Amanda Nguyen: from rape survivor to astronaut, Nobel Peace Prize nominee and Time Woman of the Year

Karl Puschmann's June TV picks

Karl Puschmann joins Culture 101 with his monthly TV and streaming recommendations, covering Cape Fear on Apple TV, an updated take on the Scorsese thriller with Xavier Bardem and Amy Adams; Dear England on TVNZ+, a football drama about Gareth Southgate starring Joseph Fiennes; and a verdict on Mindy Kaling's new sitcom Not Suitable for Work on Disney+.

Poneke poet Hana Buchanan's new work, Kupu Whenua

Hana Buchanan has just published her debut collection Kupu Whenua, a bilingual Maori and New Zealand English work structured like a pepeha, with mountain, waterways, waka, birds and stars forming its chapters. Descended from Te Ati Awa and connected to the Te Aro Pa area, Buchanan wrote most of the collection on foot, walking Wellington's streets and listening for the ancestral memories she believes are stored in place. She is also a kaikaranga and a kaitito waiata. She joins Culture 101 and shares a reading.

Ross McGarva: From Lord of the Rings to Lucien Freud's studio

Ross McGarva learned his craft as a young art department hand on The Lord of the Rings, where he absorbed Peter Jackson's obsession with detail. His latest project is Moss & Freud, in cinemas now, a biographical drama about the friendship between supermodel Kate Moss and painter Lucian Freud. McGarva served as production designer, recreating Freud's paint-splattered Holland Park studio by plastering walls to build up texture, then flicking paint to match the decades of accumulated colour.

Dan Bain: directing the technically impossible

Dan Bain first read Let the Right One In in 2019 and put it down thinking it was impossible to stage. He's now directing it at The Court Theatre in Christchurch. The Swedish vampire story follows a bullied teenager and his strange new neighbour, adapted by Jack Thorne, who also wrote Adolescence. The set has no right angles, forces perspective, is covered in mirrors, and took three model builds to figure out. Bain joins Culture 101 to explain how you stage a horror without the audience laughing at the wrong moments.

Mike Puru live from the Gold Guitars in Gore

Every King's Birthday weekend, Gore hosts the Gold Guitar Awards, celebrating the best of live country music in New Zealand and launching careers including Patsy Riggir, Kaylee Bell and Jenny Mitchell. Mike Puru, born and raised in Gore and MC of the event for around ten years, joins Culture 101 live from the thick of it.