Films — by Collection

Staff Picks: Rachael Deller-Pincott

I love winter festivals, especially when it involves dark rooms and movies. What I’m not so good at is narrowing a list that has already been narrowed, and then narrowed again. Given my predicament I created a special mention for those that didn’t make it to the top 12, I feel quite unsettled leaving them out, here goes; Amy, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, Western, Landfill Harmonic, Experimenter, The Wolfpack, all the NZ feature films, Sherpa and Abandoned Goods. But really if you don’t have to go to work for 2 weeks and see more then you definitely should.

New Zealand’s Best 2015

Check out the year’s best New Zealand short films as chosen by guest selector Christine Jeffs, from a shortlist drawn up by NZIFF programmers from a total of 75 entries.

Mavis!

Jessica Edwards

The life, music and passionate commitment of the irresistible Mavis Staples are lovingly chronicled in this spirited doco – with help from fans Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt, Chuck D, Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy and Prince.

The Lobster

Yorgos Lanthimos

Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos (Dogtooth) casts Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, John C. Reilly and Léa Seydoux in a surreal English-language fable set in a world where singles are forced to couple up or be turned into animals.

Tale of Tales

Il racconto dei racconti

Matteo Garrone

Drawing on the rich and lurid vein of Neapolitan fairy tales, Matteo Garrone’s lavish, eye-popping fantasy thrusts a stellar international cast into its wildly baroque world of kings, queens, hags and monsters.

The Assassin

Nie Yinniang

Hou Hsiao-hsien

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.

Mia madre

Nanni Moretti

In Nanni Moretti’s mix of wry comedy and sombre family drama, a woman strives to balance life and art as her mother’s health fails – and the actor in the film she’s directing (John Turturro) proves to be a handful.

Ex Machina

Alex Garland

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.