Disability can be something you’re born with, something that develops slowly, or something that comes about suddenly, and while many people take on the challenge of caring for their disabled loved ones, it can be challenging to know exactly what it means to be a caregiver.  

Kiwi filmmaker Jon Earle has created a deeply intimate documentary that captures just that – a story of endurance, identity, and family life under sustained pressure. 

Filmed almost entirely by Earle himself, featherStrength covers the more than a decade Earle has been raising his daughter, who was born with profound developmental disabilities requiring intensive 24/7 care. 

It captures the medical uncertainty, isolation, and the toll caregiving can have on relationships, work, and mental health, and has just won Best New Zealand Feature and Best New Zealand Editing at the Doc Edge Festival Awards. 

Jack was joined by both Earle and Karen Miles, the CEO of Parent to Parent, a not-for-profit support organisation for families navigating disability, to discuss the film and the journey so many families face caring for their loved ones.  

LISTEN ABOVE 

Disability can be something you’re born with, something that develops slowly, or something that comes about suddenly, and while many people take on the challenge of caring for their disabled loved ones, it can be challenging to know exactly what it means to be a caregiver. &nbsp;
Kiwi filmmaker Jon Earle has created a deeply intimate documentary that captures just that – a story of endurance, identity, and family life under sustained pressure.&nbsp;
Filmed almost entirely by Earle himself, featherStrength covers the more than a decade Earle has been raising his daughter, who was born with profound developmental disabilities requiring intensive 24/7 care.&nbsp;
It captures the medical uncertainty, isolation, and the toll caregiving can have on relationships, work, and mental health, and has just won Best New Zealand Feature and Best New Zealand Editing at the Doc Edge Festival Awards.&nbsp;
Jack was joined by both Earle and Karen Miles, the CEO of Parent to Parent, a not-for-profit support organisation for families navigating disability, to discuss the film and the journey so many families face caring for their loved ones. &nbsp;
LISTEN ABOVE&nbsp;

Jack Tame’s crisp perspective, style and enthusiasm makes for refreshing and entertaining Saturday morning radio on Newstalk ZB.

News, sport, books, music, gardens and celebrities – what better way to spend your Saturdays?

Jack Tame’s crisp perspective, style and enthusiasm makes for refreshing and entertaining Saturday morning radio on Newstalk ZB. News, sport, books, music, gardens and celebrities – what better way to spend your Saturdays?

Jack Tame’s crisp perspective, style and enthusiasm makes for refreshing and entertaining Saturday morning radio on Newstalk ZB.News, sport, books, music, gardens and celebrities – what better way to spend your Saturdays?

Saturday Morning with Jack Tame

Jon Earle and Karen Miles: Kiwi Filmmaker and Parent to Parent CEO on featherStrength and what it means to be a caregiver for a disabled loved one

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/7784f840-c291-422a-924b-ad9000bbad71/clips/c22f1ac8-e1d6-4f4d-8034-b47d002d4a3f/transcript

Kevin Milne has just returned from a week-long trip to the Garden City and found himself rather impressed with the experience. 

He told Jack Tame it’s not the Christchurch he once knew – it's a brand-new glittering, uber cool replacement.  

And with how much he enjoyed himself, he had to recommend anyone listening to consider a holiday or long-weekend stay in the city. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

Kevin Milne has just returned from a week-long trip to the Garden City and found himself rather impressed with the experience.&nbsp;
He told Jack Tame it’s not the Christchurch he once knew – it's a brand-new glittering, uber cool replacement. &nbsp;
And with how much he enjoyed himself, he had to recommend anyone listening to consider a holiday or long-weekend stay in the city.&nbsp;
LISTEN ABOVE&nbsp;

Kevin Milne: Highly impressed after a visit to Christchurch

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/7784f840-c291-422a-924b-ad9000bbad71/clips/0c781aee-d950-4cdf-a2be-b47d00250ba8/transcript

Madonna is returning to the past in her newest album. 

‘Confessions II’ follows on from her 2005 album ‘Confessions on a Dance Floor’, continuing her exploration of dance and electronic music.  

It’s made in conjunction with Stuart Price, who co-wrote and co-produced the 2005 album, and features guest appearances by Sabrina Carpenter, Feid, Stromae, and Madonna's eldest daughter Lola Leon. 

Chris Schulz joined Jack Tame to share his thoughts on ‘Confessions II’. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

Madonna is returning to the past in her newest album.&nbsp;
‘Confessions II’ follows on from her 2005 album ‘Confessions on a Dance Floor’, continuing her exploration of dance and electronic music. &nbsp;
It’s made in conjunction with Stuart Price, who co-wrote and co-produced the 2005 album, and features guest appearances by Sabrina Carpenter, Feid, Stromae, and Madonna's eldest daughter Lola Leon.&nbsp;
Chris Schulz joined Jack Tame to share his thoughts on ‘Confessions II’.&nbsp;
LISTEN ABOVE&nbsp;

Chris Schulz: Madonna - Confessions II

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/7784f840-c291-422a-924b-ad9000bbad71/clips/560feab4-4b77-4db7-8535-b47d001f15f3/transcript

Five by Ilona Bannister  

Five passengers. Five minutes until the next train... five minutes until someone dies. Someone will die here this morning, at this suburban train station. It will happen in the next five minutes when the 7:06 to London Victoria arrives.  

