Gina lives in a dark, silent, room in a Wellington rest home, unable to leave her bed, communicate except by a complex touch system, and barely able to move. A rare unnamed genetic disorder has left her living what she calls “an existence, not a life”.  This documentary by Wellington film-makers Wendall Cooke and Jeremy Macey takes a look at her condition in relation to euthanasia, for which she is a passionate advocate. As Gina did not want to appear on camera, her sister Roslyn who suffers from the same condition, albeit less severely, portrays her in the film.

After Lesley Martin took her mother’s life to end her suffering from terminal cancer, she told the world about it in a book, To Die Like A Dog. Martin was charged with attempted murder and sentenced to fifteen months in prison. This award-winning documentary chronicles her subsequent ordeal as a martyr to the cause of euthanasia. Leanne Pooley's film won NZ Screen gongs for Best Documentary and Camerawork, and a best of festival award from the Input Festival in Taiwan.

Kim Hill interviews euthanasia campaigner Lesley Martin in 2003, when she was facing the charge of attempting to murder her terminally ill mother. The charge came about after Martin wrote the book To Die Like a Dog. Martin says the prospect of jail doesn't frighten her as much as living in a society where not everybody can access a gentle, dignified and humane death. The year after this interview screened, Martin was found guilty and served seven and a half months of a 15 month jail sentence.

Director Sima Urale's follow-up to her Venice-winning short O Tamaiti swaps a Samoan child's eye view for that of an elderly Pākehā couple. In this moving confrontation with the taboos of aging, the husband struggles to care for his ailing wife and refuses their children's demands that they move into care. Exquisite attention to details and tender performances mark this tale of love accommodating the reality of death. Still Life was the first Kiwi film to take the top short award at the Montreal Film Festival; it also got a Special Mention at the Locarno fest in Switzerland.

A homage to Dusky Maiden images as well as a playful take on the low art of velvet painting, Sima Urale’s Velvet Dreams provides a tongue-in-cheek exploration of Pacific Island stereotypes. Part detective story, part documentary, an unseen narrator goes in search of a painting of a Polynesian princess that he has fallen in love with. Along the way he meets artists, fans and critics of the kitsch art genre, as well as the mysterious Gauguin-like figure of Charlie McPhee. Made for TVNZ's Work of Art series, Velvet Dreams played in multiple international film festivals.