This year I’m looking forward to being immersed in the tales of sword wielding assassins and beautiful futurist robots and then taken on an intimate journey into the life of a bohemian art collector and the history of New Zealand cinema. But what has me the most excited is the Live Cinema event in Wellington, with the hugely talented Lawrence Arabia performing an original score to the 1928 film, Lonesome, at the Paramount – spectacular!
Films — by Collection
- Darren Bevan
- David Larsen
- Films for Teens
- James Croot
- Letterboxd
- Meet the Filmmakers: Auckland
- Meet the Filmmakers: Wellington
- Patricia Watson
- Rebecca McMillan
- Staff Picks: Angela Murphy
- Staff Picks: Bill Gosden
- Staff Picks: Cianna Canning
- Staff Picks: Felicity Drace
- Staff Picks: Hayden Ellis
- Staff Picks: Jenna Udy
- Staff Picks: Kailey Carruthers
- Staff Picks: Kate McArthur
- Staff Picks: Lisa Bomash
- Staff Picks: Lynn Smart
- Staff Picks: Megan Duffy
- Staff Picks: Michael McDonnell
- Staff Picks: Olivia Young
- Staff Picks: Poppy Granger
- Staff Picks: Rachael Deller-Pincott
- Staff Picks: Sandra Reid
- Staff Picks: Sibilla Paparatti
- Staff Picks: Tom Ainge-Roy
- The Lumière Reader
- Tim Wong
- Wellington Film Society's Picks of NZIFF 2015
Staff Picks: Megan Duffy
The Assassin
Nie Yinniang
Shu Qi plays the eponymous killer in this ravishingly beautiful foray into historical martial arts territory from Taiwanese master Hou Hsiao-hsien. Winner of the Best Director Award at Cannes.
The Brand New Testament
Le Tout nouveau testament
There’s the Old Testament, the New Testament and now this surreal and funny Brand New one in which God’s ten-year-old daughter leaves home on a mission to liberate humanity from the bored old man’s destructive whims.
Ex Machina
This intellectually teasing, near-future drama stars Domhnall Gleeson, with Oscar Isaac as a reclusive AI genius and an eerily bewitching Alicia Vikander as the android Ava, programmed to test the boundaries of creation.
The Forbidden Room
A demented mash up of lurid, long-lost movies that never existed, this new work from Canadian genius Guy Maddin plunges a starry art house cast into phantasmagorical scenarios of melodramatic weirdness.
From Scotland with Love
Archival film of Scottish life is shaped into a kaleidoscopic evocation of work and recreation in the 20th century, stirringly scored with original songs by Fife musician/singer/songwriter King Creosote.
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
Our chador-wearing heroine walks the night-time streets of Bad City sinking her teeth into those who deserve to die. Outrageously languid, this new-school vampire movie is a triumphant first feature for Ana Lily Amirpour.
Holding the Man
The memoir of a gay love affair that began at school when the author fell for the captain of the football team and ended in tragedy 15 years later is already a classic of Australian literature, and now an inspiring, heartbreaking film.
Our Little Sister
Umimachi Diary
Three sisters in their 20s get to know their teenage half-sister in this charming family drama, beautifully accentuated with flavours and sensations of its unmistakably Japanese setting. From the director of I Wish.
Out of the Mist: An Alternate History of New Zealand Cinema
Tim Wong’s elegantly assembled and illustrated film essay contemplates the prevailing image of our national cinema while privileging some of the images and image-makers displaced by the popular view of filmmaking in New Zealand.
Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict
Present-day art world stars pay tribute in a lavishly illustrated profile of the arts patron extraordinaire who transformed a modest fortune and adventurous taste into one of the premier collections of 20th-century art.
Tangerine
Shot on iPhone and looking fantastic, Sean Baker’s R-rated comedy storms the streets, doughnut shops, brothels and clubs of West Hollywood as two transgender BFFs hunt down the ‘bitch’ who did them wrong.
The Tribe
Plemya
This strange and original multi-award winner from Ukraine employs a deaf cast to enact its lacerating vision of teenage prostitution and gang war brutality in a Kiev boarding school.
Turbo Kid
In the post-apocalyptic future of 1997, Turbo Kid must face down an evil warlord and rescue the girl of his dreams. This retro sci-fi delight is packed with heart, humour and non-stop geysers of blood.
The Wolfpack
In this stranger-than-fiction doco, we meet six brothers who have spent their entire lives locked by their father into their Manhattan apartment – where they watch movies obsessively and film their own ingenious re-enactments.