The 2005 discovery of a cannonball, buried for 138 years in a paddock, throws Waimate into turmoil. It is all the Maori locals need to confirm their long-held belief that they were forcibly removed from their tribal lands, in a bloody 1866 battle. The hotly contested claim eventually ends up in the District Court and on the lens of cameraman Dave who captures all the arguments, frauds and forgeries of the townspeople, in a cinema verité mockumentary style.
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2010 on the Canterbury Plains and all is well. Lambs, blue skies and daffodils. In Cathedral Square choir boys sing to their God. Punts push new season's tourists along the Avon. They photograph the 'Garden city'; the 'most English city outside of England'. We get hit with a 7.1 earthquake. We stand up, wave our fists at the heavens and compliment ourselves on our ability to recover. And then we get hit even harder. Now the city has fallen. Many are dead. Many injured. Many narrowly escape. A fragile people reappear in the following days. We have learnt from the first earthquake and once again a response is growing. Once again adrenaline is taking over. Now the whole country is rallying for Christchurch. It's the energy of the people that's unprecedented. Communities are rising from the sand. People are holding tight to each other. A year later and the quakes keep rolling. Now the Canterbury earthquakes are the most ever quakes recorded in a series. And we're still counting....
In New Zealand, writer Jean Watson is an anonymous elderly woman living in a modest Wellington flat. In southern India she is revered as the famous ‘Jean Aunty’. Gerard Smyth’s documentary explores her fascinating double life.