On a train platform, five strangers unknowingly face a chilling countdown: one of them will die in five minutes. In this gripping tale narrated with a sharp tongue, the five main characters - a child, a mother, a businessman, an old woman, and a gambler - will draw you in with their stories of fate, sacrifice, and the relationships we build and those we break.  

As the clock ticks down, we look away from the demonic child Gideon. We judge his mother Emma who must surely be to blame. We are curiously compelled by the successful yet damaged businessman Liam. We pity the furious old Mrs Worth who grew up in a macabre household and failed at being a mother. And we fall in love with the beautiful Sonny who is on the verge of gambling his life away. 

  

Rule of Lies by Jamison R. Firestone  

Raised by his father, a multimillionaire conman and crack addict who owned Manhattan’s most expensive brothel, twenty-four-year-old Jamison R. Firestone decided to change the channel. He graduated from law school in 1991 and sought his fortune in Gorbachev’s USSR, establishing Russia’s first independent foreign law firm. 

Out of the frying pan and into the fire, Jamison lived in the maelstrom that was Russia, defending himself and his clients from mafia attacks, dealing with corrupt police officers, having his law office raided by armed commandos, and once having to bug the offices of the Russian police. 

Jamison was at the centre of some of Russia’s most important events. He employed Sergei Magnitsky who was murdered for uncovering the largest tax theft in Russian history and teamed up with Bill Browder and Alexei Navalny to expose his killers. Along the way he inadvertently taught Navalny to make videos exposing corruption and started a war with the Russian government over passage of the Magnitsky Acts which threatened to sanction Russia’s most powerful people. 

A real-life story that reads like a spy novel, Rule of Lies goes deep inside contemporary Russia and events that have reshaped the globe. Darkly comic, sometimes horrifying and deeply moving, it is a chilling warning of what can happen when a nascent democracy succumbs to one man’s corrupt iron rule, becoming not only an authoritarian nation but a profoundly criminal one—a true mafia state. 

 

LISTEN ABOVE 

Five by Ilona Bannister &nbsp;
Five passengers. Five minutes until the next train... five minutes until someone dies. Someone will die here this morning, at this suburban train station. It will happen in the next five minutes when the 7:06 to London Victoria arrives. &nbsp;
On a train platform, five strangers unknowingly face a chilling countdown: one of them will die in five minutes. In this gripping tale narrated with a sharp tongue, the five main characters - a child, a mother, a businessman, an old woman, and a gambler - will draw you in with their stories of fate, sacrifice, and the relationships we build and those we break. &nbsp;
As the clock ticks down, we look away from the demonic child Gideon. We judge his mother Emma who must surely be to blame. We are curiously compelled by the successful yet damaged businessman Liam. We pity the furious old Mrs Worth who grew up in a macabre household and failed at being a mother. And we fall in love with the beautiful Sonny who is on the verge of gambling his life away.&nbsp;
&nbsp;&nbsp;
Rule of Lies by Jamison R. Firestone &nbsp;
Raised by his father, a multimillionaire conman and crack addict who owned Manhattan’s most expensive brothel, twenty-four-year-old Jamison R. Firestone decided to change the channel. He graduated from law school in 1991 and sought his fortune in Gorbachev’s USSR, establishing Russia’s first independent foreign law firm.&nbsp;
Out of the frying pan and into the fire, Jamison lived in the maelstrom that was Russia, defending himself and his clients from mafia attacks, dealing with corrupt police officers, having his law office raided by armed commandos, and once having to bug the offices of the Russian police.&nbsp;
Jamison was at the centre of some of Russia’s most important events. He employed Sergei Magnitsky who was murdered for uncovering the largest tax theft in Russian history and teamed up with Bill Browder and Alexei Navalny to expose his killers. Along the way he inadvertently taught Navalny to make videos exposing corruption and started a war with the Russian government over passage of the Magnitsky Acts which threatened to sanction Russia’s most powerful people.&nbsp;
A real-life story that reads like a spy novel, Rule of Lies goes deep inside contemporary Russia and events that have reshaped the globe. Darkly comic, sometimes horrifying and deeply moving, it is a chilling warning of what can happen when a nascent democracy succumbs to one man’s corrupt iron rule, becoming not only an authoritarian nation but a profoundly criminal one—a true mafia state.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
LISTEN ABOVE&nbsp;

Catherine Raynes: Five and Rule of Lies

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/7784f840-c291-422a-924b-ad9000bbad71/clips/31e6acec-516e-41e0-a883-b47d000d6868/transcript

Jon Earle and Karen Miles: Kiwi Filmmaker and Parent to Parent CEO on featherStrength and what it means to be a caregiver for a disabled loved one

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