Lisa Harrow

Three generations living under one leaky Wellington roof in 2003, all on the brink of transformation. Sixteen-year-old Cassie is all bravado and vulnerability, drifting into risky territory as she searches for validation in all the wrong places. Her mother Maxine, 52, a formidable single-mother filmmaker on the brink of a long-awaited breakthrough, is finally offered a greenlight - if she can just land a star. Holding everything together is Huia, Cassie’s grandmother, 80, whose life has been defined by quiet service to family and a private obsession with raising monarch caterpillars, dreaming of one day witnessing the legendary butterfly migration in Mexico. But when Huia’s mind begins to fail her, the family is thrust into chaos. Can the maternal line hold together while everything is throwing them apart?

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Blind Bitter Happiness captures the messy awkwardness of family life, the hard and hilarious truths of childhood, and the hilarity in our seemingly banal everyday battles.

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Madison has the chance to pursue her love of event management when her two best friends announce their engagement. Finding a pre-planned wedding package on a remote island vineyard in New Zealand, Madison teams up with David, the handsome vineyard owner, to re-imagine the event for her friends.

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‘Blue Smoke’ follows a rest-home caretaker, Joe, who is mistaken by an elderly resident, Beryl, for her for her lounge-singing ex-husband. Joe plays his doppelgänger in the hopes of swindling her, until he realises she’s broke and dying. When she’s finally taken into palliative care, he finishes off the story of his doppelgänger’s departure to comfort Beryl, and sings her ‘their’ song: NZ classic, Blue Smoke.

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After skipping town a decade ago, transgender activist Caz Davis returns to the remote, politically divided dairy community of Rurangi, hoping to reconnect with his estranged father, who hasn't heard from him since before Caz transitioned.

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Evie struggles to come to terms with the funny and sometimes painful discrepancies between measured-time and time as she really experiences it. From the agonizing Morning After-Time to the merely annoying Snooze-Time. As Evie's life progresses her experience of time gets even more confusing. The significant events in her early life become more distant until she arrives at the Contradiction-Time of old age: the days seem to creep by , but oddly, Christmas comes around faster each year. It becomes clear that time is playing it's cruelest trick of all: it's running out.

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Peter and Chloe, a young married couple from New York, decide on impulse to take a belated honeymoon on-board a research vessel en route to the icy wastes of Antarctica. Not long into the journey, Chloe begins to feel neglected and betrayed by Peter, who is focused on gathering information for an article he plans to publish on their return about the work of one of their fellow passengers, the whale biologist Roger Payne. After an unforgivable betrayal of trust by Peter, Chloe turns their fledgling marriage upside down by moving into her own room and staking out her independence onboard the ship. Drawing attention to the poles within each of us, the impressionistic story oscillates between the super-confined interiors of the ship and the vast open spaces of Antarctica. In the end, it's not until Chloe and Peter are lost - perhaps literally, perhaps metaphorically - in the Antarctic ice that they discover how essential one is to the other.

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Dave, a 24-year-old ordinary kiwi slacker, finds his life turned upside down when he meets the girl of his dreams Cara - and her three kids. Step Dave is a light-hearted, feel-good family drama which demonstrates one of the realities of modern life that families come in all different shapes and sizes.

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Set in the Australian outback at the turn of the twentieth century, this family based drama follows a young woman who is unjustly institutionalised.

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The Bergman sisters could not be more different. Jessica is a feisty tomboy who loves to help her father work their farmland. Her beautiful sister Meg is eagerly being groomed by her mother Hester (Lisa Harrow) to be the perfect wife, so that she can marry her way out of poverty. However, when the man, Jack Thomas, who Meg has set her sights on falls in love with Jessica and gets her pregnant, Hester schemes to wrench the couple apart to claim Jessica's son, Joey for Meg. Later she commits Jessica to a mental asylum. It is here that Jessica receives news of her lover's death and almost loses hope, but after enlisting the help of Mr. Runche, a down and out lawyer battling alcoholism, she is eventually released. Years later, it is the reformed Runche who gives Jessica the courage to fight for the return of her child. Eventually Meg and Hester call an uneasy truce with Jessica, and allow her to play a role in Joey's life as his aunt.

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The true stories that spawned the serie tale of Damien, a small boy with an angelic face, whose very name still conjures up thoughts of Satan. This documentary shares spine-tingling information about the the all-too-memorable flick that has terrorized film audiences since 1976.

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The film describes the relationship between a father and his two motherless sons in Ireland, and how it changes when their aunt from London arrives.

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Mistaking a homeless man for a famous director, a British actress seeks career help from him.

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Ort Flack is 12 years old and lives with his mother and his sister Tegwyn in the Australian outback. The three of them also have to take care of their old grandma and their paralyzed father. It is not easy for one mother to take care of everybody. But one day a mysterious stranger, Henry, comes to their desolate house to help them...

