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A very strong selection of New Zealand films feature in Australasia's largest documentary film festival, the Documentary Edge Festival 2012 commencing this April.

Perhaps the biggest local film at this year's festival is also New Zealand’s first 3D documentary. Yakel 3D, by Rachael Wilson and shot by Emmy-Award winning cameraman Michael Single, explores the beauty of Yakel – a remote village in Vanuatu and one of the last primitive cultures left in today's society. As the chief of the tribe readies himself his last days in the mortal world, he worries what will happen to his people when he is no longer there to guide them. Can his culture stay strong? Or will his people be tempted by greater riches and leave behind their tribal lives? Yakel 3D is three years in the making and the Documentary Edge Festival is proud to premiere NZ's first 3D film as part of this year's season.

Grant Lahood (Kombi Nation, Chicken and Arc which features dance legend Douglas Wright) premieres his latest documentary. Intersexion follows NZ's first “out” intersex person, Mani Bruce Mitchell, as he/she travels to meet other intersex people living in America, Ireland, Germany, South Africa and Australia. The film shows human sexual development is never straight-forward, from the statistics that 1 baby in 2,000 is born with ambiguous genitalia to the idea of doctors intervening early to “determine” a boy from a girl. This is a heart-warming story told with a mixture of laughter and tears in a frank and revealing way.

Ex-cop Wayne Stringer is New Zealand's Nazi Hunter, having investigated 47 “displaced persons” who originally came to New Zealand at the end of WWII. As Stringer travels to the Baltic States to link up with other investigators and gain access to war records, the documentary asks if New Zealand has become more or less a safe place for modern era war criminals looking for a safe haven.

Nine months in the making, Disappear in Light charts the acclaimed Wellington odyssey playwright/performer Jo Randerson realizing her largest scale work to date. Where the show is a black comedy about death, and what it is to engage with life, Disappear in Light seems at times a Kaufman-esque tale as Randerson immerses herself in the competitive world of funding, putting a team of creatives together and the long journey to opening night – all of which undertaken with a “take no prisoners” approach as she tries not to compromise her new work's integrity.

An intensely personal story about a man who’s life and music are split between his Greek and New Zealand identities, View from Olympus follows celebrated composer John Psathas; who in his career has not only been commissioned to compose the opening and closing ceremonies of the Athens Olympics in 2004 but has drawn extraordinary international acclaim as a composer to watch. Psathas finds himself at an emotional crossroad with his own young family established in New Zealand and his aging parents in Greece.

• The Documentary Edge Festival runs from the 26th April - 13th May in Auckland and 17th May - 3rd June in Wellington.

100 year old Chief 3D documentary Official 2D trailer from Dune Buggy on Vimeo.