Every year around Christmas time, the Auckland Domain is lit up for a star-filled night of free Christmas celebrations. Hosted by Jay Laga’aia, this 2000 edition of the concert has “more than 300,000 people” gathered for an evening of songs, carols and fireworks. Kicking off with a Christmas rap from Anthony Ray Parker and kids, the celebrations go long into the night. Stepping up to the mic are everyone from Tina Cross, Frankie Stevens and Ainslie Allen, to the cast of Shortland Street and Mai Time. The evening is capped off with a fireworks display and the arrival of Santa Claus.

This NFU film features the 1948 celebrations which marked the centenary of Dunedin's founding. The Edinburgh of the South's Scots heritage figures prominently, with Jock Carlson taking over the more Caledonian parts of the narration from Selwyn Toogood. A tour of the city is followed by extensive footage of the carnival week's centrepiece: an elaborate "cavalcade of progress", as floats trace Dunedin's development over 100 years, before the ambitious light and fireworks finale. In the period the film was made, all of the NFU's colour footage was processed overseas.

This short film finds four 1990s teenagers caught up in the complications of growing up in Hutt Valley suburbia. Rising tensions during a day hanging out at the local park see misfit Rory (Riley Brophy) ignite a cracker bag of cravings for belonging, furtive sexual feelings, violence, racism and boredom. The combustive results of his misdirected teen spirit give the film’s title a grim irony. Fijian-born director Shahir Daud based the story loosely on his own experiences as a teen. Double Happy screened at the Montreal Film Festival and was a Short of the Week website pick in May 2011.

Never mind Keeping Up with the Kardashians; in 2003 New Zealand reality TV had The Rippins. Denise (aka Peach) is the second wife for property developer Pat 'Spider' Rippin. This first episode follows the pair on a holiday to Port Douglas, Australia, accompanied by three of Denise’s four adult children. The fly-on-the-Sheraton-hotel-suite-wall camera captures the champagne, smoking, tanning, breast implants and false teeth over the passage of a New Year's Eve party. NZ Herald reviewer Fiona Rae described the show as "classic car-crash television".

Taufa'ahau Tupou IV was crowned King of Tonga on his 49th birthday. This NFU film covers the lead up to and the entire ceremony on 4 July 1967. It was the first coronation in the island kingdom since Tupou’s mother, Queen Sālote, in 1918. Tongans from the outer islands had been arriving in the capital Nuku'alofa for a month. Dignitaries included the Duke and Duchess of Kent and New Zealand’s Prime Minister Keith Holyoake, plus opposition leader Norman Kirk. Director Derek Wright covers the ceremony with decorum, reflecting the dignity of the occasion.

Presented by Paul Holmes, this documentary follows the team of 13 Kiwi competitors at the Barcelona 1992 Paralympics. Swimmer Jenny Newstead won four gold medals and broke world records, but for this small team the focus was on personal bests as they headed into a more professional era. There's triumph and disappointment, mixed with the message that these were elite athletes competing strongly against the rest of the world. The lessons learned in Barcelona would lead to a much stronger showing four years later in Atlanta. 

In Episode Two of this series of The Big Art Trip, hosts Douglas Lloyd-Jenkins and Fiona McDonald visit the Grey Lynn home of painter Jacqueline Fahey and the downtown studio of photographer and rocketeer Yuk King Tan. Next they drive west to Laingholm and meet singer/songwriter Victoria (Taus) Girling-Butcher and her band Lucid 3. Then it’s back to Grey Lynn to meet artist John Reynolds and his oil stick paintings, and into the city to see the iconic Bushells sign and meet photographer Natalie Robertson, who is shooting a collection of NZ tea towels.

From Straitjacket Fits’ third and final album Blow, ‘If I Were You’ keeps its hand on the sonic brake, while providing contrast with the melodic sounds of recently departed bandmember Andrew Brough. Director Andrew Dominik’s moody music video accents Shayne Carter’s niggly ‘agony uncle’ lyrical advice via fireworks, watery prism effects and lip close-ups. The Fits’ final single made APRA’s Top 100 Kiwi song list. Dominik went on to direct Chopper, Killing Them Softly and acclaimed Nick Cave documentary One More Time with Feeling.

This video certainly has an out of the box concept: cameras follow the band as they spend a day at races, gambling the money given to them by NZ On Air to make their music video. The hope is that they they will win big and be able to afford an even better clip. Cue the finale, where the band don silly costumes and let loose with a bunch of fireworks. I'm Lame was nominated for a b-net Award, and came second at the Night Vision Film Competition in Dunedin. The song appeared on both EP PEP Sounds and The Sneaks' 2007 self-titled album.