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John Thaw dons the silks as barrister James Kavanagh Q.C., one of the most highly respected criminal advocates in London, commanding admiration from colleagues and opponents alike. However, all this has come at a price as his dedication to work has taken its toll on his private life… Going beyond traditional courtroom dramas, “Kavanagh Q.C.” uncovers the pressures of legal battles and the problems of defining the truth, providing a compelling representation of the euphoric ups and costly downs of success and failure in the legal world.

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The director of a a film about witchcraft gets rather carried away and endangers the lives of his cast.

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The story of sisters Vicki and Beth, when Vicki begins an affair with Beth's intriguing French husband.

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A dramatization of two generations of the Viennese Strauss family, whose dance music and operettas dominated much of Europe and beyond for most of the 19th century.

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This is the story of women in wartime – those left behind while the men are away fighting. It’s the story of three very different women who work in a beauty parlour attached to a luxury hotel, during the Second World War. It’s 1944 and the tide is turning against the Japanese in the Pacific, while American forces, waiting for their final push through the Pacific Islands, have made Sydney a gaudy, hectic garrison town. At the center of the action is the South Pacific Hotel, one of Sydney’s finest. It’s modeled on the Australia Hotel, demolished during the 1960s but a legend during the wartime era.

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A middle-aged writer returns to London after years abroad. Soon, his headlong pursuit of pleasure upsets the lives of all those around him.

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Nonni and Manni is a children's television series produced as a joint venture between Iceland and West Germany. It debuted on 26 December 1988 on West Germany's ZDF channel and lasted for six episodes with the last one being aired on 1 January 1989. The story was based on the eponymous book written by the popular Icelandic children's author Jón Sveinsson, nicknamed "Nonni", who had written several books inspired by his own experiences of growing up alongside his brother Ármann, nicknamed "Manni". The filming for the series took place in Iceland, West Germany and Norway.

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An IRA informer and his family are given new identities and new lives in Australia but the IRA are still determined to track them down.

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Always Afternoon is a 1988 Australian mini series about German internees in Australia. It was a co production between Germany and Australia. It inspired a series of paintings by Ross Watson.

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The Ruth Rendell mysteries is a British television series made by TVS and Meridian Television for ITV between 2 August 1987 and 11 October 2000.

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Lizzie was a promising photographer in the 1960s. By 1987, she is dissatisfied with her family and friends so she decides to resume her photographic career.

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Inspector Morse is a detective drama based on Colin Dexter's series of Chief Inspector Morse novels. The series starred John Thaw as Chief Inspector Morse and Kevin Whately as Sergeant Lewis, as well as a large cast of notable actors and actresses.

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With the accidental discovery of a lethal bio-agent at her research facility, Dr. Christine Ruben decides to double cross her own government by stealing the deadly formula to keep it out of the clutches of the military, whom she doesn't trust. To make her rendezvous with some confederates who promise to get her out of the country, she recruits daredevil driver Judd Pierson and his partner Casey Lee, who are down on their luck and take the job without knowing what they're getting into.

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A Polynesian street-kid and a much older middle-class housewife are both incarcerated in the same mental hospital - she for attempted suicide and he for habitual crime. A friendship grows between them such that she offers him a place to stay upon his release. However, difficulties arise with his continued criminal activities and dependence on her for support - then his gang moves in with them. The film is based upon Sue McCauley's award winning autobiographical novel.

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John Barton holds a master class in how to play Shakespeare, using members of the RSC doing scenes, sonnets, and commentary as prime examples.

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Helen Simpson's scorching novel of passion and unspoken loyalty is brought to life in a major mini series unfolding in the epic Australian tradition of Against The Wind and Sara Dane.

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An adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's play.

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Nancy Astor was the American-born socialite and politician who became the first woman to take her seat in the House of Commons. This miniseries produced for BBC2 follows her journey from her early life in Virginia to her political career in Britain, including her marriage to Waldorf Astor and her struggles and triumphs as a Member of Parliament.

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This heroic story follows the life of Karol Wojtyla, a Polish Roman catholic who ascends the throne of St. Peter as Pope John Paul II. As a young boy, Karol is a bright and talented student. Archbishop Sapieha recognizes the very special, moving qualities Karol possesses and encourages him to consider the priesthood. Although determined to study Polish literature, Karol turns to the church; he is ordained and studies in Italy, France, and Belgium. Torn by fear and repression in post-Stalin Eastern Europe, Karol becomes a poisonous thorn in the communists' side. His deer reverence and commitment return him to Poland as Pope John Paul II.

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Damien Thorn has helped rescue the world from a recession, appearing to be a benign corporate benefactor. When he then becomes U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Damien fulfills a terrifying biblical prophecy. He also faces his own potential demise as an astronomical event brings about the second coming of Christ.

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Adaptation of the novella by Robert Louis Stevenson

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Love story adapted from the novel by Margaret Drabble.

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