
01 Jan 1996

Gallipoli - The Dardenelles Campaign
An overview of one of the greatest disasters of the first World War WWI - the Dardanelles Campaign at Gallipoli, Turkey.
When the MV Rena grounded on Ōtāiti (Astrolabe reef) on 5 October 2011 it wasn’t just the iconic New Zealand coastline and wildlife that were threatened by the ensuing black waves of oil and debris, but also a lifestyle treasured by its residents.
This is a film about the response by a community to New Zealand’s largest environmental disaster, seen through the eyes of that community. The film captures the shock, anger and grief driven into the heart of the local community, but also the humour, purpose and overwhelming positivity when people join together with a common goal.
01 Jan 1996
An overview of one of the greatest disasters of the first World War WWI - the Dardanelles Campaign at Gallipoli, Turkey.
17 Oct 2022
"1985: Heroes among Ruins" is a reflection of disaster. It is about the human solidarity, the search and rescue and the importance of civil protection, but above all, the triumph of the people over devastation during the earthquake of September 19, 1985 in Mexico City and the one ocurred in September 19, 2017.
29 Nov 2001
No overview found
17 Sep 2007
The film explores the background and build-up to this final flight to disaster. Using dramatic reconstruction, archive footage and exclusive interviews with leading historians and engineering experts, the special delves into the political and scientific events that led up to the catastrophe.
01 Jan 2012
Barker White documents the environmental impact of the massive BP spill.
18 Apr 1996
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”.
01 Sep 1995
Chronicles the history of the legendary Edmund Fitzgerald, which sank in a violent storm with the loss of the entire crew in Lake Superior on November 10, 1975. In the summer of 1995, the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society, National Geographic Society, Canadian Navy, and Sony Corporation descended to the site of the wreck, more than 500 feet below the surface of the lake. This documentary takes a look at their expedition.
03 May 2022
Explore the 1928 collapse of the St. Francis Dam, the second deadliest disaster in California history. A colossal engineering and human failure, the dam was built by William Mulholland, a self-taught engineer who ensured the growth of Los Angeles by bringing the city water via aqueduct. The catastrophe killed more than 400 people and destroyed millions of dollars of property.
01 Oct 2016
The adventures and exploits of Jean-Baptiste Charcot (1867-1936), an intrepid scientist and explorer who laid the foundations of modern oceanography.
20 May 2015
Neil Oliver describes the worst ever railway accident in the UK, which happened a hundred years ago on 22 May 1915, in which three trains collided at Quintinshill near Gretna Green. One of the trains was a troop train taking soldiers to fight in World War I at the Battle of Gallipoli: many of the dead were in this train which caught fire due to escaped gas from the archaic gas lighting in the carriages. The cause of the crash was attributed to a catastrophic signalman's error, but Neil examines whether there were other contributory factors and whether there was a cover-up to prevent investigation of them, making convenient scapegoats of the signalmen.
18 Oct 2022
When an academic unearths a forgotten history, residents of the small township of Pukekohe, including kaumātua who have never told their personal stories before, confront its deep and dark racist past.
18 May 2021
An explosion in one of the largest chemical plants in Europe, the Petrochemical complex in Tarragona, triggers the labour struggle of a group of workers who demand what is fair for everyone.
13 Jul 2014
On 28 November 1979, an Air New Zealand jet with 257 passengers went missing during a sightseeing tour over Antarctica. Within hours 11 ordinary police officers were called to duty to face the formidable Mount Erebus. As the police recovered the victims, an investigation team tried to uncover the mystery of how a jet could fly into a mountain in broad daylight. Did the airline have a secret it wanted to bury? This film tells the story of four New Zealand police officers who went to Antarctica as part of the police operation to recover the victims of the crash. Set in the beautiful yet hostile environment of Antarctica, this is the emotional and compelling true story of an extraordinary police operation.
03 Nov 2022
A close examination of the Whakaari / White Island volcanic eruption of 2019 in which 22 lives were lost, the film viscerally recounts a day when ordinary people were called upon to do extraordinary things, placing this tragic event within the larger context of nature, resilience, and the power of our shared humanity.
09 Jul 1981
This documentary records the journey undertaken by Jacques Cousteau, his 24-member team, and an NFB film crew to explore the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, one of the world's richest fishing areas. They discover shipwrecks, film icebergs and observe beluga whales, humpback whales and harp seals. The film also includes a fascinating sequence showing Calypso divers freeing a calf whale entrapped in a fishing net.
20 Apr 1977
A film cataloguing some of the world's largest catastrophes.
10 Apr 2003
With a team of the world's foremost historic and marine experts as well as friend Bill Paxton, James Cameron embarks on an unscripted adventure back to the wreck of the Titanic where nearly 1,500 souls lost their lives almost a century ago.
27 Jul 2014
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.
01 Sep 2009
An investigation of "disaster capitalism", based on Naomi Klein's proposition that neo-liberal capitalism feeds on natural disasters, war and terror to establish its dominance.
01 Oct 2009
The story of a little loggerhead turtle, as she follows in the path of her ancestors on one of the most extraordinary journeys in the natural world. Born on a beach in Florida, she rides the Gulf Stream up towards the Arctic and ultimately swims around the entire North Atlantic across to Africa and back to the beach where she was born. But the odds are stacked against her; just one in ten thousand turtles survive the journey.