In this May 2006 interview, Paul Holmes interviews actor Russell Crowe for Holmes' new Prime TV show. After 25 minutes Russell is joined by his cousin, cricket legend Martin Crowe. Free from PR pressures to promote a particular film, Russell is relaxed and reflective. He talks organic farming, Elvis Costello and fatherhood, the All Blacks and Richard Harris, and growing up as “Martin Crowe’s cousin”. Holmes brings up Martin’s famous innings of 299, and the trio discuss baseball, throwing phones, Romper Stomper, Russell's Rabbitohs league club and Martin’s Gladiator role. 

Michael Firth's feature film tells the story of writer and educator Sylvia Ashton-Warner, as she forges her visionary philosophy of “organic teaching” while teaching Māori children at an isolated school in the 1940s. Taking in romance and struggle, the drama was widely praised: Village Voice named it one of the 10 best films of 1985, while critic Andrew Sarris found “the intensely interacting performances" of the four principals "nothing short of breathtaking”. The film is based on Ashton-Warner’s books Teacher and I Passed This Way. Supporting actor Mary Regan won a GOFTA award.

In this 2010 series, comedian Te Radar ditches his lawnmower to take on the challenge of transforming an overgrown quarter acre lawn into a lush garden bursting with produce. Using recycled material and organic methods, Te Radar has six months to hit his goals — including making a profit from selling his food. "You can almost smell the fertility in the air," he claims in this first episode, filmed in Riverhead north of Auckland. In true Te Radar style, comedy ensues. He forgets to build a gate for a fence, and heads to a neighbour's shed for help turning an old reel mower into a mulcher. 

This is the Christmas episode of comedian Te Radar's green living series. In this excerpt, he prepares lunch for 17 family members, using only food he has hunted or grown himself. The turkey shoot (with a little help from his long suffering neighbour) reveals him to be a better shot than a spotter. Then it's on to preparations for lunch, which include removing "organic matter" from the dining area. His young nephews and nieces are given a glimpse of the wonder of new life, but are not spared the harsh realities of just where lunch is coming from.

In this Jam TV series, comedian Te Radar ditches 21st Century consumer luxuries and the city rat race to see if he can live sustainably for 10 months on a remote patch of land west of Auckland. His back-to-basics mission requires him to exist on only what he can hunt, grow and fish himself — putting delights like goat salami and home-made feta on the menu. He also explores topical green issues like the viability of solar power and whether simple steps such as composting and starting a worm bin can reduce landfill. The series also bred a book and a live show.

In 2009 Māori Television rebooted the Selwyn Toogood-hosted 70s game show, with presenters Pio Terei and Stacey Daniels Morrison giving contestants the immortal choice: the money or the bag? In this episode — complete with web players — the road show comes to Ngāpuhi territory: the Northland town of Waimamaku. The series is bilingual; but how ever you say it be careful what you choose: as Stacey says, “Instead of a TV you might get a can of V!” The show ends with Pio leading a ‘Pokarekare Ana’ singalong. “Too much!”

This best of special culls history and highlights from 40 seasons of the longest running show on NZ television. Farming, forestry and fishing are all on the roster, but this edition is as much about observing people and the land. There is footage of high country musters, helicopter deer capture, floods and blizzards, as well as radio-controlled dogs and mice farmers. Longtime Country Calendar figures like John Gordon and Tony Trotter share their memories, and the show sets out to catch up again with some of the colourful New Zealanders that have featured on screen.

Whanganui-born chef Peter Gordon helmed the Sugar Club in Wellington in the 80s, before moving to the UK and started up a series of acclaimed restaurants, including Providores and Tapa Room (opened shortly after this doco was made). Plaudits as a pioneer of ‘fusion’ cooking followed. Here the ‘kai magpie’, takes in everything from paw paw to paua on a homecoming taste trip: raw fish in Rarotonga, Waikato River 'tuna', deer at Wairarapa’s Te Parae, Seresin organic olive oil, Marlborough koura, Stewart Island oysters, and more. The one-off special screened on TV One and on BBC2.

This film looks at biodynamic agriculture, a Rudolph Steiner-inspired system of organic farming. The film focuses on Peter Proctor, a worm-obsessed Kiwi gardener, and his work promoting biodynamics worldwide — particularly in India, where he argues that modern industrial agriculture (eg artificial chemicals, GM seeds) has made soil and plants toxic and farming unsustainable. Proctor's simple recipe to save the planet? One man and a bucket of cow dung. Narrated by American actor Peter Coyote (E.T.), One Man screened worldwide at environmental film festivals. 

This award-winning series took Wellington chefs Al Brown and Steve Logan out of their fine-dining restaurant, to experience the local in 'locally sourced' kai. In this second episode, Al and Steve head to Tangahoe up the Whanganui River, looking for wild pig with a couple of good keen men — Baldy and Moon. Logan is with the dogs on the boar hunt; while Al's on veggies at the markets, before hitching a flying fox to sample some freshly baked organic kumara bread en route up river. The bush tucker result? Cider braised pork belly with kumara and corn mash.