On the evening after the Christchurch earthquake of 22 February 2011, Alexandra’s three person rural drink-drive squad was sent to the city to assist rescue efforts. They were accompanied by field director Pip Wallis, who had been filming them for TV2 series Highway Cops. Hers was the only media camera allowed behind the cordon in the devastated central city Red Zone during those first few days. This documentary intersperses news coverage with her footage as the Central Otago police confront unimagined destruction, ongoing aftershocks and the human face of the tragedy. 

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. 

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.

Great adverts are strange things: mini works of magic, with the power to make viewers smile, cry, and even buy. Kiwi directors have shown such a knack for making them, they've been invited to do so across the globe. But this collection is about local favourites; dogs on skateboards, choc bar robberies, ghost chips. NZ On Screen's Irene Gardiner backgrounds the top 10 here.

"After living on the street for 20 years, we're now tasting what it's like to live like kings. We're sleeping in fancy sheets, drinking champagne and living in mansions ... and we're f***ing loving it." This Loading Docs short film turns its lens on Cowboy and a group of homeless people for whom the 2010 Christchurch earthquake presented a luxury squatting opportunity. Director Zoe (Day Trip, The Deadly Ponies Gang) McIntosh's thought-provoking look at an aspect of the city where she studied screened on TV’s 20/20 and was shared by the UK’s Daily Mail.

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.

The fifth episode in this series about the Christchurch earthquakes looks at the mammoth rebuild the city requires. It explores the competing tensions faced by politicians, planners, developers and citizens to fix the past, look to the future and ensure a result that is as safe and liveable as possible, for an earthquake-scarred populace. This excerpt features cardboard models and state of the art visualisations, as it examines the development of the blueprint to create a smaller central city anchored by the Avon River. 

Christchurch based Paua Productions set out to document the effects of the city’s 4 September earthquake in 2010 but found themselves overtaken by the tragic events of 22 February 22. Their focus is the experiences of everyday people coping with the destruction of large tracts of their city, significant injuries and major loss of life as liquefaction, ruined homes and thousands of aftershocks prolong the initial trauma. A number of the interviewees were followed over a year, as they struggled to come to terms with what had happened and move on.

The second half of this documentary following the effects of the Christchurch earthquakes revisits its subjects in the days after the catastrophic events of 22 February. Devastation is now widespread, the death toll is growing and aftershocks number in the hundreds. Over the next eight months, seriously injured bodies mend but, while there are moments of hope, lives are on hold and nerves are being stretched to breaking point by the constantly moving ground, recurring liquefaction and uncertainty about whether precious homes can, or should, be rebuilt.

On 8 June 1987 Nuclear-free New Zealand became law. This collection honours the principles and people behind the policy. Prime Minister Norman Kirk put it like this: "I don't think New Zealand's a doormat. I think we've got rights — we're a small country but we've got equal rights, and we're going to assert them." In the backgrounder, journalist Tim Watkin explores the twists and turns of Aotearoa's nuclear history.