Smith (Sam Neill, in his breakthrough screen role) is devastated when his wife runs off with his best friend Bullen (Ian Mune). Smith escapes to the Coromandel. Meanwhile, the government enlists an anti-terrorist force to crack down on its opponents. Bullen, now a guerrilla, asks Smith to join the revolution. Directed by Roger Donaldson, this adaptation of CK Stead's novel Smith's Dream heralded a new wave of Kiwi cinema; it was one of the only local films of the 1970s to win a big local audience. This excerpt includes a much talked about scene: a baton charge by government forces.

The second season of web series Dislawderly sees outspoken law student Audrey facing love and student elections, and preparing for a moot (a mock trial). Series creator and real life law student Georgia Rippin (who also stars) used responses from the law school’s 2016 gender survey to frame her storylines — like female students being chided for speaking in a high pitch in the courtroom. Dislawderly's mockery of sexism proved timely. The second season dropped two months after a scandal over how female student clerks had been treated at a major New Zealand law firm. 

Actor and law student Georgia Rippin mined her own experience to create this web series, a tragicomic portrait of a young woman at Auckland University. Rippen plays Audrey, whose misadventures span exam stress, boyfriend angst, anxiety, and sexism in the legal world. In 2017 The NZ Herald rated Dislawderly among the best new local web series; Karl Puschmann praised the amount of satire squeezed into the short running time, saying that each of season one's seven episodes "features a couple of genuine lols and offers a new spin on the classic style of cringe comedy." 

"Kevin has a strict daily routine, part of which is about to be taken away — throwing his life into turmoil." The Kevin in question is Solid Gold FM DJ Kevin Black, and the essential part of his everyday routine being removed is … sleep. This second episode of the 2001 Touchdown reality series — in which varied participants deal with deprivation — sees ’Blackie' slowly but surely disintegrating over 70 sleepless hours. Despite caffeine, gym and jigsaws, his performance at memory game Simon suffers, he faces hallucinations, and the delirious results are heard over the airwaves.

In this 2016 Loading Doc, Regina Tito talks about life for a homeless person, gleaned from her own experiences of living on the streets. She reflects on the circumstances that forced her to leave home, and describes the emotional experience of being homeless. The Downtown Community Ministry worker ended up on the streets to escape family violence – "at that time the streets were a lot safer". First-time director Leigh Minarapa and producer (and industry veteran) Nathaniel Lees set out to win empathy for people who are sleeping rough.

Made for the United Nation's first 'Earth Summit' in Stockholm in 1971, this film explores possible futures for Aotearoa's environment. Director Hugh Macdonald (This is New Zealand) presents an impressionistic ecosystem: mixing shots of natural wonders, urbanisation, and pollution with abstract montages and predictions from futurologists, including Jacques Cousteau’s “underwater man”. Before climate change heated up 21st Century doomsday debates, this film (made for the Ministry of Works!) emphasises individual responsibility. The score enlists French nursery rhyme ‘Are You Sleeping?’.

When Jordan Watson made his first How to Dad video in 2015, the internet went wild. His short clip on "How to Hold a Baby", where he holds his infant daughter Alba in various poses (e.g. hide your beer belly, rugby ball hold), racked up 250,000 views in 10 hours. This How to Dad collection includes the five most popular videos in the series, covering tips like how to be a Kiwi dad (sprint in jandals, blow on pies), how to put a baby to sleep (bribe them) and how to get a baby to clean. The last video amassed over 16 million views on Facebook. Watson has released two How to Dad books. 

Cowboys of Culture is director Geoff Steven's personal perspective on the Kiwi cinema renaissance of the 1970s. It traces the development of the local film industry from the ‘she'll be right' days when filming permits were unknown, and all that was needed to get a picture up were a Bolex camera, enthusiasm and ingenuity. Raw they might have been, but the films (Wild Man, Sleeping Dogs, Goodbye Pork Pie, Smash Palace) represented a vital new cultural force. The film features interviews with the major players, and clips from their movies. 

Dancer Shona McCullagh’s award-winning debut short film offers a joyful fingers-up to gravity, dialogue, and the idea that nuns never get up to anything exciting. Two nuns flip twist and fly from bedside to beachside, turning a moving train carriage into a jungle gym (in-between desperately seeking solace from the call of nature). The footloose dance film did some travelling of its own: invited to over 30 festivals, including prestigious dance film festivals, and Edinburgh, Clermont-Ferrand, and Sundance (where it played before Kiwi feature Scarfies).

Wilbur Force was once a warrior in the world of NZ pro wrestling, but he has fallen on hard times and is back in his hometown, living on the dole and mattress rather than on the mat. This edition in the second season of Loading Docs short films sees director J Ollie Lucks chronicling his ex-university classmate (real name William McDougall) battling the demons that have kept him from the ring. But McDougall soon questions his director’s motivation. Wilbur Force was selected for the 2015 NZ International Film Festival. A feature film inspired by the wrestler was released in 2017.