Martyn Sanderson

Young hobbit Frodo Baggins, after inheriting a mysterious ring from his uncle Bilbo, must leave his home in order to keep it from falling into the hands of its evil creator. Along the way, a fellowship is formed to protect the ringbearer and make sure that the ring arrives at its final destination: Mt. Doom, the only place where it can be destroyed.

When villagers begin disappearing it is discovered that they had fallen through a crack in the earth which goes straight to Hades. Hercules once again comes to the rescue and faces one of his most difficult challenges, and must prove himself as a man as well as a god. "Hercules in the Underworld" is the fourth made for TV movie in the series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.

Based on the autobiographical work of New Zealand writer Janet Frame, this production depicts the author at various stage of her life. Afflicted with mental and emotional issues, Frame grows up in an impoverished family and experiences numerous tragedies while still in her youth, including the deaths of two of her siblings. Portrayed as an adult by Kerry Fox, Frame finds acclaim for her writing while still in a mental institution, and her success helps her move on with her life.

In 1943, U.S. marines are stationed near Wellington. One of them is murdered by the boss of the Hotel Workers Union, who is sitting pretty, exempt from military service and living it up on black market profits. Girls under the control of the union - of whom the victim's fiancee, Rose, is one - give sexual favours to the Americans, in return for information. The marine assigned to investigate the murder, tries to find Rose through a public health nurse who traces VD infections. However they discover there it more going on than they realized, involving a conspiracy amongst the Union, the government and the U.S. military.

Former Welsh rugby hero Bleddyn Morgan has his life in New Zealand interrupted by a deathbed confession that leads to a replay of a controversial 1966 All Blacks/Wales rugby match - with the original teams. The now old men pull on their jerseys one more time while Morgan deals with his past on his return home.

In New Zealand in the 1860s the native Māori people fought the British colonials to keep the land guaranteed to them by treaty. The warrior Te Wheke fights for the British until betrayal leads him to seek utu (revenge). The settler Williamson in turn seeks revenge after Te Wheke attacks his homestead. Meanwhile Wiremu, an officer for the British, seems to think that resistance is futile.

The same night as a girl is slain in the woods, the teenagers Sam and Les are robbed of all of their hard earned hens. In the quest for their hens they cross the murderer's path.

During World War 2, a farmer in New Zealand murders seven people. The police, along with local Maori trackers, hunt him in the bush country.

In a town called Hope on the edge of Britain's empire, desperations clash: the beautiful Dorothea Brook is desperate to free her pregnant sister Rose from the clutches of Fraser, a fortune hunter. A local politician, William Poyner, is desperate for cash and thinks marriage to Dorothea will save him. Dorothea hires Lawrence Hayes, a rough but handsome Argonaut, to bribe Fraser with jewels and to marry Rose; Hayes desperately loves Dorothea and may marry Rose to stay close to her. But Dorothea has a lover, the ravishing Anne Cooper, who encourages the match with Poyser to give the lovers cover. Are these remedies, each desperate in its turn, going to make anyone happy?

Investigative journalist Alf Winters (Morrison), meets his American girlfriend, Melissa Jones (Eilbacher), at Auckland airport. As they park outside Alf's house, it explodes. It is soon apparent that persons unknown want them dead, but the police are either skeptical or in the pay of those responsible. They play hide and seek around New Zealand with the stalkers, all the while coping with car chases, plane crashes, bullets and explosions.

The story of two itinerant con men, the Wild Man and the Colonel, who operate on the West Coast gold mining towns of the New Zealand South Island during the latter part of the last century.

A docu-drama covering one of the most famous cases in New Zealand history, the murder of Harvey and Jeanette Crewe in 1970.

Like its predecessor The Harp In The South, Poor Man's Orange was also adapted for Australian television by the Ten Network in 1987. It continues the story of the Darcy family, living in the Surry Hills area of Sydney. Originally a novel by New Zealand-born Australian author Ruth Park, the book was published in 1949. The Darcys a poor, working class family of tough Irish stock - Mumma (Anne Phelan), dad Hughie (Martyn Sanderson), Roie (Anna Hruby) and the younger daughter Dolour (Kaarin Fairfax), through whose eyes we hear their story.

On the premise that his albums will sell better if he is dead, an aging pop-singer fakes his own death. True enough, the money rolls in, but no one can get their hands on it because of the seven year waiting period before a missing person can be declared legally dead. However, a crazed animal rights terrorist, who knows he isn't dead, is trying to kill him, because of the singer's advertisements for fried chicken restaurants. Eventually, it turns out that the singer's manager is paying the terrorist to kill him.

