This collection looks at some of New Zealand's most significant national tragedies. Spanning 150+ years, it tells stories of drama, caution, hope and recovery — from the 1863 wreck of the Orpheus at Manukau Heads, to Tarawera, the Wahine, Erebus, Pike River and Christchurch. In the backgrounder, Jock Phillips writes about the collection, and the "common sequence" to disaster.

As a showcase history of Christchurch on screen this collection is backwards looking; but the devastation caused by the earthquakes gives it much more than nostalgic poignancy. As Russell Brown reflects in his introduction, the clips are mementos from, "a place whose face has changed". They testify to the buildings, culture and life of a city now lost, but sure to rise. 

The Art of Recovery sets out to document "one of the most dynamic, creative and contentious times in the history of Christchurch". Director Peter Young (The Last Ocean) examines a post-quake city where creativity thrives among the rubble: from street art to dance spaces, to the beloved 185 Empty Chairs Memorial. But will the spirit of community and creativity survive the redesign? The Art of Recovery won raves after its 2015 NZ Film Festival premiere at Christchurch's recently restored Isaac Theatre Royal. Stuff reviewer James Croot called the result "kinetic, interesting and inspiring". 

Hilary Barry was in her early 20s when she began reporting for TV3 in 1993. Twenty-three years later she left the network, after more than a decade co-presenting its prime time bulletin. In this excerpt from her last TV3 bulletin, newsreader Mike McRoberts gives an emotional farewell speech. A best of Barry video package shows her drinking a Spam smoothie for an early story, laughing about an "emergency defecation situation", and reporting from Christchurch and South Africa. Barry later spoke of leaving TV3 after many close colleagues had left the network.

Chimney Book takes rubble from the Christchurch earthquake, and turns it into the building blocks of a film exploring life in the quake zone. Christchurch musician Blair Parkes took bricks from his chimney — destroyed in the 22 February 2011 aftershocks — painted a letter or symbol on each, then scanned them into his computer. Sound and word form the spine of the result, which is part diary, part experimental film. Parkes explores his experiences of living in Christchurch since the quake through words like 'dust', 'memory', 'place', and a question: 'is it over?'

Gerard Smyth's acclaimed documentary about the Christchurch earthquakes is the story of people coping — for better or worse — with the huge physical and emotional toll that the quakes, and continuing aftershocks, inflicted on them, their homes and their city. It began as a home movie while the devastation of September was surveyed (with thanks given that no-one had been killed); but, as shooting of the recovery continued, the February quake compounded the destruction and claimed 182 lives (including their researcher and 16 colleagues at CTV).

The Hawke’s Bay earthquake was New Zealand’s worst civil disaster. Over 250 people died following the 7.8 quake on 3 February 1931. In this full-length documentary, director Gaylene Preston (Hope and Wire) gathers eyewitness accounts from survivors, including kuia Hana Lyola Cotter, who recounts joining the rescue effort as a teen, poet Lauris Edmond, and a student from Greenmeadows Seminary. Included is eye-opening newsreel footage of the damage. Earthquake was nominated for Best Popular Documentary at the 2006 Qantas TV Awards; it won best sound at the NZ Screen Awards.

The first instalment of this two part documentary chronicles the effects of Christchurch’s September 2010 earthquake on a variety of everyday people. They have seen damage to their city they would never have imagined, houses have been destroyed, liquefaction has entered their vocabulary and the ground beneath their feet can no longer be trusted. Miraculously, there has been no loss of life. As seismologists seek to understand what happened, the interviewees tentatively rebuild disrupted lives, but the fatal quakes of 22 February cruelly derail that recovery.