NZ On Screen’s Dunedin Collection offers up the sights and sounds of a city edged by ocean, and famed for its music. Dunedin is a bracing mixture of old and new: of Victorian buildings and waves of fresh-faced students, many of them carrying guitars. As Dave Cull reflects in his introduction, it is a city where distance is no barrier to creativity and innovation.

In this series celebrating diversity in Kiwi neighbourhoods, former Highlanders prop Kees Meeuws introduces an eclectic mix of migrants who call North Dunedin home. Meeuws muses that the student-filled suburb "on a clear day, sparkles like the jewel in the crown of Dunedin". A Japanese student enriches his life by volunteering to help an elderly woman, a German jewellery designer explores identity in her creations, an Afghani family celebrate New Year's Day with a feast, and an eighth generation Indonesian puppet master shows off his snake-shaped dagger. 

A documentary about the fashion industry in Dunedin - a city that seems to turn out more than its fair share of fashion designers. Made for TVNZ’s Artsville strand, the doco features designers Margi Robertson (NOM*d), Tanya Carlson (Carlson), Veronica Keucke (Keucke) and Juliet Fay (Aduki). Prominent fashion journalist (turned author) Stacy Gregg talks about how Dunedin is the source of the "dark intellectualism of New Zealand fashion". The southern styles are set to a soundtrack of Flying Nun bands, and there are excerpts from some classic Nun clips.

In 1969, network TV ushered in a new era of regional news to replace Town and Around which had primed parish pumps in the sixties. While Auckland watched This Day (later Look North) and Wellington had Newsview, Christchurch and Dunedin saw different shows both called The South Tonight. The DNTV-2 edition covered Otago/Southland and was presented by Derek Payne and produced by Bruce Morrison. It disappeared in 1975 but, following the amalgamation of TV1 and SPTV, re-emerged in the early 80s (initially as 7.30 South) with Jim Mora in the front seat.  

It's in the Bag was a travelling television quiz show, fronted by Selwyn Toogood. Competitors were selected from the audience and had to answer three questions before they could select a bag and bargain for its contents. Toogood's catchphrases, such as, "by hokey!" and, "what'll it be customers, the money or the bag?", have become part of folklore. This 1st June, 1974 episode was telecast from Dunedin's Mayfair Theatre; a Frigidaire ("jet-o-matic") Home Laundry and Pye hi-fi system are on offer amongst the booby prizes. Heather Eggleton is the glam bag lady.

Record label Flying Nun is synonymous with Kiwi indie music, and with autonomous DIY, bottom-of-the-world creativity. This collection celebrates the label's ethos as manifested in the music videos. Selected by label founder Roger Shepherd: "A general style may have loosely evolved ... but it was simply due to limited budgets and correspondingly unlimited imaginations."

Packed with creatures and landscapes that quite simply boggle the mind, the Nature Collection showcases New Zealand's impressive menagerie of nature and wildlife films. Many of the titles were made by powerhouse company NHNZ, which began around 1977 as the Natural History Unit, a small, southern outpost of state television. In this backgrounder, Peter Hayden — who had a hand in more than a few of these classic films — guides viewers through just what the Nature Collection has to offer.

Low-tech legend Chris Knox is an accomplished musician, cartoonist, critic, filmmaker, and jandal wearer. His particular genius takes flight in the DIY aesthetic of his music videos. “This is a unique and important collection of work perfectly illustrating what is possible with the barest of resources and a free-wheeling imagination”, Flying Nun founder, Roger Shepherd.

Animated plasticine. Talking chickens. Dancing Cossacks. Plus old favourites bro'Town, Hairy Maclary and Footrot Flats. From Len Lye to Gollum, feast on the talents of Kiwi animators. In his backgrounder to the Animation Collection, NZ On Screen's Ian Pryor provides handy pathways through the frogs, dogs and stop motion shenanigans. 

Former presenter Derek Payne returns to front the finale of this first (NZBC) run of the Otago-Southland local news show. A report on strippers aside, the emphasis in this ‘best of’ series cull is on (often Pythonesque) humour. Highlights include Kevin Ramshaw’s Sam Spade-style private eye hunting Noddy, Payne walking a famous imaginary dog, a search for news in Invercargill and a reporters’ bloopers reel. An era when newsroom staff were learning their medium in the public eye is evoked, and the opening weather report is a glorious look back at TV’s lo-tech past.