Leon Narbey

Biopic about the life of Whina Cooper, an activist who worked tirelessly to improve the lives of fellow Māori women.

Hongi, a Maori chieftain’s teenage son, must avenge his father’s murder in order to bring peace and honour to the souls of his loved ones after his tribe is slaughtered through an act of treachery. Vastly outnumbered by a band of villains led by Wirepa, Hongi’s only hope is to pass through the feared and forbidden “Dead Lands” and forge an uneasy alliance with a mysterious warrior, a ruthless fighter who has ruled the area for years.

GISELLE is acclaimed director Toa Fraser's inter­pretation of the Royal New Zealand Ballet's production of Giselle. The classic story of love, erotism and death has been reinterpreted by Fraser to include both the on stage performance of the ballet, and an off-stage romance – interwoven with the ballet – that tells of two itinerant dancers, separated by time, distance and their abiding love for each other.

Set in Edwardian England where upper lips are always stiff and men from the Colonies are not entirely to be trusted, Fisk Senior has little time or affection for his son, but when the pair visit an eccentric Indian, they start a strange journey that eventually allows the old man to find his heart.

The vampire myth is given a stylish 1960s treatment, where a human cop partners with a vampire cop to stop a vamp bent on creating a war between the two "separate but equal" races.

A matriarch organizes a feast with her family, in which she will name her successor. The heart has gone out of Nanna Maria's family. There are no parties — they don't even fight anymore...

On the east coast of New Zealand, the Whangara people believe their presence there dates back a thousand years or more to a single ancestor, Paikea, who escaped death when his canoe capsized by riding to shore on the back of a whale. From then on, Whangara chiefs, always the first-born, always male, have been considered Paikea's direct descendants. Pai, an 11-year-old girl in a patriarchal New Zealand tribe, believes she is destined to be the new chief. But her grandfather Koro is bound by tradition to pick a male leader. Pai loves Koro more than anyone in the world, but she must fight him and a thousand years of tradition to fulfill her destiny.

New Zealand milk farmer Rob gives his lover Lucinda a ring. Trying to spark up her relationship with Rob, she takes her friend Drosophila's advice and starts to try and make Rob angry. But she tends to go too far. Admiring her ring while driving a lonely road, she has a run-in with an older woman that sets off a chain of events that begins with her quilt being stolen

Billy (Cliff Curtis) is trying to organize the biggest celebration the town of Waimatua has even seen - the 75th Jubilee of their school. In doing this, feckless Billy is trying to redeem himself in the eyes of his family, especially his frustrated wife Pauline (Theresa Healey). However trouble arrives with the return of a local former All Blacks Captain, an old flame of Pauline's.

Dean is threatening to firebomb his ex-girlfriend's wedding. Mickey is filling the garage with stolen goods - again, and pierced teenage daughter, Leesa, is an accident waiting to happen on the family's beloved Triumph motorbike. An unconventional tough family, battling to survive with humour and love, in a world of motor bikes, rock 'n' roll, classic cars and alcohol. This is a family that you probably would not want next door, but they are fun to watch, and they have their ways of holding family together.

The story of New Zealander Helen Todd's law suit against an Indonesian general that she pursued after her son, Kamal, was shot dead in the Dili massacre in East Timor.

In a backwoods cabin, a boy called Little Man lives with his dad (a trapper), his older sister Missy, and his younger sister Kid, who is feral, spends most of her time under the table, and can imitate the sound of any animal. Their mother is dead. One day, while dad's in town selling skins, Missy teases Kid and gets bitten. There's Hell to pay when dad gets home, and Kid runs off into the night to spend it with her animal friends. Little Man, who narrates much of the story as well as his reflections in a whisper, must sort out loss and emptiness.

A young couple stumble into a disused photographer's studio and find themselves snapped up by the past.

In a town called Hope on the edge of Britain's empire, desperations clash: the beautiful Dorothea Brook is desperate to free her pregnant sister Rose from the clutches of Fraser, a fortune hunter. A local politician, William Poyner, is desperate for cash and thinks marriage to Dorothea will save him. Dorothea hires Lawrence Hayes, a rough but handsome Argonaut, to bribe Fraser with jewels and to marry Rose; Hayes desperately loves Dorothea and may marry Rose to stay close to her. But Dorothea has a lover, the ravishing Anne Cooper, who encourages the match with Poyser to give the lovers cover. Are these remedies, each desperate in its turn, going to make anyone happy?

Sam is a sound technician, who must literally walk in the footsteps of the characters on the screen. A "film within a film" that connects the world of modern film-making to the Paris of painter Toulouse-Lautrec and his model/lover Mireille.

Sam is a sound technician, who must literally walk in the footsteps of the characters on the screen. A "film within a film" that connects the world of modern film-making to the Paris of painter Toulouse-Lautrec and his model/lover Mireille.

