Film wins award 37 years later 

It has taken 37 years but a film promoting New Zealand has just won a prestigious award.

This is New Zealand showcased the country at the Osaka Expo in 1970 and now it is wowing viewers and critics all over again.

The film was seen by more than two million people in Japan and got a rapturous reception in New Zealand. Director Hugh MacDonald estimates nearly a quarter of NZ's adult population saw the iconic images.

"We were just giving impressions of New Zealand - its people and its ways of life," says MacDonald.

The ground-breaking film's soaring soundtrack even sparked a craze for classical music albums with thousands of copies sold after people saw the film.

But the film languished because it required three projectors  to screen it. Now Archive New Zealand has remastered and remixed the film at Peter Jackson's sound studios and it will relaunch next month.

The film has just won a bronze medal at the New York festival's film and video competition.

"It seems to still work with people, it seems to still work the way we intended it to, it draws people into it and that's quite gratifying since its 37 years since we made it," says MacDonald.

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