Five years have passed and Jake has turned his back on his family. He's still up to his usual tricks in McClutchy's Bar, unaware, as he downs his latest opponent, that his eldest son, Nig, has died in a gang fight. The uncomfortable family reunion at Nig's funeral sparks a confrontation with second son, Sonny, and sets Jake and Sonny on a downward spiral.
‘The Legend of Baron To’a’ tells the story of Fritz, a Tongan entrepreneur who returns to his old neighbourhood and inadvertently causes the theft of his late father’s valued pro wrestling title belt by some ruthless gangsters led by ‘man-mountain’ Tahu. When negotiation and diplomacy fail to get it back, he is forced to embrace his father’s legacy to reclaim the title.
Munro, a soldier turned lay preacher, comes to New Zealand to minister to the first British colonists, but he is converted by the powerful chief Maianui to serve a different purpose.
Two decades on from Cinema of Unease, Tim Wong’s essay film contemplates the prevailing image of a national cinema while privileging some of the images and image-makers displaced by the popular view of filmmaking in Aotearoa. Now streaming for free at: films.lumiere.net.nz
Ivan is the fierce patriarch of a family of Croatian refugees living in Auckland during the Yugoslav wars. Nina is his daughter, ready to live on her own, despite his angry objections. Eddie is the Maori she takes as her lover. Nina works at the restaurant where Eddie cooks. For a price, she agrees to marry another restaurant employee, a Chinese man, so that he can establish permanent residency. The money gives her the independence she needs to leave her parents' house and move in with Eddie. Complications arise when Eddie realizes the depth of her father's fury and the strength of Nina's family ties.
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.
A Maori warrior comes upon the aftermath of a battle to find that the only survivor is a wounded enemy soldier. His wishes to avenge his fallen countrymen by finishing off this helpless enemy but the gods won't allow it (as conveyed to him through a spirit bird). Anguished that he must instead treat the soldier's wounds, he's further repelled by the soldier's incessant homosexual advances. Slowly and surprisingly, a change comes over the warrior to accept the soldier's advances, but the war all too soon intrudes upon them.
An intimate story set during the 1860s in which a young Irish woman Sarah and her family find themselves on both sides of the turbulent wars between British and Maori during the British colonization of New Zealand.
New Zealand chronicle of the life of noted writer and teacher, Sylvia Ashton-Warner. An interesting look at the unusual teaching methods she used while working with the children from the indigenous Maon.
After skipping town a decade ago, transgender activist Caz Davis returns to the remote, politically divided dairy community of Rurangi, hoping to reconnect with his estranged father, who hasn't heard from him since before Caz transitioned.
When an arranged marriage brings Ada and her spirited daughter to the wilderness of nineteenth-century New Zealand, she finds herself locked in a battle of wills with both her controlling husband and a rugged frontiersman to whom she develops a forbidden attraction.
In a violent relationship, it takes a mother’s strength to save herself and her children from the man she loved. Once Were Warriors is a violent love story set against a contemporary urban backdrop.
Barry Barclay was a New Zealand/Aotearoa director of documentaries and feature films. He is regarded as one of the world's first, and very influential, Indigenous film makers. The film The Camera on The Shore is a feature length introduction to Barry, and to his film making.
American-born Anna Vorontosov teaches school in a remote, primitive section of northern New Zealand. Her experimental teaching methods have won her the love and affection of her pupils and their parents and the admiration of the unhappily married school inspector, Abercrombie. Her personal life, however, is less secure; frightened of love and sexually inhibited, she has always been aloof with men. Eager to break down this barrier is Englishman Paul Lathrope, a somewhat irrational and immature fellow teacher who aspires to be a singer. Though Anna is attracted to him, she refuses to submit to his advances.
Boy, an 11-year-old child and devout Michael Jackson fan who lives on the east coast of New Zealand in 1984, gets a chance to know his absentee criminal father, who has returned to find a bag of money he buried years ago.
This film is an intimate portrayal of pioneering filmmaker Merata Mita told through the eyes of her children. Using hours of archive footage, some never before seen, her youngest child and director Hepi Mita discovers the filmmaker he never knew and shares the mother he lost, with the world.
Sophie loved Edmund, but he left town when her parents forced her to marry wealthy Octavius. Years later, Edmund returns with his son, William. Sophie's daughter, Marguerite, and William fall in love. Marguerite's sister, Marianne, also loves William. Timothy, a lowly carpenter, secretly loves Marianne. He kills a man in a fight, and Edmund helps him flee to New Zealand. William deserts inadvertently from the navy, and also flees in disgrace to New Zealand, where he and Timothy start a profitable business. One night, drunk, William writes Octavius, demanding his daughter's hand; but, being drunk, he asks for the wrong sister.
After a period of separation, Sarah visits her research scientist mother on a remote New Zealand island. Before long Sarah becomes inextricably involved in events involving both Maori legend and an Albatross.
Lucy Lawless stars in this short which predated her rise to fame as Xena Princess Warrior. Sal is in a relationship going nowhere with Mog, a layabout who shows her no respect. A chance encounter with an easy-going female truck driver (Lawless) encourages Sal to take more chances in her life, symbolized by the purchase of a tasty but out-of-season peach.
This docudrama follows an imaginary news reporter who travels back in time to cover the days leading up to the Treaty of Waitangi's signing on 6 February 1840. Dropping the usual solemnity surrounding Aotearoa's founding document, it uses humour and asides to camera to evoke the chaos and motives behind the treaty. This clip features a confrontation between Hone Heke and representatives of the Crown.
Anthology of contemporary one-off dramas, adapted from the unique and mystical world of Maori supernatural legends. In these tales of the unexpected, set in New Zealand, ordinary characters encounter mysterious phenomena of Maori mythology.
Colonial Combat takes a laugh at our unofficial NZ colonial history. It's a dog eat dog world, where colourful characters compete inside and outside of the ring.
Ancient Māori heroes of yesteryear, re-discovered, re-examined and re-imagined.
Five lives collide during a land occupation - an activist musician, a conflicted cop, a grieving nurse, a struggling father, and a torn politician.
Children of Fire Mountain was a 13 part miniseries from New Zealand.
Fresh presents 'Know Your Roots' where 8 urban NZ celebrities battle it out Maori & Pasifika styles in a bid to not be the Most Plastic Poly present.
An interview-based documentary series that explores and illuminates the world of Turi-Deaf Maori in the current day. Over the course of five episodes, the fifteen interviewees from across Ngati Turi discuss their experiences, struggles and triumphs.
A high-powered Māori lawyer (Miriama Smith) accidentally unleashes her chaotic tūpuna (ancestors), forcing the living and the dead to navigate their shared legacy.
Factual series that pays homage to the LGBTQI+ pioneers and changemakers across the decades while exploring the modern day rainbow community in Aotearoa New Zealand
GET THE NAME RIGHT looks to set the record straight with an unauthorised Māori perspective of our place names told in an entertaining way whilst providing a platform to settle a few debates along the way.
The stories of homesteads through the eyes of the people that occupy them, exploring the culturally significant role they've played in maintaining Māori ties to their ancestral land.
It's a starry night but Kiwi and Cat can't sleep. Intrigued by the stars of Matariki, they embark on an adventure into the ngahere.
A cartoon that follows the adventures of the Hook family as they navigate the complex and hilarious circumstances growing up in a bicultural and eclectic community.
Follow five teen Kiwi dads on their uncensored journey to parenthood, facing the challenges of unexpected pregnancy while also navigating relationships, education, and everything in between.
