NZ On Screen's Pacific Collection celebrates many things — many islands, many cultures, and the many Pasifika creatives who have enriched Aotearoa, by bringing their stories to the screen. The collection is curated by Stephen Stehlin, whose involvement in flagship Pacific magazine show Tagata Pasifika goes back to its very first season. In his backgrounder, Stehlin touches on sovereignty, diversity, Polyfest and bro'Town — and the relationship between Pacific peoples and Māori in Aotearoa. 

In this 2010 Tagata Pasifika story, reporter Adrian Stevanon follows efforts by a group of Pacific Island mariners to preserve the traditions and skills of the great Polynesian voyagers — as an armada of canoes from the Cook Islands, Tahiti, Fiji and Aotearoa takes to the seas of Te Moananui a Kiwa (the Pacific Ocean). Stevanon has zero sailing hours when he joins the Pan-Pacific crew of Hine Moana in the Cook Islands, en route to Samoa. Unsure “if this city boy can handle the high seas”, he takes time to find his sea legs, but eventually gets on the foi (tiller) and into ‘vaka mode’.

Tala Pasifika was a pioneering Pacific Island drama series; this episode is one of six short films that screened on TV One in 1996. 'Brown Sugar' is an upbeat drama about Tiuila (Tausili Mose) and Samuelu (Johnny La'ulu), two young hopefuls who meet in a music shop. Samuelu longs to be an actor and sees his chance for fame when he meets a TV commercial producer. Tiuila belongs to an amateur vocal group who are relaxed, confident and proud of their South Auckland upbringing. They name their act 'Brown Sugar' before singing to a packed house.

The 60s and 70s saw an influx of Pacific Island migrants to New Zealand. This 2015 Tagata Pasifika special looks at the children and grandchildren of those adventurers, who are part of a “second migration” — from Aotearoa to Australia. Reporter Sandra Kailahi talks to families about the reasons why they made “the jump” (education, jobs, opportunity, “a better life than what I had in South Auckland”); the challenges they faced (contract work, floods, racism); the trade-offs (lack of community and culture) — and why some chose to come back ‘home’ to New Zealand. 

It’s Samoan Language Week and Tom Natoealofa says “Talofa!” to kick off Tagata Pasifika's Aotearoa award-nominated coverage of the 2011 Polynesian Blue Pacific Music Awards. Natoealofa co-hosts with Angela Tiatia, from the TelstraClear Pacific (now Vodafone) Events Centre in Manukau. The awards honour everything from gospel to urban. Nesian Mystik take out a trifecta including the big one, and Ladi 6 also wins. In the last clip Annie Crummer picks up a Lifetime Achievement gong, and the Ponsonby Methodist Church Choir perform her song ‘See What Love Can Do’.

Tala Pasifika was a pioneering Pacific Island drama series; this episode is one of six films that screened on TV One in 1996. It's a haunting short film about a young girl named Ana (former Shortland Street star Jaime Passier Armstrong), who asks about a photo in a family album and gets an awkward brush off from her mum. When the family receives news of the tragic death of mum's sister Rose (Sela Brown), it's time for truth, and secrets from the past are revealed.

Actor Robbie Magasiva and discus champ Beatrice Faumuina oversee this hour-long Tagata Pasifika 20th birthday celebration. Presenters past and present survey changes in the Aotearoa PI community over the show’s run: from education, arts and culture (Ardijah, OMC, Michel Tuffery’s corned beef bulls and the Naked Samoans), to political pioneers (Mark Gosche, Winnie Laban), and sports heroes (All Black icons Jones, Lomu and Umaga). Among those talking about the show’s importance to NZ Pasifika culture are Helen Clark, Annie Crummer and many others.

This TVNZ entertainment special showcases Pacific Island contemporary and traditional fashion design, as well as music and dance. The live event and the TV show were both produced by Stan Wolfgramm and Julie Smith of Drum Productions. Wolfgramm also co-hosts this 2009 programme, along with Lotto presenter Sonia Gray. Fashion designers Francis Hooper, Denise L’Estrange-Corbet and Liz Mitchell appear as judges, and performers include John Rowles, Ben Lummis and Moana and the Tribe. 

A Tagata Pasifika special looking at Pacific Islanders living in a Māori world. It celebrates the mingling of Polynesian cultures in Aotearoa through similarities (language, spirituality, land, extended family) and differences (clothes, food). Stories include: Samoan Beau Rasmussen who married Moana on the East Coast; Niuean Toa Luka who married a Māori woman from Northland; Tongan/Māori lawyer Kahungunu Afeaki and Whetu Fala, who grew up in Wanganui with a Samoan father and Māori mother. 

In this March 2015 episode of long-running magazine-style show Tagata Pasifika, Sandra Kailahi explores the factors that lead some young pasifika mothers to abandon their newborns. Then hosts Marama T-Pole and Tom Natoealofa interview actor Teuila Blakely, who had her son at 17, about what it was like being a teenage mother, and what needs to change to support others in that situation. Also featured are stories about the Samoan King’s son converting to the Mormon faith, and allegations New Zealand has been conducting surveillance on its Pacific neighbours.