. Four Wheel Blacks were on the production team of Attitude at the time; player and original Attitude co-host Curtis Palmer presents the programme. The documentary follows the team from their 2004 gold medal win at the Athens Paralympics, through various international competitions in the lead-up to Beijing.

Attitude is a weekly series looking at the issues and interests of people living with a disability. This episode features Kiwi teenager George Cairney, who suffered a serious head injury after getting into a car with a drunk driver. The 19-year-old now has a child-like personality, and has to re-learn everything. Also featured is a story on two former NYC police officers who were among the first responders to the Twin Towers terror attack. The pair talk about the health issues and post-traumatic stress disorder they and their colleagues suffer.

This 65 minute long documentary looks at the treatment of New Zealand children born with cerebral palsy (a set of conditions which affect motor control, caused by brain defects that typically occur around pregnancy and birth). Made for the Department of Health, the National Film Unit production visits a specialist unit in Rotorua, to praise the understanding and care applied to help the ‘cerebral palsied’ live full lives. Director Frank Chilton was made an OBE for services to handicapped children. This film won a Diploma of Merit at the 1957 Edinburgh Film Festival.

This documentary comprehensively traces the history of skiing and winter sports in New Zealand. From Mannering and Dixon, who used homemade skis in an almost-successful ascent of Mt Cook and the hut-building pioneers of recreational ski clubs in their pre-Gore-tex garb, to commercial ski fields and lifts, superb archive footage shows the advances. New Zealand teams at the Winter Olympics in Oslo in 1952 and Sarajevo 32 years later had come some way from the days when carrier pigeons were used to report snow conditions from Canterbury's ski fields to Christchurch.