Donna Brookbanks shares the inner workings of Erotica By The Fire and who said no to appearing

Todd Karehana is a Maori and queer writer-director from Kawerau, and his short film Socks is in Show Me Shorts. He says the story starts with his own childhood in the Mormon Church. His brother died when he was about nine, and the visiting missionaries were around at the same time. Todd says the film is in black and white because colour pulled attention away from the performance. He describes the Jane Campion and Philippa Campbell development programme as a big part of the film's making. Venice gave him the drive to make a feature, and he is writing it now, with production hoped for 2028.

Dylan Reeve takes Perlina through The Reality Machine, a seven-part RNZ podcast with two episodes a week. He has worked in and around reality TV for more than 20 years and was a contestant in the first season of The Traitors NZ. He says reality TV gets written off, yet ratings show plenty of people watch it. Dylan talks about duty of care and the tension between producers and participants. He also recalls the X Factor incident involving Joe Irvine and his suit, and the storm that followed.

Dan Slevin joins Perlina on Zoom to review three films. Sense & Sensibility is Georgia Oakley's adaptation of the Jane Austen novel, written by Diana Reid. The Dashwood sisters, Elinor and Marianne, move to a cottage in Devon after the family estate passes to their half-brother. Daisy Edgar-Jones plays Elinor and Esmé Creed-Miles plays Marianne. Whalefall is a survival thriller directed by Brian Duffield. Austin Abrams plays Jay Gardiner, who dives off California's central coast to find his late father's remains and is swallowed by a sperm whale, with about an hour of oxygen. Josh Brolin co-stars as the father. La Bola Negra is a Spanish drama from Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, known as Los Javis. It follows three generations of men over nearly a century, linked by desire, pain and love.

Duncan and Erin McKellar talk about turning their family story into a musical. Duncan is a psychiatrist who works with people living with dementia, and his mother was diagnosed with younger onset dementia at 60. The show grew from a song Erin wrote using lyrics her dad had written. Duncan says the aim is to bring the person back into the story, and he has heard from families who used what they learned to speak up for a loved one in hospital. Erin says the music is built to be accessible, with pop inflections and room for comedy as well as tears.

Jason Te Mete explains how Battle Chorus works. The audience is split into two teams, learns a set of choruses on the night, then sings off. Jason co-created it with Rutene Spooner, and it began in 2019 as a commission for the Auckland Cabaret Festival. This year's disco edition is at the Nelson Arts Festival, with songs from Earth, Wind and Fire and the Village People, and Jason says most people will already know the tunes. He is artistic director of Tuatara Collective and also talks about a 2021 infection that left him needing months of rehab before he could play piano again.