The decade of fondue and flares also cooked up colour television. Our black and white living room icons — from Selwyn Toogood to Space Waltz — melted into a Kiwi kaleidoscope of Top Town, Grunt Machine, and Close to Home. And 'our stories' and rights fights — boks, hikoi, nukes and 'nam — echoed onscreen (Sleeping Dogs, Tangata Whenua). Ready to roll?

Made by Turkish director Tolga Örnek, this acclaimed film looks at the 1915 Gallipoli campaign in World War I. A point of difference is that it is narrated by people representing both sides of the catastrophic battle (including Sam Neill and Jeremy Irons for the ANZAC and British forces, and Zafer Ergin for the Turks). Dramatisations, restored film, interviews with experts, and poignant readings from letters and diaries all help to personaliss the experience of the carnage. Urban Cinefile described the international co-production as a "potent and magnificent documentary".

Town and Around was a nightly magazine show, covering everything from current affairs and studio interviews to slapstick to stunts; including a notorious spoof on a farmer who shod his turkeys in gumboots. A popular and wide-ranging regional series, it ran for five years from 1965, and was the training ground for a generation of industry professionals (Brian Edwards, David McPhail, and Des Monaghan amongst many others). Town and Around was made prior to a national network link, and editions came out of Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin.

This documentary tells the stories of the New Zealand soldiers who were part of the identity-defining Gallipoli campaign in World War I. In the ill-fated mission to take a piece of Turkish coastline, 2721 New Zealanders died with 4752 wounded. As part of research, every one of the then-surviving Gallipoli veterans living in New Zealand was interviewed, with 26 finally filmed. Shot at a barren, rocky Gallipoli before the advent of Anzac Day tourism, this important record screened on Easter Sunday 1984, and won a Feltex Award for Best Documentary.

Launched in October 1964, Compass was the first local programme to provide regular coverage of politically sensitive topics. Alongside the job of reporting on the news from a NZ perspective, Compass was the first to file comprehensive news reports from overseas. The controversial banning of a programme on the changeover to decimal currency became a flashpoint in 1966. This led to the high profile resignation of producer Gordon Bick. Compass can now be seen as the forerunner to Close Up, Foreign Correspondent and more recently Sunday.

A profile of the Returned Services’ Association on its fiftieth anniversary, taken from 1960s current affairs show Compass. The RSA’s varied roles include welfare, watchdog, and keeper of the flame. The Taumaranui RSA bar makes a good return in a town that is officially dry; meanwhile in Wellington we watch two retired army officers describing an RSA fact-finding trip to South East Asia. The brief Anzac day footage includes a lively Dawn Parade gathering that packs Wellington railway station.

Made six years after local TV broadcasting began, this wide-ranging 1966 documentary looks at the past and future of television in NZ. Political science lecturer Reg Harrison examines local content, a second channel, private enterprise, transmission challenges, editorial independence, sports coverage, and how TV’s expansion has affected other pursuits, and children. The doco includes interviews with privacy-keen Gordon Dryden and film legend Rudall Hayward, and MPs. Director Gordon Bick later argued that the NZBC had allowed "a good deal of criticism against itself" on screen.

New Zealand’s greatest war hero was the subject of this 1985 episode of This is Your Life. Charles Upham was one of only three people to receive the Victoria Cross twice and the only combat soldier. The reserved Upham has little to say about himself when confronted with Bob Parker’s red book, but is full of praise for those he served with. And they are on hand in numbers to honour their former comrade. There are stories of bravery and humour from the battles in Crete and Egypt to Colditz Castle where Upham was held after being wounded and captured.