10 Questions for film director Roger Donaldson – 'motor racing in the 1960s was incredibly dangerous'

10 QUESTIONS FOR FILM DIRECTOR ROGER DONALDSON The story of his new documentary about racing driver Bruce McLaren, who was killed 47 years ago

The story of his new documentary about racing driver Bruce McLaren, who was killed 47 years ago

An Australian who emigrated to New Zealand in 1965, Roger Donaldson cut his teeth in documentaries and TV before launching into a career in feature films. His first feature, Sleeping Dogs (1976), on the unlikely theme of a New Zealand plunged into totalitarianism, immediately attracted attention, and after he made Smash Palace (1982) Hollywood came calling.

DVD/Blu-ray: Hunt for the Wilderpeople

Enchanting comedy about an odd couple on the run in the New Zealand bush

Hunt for the Wilderpeople is the highest-grossing film produced exclusively in New Zealand, and yet it snuck into UK cinemas at the back end of 2016 with less fanfare than it deserved. Its release as a home entertainment gives a better shot at a long life. It stars Sam Neill as Hec, an ornery old backwoodsman who reluctantly takes charge of Ricky, an unruly orphan thrust into his care. Neill has never been more loveable, but the charm of the film rests just as much on the unfettered performance of Julian Dennison as the boy.

Naturally they have nothing in common, but as they go on the run in the bush to avoid capture by social services, a mutual reliance flourishes alongside a grouchy willingness in each to learn from the other. Along the way the whip-smart script, adapted by director Taika Waititi from a novel by Barry Crump, has a lovely line in subversive repartee and supplies a stack of cinema allusions to everything from Rambo to New Zealand’s very own epic Lord of the Rings. The supporting cast is led by Rima Te Wiata, charming all too briefly as the mother figure who takes Ricky on, and Rachel House as a representative of the social services who gets all her moves from the CIA playbook.

It’s a sign of a winning comedy that you want to hang around and watch the bloopers afterwards. These are supplied in the extras alongside a director’s commentary and a making-of feature. This odd-couple adventure is a witty, heartwarming enchantment whose appeal spans the generations.

@JasperRees

Overleaf: watch the trailer to Hunt for the Wilderpeople

Edinburgh Fringe 2015: Kieran Hodgson/ Richard Gadd/ Trygve Wakenshaw

EDINBURGH FRINGE 2015: KIERAN HODGSON/ RICHARD GADD/ TRYGVE WAKENSHAW Into the final lap at the world's biggest and best arts festival

Into the final lap at the world's biggest and best arts festival

Kieran Hodgson, Voodoo Rooms ★★★★

When Kieran Hodgson was growing up in West Yorkshire in the early years of the century, he was obsessed with two things – cycling and Lance Armstrong, then the greatest cyclist the world had ever seen.

What We Do in the Shadows

WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS Vampire fun from New Zealand

Vampire fun from New Zealand

Clearly the makers of this delightful film from New Zealand have watched a lot of movies, as so many are neatly and obliquely referenced – Nosferatu, The Blair Witch Project, The Lost Boys, Grease, to name just a few - in a comic tale about a group of vampires in Wellington.

Kiri at 70

KIRI AT 70 The great New Zealand soprano embraces septuagenarian status in Covent Garden style

The great New Zealand soprano embraces septuagenarian status in Covent Garden style

Even more deserving of the sobriquet “the beautiful voice” than Renée Fleming, the natural successor who virtually copyrighted it, Kiri te Kanawa was one of the great sopranos of the 20th century. With those big, candid brown eyes and bone structure she’s still a beauty, as the images of her cameo role in the Royal Opera’s La Fille du régiment underline. The voice now – well, as I wrote in my review of Monday’s opening, it’s what you’d expect of a 70 year old with form.

CD: Connan Mockasin - Caramel

How does this talented Kiwi's second dose of curiosity pop stand up?

Enigmatic troubadour Connan Mockasin returns with his second album, a follow-up to 2010’s critically acclaimed Forever Dolphin Love which won him a cult following. Championed by the likes of Erol Alkan, Radiohead and Charlotte Gainsbourg, the elfin New Zealander is governed by his creative whimsy, writing music only when the mood takes him. This album is the musical equivalent of an indulgent Galaxy Caramel bar – smooth, sweet and stupor-inducing.

Top of the Lake, Series Finale, BBC Two

TOP OF THE LAKE, SERIES FINALE, BBC TWO New Zealand-set small-town psychodrama concludes with more than one nasty surprise

New Zealand-set small-town psychodrama concludes with more than one nasty surprise

“Everything you think you are, you’re not,” pronounced Holly Hunter’s inscrutable GJ in the final episode of the chilly Top of the Lake. Certainties crumbled as the series progressed, with Elisabeth Moss’s Robin Griffin discovering that almost everyone in the remote New Zealand town of Laketop had something they would prefer to hide. Returning there to see her terminally ill mother, Griffin also found that what she had escaped was becoming far too close, threatening who she thought she was - and who she actually may be.

Top of the Lake, BBC Two

TOP OF THE LAKE, BBC TWO Jane Campion's haunting drama ends tonight. Read theartsdesk verdict tomorrow

A beautiful but brutal New Zealand explored in Jane Campion's haunting drama

Jane Campion's much-anticipated series is set amid hauntingly beautiful scenery on New Zealand's South Island, which in its remoteness seems to shake its head gently at the antics of the sparse human population. The people themselves are like a tribe that time forgot, living in a wilderness-bubble governed by the kind of attitudes you'd expect to find in some dust-devilled outpost of the Old West in about 1800.

theartsdesk in New Zealand: WOMAD Taranaki

THEARTSDESK IN NEW ZEALAND: WOMAD TARANAKI Rain can't ruin a long weekend of African and Kiwi music, plus Jimmy Cliff

Rain can't ruin a long weekend of African and Kiwi music, plus Jimmy Cliff

I've been to countless UK Womads yet have never before made it WOMAD Taranaki. Which is almost something to be ashamed about considering I'm a Kiwi. But this expat is never in the South Pacific mid-March. Until, that is, this year. The 11th New Zealand Womad is held in the small city of New Plymouth in Taranaki, a gorgeous West Coast hump in the central North Island. Mt Taranaki towers over the site - this beautiful mountain is often used as double for Mt Fuji, so sublime is its symmetery - and surfing beaches are 20 minutes walk away.

Edinburgh Fringe: Camille O'Sullivan/The Road That Wasn't There

EDINBURGH FRINGE: CAMILLE O'SULLIVAN Showstopping emotion from the Irish-French singer

Showstopping emotion from the Irish-French singer, and a charming theatre piece from New Zealand

 

Camille O'Sullivan: Changeling, Assembly Rooms *****

The Assembly Rooms may have reopened for this year's Fringe following a very swanky refurb, but someone obviously forgot to put sufficient thought into the practicalities of getting people in and out during the festival. The opening night of Camille O’Sullivan’s brief sold-out run started 40 minutes late after a chaotic queuing system apparently devised in tribute to MC Escher left much of the crowd – which, thrillingly, included Les Dennis – more than a little testy.