Shane Loader

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.

The 'stolen' insider emails that informed Nicky Hager's best-selling account of National's 2005 election campaign return in Alister Barry's (Someone Else's Country) new film - just in time to caution us against campaigning politicians in 2008. Addressing each other like schoolboy Machiavellis, party leader Don Brash and his advisors spelled out how they'd copy the big boys in Australia and the US in order to win the votes of people who'd never support the kind of policies such men are widely presumed to represent. The dividing and conquering began at Orewa.

Two first-time single mothers - on a girl racer, the other a pianist and gardener - share a post-natal ward room after the birth of their babies and develop a precarious friendship. As they face the challenges of new motherhood, they must confront their pasts and face the truth about their babies' fathers.

Hook, Line and Sinker is set in Wellington, New Zealand and tells the story of PJ who loses his truck driving job of 30 years due to failing eyesight, but with the help of his partner Ronnie he finds a new place in the world.

When a brother dies in a car accident, blame and bitterness take their toll as love and loyalty are tested amongst friends and family. Nevertheless, it is still possible to fall in love, to laugh again, to play soccer and to sing. But it takes courage to move on and unless you take the first step, you can't take the next.

A documentary exploring the battle over public education in New Zealand from the 1980s through the 1990s

This warm and humorous doco about Kobi Bosshard, widely regarded as the grandfather of contemporary New Zealand jewellery, explores his philosophy of life and work, as captured by his daughter Andrea Bosshard.

Don Brash stepped down as leader of the National Party in November 2006, the day before the release of investigative journalist, Nicky Hager's book ‘The Hollow Men’. Award-winning documentary maker Alister Barry (‘Someone Else's Country’, ‘In a Land of Plenty’) brings this exposé of behind-the-scenes politics in an all-too-real political thriller. Based on thousands of confidential emails, reports and memos written by Bash and his closest advisers, ‘The Hollow Men’ is an extraordinary story of unprincipled and anti-democratic politics.

Someone Else’s Country looks critically at the radical economic changes implemented by the 1984 Labour Government - where privatisation of state assets was part of a wider agenda that sought to remake New Zealand as a model free market state. The trickle-down ‘Rogernomics’ rhetoric warned of no gain without pain, and here the theory is counterpointed by the social effects (redundant workers, Post Office closures). Made by Alister Barry in 1996 when the effects were raw, the film draws extensively on archive footage and interviews with key “witnesses to history”.

The story of unemployment in New Zealand and In A Land of Plenty is an exploration of just that; it takes as its starting point the consensus from The Depression onwards that Godzone economic policy should focus on achieving full employment, and explores how this was radically shifted by the 1984 Labour government. Director Alister Barry's perspective is clear, as he trains a humanist lens on ‘Rogernomics' to argue for the policy's negative effects on society, as a new poverty-stricken underclass developed.