Eagle vs Shark
Taika (Boy) Waititi's first feature is an offbeat comedy about two lonely misfits and their attempts to find love. Lily (Loren Taylor) is a shy fast-food cashier with a crush on clueless gaming geek Jarrod (Conchord Jemaine Clement). When Lily crashes Jarrod's fancy dress party wearing a shark costume and impresses the self-styled ‘Eagle Lord' with her gaming prowess — excerpted here — she gets her man. But their budding romance is sorely tested by Jarrod's obsession with a childhood nemesis. Empire called the film, "a comic delight destined for cult adoration."
Sui Generis - Series Two
'Sui generis' is a Latin expression meaning "the only example of its kind, unique". This second edition of the anthology web series explores romantic life for Auckland’s LGBTQIA+ community in the second decade of the 21st century. Each episode is stand-alone and ranges in location from fancy dress parties, to Grindr hook-ups – "the connective tissue of each story is technology, apps and dating." These three episodes range from a tender romance which contains a surprise, to dating as dance routine, to a quirky encounter at a party. Warning: contains adult themes.
Kids and Other People
This 1982 film, made for the New Zealand Council for Recreation and Sport, is an impressionistic exploration of play. Child narrators talk about what play means to them, while the images capture young people engaged in recreation. The focus is on informal play: kids and teenagers at playgrounds, hunting for frogs, reading, skylarking in the snow, doing cartwheels on the beach, fixing motorbikes, skipping, stargazing and playing Space Attack. Seagulls inspire dreams of flight for a young girl, and a fancy dress ball for adults shows the enduring spirit of play.
The Horse Collection
This collection celebrates all things equine on New Zealand screens. Since the early days of the colony, horses have been everything from nation builders (Cobb & Co) to national heroes (Phar Lap, Charisma) to companions (Black Beauty) to heartland icons. Whether work horse, war horse, wild horse, or show pony, horses have become a key part of this (Kiwi) way of life.
Enid Eiriksson
Enid Eiriksson began working in the design department in the early days of second channel South Pacific Television. She went on to design costumes for classic fashion showcase Gloss and award-winning drama Children of Fire Mountain, plus a slew of popular entertainers — including Billy T James, The Yandall Sisters and Prince Tui Teka.
Arthur Baysting
Although better known as a songwriter and a spirited champion of New Zealand music, Arthur Baysting made a number of contributions to the screen. In the 1970s he was a scriptwriter on breakthrough dramas Winners & Losers and Sleeping Dogs, while his white-clad alter ego Neville Purvis graced both cabaret stages and a short-lived TV series. He passed away on 3 December 2019.
Jennie Goodwin
Broadcaster Jennie Goodwin made history in June 1975, when she became the first woman in the Commonwealth to take on the national prime time news bulletin. The TV2 newsreader dispelled the belief that women lacked the authority to present network news. Goodwin left television in 1982, although she has made occasional return appearances.
Caroline Girdlestone
Fed up with seeing animals unintentionally mishandled on set, former farm girl Caroline Girdlestone decided to do something about it. Now one of the most respected animal trainers in Australasia, she’s worked with almost any animal imaginable across more than 500 projects – ranging from the cute barnyard animals of Racing Stripes to the horrifying ovine creatures in Black Sheep.