This collection brings together over 60 titles covering Kiwis at war. Iconic documentaries and films tell stories of terrible cost, heroism and kinship. There are also background pieces by historians Chris Pugsley and Jock Phillips, and broadcaster Ian Johnstone. Pugsley muses, "It is sobering to think that in the first half of the 20th Century the big OE for most New Zealanders was going to war."

Every year thousands of hikers and cyclists head out on Spain's Camino de Santiago (also known as the 'Way of St James'), a famous Christian pilgrimage and network of trails leading to the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia. Camino Skies focusses on six Kiwi and Aussie hikers all aged between 50 and 80, who team up to tackle the 800 kilometre journey together. They each have personal reasons for taking up the challenge, and as the miles clock up they become pilgrims, battling blisters, grief, and the niggles of age to reach their goals.

In 1881, after being met by the pa's children holding white feathers of peace, invading constabulary ended Te Whiti and Tohu's passive resistance at Parihaka in Taranaki. One of the darkest episodes of the NZ Wars, it is revisited in this documentary made by Paora Joseph, which follows another group of Taranaki children undertaking an emotional, modern day pilgrimage to the South Island jails where their ancestors were exiled and forced to labour. Footage of their hikoi is interwoven with their poetry, song, art and narration.

With dapper architect David Mitchell as tour guide, The Elegant Shed was an influential six-part series looking for the local in NZ architecture. Here Mitchell looks at ‘The Extroverts’: a group of architects who transformed Wellington in the 70s and 80s. Ian Athfield and Roger Walker are interviewed about their projects (Ath’s sprawling hillside house, Walker’s Park Mews flats). He also examines the influence of Austrian emigre Ernst Plischke (Massey House), glass verandas (Oaks Arcade), and exalts in John Scott’s iconic bi-cultural building, Futuna Chapel.

The Elegant Shed was a six part doco series looking at NZ architecture since 1945. The influential series (and accompanying book) redefined Kiwi’s relationship to their built environment, celebrating the homespun and DIY (bach and boatshed, tramping huts, suburbia, small town main streets) as inspirations for a distinctly local architecture. Architect David Mitchell plays tour guide (replete with bohemian goatee and polyester suit), interviews key players (The Group, Ian Athfield) and surveys buildings from bespoke cribs to modernist towers. 

This Feltex Award-winning documentary follows two grandchildren of Tommy Solomon — the last full-blooded Moriori — on a pilgrimage to Rēkohu in the Chatham Islands, to rediscover their heritage. They learn about 1000 years of Moriori settlement: Polynesian origins, pacifist beliefs (tragically tested by 19th Century Māori invasion), carvings and a seafood-based way of life. Years before Michael King’s 1989 book Moriori: A People Discovered and Barry Barclay film Feathers of Peace, this 1980 doco launched a revival of Moriori culture, and revised popular misconceptions.

Icon in B Minor: a musical odyssey is the tale of two creative souls from different centuries with the same belief in spiritual transformation through their art. World-renowned New Zealand concert pianist Michael Houstoun is filmed on his pilgrimage to Germany, where composer Franz Liszt spent his last years. Houstoun is preparing for his performance of Liszt's monumental work, Sonata in B Minor. Produced and directed by Tainui Stephens, Icon in B Minor screened as part of the Work of Art series.

This Feltex Award-winning documentary follows a 1977 expedition where Sir Edmund Hillary and crew (including son Peter) attempted to jet boat upriver from the mouth of the Ganges to its Himalayan heart, before making the first ascent of Akash Parbat. The adventure pilgrimage was a proof of concept for the Kiwi-invented boat, and a return to action for Ed after the death of his wife and daughter in a 1975 plane crash. The mission faces epic white water, altitude sickness and tigers. Director Michael Dillon revisited the trip for his 2019 big screen documentary Hillary: Ocean to Sky.

Filmmaker Stewart Main traverses India seeking enlightenment. There he meets ex-pat Kiwis who seem to have found it, which only leaves him feeling trapped in a life of the senses. Especially when he falls for his Indian sound recordist, Sreenu. Or so he would have us think. Made for TVNZ's Work of Art documentary slot, Main's startling, provocative film explores the cracks between the divine and the sensual, documentary and fiction. Director Andrew Bancroft writes about the result in this backgrounder.

The Dominant Species is a loopy look at the relationship between people and cars in 1975 Aotearoa ... from an alien's eye view. Nifty animation and special effects intersperse the automotive anthropological survey of Mark IIs, VWs, anti-car activism and car-washing. There's a dream sequence involving a ladykilling Jesus Christ atop a car, and Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries scores a rugby match traffic jam (also used in a famous scene in Apocalypse Now). Filmheads will note the tripped out assembly is flush with formative industry talents (see this guide by director Derek Morton).