Anna Campion directs her mother Edith and younger sister Jane in this slyly observed short: a re-imagining of Edith’s (reluctant) audition for a small role in Jane’s An Angel at My Table. From when Edith picks Jane up at the airport en route to her Otaki home, the professional and personal roles blur. Anxiety, huffs and matriarchal needling ensue as an often comic, sometimes poignant domestic tango between the former stage actress and film director Jane plays out in front of the camera. Anna was studying at London’s Royal College of Art when the film was made.

Kiwi avant-garde artist and musician Phil Dadson is the subject of 80-minute documentary Sonics from Scratch.  Dadson has conjured sounds and experimental films from all manner of objects and locales. The documentary charts his love affair with sound, including performances with From Scratch, who created percussive music from PVC pipes. Among those appearing are some of the group's rotating ensemble of members, including Don McGlashan and cinematographer Leon Narbey. Sonics from Scratch screened at the 2015 New Zealand International Film Festival.

This video for Andrew Brough's band Bike features the group playing in a moving caravan, which is being driven by a frazzled father (Topless Women Talk about their Lives actor Ian Hughes). Says director Jonathan King: "I had a vision of Shayne Carter in mirror shades playing a policeman. He agreed on the condition he wouldn't shave his mo. Of course it just added to the moment. Ian Hughes brought his new puppy, Olive, along because he had no one to look after it, so we integrated it into the action. In fact much of the fun stuff he does was him just improvising on the day."

Debuting in 2002, Moon TV parodied talk shows, soaps and almost every type of reality television, occasionally leaving viewers wondering if they were watching truth or take off. Created by Leigh Hart — aka That Guy on SportsCafe — it mixed written and improvised material, roadtesting sketches which later spawned their own series, including talk show Late Night Big Breakfast and Leigh Hart's Mysterious Planet. Nominated twice for Best Comedy Programme, Moon TV 's sketches included a regular book slot featuring writer Joe Bennett, a medical spoof and Hamsterman from Amsterdam.

It's a romance fit for the 21st century: millennial Lizzie (The Killian Curse's Ivana Palezevic) is obsessed with social media, and indecisive about staying with her Tinder boyfriend Ryan (Ben Zolno) or travelling overseas. Status Pending follows the couple for one day as Ryan tries to help Lizzie by getting her to tick off her life goals, like building a house (albeit out of bed sheets). Time is running out: Lizzie needs to decide about a cheap around-the-world deal. Written and directed by Zolno, the semi-improvised film premiered at US festival Cinequest. It was released online via Amazon.

Billed as "an unusual mix of realism and absurdity", Penny Black follows a materialistic supermodel (Astra McLaren) who is forced to become guardian to her superhero-obsessed sister. When the two set out from Auckland for Wellington so Penny Black can try to win back her modelling contract, they meet an anarchist who offers them a whole new angle on what really matters. Partly crowdfunded, partly improvised on location across the North Island, the chalk and cheese tale marked the big screen debut of Joe Hitchcock, who based it partly on road trips he'd taken as a teen.   

PJ (Rangimoana Taylor) has been driving trucks for 35 years. But one day after a medical test, he is told to get off the road. PJ’s worries over becoming instantly useless are exacerbated when his partner Ronnie and Ronnie’s ambitious sister go into business. A tale of love, family, and ordinary people struggling to process the type of news none of us ever needs to hear, Hook, Line and Sinker is the second, semi-improvised feature from longtime collaborators Andrea Bosshard and Shane Loader. The Dominion Post called the result “likeable, admirable and hugely enjoyable”.

Train enthusiast David Sims captured the dying days of steam trains in this 1968 National Film Unit short. It features arresting images of a Kb class locomotive billowing steam as it tackles the Southern Alps, en route from Canterbury to the West Coast. Kb Country was released in Kiwi cinemas in January 1968, just months before the steam locomotives working the Midland Line were replaced by diesel-electrics. Sims earned his directing stripes with the film. As he writes in this background piece, making it involved a mixture of snow, joy and at least two moments of complete terror.