Against the Lights

Television (Full Length) – 1978

It's a nasty, depressing film about an issue which you wish would go away. But it doesn't give you any easy answers or leave you with a nice, warm feeling at the end.
– Writer/director Sam Pillsbury in The Listener, 6 September 1980, page 26

...the film suggests that by adopting a simplistic, judgmental attitude, society ignores the causes of the racial tension which underscores such incidents.
– Listener writer Karl du Fresne, 6 September 1980, page 26

Against the Lights sat on a shelf at Avalon for 18 months before being scheduled and was finally slotted into Kaleidoscope...
– Listener writer Karl du Fresne, 6 September 1980, page 26

...a strong and confrontational film, which explores racial discrimination within its central concern of how 'truth' is determined by the point of view of the 'truth' teller.
– Writer Lawrence McDonald in 2011 book New Zealand Film - An Illustrated History, page 161

a hard-hitting contemporary story of racial tension...
– Writer Trisha Dunleavy on page 152 of her 2005 book Ourselves in Primetime - A History of New Zealand Television Drama