Governing Visions of the Real traces the emergence, development, and techniques of Griersonian documentary - named for pioneering Scottish filmmaker John Grierson - in New Zealand throughout the first half of the twentieth century. Paying close attention to the productions of the National Film Unit in the 1940s and '50s, Lars Weckbecker follows the shifting practices and governmentality of documentary's "visions of the real" as New Zealand and its population - particularly workers and its indigenous population - came to be envisioned through NFU film for an ensemble of political, pedagogic, and propagandistic purposes.