This documentary recounts true stories of New Zealanders lost in the bush, by using a mixture of dramatic re-constructions, news footage and present day interviews. Survivors recount their terrifying ordeals, and experts give tips on bush survival. In this excerpt, father and son John and Matt Painting tell the story of their rescue from the Kaimanawa Ranges in September 2000, and bush expert Mike Spray explains how building a shelter rather than keeping on tramping through terrible weather conditions could have made all the difference at the time.

Kelsten, Quba, Danye and Bailey are in their mid teens, and are prime contenders for jail. This documentary follows their progress completing a seven week START ( Supporting Today's At Risk Teenagers) programme for young people who have already entered the criminal justice system. A hike into the beautiful and daunting Taranaki bush sees the group start to realise their potential. But for these mostly fatherless Māori teenagers changing ingrained behaviours will be a lifelong challenge. The START Taranaki team know this only too well. 

Award-winning reality show One Land sees families living without power or running water, 1850s style. In this first episode, two Māori familes arrive by waka at their new home: a purpose-built marae with a garden, on a hill above the Firth of Thames. The larger family speak only te reo; the other identifies as European. Recreating the changes which transformed Aotearoa, a Pākehā family arrive, then head on foot towards their promised parcel of land. If they're to get through this "social and cultural experiment" without starving, they will need to trade with their neighbours. 

This documentary tells the story of the inimitable kea. The 'Clown of the Alps' is heralded as the world’s smartest bird (its intelligence rivals a monkey’s). Kea are famous on South Island tracks and ski fields for their insatiable (and destructive) inquisitiveness. Curiosity almost killed the kea when it was labelled a sheep killer, and tens of thousands were killed for a bounty. After shots of baby kea being fed, there is extraordinary night footage in clip four of the 'avian wolf' in action. The award-winning film makes a compelling case for the charismatic kea as a national icon.

This educational video was made by the NFU for the National Mountain Safety Council to promote awareness of bush safety. After a blackboard science lesson (check out a bearded Ray Henwood) things get interesting. A fictional trip into the bush turns into a Stubbies-clad 70s Kiwi version of the Blair Witch Project as we're told that one of the group will not survive the night, picked off by that fearsome killer: exposure. The message is serious, but the doom-laden tone induced titters in school classrooms and scout halls throughout NZ.

Memories of Service captures the war experiences of Kiwi veterans who served in campaigns from World War II to Korea, Vietnam and beyond. Director David Blyth (Our Oldest Soldier) and Silverdale RSA museum curator Patricia Stroud wanted to make the series of interviews as an “archival/educational treasure for all New Zealanders.” In this selection of stories compiled from the first nine interviews, the returned servicemen recall training, survival, imprisonment, parachuting from crashing planes, lighter moments, and bonds of brotherhood.

This short Loading Docs documentary from 2017 follows conservationist Corey Mosen as he heads into the forest with a special canine — his border collie cross Ajax. The pair play a vital role in the mission to ensure the survival of the kea, the world’s only mountain parrot. Despite being one of the world’s most resourceful and intelligent birds, kea are under threat (eg from predation), with as few as 2000 left in the wild. Corey and Ajax locate kea nests in the steep alpine forest  and spread awareness of a bird that Mosen reckons is pretty "neat and special". 

This film tells the story of the world’s rarest wading bird, the black stilt (kakī). With its precise beak and long pink legs the stilt is superbly adapted to the stony braided riverbeads of the McKenzie Country, but it is tragically unable to deal with new threats (rats, ferrets, habitat loss). An early doco for TVNZ’s Natural History Unit, the magnificently filmed drama of the stilt’s struggle for survival makes it “stand out as a classic of its genre” (Russell Campbell). It won the Gold Award at New York’s International Film & TV Festival (1984).

This 1944 newsreel documents arrivals at a Wellington wharf from the Middle East: New Zealand soldiers and Polish children. For the refugees it was the conclusion of an epic wartime survival tale: an exodus from Poland via Siberian labour camps, to being greeted by Prime Minister Peter Fraser in NZ. The Poles then take the train past waving crowds to their new home: a camp in Pahīatua. Twenty years later the children were revisited in Kathleen O’Brien’s classic 1966 documentary The Story of Seven-Hundred Polish Children.

New Zealand's relationship with Antarctica and the explorers and scientists who went there is the focus of this episode in The Years Back series, with Bernard Kearns as guide. Early last century NZ was the starting point for most polar expeditions, including Robert Falcon Scott's fatal attempt to reach the Pole. Footage of Scott on the ice is featured, and as well as clips of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s epic survival tale. Of course the Sir Edmund Hillary-led 50s Kiwi expedition is shown: Hillary made a defiant dash for the Pole on tractors, arriving 4 January 1958.