Margot Francis

Olympic Champion, Kiwi Icon, Tongan Leader, Orphan, Mother...winning was just part of the journey.

Return to Gandhi Road tells the powerful story of Kangyur Rinpoche; a renowned Tibetan Master who, heeding the imminent danger of the 1950’s Cultural Revolution, and under the instructions of the Dalai Lama, braved the dangerous journey over the Himalayan mountains to India, rescuing two tons of Buddhist texts that otherwise faced potential extinction. Once in Darjeeling he built a Monastery at 54 Gandhi Road. It was here where the few single-minded Westerners in search of a more meaningful life, began to arrive in the late 1960’s. Told through the eyes of one of those first Westerners, New Zealander Kim Hegan, as he now, more than 40 years after Rinpoche’s passing, and his Buddhist practice abandoned, will trace the journey he made to Darjeeling 45 years earlier, to tell Rinpoche’s profound story, while healing the trauma that kept him away for so long.

One evening Alisi (17) climbs a huge tree and won't come down. As evening turns to night, her sanctuary becomes her prison - and her secret is out. Alisi is pregnant to her gay best friend, Mikaele (17), and it's all over Facebook. Mikaele finds Alisi, who blames him for being a blabbermouth, bringing shame to her Christian Pasifika family. Alisi tries to run away, but a search party of younger cousins turns up and texts her oldest brother Terence. Soon her whole familiy is camping out under the tree. As the stars turn and the night gets colder, Alisi must decide whether she will bow to cultural family traditions or find a new path - with or without her family.

On the 7th of May 2009, Senior Constables Len Snee, Grant Diver and Bruce Miller arrived at 41 Chaucer Rd in Napier to serve a search warrant on Jan Molenaar for the growing of cannabis. This was just a routine warrant, something they had done countless times. What was meant to be an ordinary procedure turned into three of New Zealand’s darkest days and ended with one police officer dead, two officers critically injured and a member of the public fighting for his life. In some fifty hours Jan Molenaar made a permanent and devastating imprint upon the national psyche of New Zealand as he changed the lives of individuals, families, a police community, and a city. The siege was one of the worst and unexpected cases of violence both Napier and New Zealand had witnessed and it was all the more shocking because of its ordinary suburban backdrop.

It is 2020. Findings by environmental scientist Professor Thom Archer suggest that Halo, the corporate energy company drilling on the Greenland Glacier are causing it to melt. Archer's warnings are ignored, so he heads to the Arctic to find indisputable evidence. Upon arrival, he realizes humankind is under immediate threat, and races home to save his family. The glacier collapses, with devastating consequences. Astonishing weather patterns emerge and plunge the world's temperatures into steep decline.

A young boy is tormented by his mother's conviction that he is the new Messiah, and after leaving home, he tries to limit all human contact and adopt a completely boring, normal lifestyle. This resolution is tested when he meets an exceedingly attractive young woman at work just as he is named employee of the month: an occasion which allows his crazed mother to locate him.

15-year-old Davie Balfour is poised to receive a vast inheritance when he's lured onto a cargo ship, knocked unconscious, and kidnapped by his malevolent uncle Ebenezer, who devises a scheme to sell him into slavery. But Davie's unforeseen rescue at the hands of a Scottish rogue, Alan Breck, leaves them racing across the Scottish moors, with English bounty hunters in hot pursuit.

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.

Sayo and Keiji have eloped to New Zealand to marry, away from the interference of Keiji's disapproving mother in Japan. On their honeymoon, they have the freedom to express their love away from her repressive influence. However, on what should be the happiest of days, Keiji is drowned and Sayo must, by custom, return to live with her cruel and selfish mother-in-law.

A big-city director working in advertising discovers a better life in small-town New Zealand.

An artist fails a test and is required to direct traffic in New York City's Holland Tunnel. He winds up falling in love with a beautiful woman, who takes him to the moon on a Lunar Cruiser.

Joe has lost everything and is now addicted to coffee.