This booster's gem was produced by the NFU to mark Canterbury's centennial. The original Canterbury crusaders' dream of a model England colony is shown in settler life re-enactments. The importance of meat and wheat to the region's prosperity is extolled and a progressive narrative — "in one brief century they've turned the wilderness into fertile farms and built their red-roofed homes" — underpins contemporary scenes (cricket, church) and much bucolic (plains, alps) scenery. Trivia: Peter Jackson used an excerpt from the film to open Heavenly Creatures.
Phillip Schofield introduces The Mockers at this benefit concert at the Christchurch Town Hall, which was later broadcast on Schofield's youth music show Shazam!. Their first album has just gone straight into the Top 10 and the band are well on their way to becoming pop stars, with Andrew Fagan, resplendent in red frock coat and bare chest, very much out front as one of Kiwi music's great showmen. Six songs are featured — including the hits 'Woke Up Today', 'My Girl Thinks She's Cleopatra', 'Alvison Park' and the title track of the band's 1984 album Swear It's True.
Early Days Yet, directed by Shirley Horrocks, is a full-length documentary about New Zealand poet Allen Curnow, made in the last months of his life. The poet talks about his life and work, and visits the places of some of his most important poems. It includes interviews with other New Zealand poets about Curnow's significance as an advocate for New Zealand poetry. As Curnow famously mused in front of a moa skeleton displayed in Canterbury Museum: "Not I, some child, born in a marvellous year / Will learn the trick of standing upright here."