Ruby (Yvonne Lawley), an 83 year old trying to dodge a retirement home, rents a room to Rata, a solo mum with sidelines in music and benefit fraud. Rata's son is into arson and shoplifting, while Ruby's nephew (Simon Barnett) is a hapless yuppie wannabe. Marginalised by the deregulated economy of the '80s and living on their wits, they may just find common cause despite themselves in this Graeme Tetley-penned tale.

The zenith of Don McGlashan and Harry Sinclair's legendary Front Lawn collaborations, this iconic Kiwi short follows two men and one woman on a rainy night at a deserted bar. Pivoting on amnesia and woven together by music, two timeframes are seamlessly combined and a darkly humorous plot unfolds. The film had a wide international release (Ireland to Norway, Germany to the USA) and was a finalist in the inaugural American Film Festival.

Chan and his older mate Kim prospect for gold in 1890s Otago. Marooned until they can pay off their debts and return to China; they’ve been fruitlessly working their claim for 12 and 27 years respectively. Chan faces racism, isolation, extreme weather, threatening surveyors, opium dens and a circus romance.

Chan and his older mate Kim prospect for gold in 1890s Otago. Marooned until they can pay off their debts and return to China; they’ve been fruitlessly working their claim for 12 and 27 years respectively. Chan faces racism, isolation, extreme weather, threatening surveyors, opium dens and a circus romance.

This autobiographical story about a love affair between two men was filmed on location in inner-city Auckland. Richard an astronomy-obsessed worrier spends his time fantasising about outerspace and the cosmos, an activity which antagonises friends and family. Then one day he meets Johnny, a handsome Italian man, with an enormous appetite for life, whose idea of a holiday involves breaking into the nearest small holiday home. He offers him love and an escape from the monotony of work. This short New Zealand film is a joyous celebration of the love between two eccentrics. It is also a refreshingly matter-of-fact and comic treatment of a romance between two men who both have their sights aimed firmly amongst the stars. Released on the compiliations: Boys on Film Volume 3 (1994)

A Polynesian street-kid and a much older middle-class housewife are both incarcerated in the same mental hospital - she for attempted suicide and he for habitual crime. A friendship grows between them such that she offers him a place to stay upon his release. However, difficulties arise with his continued criminal activities and dependence on her for support - then his gang moves in with them. The film is based upon Sue McCauley's award winning autobiographical novel.

A young woman searches for her identity by joining a "free love" hippie commune, against the wishes of her darkly possessive widowed father. The tensions of small town New Zealand and individual conflicts generated by intolerance and fear, unleashes forces of violence and betrayal.

The story means to develop through an uncovering of layers - strata. As writer Krumbachova stated: "With nature as a prison, an impassable barrier ... where every action is physically and psychically limited by the environment ... people are reduced to fragments of basic instinct and intelligence." Promoted as a psychological thriller, Strata provides little tension nor any real climax. The characters are ideas - not believably real.

This is the story of Puhi, an aged Maori woman and Niki, her fully grown but wholly dependent son. The world they occupy is not a world of large events but the rituals of everyday life, traditions and interdependence. “In Spring One Plants Alone” documents the minutiae of their very enclosed existence. Filmed over a period of one and a half years, it emerges as a rare, haunting and powerful portrayal of their life together. This is the story of their rituals and of their survival. The small and disconnected instances that we encounter form a lone vision of the rifts and the bond between an old woman and her disturbed son.

Expat Kiwi Rewi Alley became one of the best known foreigners in 20th Century China and advocate for the Communist Revolution. When China was under siege from Japan in the late 1930s, Alley instigated an industrial co-op movement he termed ‘gung ho' (work together). Its success led to the phrase entering the global idiom. For this documentary a Geoff Steven-led crew travelled 15,000km in China in 1979, filming Alley as he gave his account of an engrossing, complex life story. Co-writer Geoff Chapple later wrote a biography of Alley.

Merata Mita, Leon Narbey and Gerd Pohlmann’s powerful documentary Bastion Point: Day 507 depicts the eviction of protestors from Bastion Point during the struggle for Māori land rights.

Merata Mita, Leon Narbey and Gerd Pohlmann’s powerful documentary Bastion Point: Day 507 depicts the eviction of protestors from Bastion Point during the struggle for Māori land rights.

Merata Mita, Leon Narbey and Gerd Pohlmann’s powerful documentary Bastion Point: Day 507 depicts the eviction of protestors from Bastion Point during the struggle for Māori land rights.

In small town Carlton Bob, the head of the Progressive Association, the local accountant and the boxing coach at the men-only gym, hires a masseuse from Auckland. Sandra is quite happy to give straight massage, but Bob pressures her to give "city massages". The wives are disturbed by her presence - perhaps with some justification. The climax occurs when accountant Phil, wants to leave his wife for Sandra; but when she rejects him, he smashes up the gym. The boys rally round to hush up Phil's indiscretion.