Australia

NZIFF recommends this programme for children aged 9–12.

This year’s big-screen celebration of the latest and best animated shorts is a dazzler, including Don Hertzfeldt’s World of Tomorrow, winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Best Short Film at Sundance.

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.

The US occupation of Iraq and its violent legacy are recounted, sometimes in graphic detail, in the video diary of Australian journalist Michael Ware who found himself chosen to serve as al-Qaeda’s emissary to the West.

The tension between father and wilful son is only intensified when papa is the leader of a murderous cult. An intelligently controlled drama highlighted by standout performances from Vincent Cassel and newcomer Jeremy Chabriel.

Australian filmmaker Jennifer Peedom’s superb doco captures the 2014 climbing season on Everest from the point of view of Sherpa Phurba Tashi, including the tragic avalanche and its aftermath.

New Zealand-born Margot Nash scrutinises the memories and mementoes of her childhood to understand the unhappiness of her parents, and the corrosive instability of the household from which she fled as a young woman in the early 70s.

NZIFF recommends this programme for children aged 4–8.

Raised a child of ‘White Australia’, photographer and performer William Yang traces his genealogy as born-again Chinese in this charming documentary tribute to the sustaining power of family ties.

Gillian Armstrong’s doco celebrates the colourful Orry-Kelly, the Australian-born designer who dressed Bogart and Bergman in Casablanca, Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot and Bette Davis in many of her greatest roles.