Daffodils is a feature film version of Rochelle Bright's award-winning Kiwi stage musical. Grammy Award-winning singer Kimbra makes her big screen debut, alongside actors Rose McIver (iZombie, The Lovely Bones) and George Mason (Go Girls). The bittersweet musical is based on the true story of a Waikato couple's romance in the 60s, and the pop-rock soundtrack that shaped their lives. The love story features reimaginings of iconic songs from Crowded House, The Exponents and more. Daffodils is helmed by director David Stubbs (Belief: The Possession of Janet Moses).

Winter is going. This impressionistic take on spring in Aotearoa focuses on details of regeneration, from the mountains to the sea. Director Ron Bowie and cameraman Grant Foster capture signs of the season: ice melt like tadpoles under snow grass, gannets nesting on their Cape Kidnappers tenement, fern koru unfurling, kōtuku and royal spoonbills perched in Ōkārito trees like Dr Suess characters, willow buds and kōwhai flowers. And of course, lambs and daffodils. The camera aptly obeys the title to end. Patrick Flynn (Don’t Let it Get You) composed the score. 

In 2014 a series of short documentaries began screening on 3 News, describing Kiwi experiences in World War I. This debut item tells the home front story of Annette Liverpool, wife of the Governor of New Zealand, and her wartime charity work. In 1914 she founded the Lady Liverpool League, providing comfort parcels and support services for Kiwi soldiers on the front lines. League groups formed throughout the country, inspired by Her Excellency’s Knitting Book: “We all must do our bit; the men go forth to battle, The women wait — and knit.”

Hamilton born Kimbra Lee Johnson was singing in public at age 10. At 12, she featured as a wannabe pop star on kids' TV show What Now. Two years later she came second in the Rockquest schools' music competition. After winning Juice TV's Breakthrough video award in 2007, she was signed by an Australian management company. In 2011 she sang on Gotye's global hit 'Somebody I Used to Know'. Her debut album Vows won six gongs at the 2012 NZ Music Awards. Kimbra relocated to Los Angeles for follow-up The Golden Echo. Primal Heart landed in 2018. Kimbra made her acting debut in 2019 musical Daffodils.

The Mainland Touch was a popular regional news magazine programme broadcast from Christchurch between 1980 until 1990. In excerpts here, Christchurch Botanic Gardens welcomes the arrival of spring with a daffodil festival while local gardening groups prepare a floral carpet. The Wizard of Christchurch battles Telecom over the colour of phone boxes and joins opponents of a proposed restaurant tower in Victoria Square. Punting on the Avon is extended, and a cockatoo hitches a ride in the garden city.

This best of special culls history and highlights from 40 seasons of the longest running show on NZ television. Farming, forestry and fishing are all on the roster, but this edition is as much about observing people and the land. There is footage of high country musters, helicopter deer capture, floods and blizzards, as well as radio-controlled dogs and mice farmers. Longtime Country Calendar figures like John Gordon and Tony Trotter share their memories, and the show sets out to catch up again with some of the colourful New Zealanders that have featured on screen.

The iconic all-things-rural show is the longest running programme on New Zealand television. With its typical patient observational style (that allows stories of people and the land to gently unfold) it’s an unlikely broadcasting star, but New Zealanders continue, after 50 plus years, to tune in. Amongst the bucolic tales of farming, fishing and forestry, there are high country musters, floods, organic brewing, falconry, tobacco farming, as well as a fencing wire-playing farmer-musician, a radio-controlled dog, and Fred Dagg and the Trevs.