Matthew Sunderland

Trapped on her family’s isolated farm, Pearl must tend to her ailing father under the bitter and overbearing watch of her devout mother. Lusting for a glamorous life like she’s seen in the movies, Pearl’s ambitions, temptations, and repressions collide.

Two strangers strike up a conversation on a long journey. However, neither is who they appear to be, each carry secrets that threaten to ruin them — and in the background, one of the nation's largest police operations is closing in.

In the midst of a new scheme to publicly report surgeons’ performance, a gifted surgeon’s life is thrown into disarray as her colleagues begin to close ranks, and even her partner, a nurse at the hospital, turns her back on her.

Looking for a fresh start after a miscarriage, a couple find themselves being gifted the house of their dreams with one caveat – they can never open the cellar door. Whether they can live without knowing triggers shocking consequences.

A man with a mysterious past flees the country to escape his own personal hell... only to arrive somewhere much worse. In an effort to survive this new horror, he turns to his personified conscience.

This gripping sci-fi anthology film features five thrilling stories about space travel and black holes, family and loss, and artificial intelligence.

There is no safe place to hide when the desire to dance calls Iuli'a, an overstayer, to choose between her own freedom and the safety of those she is responsible for.

On the Western Front in the web of trenches, stretcher-bearers must choose between their humanity and their job.

A troubled missionary, led by a rough Pākehā guide, treks through the forest of 1820s Aotearoa. On a journey to deliver a musket to a distant leader, they are surprised by the appearance of a young Māori man who proclaims he’s been sent to guide them. After joining their party, it is not long before the cultural differences of the trio divide them, and the missionary is forced into an awful revelation of his true nature

A true-life drama in the 1920s, centering on British explorer Col. Percy Fawcett, who discovered evidence of a previously unknown, advanced civilization in the Amazon and disappeared whilst searching for it.

In 1825, Clare, a 21-year-old Irish convict, chases a British soldier through the rugged Tasmanian wilderness, bent on revenge for a terrible act of violence he committed against her family. She enlists the services of an Aboriginal tracker who is also marked by trauma from his own violence-filled past.

A comedy film that looks into the loosely connected lives of people with strange sexual fantasies.

Troubled psychotherapist Peter Bowers is suffering from nightmares and eerie visions. When he uncovers a horrifying secret that all of his patients share, he is put on a course that takes him back to the small hometown he fled years ago. There he confronts his demons and unravels a mystery 20 years in the making.

London, England, April 1980. Six terrorists assault the Embassy of Iran and take hostages. For six days, tense negotiations are held while the authorities decide whether a military squad should intervene.

Set in the Channel Islands on the eve of D Day, two Kiwi commandos, sent to destroy German gun emplacements to distract Hitler's forces away from Normandy, discover a Nazi occult plot to unleash demonic forces to win the war.

A miserable fishing enthusiast must overcome the darker creature that lives inside him to reconnect with his wife.

Inspired by the true stories of New Zealand's street gangs across 30 years, we follow Danny at three defining moments in his life as he grows from a boy into the violent enforcer of a gang.

Trapped behind the Boundary Fence, Freya dreams of escape and pursues a dangerous outsider who can free her.

Adrian is a classic outsider. His playful, dreamy imagination distracts him from everyday life, for the reality he lives in could not be more different. Neither his chronically depressed uncle nor his overworked grandmother understand the ten-year-old’s games. His mother abandoned him when he was very young and he is bullied at school. Just as news arrives that three children are missing, a new family moves in next door. Adrian develops a close relationship to their tomboyish, ten-year-old daughter Nicole and believes he is getting close to solving the mys- tery of the missing children. New Zealand forms the backdrop for this universal story for adults and those who have never wanted to grow up. It is a story about friendship and loneliness, emotions which Adrian already feels so poignantly as a child. The Danish first-time director’s expressive visual language dramatically merges water and air, reality and a hint of fantasy.

