Spontaneous Combustion: Songs for Barry Brickell

This chronicle of the Christchurch Commonwealth Games marked one of the National Film Unit's most ambitious productions. Though a range of events (including famous runs by John Walker and Dick Tayler), are covered, the film often bypasses the pomp and glory approach; instead it dares to talk to the injured and mention that most competitors lose. The closing ceremonies of the "friendly games" feature the athletes gathering to — as the official song's chorus put it — "join together". Four directors joined together to work on it: Arthur Everard, John King, Paul Maunder and Sam Pillsbury.

An Austrian director followed five successful African music and dance artists with his camera and followed their lives for a year. The artists, from villages in Ghana, Gambia and Congo, were the subjects of Africa! Africa! touring across Europe, but they have unbreakable roots to their homeland and their families. Schmiderer lovingly portrays his heroes, who tell their stories about themselves, their art and what it means to them to be African with captivating honesty. The interviews are interwoven with dance scenes and colourful vignettes set to authentic music.

Researchers investigate whether orcas have begun hunting great white sharks off the coast of New Zealand.

A Lord of the Rings tour guide in New Zealand processes his grief in a wonderful way.

In 1966 a group of determined young men defied the New Zealand government and launched a pirate radio station aboard a ship in the Hauraki Gulf.

Illustrates the reconstruction and electrification of the main railway line between Manchester and Sheffield. Showing the plan for the modernisation and re-equipping of British Railways. This film was produced for televising by the BBC during the evening that the plan was debated in parliament.

A documentary about the history of settler groups that came to New Zealand from Europe.

A documentary about the threat posed to New Zealand's Kaipara Harbour by rapacious commercial fishing and development.

A documentary exploring the human-cat love story amidst a movement to eradicate cats in New Zealand.

A short documentary about freestyle skiing made for the New Zealand Tourist and Publicity Department.

A visual essay on contemporary Kiwi architecture.

Seeing is to painting what listening is to politics. Survival as an artist demands both. Paint Until Dawn is a documentary on art in the life of James Gahagan (1927-1999), who painted all night to push the limits of vision. His life and thought reveal a correlation between art and activism through an interesting angle: the creative process itself.