Heart of the High Country

Heart of the High Country saw New Zealand and the mother country getting into bed together, on and off screen. The rags/riches/rags tale chronicles 18 years for Ceci (Valerie Gogan), a working class Brit who arrives in the South Island and fends off a series of mean-tempered pioneer males — and one long unrequited love. The Sam Pillsbury-directed miniseries played in primetime on ITV in the United Kingdom, and was funded by England’s Central TV and TVNZ. It shares storytelling DNA with earlier TV movie It’s Lizzie to Those Close; Brit Elizabeth Gowans wrote the scripts for both.