This award-winning National Film Unit documentary looks at the craft movement in New Zealand, as this counterpoint to industrial mass production went mainstream. The sense of involvement in the title refers to the individual skills that potters, weavers, printmakers, furniture makers and sculptors bring to making their objects. Director David Sims avoids narration, instead using music from composer Tony Baker to score scenes of the makers at work, from the loom, furnace and kiln, to workshop and studio. As a flashback to the late 70s, facial hair, ceramics and wool abound.

Wellington artist Gordon Crook was known for his bold, colourful prints and tapestries. In this documentary, director Clare O’Leary mixes Crook’s biography (from UK foster care to London Central School of Art lecturer, then decades in Wellington) and interviews with Crook, dealers, students and mates. In this excerpt Crook discusses his work, and collaborating with weaver Lesley Nicholls; and friend Edith Ryan recalls first seeing Crook’s massive Michael Fowler Centre banners. The documentary premiered at the 2010 NZ Film Festival. Crook died in August 2011, aged 89.

This documentary looks at Māori painter/sculptor Darcy Nicholas. Nicholas grew up in the Taranaki, among extended whanau. “We didn’t have much money, but we had a lot of aroha and a lot of land to play in”. Director Lala Rolls looks at Nicholas’s relationship to his Māoritanga, and at how he took on the mantle of helping organise Toi Māori: The Eternal Flame — the first touring exhibition of Māori weaving. He and other participants recall travelling to America, and weaving “a map of friendship” with native American tangata whenua.

The line “where the bloody hell are you?” generated controversy when used in a 2006 Aussie tourism campaign; so who knows what 1980 audiences made of this promo’s exhortation to “Come on to New Zealand.” But as the narration assures: “It’s a safe country. You can walk without being molested.” Aimed at the US market, the film was made as long haul air travel was opening up NZ as a destination. Māori culture, sheep and pretty scenery are highlighted, alongside skinny dipping and weaving (!). Narrated by Bob Parker, the NFU promo marked an early gig for editor Annie Collins.

This 1951 National Film Unit production looks at the Cook Islands, and marks the 50th anniversary of the islands’ annexation in 1901. Unusually long (half an hour) for an NFU film, it shows history ("Vikings of the Pacific" through Captain Cook to New Zealand administration) and island life: spear-fishing, catamaran sailing, breadfruit gathering, weaving, dancing and singing. The islands are depicted as paradise guided by NZ paternalism, with the Islanders grateful recipients of modern communication, technology, health services, education, and... tinned meat.

This web series profiles nine Ngāi Tahu artists, all working in different mediums. Weavers Reihana Parata and Morehu Flutey-Henare, and carver Fayne Robinson use traditional designs and materials like flax, feathers, stone, pounamu and wood, while conceptual artist Nathan Pohio uses 'found' objects like old photographs, presenting them in different contexts so they speak to a new audience. From photographer Fiona Pardington's 'memento mori' imagery to painter Simon Kaan's serene landscapes, each artist draws inspiration from the land and its wairua (spirit).

This 2005 documentary tells the story of four New Zealand-born women whose parents come from villages in Samoa, Tonga and Niue. Social worker and photographer Emily Mafile'o, students and mothers Pule Puletaua and Lanni Liuvaie, and playwright Louise Tu’u face the challenges of combining two cultures to forge an identity in Aotearoa — from family, language, food and religion, to flatting and hair cutting rituals. As narrator Sandra Kailali says, "to be true to both is hard work: success in one often comes at a cost to the other." 

This episode of Asia Downunder takes a look at the Chinese New Year. In the first segment, ‘Year of the Ox’, host Ling Ling Liang looks at how people born in this year are said to be strong and determined. She also examines traditional illustrations of oxen, and talks to the designers behind the NZ Post stamp series for the Year of the Ox. In the Lanterns for Sale segment, roving reporter Bharat Jamnadas visits the 10th annual Lantern Festival in Auckland's Albert Park, and talks to Barry Wah Lee, from longtime Asian goods emporium Wah Lees.

Sir Ed Hillary, then in his early 50s, acts as tour guide to remote New Zealand. In the far north he receives a tokotoko (walking stick) and admires the Aupōuri people’s connection with the land. He goes bush and dives for scallops off Stewart Island, and fishes on a Hollyford sandspit. In 1971 he tackles a grand traverse of Mount Cook with Harry Ayres and other mates —  not bad for a self-described "middle-aged family man who has tried to keep himself reasonably fit". Sir Ed narrates, and his down-to-earth passion for adventure makes this an inspiring travelogue.

After kicking off with 'Poi-E' and the opening of landmark exhibition Te Māori in New York, this documentary sets out to summarise the key elements of Māori culture and history in a single hour. Narrator Don Selwyn ranges across past and (mid 80s) present: from early Māori settlement and moa-hunting, to the role of carvings in "telling countless stories". There are visits to Rotorua's Māori Arts and Crafts Institute and a Sonny Waru-led course aimed at getting youth in touch with their Māoritanga. The interviews include Napi Waaka and the late Sir James Hēnare.