The Silent One

A drama about a Maori family living in Auckland, New Zealand. Lee Tamahori tells the story of Beth Heke’s strong will to keep her family together during times of unemployment and abuse from her violent and alcoholic husband.

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.

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.

Paul (Macfadyen), a prize-winning war journalist, returns to his remote New Zealand hometown due to the death of his father, battle-scarred and world-weary. For the discontented sixteen-year-old Celia (Barclay) he opens up a world she has only dreamed of. She actively pursues a friendship with him, fascinated by his cynicism and experience of the world beyond her small-town existence. But many, including the members of both their families (Otto, Moy), frown upon the friendship and when Celia goes missing, Paul becomes the increasingly loathed and persecuted prime suspect in her disappearance. As the violent and urgent truth gradually emerges, Paul is forced to confront the family tragedy and betrayal that he ran from as a youth, and to face the grievous consequences of silence and secrecy that has surrounded his entire adult life.

How the tragic death of one man triggered a David and Goliath battle between two Allies that echoed around the world and became the catalyst to end nuclear testing in the Pacific.

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.

Based on the autobiographical work of New Zealand writer Janet Frame, this production depicts the author at various stage of her life. Afflicted with mental and emotional issues, Frame grows up in an impoverished family and experiences numerous tragedies while still in her youth, including the deaths of two of her siblings. Portrayed as an adult by Kerry Fox, Frame finds acclaim for her writing while still in a mental institution, and her success helps her move on with her life.

The life story of New Zealander Burt Munro, who spent years building a 1920 Indian motorcycle—a bike which helped him set the land-speed world record at Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats in 1967.

Two young teenagers are forced to take control of their own destiny amid the chaos of a pivotal battle in New Zealand’s first land wars in 1864.

Teenage twins battle dark forces hidden beneath Auckland's volcanoes.

One-time Maori speed-chess champ, Genesis Potini, lives with a bi-polar disorder and must overcome prejudice and violence in the battle to save his struggling chess club, his family and ultimately, himself.