The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins

The Rescue Of Iani: Parts 1 & 2

When as a 10month old orphan Iani scuttled in his cot after volunteer nurse Alana, she never imagined that six years later Romanians would be claiming she’d stolen the child.

Ordered by Romanian authorities to return the six year old, Alana and Iani are ripped from a life in clean, green New Zealand to former Soviet block Romania, caught for the next two years in a bureaucratic nightmare.

Iani had become a New Zealand schoolboy who only spoke English. But authorities threatened to take him from the only family he’s known, Alana, and return him to an orphanage. Any chance of adoption is gone with the cancellation of international adoptions by a Romania desperate to become part of the European Union, and its answer to a call to deal to child trafficking.

Filmed over a heart-wrenching two years, this two part documentary reveals the extraordinary story of one woman’s battle to keep the Romanian orphan who stole her heart.

One of hundreds of thousands left in Romanian orphanages over the last decades, Iani’s birth parents reappear to halt the process not once but five times.

It is then revealed Iani is one of at least nine children left by the parents. They want US$100. But Alana is adamant she will not ‘purchase’ the child she has put her life on hold for since she was 22.

The Rescue of Iani documents a landmark case that shocked even the adoption authorities in Romania.

Price: US $19.95

Ends Of The Earth: 4 Set DVD

ENDS OF THE EARTH is an exciting new travel documentary series featuring portraits of New Zealanders who feel the need to go beyond New Zealand’s safe and comfortable shores to find a life less ordinary. ENDS OF THE EARTH will be part travel series - as we discover each New Zealander’s unique corner of the world - and part personal documentary, as we try to understand how our culture, our heritage and way of life influences life overseas and our interactions with others.

In ENDS OF THE EARTH, ex-foreign correspondent and adventurer Paul Henry will lead us further off the beaten track than any travel programme has done before. Paul offers an intelligent personality not afraid to experience life but willing to laugh at himself. An avid traveller with stories of warzone reporting, Paul will be our vehicle to find these offshore kiwis.

And we all know that getting places is half the fun – or sometimes half the nightmare as we venture into the oddest, furthest and riskiest corners of the planet.

Ends of the Earth Series 1 - (Sudan & Uganda / Cocos Islands & Amazon)
Ends of the Earth Series 2 - (Afghanistan / Arctic & Kazakhstan)

Price: US $19.95

One For The Road

One in 15 kiwis has an alcohol problem.

And the small percentage of those who admit to their disease usually do so anonymously. But for one of New Zealand's most well known soccer players, All White goalie Michael Utting, his announcement that yes he was an alcoholic nearly two years ago made headlines. He'd been kicked out of the All Whites not once but twice for his off-field antics and was forced to accept he had an alcohol problem.

One For The Road recalls the culture of drink in our society and specifically in sports through the personal story of this great soccer hope.

From an extraordinarily talented 16 year old, One For The Road used archival footage and interviews to tell the following 16 years of Michael's life - the loneliness, the lucrative football contracts and wealth, the public adulation that he feels all contributed to his drinking lifestyle.

One For The Road retraces the incredible highs and the extreme lows as drink took over this talented footballer's life.

Price: US $19.95

October 15

October 15 is a date etched into the memories of many New Zealanders. It is a day when the word ‘terrorism’ became part of this small country’s vocabulary, not a word bandied about in reportage of war zones and conflicts in other countries.

October 15 is a day when the world shifted and the perceptions of who New Zealanders were and how we behaved was skewed forever.

Heavily armed police in black para-military clothing, faces covered, descended on the small hill-country towns of the Tuhoe tribe. Men, women and children were woken in the early hours by armed police. They were detained in sheds, outdoors or in police vehicles, for up to seven hours, then released, some never charged with any offence.

Police later claimed military-style training camps were being held to create a guerrilla army in the hills of the Tuhoe area, that there were death threats against the Prime Minister Helen Clark. Possession of bombs and firearms were claimed. Shock, degradation and anger were not only felt by the people of Tuhoe but by fellow New Zealanders, confused in a gunless, bicultural society, already fraught with racial tension.

The impact of 9/11 reverberated around the world. And in reaction New Zealand passed the Terrorism Suppression Act. This was the first enactment of that law.

October 15 explores the aftermath of the October 15 anti-terrorism raids by police on the people of Tuhoe in remote Ruatoki Valley of the North Island of New Zealand, and beyond.

Tuhoe is known as a rebellious tribe, eager to proclaim its sovereignty. But the strike on this community, the nature of the herding of men, women and children, shocked the previously civil and “developed” country of New Zealand.

Filmed over two and a half year October 15 interweaves the legal proceedings, animation and intimate interviews of the events, revealing how lives were touched in the days, weeks and years following the raids as many Tuhoe sought to comprehend what happened that day and pursue redress from the State for the shock and degradation they experienced.

Price: US $14.95

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