Eade is a fourteen year old girl who has spent her entire life on the spaceship Cradle. Eade and her dad are on the return journey to Earth when an explosion cripples the craft and seriously injures her father. As the clock counts down to self-destruction Cradle’s computer, System, assumes control of the ship and refuses to perform the life saving medical procedure that her father desperately needs. Whilst trying to outwit System to save her dad, Eade discovers the shocking truth of her existence and must face her uncertain future armed with the knowledge that her life in space is not as it seems.

Teenage twins battle dark forces hidden beneath Auckland's volcanoes.

Ordinary people find extraordinary courage in the face of madness. On 13–14 November 1990 that madness came to Aramoana, a small New Zealand seaside town, in the form of a lone gunman with a high-powered semi-automatic rifle. As he stalked his victims the terrified and confused residents were trapped for 24 hours while a handful of under-resourced and under-armed local policemen risked their lives trying to find him and save the survivors. Based on true events.

Settled into a cozy home life in Milan with his boyfriend Paolo and his daughter Julia, photographer and ex-spy Jacob Keane is suddenly drawn back into the espionage world when his old partner Marta reappears with her memory erased.

An innocent rubbish tip assistant, Gert, is given the task of escorting a beautiful mute "princess", Plum, on a perilous journey to meet her prospective husband. Their journey is fraught with danger, challenges, romance and discovery. In surreal action, they encounter a menagerie of characters and animals in far-flung corners of New Zealand.

An innocent rubbish tip assistant, Gert, is given the task of escorting a beautiful mute "princess", Plum, on a perilous journey to meet her prospective husband. Their journey is fraught with danger, challenges, romance and discovery. In surreal action, they encounter a menagerie of characters and animals in far-flung corners of New Zealand.

The sole survivor of a catastrophic event experiences a moment of beauty.

After committing a shocking crime, Gary Cradle secretly decides to change his life and become a good person. However deciding is one thing, changing a life is another.

In this alarming early short from Gregory King a 13-year-old boy's shoplifting escapade is narrated brilliantly by actress Madeleine Sami who performs the teenage boy incarnation of the Adult Man whose account of domestic abuse this is, while adult actors play the kids in the remembered story. What starts out as teen shenanigans (a porn stash is accrued with the five-finger discount) turns unsettling as a beating is doled out by Dad as punishment. The contrast between the naive voice and what is seen on screen - shot in hand-held close ups - is something unforgettable.

Poppy is a Performance-Captured CGI drama set on France's western front in World War One. Two New Zealand soldiers are trapped behind enemy lines and are trying to find their way to safety. They find an orphaned baby under it's dead parents in a ditch. One of the men wants to save it, the other does not.

An emotionally traumatized stage magician has "escaped" into a fantasy world where he has real magical powers, but his career has taken him to performing at childrens' birthday parties. However, if he can find another stage assistant, his sleezy manager will give him another stage opportunity. Mostly he needs to find his way out of his mental state and that path is guided by some unexpected people he meets.

"This singular, bleakly funny, R-rated vision of Kiwi life clinches King's position as the most distinctive new voice in NZ film, as insistent and inescapable as The Warehouse jingle." - New Zealand International Film Festival director Bill Godsen. Made at the beginning of the digital revolution, this micro-budget feature went on to win several awards and be selected for major Fests incl. Toronto, Locarno, Edinburgh, and Melbourne.

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?

An experimental twist on the "fly on the wall" film. Here a handheld camera becomes the fly and the connection between three groups of modern city dwellers. Gregory King's first film won ‘Most Outstanding Achievement in a Video Production’ at the Melbourne International Film Festival. The festival hailed POP as ‘Possibly the most extraordinary film at MIFF this year…As we stand before the precipice of the next century, the film poignantly throws into question the definition of cinema itself.’

50 years in the future, virtual reality is so real and addictive that it’s woven into the fabric of reality. People can have virtual relationships with their chosen partners at any time. This technology’s accessibility has led humans to lose touch with reality. Fed up with perfection and fantasies, a woman seeks the truth and unpredictability of reality.

No synopsis available yet.