The world is dead. A lone woman, Victoria, struggles valiantly to stay alive on this desolate planet once known as Earth. But Victoria is not alone here. She shares her horrifying new world with beings of a different kind... the living dead, ferocious beasts hungrily searching for human flesh. With a sawed-off shotgun strapped to her back, Victoria drags a dead body through this horrifying new world in a desperate attempt to hold onto her humanity... to hold on to her past.

Chilling story of a farmhand who realizes his popular boss has been committing incest with his daughter for years.

Anthropologist Max Scarry mysteriously disappears while doing excavation/research of a lost New Zealand tribe on a remote island. His wife and his twin brother Edward are clueless as to what could have happened, a situation complicated by their city's police suspecting that one of the brothers murdered a local prostitute who was found with a strange tribal charm on her body matching one found in Max's abandoned hut. What most certainly isn't helping matters is the strange behavior of Max's daughter as she seems to have visions beyond possibility, warnings of a supernatural threat and her uncle's fate - and she's the film's narrator, to boot. Edward decides to go to the island to find out exactly what happened, but the deeper he goes into the mystery the more perilous and unknowable his world becomes, leading towards a shocking fate that raises more questions than it answers. (cont. http://view-from-the-paperhouse.blogspot.de/2014/10/the-threat-of-ancient-echoes-lost-tribe.html)

A murderous black comedy set in the 1960s. Sam (McCauley) and his small band of hard-drinking and eccentric friends are having a night of it when a drunk truck driver, Jack (Bach), attacks Sam's Maori wife Sue (O'Brien). In the struggle, Sam and friends end up killing Jack. None of them regrets this, but it has been observed by Miriam (Gruar) who decides to blackmail Sam. Jack's brother Joe (Napier) comes looking for revenge and ends up being killed by Basil (Spence). Their jobs at the freezer works are terminated, and Basil has his own idea about how to get out of their troubles.

The 1930s. Sidner's mother Solveig dies in a very unfortunate bicycle accident involving some cows. Sidner, his sister and his father Aron move to Sunne to work at a hotel. Aron tries hard to leave the sweet memories of his wife behind him but that isn't made easier by the fact that he always meets her ghost. Aron gets himself a pen friend, a young girl in New Zealand called Tessa. He starts to dream of beginning a new life on the other side of the world. Will his dreams come true and can they help him to cure his regret over the death of his wife?

The year is 1933. Ruby Rose (Melita Jurisic) is an Australian woman living with her Welsh immigrant husband Henry (Chris Haywood) in the Tasmanian highlands. Cut off from her superjudgmental family, for whom Henry had once worked as a humble farm hand, Ruby remains isolated in her tiny house. Superstitiously terrified of the dark, she begins developing her own folklore about the inky blackness that surrounds her each night; this folklore eventually develops into Ruby's own personal religion, created to ward off the evils that she imagines lurk in every corner. Only by venturing out of her house and rekindling her relationship with her embittered father is Ruby able to exorcise her fears. Almost hypnotic in its stark beauty, Tale of Ruby Rose is proof enough that writer/director Roger Scholes deserves to be far better known.

New Zealand chronicle of the life of noted writer and teacher, Sylvia Ashton-Warner. An interesting look at the unusual teaching methods she used while working with the children from the indigenous Maon.

During a rugby tour of Britain and Ireland in 1888, a young New Zealander searches for his father who he has never met. While there he falls in love with the daughter of an aristocrat.

We first meet The Darcys, a poor, working class family of tough Irish stock through whose eyes we hear their story. A story that centres on the bittersweet first and last loves of Roie, who becomes a woman too quickly living among the tenement houses, razor gangs, brothels and sly-grog shops of inner city Sydney.

Documentary about sailing legend Geoff Stagg and his yacht Whispers.

The lives and loves of the residents of Ferndale.

The legendary son of Zeus journeys across the earth fighting monsters and helping people.

While convalescing in New Zealand, British aristocrat Sir Charles Pemberton schemes to build a thermal spa in the town of Wainamu, but conflict ensues as the spa's planned location is on Māori land. The action is seen through the eyes of youngsters: hotelier’s son Tom, and Pemberton’s granddaughter Sarah Jane; who - alongside an erupting volcano - will ultimately teach Sir Charles a lesson about colonial hubris.

The Harp in the South (1948), a classic Australian novel by Ruth Park, follows the Darcy family, a poor group of Irish immigrants who live in Shanty Town, or Surry Hills, a slum for Irish Catholic families living in Australia during the middle of the twentieth century.