Gritty, award-winning drama, set in Auckland suburbia. Danny and Raewyn's relationship is skating close to the edge. And so are their finances. Though the physical attraction between them remains, Raewyn is growing tired of encouraging Danny to make more effort. Then one night alcohol and memory collide with an order of black-market meat, and everything turns on its head. One of the most acclaimed episodes of the About Face series, Danny and Raewyn won funding after another episode fell through.

Sean's prize possession is a 1958 red and white Ford Fairlane. His sister Annie works in an auto paint shop. But Annie is sick of playing shotgun, while her brother drives. What she wants is Sean's trust, and the chance to use her spraypainting talents to give the Fairlane a new look. After the Fairlane is stolen, the pair find themselves caught up in an adventure which tests their relationship. Writer Debra Daley based the script on a short story she had written about growing up in the ‘car culture' of Henderson, in West Auckland. 

This NFU documentary visits a street in a relatively new sub-division in Meadowbank in East Auckland to provide a fascinating slice-of-life look at the early 1970s ideal of raising a family and owning a house in the suburbs. The subjects are a largely homogenous group — pākehā couples in their 20s or 30s with school aged children and a stay-at-home wife. Issues canvassed include paying the mortgage, raising children, social unrest, promiscuity and abortion; but the experience of women as housewives and mothers in the suburbs is the underlying story.

This short explores subtle tensions in a relationship between an artist and his model. To the young beauty who has arrived to model nude, the aging painter (played by the director Jonathan Brough’s father) initially appears decent and respectful. But when she demands to see the painting before he is ready, and he refuses, his intentions are questioned. Based on a short story by American Bernard Malamud, this understated two-hander was invited to play at Cannes, in a special 1994 season of Kiwi shorts. It was Hawera-raised Brough’s second (self-funded) short.

Daphne and Chloe offers a love triangle with a twist: here the couple under threat are two woman friends (despite rumours their relationship is romantic) who work at an advertising agency. Their friendship, based partly on warding off loneliness, is threatened when the cool, cultured Edith (Helena Ross), starts dating the new office boy (Michael Hurst) — a man 18 years her junior. The typing pool are abuzz. Daphne and Chloe was one of a trio of tele-plays that resulted after TVNZ gave legendary playwright Bruce Mason the chance to choose his themes.

This collection celebrates women and feminism in New Zealand — the first country in the world to give all women the vote. We shine the light on a line of female achievers: suffrage pioneers, educators, unionists, politicians, writers, musicians, mothers and feminist warriors — from Kate Sheppard to Sonja Davies to Shona Laing. In her backgrounder, TV veteran and journalism tutor Allison Webber writes how the collection helps us understand and honour our past, asks why feminism gets a bad rap, and considers the challenges faced by feminism in connecting past and present.

This late 70s gender politics satire was a Television One sitcom written by future Gloss creator Rosemary McLeod; it was broadcast live-to-air from Avalon Studios. In this episode, Ginette McDonald’s lippy feminist withholds the joy of sex from her hippy hubbie, and Bruno Lawrence (sporting a magnificent anti-comb over) is the unreformed motorhead neighbour whose hangover cure is beer and cornflakes. Lawrence’s larrikin performance in the show was spotted by director Roger Donaldson who cast Bruno in his breakout big screen lead role: Al Shaw in Smash Palace. 

Pioneering reality TV show Flatmates trained its cameras on the home life of a bunch of young Gen X/Gen Y Kiwis. In this second episode the flatmates clean up after a party gone wild — the landlord ain't happy — and discuss flat finances, chore rosters, gender politics, and Anzac Day. Christian mourns his first love, a Finnish exchange student. Meanwhile Vanessa's pronouncements on apt lecture-wear reveal why she became a minor celebrity (she later co-hosted youth show The Drum). And cameraman/flattie Craig finds the courage to reveal a complicating crush.