NZIFF 2015 Nelson 5 Aug–26 Aug 2015

Films — by Collection

Tim Wong

Usually I'm hard at work writing about the film festival for The Lumière Reader. This year, I thought I'd jump the fence and actually make a film of my own. When I'm not losing sleep over that, I'll be giving special attention to Asian cinema, Hollywood musicals and silent era oddities, movies about the teenage experience, secret and/or forgotten film histories, and unknown pleasures from places as faraway as Guatemala.

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.

Kiss Me Kate 3D

George Sidney

Cole Porter’s irreverent take on The Taming of the Shrew is one of the most pleasurable (and fabulously danced) MGM musicals of the 50s – and the only one produced in 3D. With Ann Miller, Howard Keel and Bob Fosse.

The Look of Silence

Senyap

Joshua Oppenheimer

Joshua Oppenheimer follows his extraordinary The Act of Killing with an equally revelatory documentary in which boastful perpetrators of Indonesia’s 1965 massacres are confronted by the brother of one of their victims.

Our Little Sister

Umimachi Diary

Kore-eda Hirokazu

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.