After bad weather curtailed an ambitious film about Mount Aspiring in 1949, Brian Brake returned to the Southern Alps the following year to shoot Mount Cook — the first NFU film to feature Brake's mountain imagery in glorious blue and white colour. The wait was worth it: the longtime mountain-lover coaxes a succession of breathtaking images of the cloud-piercing mountain — plus a rollicking snow fight scene. The plot, what there is of it, centres on some skiers wandering closer to Aoraki/Mt Cook to get a better look, then demonstrating the joys of descent. 

In this episode of their award-winning comedy series, Bill and Ben get fired by TV3 and go looking for work elsewhere — and end up in Sydney where they talk to Rove McManus. Most of TV3’s major presenters have cameos (after they’ve been represented as puppets in the show opening) as do Dan Carter and P Diggs. In the show’s regular features, Hamish McKay’s car gets valet parking, Sporting Hell sees tennis ace Marina Erakovich cameo (and give service a whole new meaning) and there are appearances from the Super Streaker and Thomas the Tackle Bag.

Performance group The Front Lawn (Don McGlashan, Harry Sinclair, and later arrival Jennifer Ward-Lealand) stretched all of their prolific talents for their final, 24 minute short film. After he whistles a certain tune, Ben (McGlashan) finds that his partner Linda (Ward-Lealand) no longer seems to be conscious. Then things get stranger: Linda catches up with an old lover (Sinclair) and faces a life-changing dilemma, while her body — awol with a tennis player on Tamaki Drive — has other plans. The surreal romance was made for TVNZ. It won Best Short at the 1990 NZ Screen Awards.

This newsreel's subjects include: a camp being built by Lake Karapiro for rowers in the Empire Games, a garden party at St Mary's Home for Children, and a community play area in Naenae (where the sport of "paddle tennis" is featured). Students of Wellington's Architectural Centre build a pine and glass-walled modernist house in Karori, that has bunks and a utility room, "where children can play and Mother can sew". Perhaps most exciting is the demolition by army engineers of Murphy's Brickyard chimney in Berhampore, with children swarming over the fresh rubble.

"Mean Māori mean!". Māori Television’s long-running sports show gained a cult following for its Aotearoa casual take on the sporting week. In this 10th episode from the penultimate season, American bodybuilders Steve Cook and Amanda Latona Kuclo, and giant Chiefs prop Ben Tameifuna are welcomed to the couch by hosts Jenny-May Clarkson, Glen Osborne and Liam Messam. There’s a pose down, Konrad Hurrell launches his own slot, and Messam takes an ice challenge; plus tennis tikanga, rock’n’roll dancing with Osborne, and prizes for reo: "what is the Māori word for fitness?".

In this first edition of the NFU’s monthly magazine series, the US Davis Cup team — featuring tennis legend Vic Seixas — plays a demonstration match in Wellington, en route to Australia. Further south Christchurch hosts the annual A&P Show. Motorbike-riding traffic cops keep the traffic moving on one of the busiest days of the year, and a shot of Cathedral Square is a reminder of pre-quake days. Then Ohakea farewells No. 14 Squadron, led by World War II air ace Johnny Checketts, as its de Havilland Vampires jet off to Cyprus and Cold War peacekeeping duties.

This documentary follows the "seven headed soul monster direct from the shores of Wellington" — Fat Freddys Drop — as they rumble their dub-rich sound through Europe like a Houghton Bay roller. Touring to showcase album Based on a True Story, it features rehearsals and performances, eating Italian kai moana, playing concrete ping pong in Berlin, and (in the fifth clip) a jam with Cliff Curtis. Radio 1 DJ Zane Lowe lauds the 'fullas' and Mu explains whanau to German journos. True Story sold 120,000+ copies and dominated the 2005 New Zealand Music Awards.  

The Wellington region is the focus of this 1958 edition in the long-running NFU series. The newsreel shows the rapidly developing town of Porirua, where farmland is being converted into state housing. Meanwhile in Taita the Hutt Valley Youth club provides entertainment for bored young people on Sunday afternoons. Highland dancing vies with skiffle and rock and roll, and Elvis-style quiffs date the teen spirit. Such clubs were set up after the 1954 Mazengarb inquiry into juvenile delinquency. And at Athletic Park a classic All Black line-up wallops the Wallabies 25-3.

A beautiful Wellington day greets passengers from the Southern Cross at the start of this 1950s magazine film. Seen here on her maiden voyage around the world, the cruise ship Southern Cross was built to carry immigrants from Europe. Meanwhile, students at what was then New Zealand's only fully residential teachers' college (near Auckland) are seen studying, before taking time off for dancing and sport. A trip to New Caledonia rounds up the report with the unveiling the Cross of Sacrifice, a memorial to the 449 Kiwis who died without a grave in the South Pacific during WWII. 

Before he was a British MP Austin Mitchell spent time downunder, where he was a well known NZBC broadcaster in the 60s and published bestselling book The Half Gallon Quarter Acre Pavlova Paradise, a satirical commentary on all things Kiwi. In the first part of this three part series, he returns south to clock the changes. He begins at Otago University, where he lectured in the 60s, and notes a new Pākehā view of their history. Mitchell then talks wine with actor Sam Neill in Central Otago, and en route to Christchurch meets some uniquely 'mainland' entrepreneurs.