The late 60s saw globetrotting filmmaker Tony Williams shoot and edit two films for Iranian director Mahmoud Khosrowshahi. Here Williams chronicles an east meets west festival held in the Iranian city of Shiraz. Williams’ love affair with music and montage helps lend pace and life to a film whose sonic interests range from Iranian lutes and Indian oboes to American Cathy Berberian, who is busy turning comic strips into song. A glimpse of cosmopolitan Iran prior to the Iranian Revolution, it includes a rare interview with New Yorker classical music critic Andrew Porter.

This ANZAC musical collaboration saw Sydney-born house DJ and brass player Timmy Trumpet team up with South Auckland-raised rapper Savage. Trumpet (real name Timothy Jude Smith) scored an international reputation as a house DJ, after playing brass solos over dance tracks during sets on the Spanish party island of Ibiza. After leaving Deceptikonz, Kiwi hip hop star Savage tasted international chart success with his 2005 solo single ‘Swing’. ‘Freaks' topped the charts in Aotearoa, made it to number three in Australia, and won notice in Europe. It won Highest Selling Single at the 2015 NZ Music Awards.

This collection is a celebration of the eccentric, exuberant career of NZ screen industry frontrunner Tony Williams. As well as being at the helm of many iconic ads (Crunchie, Bugger, Spot, Dear John) Williams made inventive, award-winning indie TV documentaries, and shot or directed pioneering feature films, including Solo and cult horror Next of Kin.

Geoff Murphy was the trumpet player who got Kiwis yelling in the movie aisles. His 1981 road movie Goodbye Pork Pie was the first big hit of the Kiwi film renaissance. He completed an impressive triple punch with the epic Utu, and Bruno Lawrence alone on earth classic The Quiet Earth. From early student heists to Edgar Allen Poe, this collection pays tribute to the late, great, laconic wild man of Kiwi film. Plus read background pieces written in 2013 by cinematographer Alun Bollinger, friend Roger Donaldson, writer Dominic Corry and early partner in crime Derek Morton.

Bass meets brass in this 2014 collaboration between Australian house DJ and producer Timmy Trumpet, and Kiwi rapper Savage. Having previously tasted international chart success with his single 'Swing', Savage contributes vocals and lyrics to Trumpet's track. The result topped the charts in New Zealand — it won Highest Selling Single at the 2015 NZ Music Awards  — made it to three in Australia, and won attention in Europe. The video is a sweaty record of the song being performed live at Adelaide’s HQ nightclub, with strobes flashing over the pumping throngs. 

In this 1989 Holmes excerpt, visiting Brit jazz musicians Acker Bilk and Kenny Ball meet Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer, a self-described “mediocre trumpeter”. The trio play ‘Tin Roof Blues’ in the PM’s office, before a circuit of the Beehive balcony. Unlike Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign-defining saxophone slot on The Arsenio Hall Show, the Kiwi leader’s jazzy side earned more sniggers than kudos — although the former law professor recalled the jam fondly in his memoir as one of the lighter moments of his Prime Ministerial tenure: “I loved it”.

This 1996 short film is billed as "a lyrical and musical tale of love at the crossroads”. Shot through a blue filter, the dialogue-free tale follows a trumpet-playing young woman at a railway station, as she romances and dances to vinyl records with a young man. After a lively meeting with his family, an invitation to a dance forces her to choose how she rolls. Armagan Ballantyne's first short was made in the Czech Republic during studies at Prague's Famu film school. It competed at the Venice Film Festival. Ballantyne went on to direct 2009 feature film The Strength of Water.

In this 1992 Wild South documentary, pioneering underwater photographers Wade and Jan Doak investigate how fish have evolved over 400 million years on the Northland coast. They explore ocean dwellers off the Poor Knights Islands, where myriad nimble life forms thrive — from radar-like sensory systems and kaleidoscopic colouring, to the intricacies of jaw and fin shape. The Doaks conduct novel experiments to showcase them on camera in this Natural History New Zealand production. This episode was narrated by nature documentary filmmaker Peter Hayden.

A bittersweet Auckland 'goodbye' from Kiwi post-punk band Blam Blam Blam, after bad luck stopped them in their tracks. In 1982 bassist Tim Mahon was seriously injured in a van accident and the band decided to call time. In 1984 they briefly reunited and recorded this Radio with Pictures special for a live album. The footage is intercut with reviews tracking their career, and a brief interview with Don McGlashan and Mark Bell. The euphonium takes centre stage for 'Don't Fight it Marsha...' and McGlashan takes over drums for alternative anthem 'There is No Depression in New Zealand'.

This single from Supergroove’s second album Backspacer (1996) reached number seven in the charts, and captures the band's shift from funk to rock after the exit of rapper Che Fu and trumpeter Tim Stewart. The lyrics ask "who would you kill?". Via madcap music video logic, they’re channeled into a fictional TV show, an exercise equipment promo, a pigsty, ice-skating rink, and a burning piano on a beach. The results won Best Video at New Zealand's local music award ceremony in 1997. Bassist Joe Lonie and cinematographer Sigi Spath had won it the previous year, for 'You Gotta Know'.