Bruno Lawrence
1941 - 1995Lawrence spent most of his life in New Zealand, but also worked extensively in Australia. He was a renowned jazz and rock drummer, playing drums in many bands, including Max Merritt & The Meteors, Quincy Conserve,Blerta, and The Crocodiles. His last recording was with Bernie McGann, Larry Gales and Jonathan Crayford on "Jazz at the St. James" in 1989.
In the early 1970s, Lawrence founded Blerta ("Bruno Lawrence's Electric Revelation and Travelling Apparition"). The multi and theatrical co-operative toured New Zealand and in parts of Australia. Blerta saw him performing alongside many people he would work with later as an actor, including director Geoff Murphy, and actors Martyn Sanderson and Ian Watkin.
Smash Palace
Roger Donaldson
Bruno Lawrence, Anna Maria Monticelli
Al Shaw's life revolves around motor racing and his back country junkyard, the "Smash Palace". His French wife, Jacqui, doesn't appreciate the lack of attention due to Al's obsession with cars. When Al finds her in the arms of another man, he takes his daughter, Georgie and heads for the bush, desperately hoping to hold on to the only family he has left.
Smash Palace
Utu
Geoff Murphy
Anzac Wallace, Bruno Lawrence
In New Zealand in the 1860s the native Maori 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.
Utu
Carry Me Back
John Reid
Grant Tilly, Kelly Johnson
Two brothers take their father into the city for the weekend for a rugby game and a night on the town. However, the old man dies in their hotel and the boys need to smuggle his body back to their farm and make it appear that he died there to satisfy a clause in his will or else they won't inherit the property.
Carry Me Back
Spotswood
Mark Joffe
Anthony Hopkins, Ben Mendelsohn
Wallace is an efficiency expert, managing the high-profile downsizing of a major auto parts factory. But when he is hired to evaluate a small moccasin factory which seems from another era, Wallace has to reconsider the rapid modernization he advocates, as he is confronted by the human faces such plans hurt.
Spotswood
No Petrol, No Diesel
Stefen Harris
Jim Moriarty, Helen Pearse Otene
A small town, on State Highway 1, where nothing ever happens...then Rex Devlin dies in a suspicious car wreck and a mysterious stranger moves into the Temuka Hotel. Why is one of the world's biggest multinational corporations so desperate to buy a dowdy little backwater petrol station? Has Oscar Devlin really come all the way home from Los Angeles to sort out his meager inheritance, or is it Frankie he's come to see?
No Petrol, No Diesel
Jack Be Nimble
Garth Maxwell
Alexis Arquette, Sarah Smuts-Kennedy
Jack and Dora, abandoned by their parents as babies, are desperate to find each other after years of adoption. Jack's young life has been spent with a sadistic family. Dora, whose life has been somewhat better, has developed extra-sensory powers which tell her that Jack's in danger and drives her to search for him.
Jack Be Nimble
Race for the Yankee Zephyr
David Hemmings
Ken Wahl, Lesley Ann Warren
In a lake high in the mountains of New Zealand hunter Gibbie Gibson discovers a plane wreck from WW2. When he tells it around, a gang of crooks follows and threatens him and his daughter, because they know there are 50 million dollars in the wreck. Helicopter pilot Barney helps Gibbie against them, risking his life thereby.
Race for the Yankee Zephyr
