We Are Still Here
In a sweeping tale that spans 1000 years and multiple generations – from the distant past to the 19th century, the present day and a strange, dystopian future – this landmark collection traces the collective histories of Indigenous peoples across Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific. Diverse in perspective, content and form, traversing the terrain of grief, love and dispossession, they each bear witness to these cultures’ ongoing struggles against patriarchy, colonialism and racism.
The Weed Eaters
When a group of friends accidentally commits murder after smoking abandoned marijuana in remote New Zealand, the drug's cannibalistic side effects force them to keep smoking to devour the evidence, triggering a paranoid struggle for survival as their food supply dwindles.
Operation 8
Operation 8 examines the so-called 'anti-terror' raids that took place around New Zealand on October 15, 2007 - asking how and why they took place and at what cost to those targeted.
Beyond Conversion
BEYOND CONVERSION is a deep-dive into conversion therapy in Aotearoa through the eyes of Kiwi conversion therapy survivors.
Perfect Storm
On the wild west coast of Auckland in New Zealand we follow one man's enforced isolation. Pacing the beach, he wonders if those dear to him will ever be seen again.
Fearlessli
After her gender identity was denied in her homeland, Lee Li, a transgender asylum seeker, was forced to leave her country, family, and language to embark on a journey toward belonging, freedom, and self-empowerment.
Raids
Based on the treatment of Pacific Island families during the New Zealand Dawn Raids of the 1970’s, this short is an intimate look into a police raid, as told through the eyes of a young girl Losa and her father Lupematasila.
The Lascar
At the end of the 18th century, hundreds of Indian sailors, known as lascars, worked amongst European settlers in Aotearoa New Zealand - often under the gruesome working conditions of seal hunting gangs. The story follows a lascar, Dasa, who has been abandoned on the coast of Aotearoa NZ by the East India Company, alongside his sealing gang. When Dasa finds himself in the middle of a conflict between his abusive British superior and two Māori traders, he is faced with a choice: bend the knee or take a stand.
Silt
A Grief-Fueled Journey of Adolescent Loss
Kāinga
Eight Pan-Asian female filmmakers’ powerful anthology film illuminates the immigrant experience in Aotearoa New Zealand through the lives of eight Asian women connected by the house they call home.
Backroom Troubles
Women talk about the circumstances that drove them to seek illegal abortions and the often traumatic result. Interwoven with historical photographs and newsreel footage, the stories expose how the reality of women's lives were counterposed to what was socially and morally expected of them.
Wildcat: The Struggle for Democracy in the New Zealand Timberworkers' Union
Delegates and workers discuss the issues that effect the Timberworkers’ Union, the reasons for the formation of the Combined Council of Timber Workers Delegates (CCD) and their industrial action.
Open Looks
Opens Looks is a short film told in English and Cook Islands Māori. A story of love, redemption and basketball.
Burning of the Gods
An airplane lands. A massive cruise boat anchors off the reef, disgorging tourists for tropical island vacations. This postcard paradise depends on petroleum imports to fuel its cars, motorbikes, boats, hotels, pumps and machinery. Yet if the tourists stopped coming, what then? The film opens with the prophetic words of Niuean artist John Pule and continues as a visual tone poem, without dialogue or narration, moving forward into the past to ask questions about the future. A young man travels back in time, from luxury resorts and lagoon tours through pandemic and population exodus, to early Christianity when missionaries incinerated his island’s atua and marae. Finally he reconnects with his tīpuna who settled the island a thousand years ago.
The Difference Between Pipi & Pūpū
When estranged son, Tai, is called home to Aotearoa to his father Putty's deathbed, he is forced to confront a painful past after years of avoiding it. Once inseparable, Tai and Putty would spend hours together fishing and joking around. However, after a family secret is revealed, their relationship falls apart.
fire in the water, fire in the sky
Sisters Tia and Ina are far from home. Tia is steadfast and protective of free-spirited Ina. Tia is focused on each labouring job ahead of them. Phone calls home to their family a reminder of why they must continue. Ina is wild, carefree, her spirit only slightly dampened by the push and focus of Tia.
Pack Rat
In rural New Zealand, a fifteen-year-old girl fights to keep her place among the pack of boys she has grown up with. As day turns to night, she falls into a power game with the pack's alpha - but it is the wrestle within herself that proves to be her hardest challenge.
A Morning with Aroha
Aroha wants to share her creativity with her neighbours. Her imaginations come to life for everyone to enjoy.
Kinleith '80
Covers the 12-week-long strike at Kinleith Pulp and Paper Mill, owned by New Zealand Forest Products in January 1980.
Smog
Thick, deadly smog blankets the globe, reducing visibility to less than a few metres. In a secluded farmhouse, a woman and her overbearing husband attempt to find resources and survive using a series of walking trails crafted from ropes and stakes. One night, the woman is alerted to the presence of someone or something else deep in the smog. Desperate to escape the farmhouse, the woman attempts to meet the unknown and risk everything to leave her loveless and abusive relationship behind.