Movies: Gaylene Preston

With unique access to high-ranking candidate Helen Clark, filmmaker Gaylene Preston casts a wry eye on proceedings as the United Nations chooses a new Secretary General....

Based upon the life of activist and trade unionist (and later MP) Sonja Davies. The film covers her life up to 1956, when, at age 33, she was elected to the Nelson Hospital Board. During this period she develops strong socialist beliefs, marries a...

On Christmas Eve, a nameless little girl reads 'The Monster's Christmas' storybook to her teddy bear, as something sneaks around in the trees outside her window. She hears a noise in the other room, and thinking that it's Father Christmas, she goes t...

Seven New Zealand women speak about their lives during World War II: some lost husbands, some got married, some went into service themselves. The director lets the women tell their stories simply, alternating between them talking and archival footage...

A remarkable memoir of resilience, determination and love.Based on filmmaker Gaylene Preston's interviews with her father about his World War II experiences, reconstructed with actor Tony Barry as Ed Preston. Weaving strands of poetic imagined drama,...

When Melanie goes home from the pub with a handsome stranger, she’s captivated by his charm and attentiveness. He sails her away to his ‘castle’- a rundown shack on a deserted island. But when seduction becomes deception and passion becomes possessio...

The Hawke’s Bay earthquake was New Zealand’s worst civil disaster. Over 250 people died following the 7.8 quake on 3 February 1931. In this full-length documentary, director Gaylene Preston (Hope and Wire) gathers eyewitness accounts from survivors, ...

A small town woman, fresh to the city, buys a used Jaguar haunted by the ghost of a woman who was slain in it....

Making of documentary on the set of New Zealand's first epic Utu (1983), working with little money and dealing respectfully with matters of cultural protocol. Merata Mita discusses complex issues of inter-cultural conflict....

Colin is the deputy principal of a city high school (Avondale College, Auckland) who reluctantly applies for the principal's job on the latter's retirement. Colin's wife, Elizabeth - who is losing interest in him -gives a dinner party. Among the ...

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....

The story of New Zealander Helen Todd's law suit against an Indonesian general that she pursued after her son, Kamal, was shot dead in the Dili massacre in East Timor....

On the eve of departing overseas Ellen makes the fateful decision to gift her boyfriend a new girlfriend....

Jess has a unique style and the confidence to show her creations to the world. With a penchant for fashion, a cereal box creation enables Jess to take a brave step on the catwalk....

Ruby, an 83 year old trying to dodge a retirement home, rents a room to Rata, a solo mum with sidelines in music and benefit fraud. Rata's son is into arson and shoplifting, while Ruby's nephew is a hapless yuppie wannabe. Marginalised by the deregul...

This Kaleidoscope documentary timed in with the release of Nicholas Reid’s book A Decade of New Zealand Cinema. The book cherrypicked Reid's favourites from the renaissance in local movies that began with Sleeping Dogs in 1977. Reid and a who’s who o...

When Celeste needs some alone time, she watches back episodes of her favourite soap operas. At times the lines between reality and fantasy becomes a little blurred....

In this experimental short from filmmaker Gaylene Preston, a no-nonsense hitchhiker is subjected to the ramblings of a deeply philosophical driver. Impressively, Peter Cathro delivers the long, stream of consciousness ramble in a single take — while...

Gaylene Preston's documentary on writer Keri Hulme — filmed two years after Hulme shot to global fame thanks to her Booker Prize-winning novel The Bone People — is both a poetic travelogue of Ōkārito (the township she lived in for 40 years), and a sa...

A fascinating story of effort towards global peace, featuring eight peace people of Aotearoa New Zealand – spanning some seven decades – peacewalkers, petitioners, and folk in small boats and on the surfboards sailing out into the harbours in the fac...