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Kia ora koutou, ko Paolo toku ingoa. Hello, everyone. I'm Paolo Bertolin, the Artistic Director of Whānau Mārama: New Zealand International Film Festival, and I'm very glad to be here to give you a small introduction to the 2024 programme.  

We are very excited to share the films that we have selected this year. It's been a great opportunity for us to bring to New Zealand the best of international cinema, but also to give a spotlight on the great, new productions of domestic cinema. In that sense, we decided to open the festival with two, domestic Aotearoa films. 

One is We Were Dangerous, which will be the opening films in Wellington, Auckland and all the other centres, but Christchurch and the other one is Head South, which is opening the Christchurch Festival. These are two beautiful and very inspiring films that are representative of the surge of new exciting cinema in New Zealand. We thought it was important for us to stress the presence of new directors and beautiful stories out of the country at the festival to give them a big launch and to give them the maximum support that we can offer.  

At the same time, we are also obviously presenting the best of international cinema, including the most exciting films out of Cannes and the closing this year is representative of that intention from our side. And we are screening as the closing film The Substance, by Coralie Forgeat starring Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley, a film that is somehow an unusual closing film because it's a thrilling, scary and exciting ride that will keep you on the edge of your seat for more than two hours. We are very curious to see how it will end up with the audiences at the closing night.