A continuation of the classic 70s UK TV series cherished by herds of horse-loving girls, the New Adventures follow Vicky Denning (Amber McWilliams) who has emigrated to the antipodes with her step-mother, where she is captivated by a mystic black horse. The co-production was set in New Zealand and features many Kiwi names in front of and behind the camera. This extract from the fourth episode sees Vicky striving to convince the postmasters (Bill Kerr and Ilona Rodgers) that she and Beauty can be posties; and she faces hostility from local kids (including a young Claire Chitham).

He learnt kapa haka as a child. He learnt to smoulder on Shortland Street. He punched a country in the guts with Once Were Warriors. Temuera Morrison has starred in Māori westerns, adventure romps, and cannibal comedies. In the backgrounder to this special collection, NZ On Screen editor Ian Pryor traces Temuera Morrison's journey from haka to Hollywood.

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.

Heart of the Stag showed that director Michael Firth could handle actors as well as skis (his first film, ski documentary Off the Edge, was Oscar-nominated). Bruno Lawrence stars as a man working for a King Country farmer (Terence Cooper), who romances the farmer's adult daughter (Mary Regan) and starts wondering about the strained family dynamic. A rare drama dealing with incest, Heart of the Stag was praised by The LA Times as "electrifyingly good".  The NZ Herald said it handled a delicate subject without compromise. Metro voted it the best Kiwi film of 1984.

In 1982 Eve Van Grafhorst contracted HIV via a blood transfusion she received after being born prematurely. Hysteria about the disease led to Van Grafhorst being cast as a pariah in her Australian community, and in 1986 she and her family fled to Hastings in New Zealand. She became an AIDS poster child and helped shift attitudes to the disease. This documentary, which screened on TVNZ eight months after her November 1993 death, tells her story through the eyes of her mother, who is interviewed by broadcaster Paul Holmes (a friend of Eve).

Olympic champion Mark Todd is the first recipient of the big red book as host Bob Parker launches the NZ edition of this show. Weeks earlier, Todd and mount Charisma had won NZ's first ever equestrian gold medal at the Los Angeles games; and there's footage of Todd's agonising wait, cigarette in hand, for American rider Karen Stives to make a mistake that would give him victory. Guests include Todd's parents (who recall him as a "lovable horror" as a boy), Captain Mark Phillips (then husband of Princess Anne), Stives and bronze medallist Virginia Holgate.  

Godzone is “timber country” in this seventh slot in the New Zealand Now series. The NFU film looks at the world of the Kiwi bushman, as milling is providing the raw material for a postwar housing boom. The narrators provide a good keen guide to life in the remote and tiny (six houses) North Island town of Oraukura, where timber men fell giant native trees during the day and split kindling after work. For the men it’s a hard, but good life; for their wives it’s “pretty dull”. The Axemen’s Carnival in Taumarunui features OSH-unsanctioned woodchopping in socks. 

This low-budget feature fishtails after a Mum and her teenage kids, kicking around the far north one sleepy summer. Store Santa holiday jobs, teen romance, purloined cars, pet possums, and pot deals fill out the small town shenanigans plotline. Ray Woolf plays an undercover cop, and Calvin Tuteao is a kauri-hugging suitor. Director Peter Tait (who acted in Kitchen Sink) wrote the film to showcase the charisma of kids he was teaching at Taipa College. Made for under $20,000, the film “was bigger than Titanic” at Oruru’s Swamp Palace cinema and community hall.

This 1972 NFU documentary looks at the care of children born with physical disabilities. Aimed at families with ‘crippled’ children, the film was directed by Frank Chilton for the Crippled Children Society (now CCS Disability Action). Parents, doctors, teachers and field officers are shown engaging with children and young adults at home and in the community, from spring-loaded splints for spina bifida patients to Māori stick games as therapy for cerebral palsy. It is introduced by Mrs New Zealand 1970, Alison Henry (whose son was born with a congenital foot defect).

The final meeting for the 2006 season features in this episode of the Māori TV series following the NZ rodeo circuit. Riders have come to Millers Flat in Central Otago to compete in bareback riding, calf roping and tying, bronco riding, bull riding, steer wrestling and barrel racing competitions. The grand prize of the title of All Round Champion Cowboy is still up for grabs — but there are no certainties in rodeo and champions can be dumped just as heavily as novices (with the possibility of serious injury ever-present in the thrills and spills).