From Field to Front

From Field to Front, a New Zealand documentary directed by Jude Dobson, begins with a figure who belongs both to rugby history and to the history of the First World War. Dave Gallaher, born in Ireland and raised in New Zealand, captained the “Originals”, the team whose 1905-06 tour helped shape the All Blacks' international identity. The story is presented by Sean Fitzpatrick, himself a celebrated former captain of the New Zealand national team.

The film builds its journey around a tangible gesture: an exchange of soil between Eden Park, New Zealand's national stadium, and several places that marked Gallaher's life. With the blessing of Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, the route reaches Ramelton in County Donegal, Ireland, where Gallaher was born in 1873; Paris, connected with the Originals' visit to France; and Belgium, where the player and soldier died in 1917 during the First World War. The gesture links distant geographies without separating the sporting figure from the person and his time.

Sporting records show that the Originals won 34 of the 35 matches on their landmark tour. From Field to Front brings that chapter of history back to the scale of one life: photographs, documents, letters, family objects, stadiums and memorials accompany encounters across the journey. Archival material is placed in conversation with present-day landscapes, while hands, headstones and containers of soil recur as visual elements that make the passage of memory from one community to another visible.

Former All Black Andrew Mehrtens also contributes alongside Fitzpatrick, while Eden Park records the participation of Sir Jerry Mateparae and the documentary's association with Auckland RSA. The film reached New Zealand audiences on TVNZ 1 and TVNZ+ on 25 April 2026, Anzac Day. Its candidacy for the 2026 International Sport Film Festival therefore brings to Castellammare di Stabia a story in which sport, migration and historical memory meet through places, testimony and shared rituals.