Festival Programme

Films by Title

A

Afire

Roter Himmel

Christian Petzold

Christian Petzold braids desire, artistic insecurity and the looming threat of climate change in his smouldering comedy of manners set over the course of a hot summer holiday on a Baltic coastline beset with forest fires.

Anatomy of a Fall

Anatomie d'une chute

Justine Triet

This year’s Palme d’Or winner launches our Festival with a profound and galvanising reflection on truth, facts and fiction, pivoting around another extraordinary central performance from Sandra Hüller—familiar to audiences for her work in Toni Erdmann (NZIFF 2016) and In the Aisles, among other terrific films.

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.

Kelly Fremon Craig

Judy Blume’s ground-breaking novel about puberty—and so much more—gets a heartfelt and poignant pitch-perfect adaptation that captures the essence of growing up, self-discovery, and the quest for identity.

B

Bad Behaviour

Alice Englert

This whimsical Sundance dark comedy charts the fraught relationship between a former child actress and her stunt performer daughter in a feature debut from Alice Englert.

Beyond Utopia

Madeleine Gavin

In this astonishing, edge-of-the-seat chronicle, the camera follows audacious, high-risk quests to escape from North Korea, and the man who plans them, with a rare intimacy and emotional power.

Blue Jean

Georgia Oakley

A closeted PE teacher living in Thatcher’s Britain strives to keep her work and private lives separate, but when a new pupil sees her on a night out, she must reckon with how she chooses to live her life as a queer woman.

Bread and Roses

Gaylene Preston

Preston*Laing’s film adaptation of activist Sonja Davies’ autobiography beautifully captures the heart-breaking social and societal conditions of mid-century women in New Zealand.

Building Bridges: Bill Youren's Vision of Peace

John Chrisstoffels

Farmer, family man, and—unlikely leftist organiser. Director John Chrisstoffels has compiled a gentle portrait of an ordinary New Zealand farmer capturing extraordinary changes in global twentieth century politics.

C

Carmen

Benjamin Millepied

Sensual and simmering with tension, Black Swan and Dune choreographer Benjamin Millepied’s debut feature reimagines classic opera Carmen for the modern era, a musical drama set in the hotbed of the America–Mexico border.

Close to Vermeer

Suzanne Raes

This behind-the-scenes documentary follows the curators at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam as they put together the largest Vermeer exhibition ever attempted and discover what makes a Vermeer, truly a Vermeer.

E

Ennio

Giuseppe Tornatore

Giuseppe Tornatore (Cinema Paradiso NZIFF 1990) pays tribute to legendary composer Ennio Morricone and his prolific career that spanned over seven decades and included the scores to more than 70 award-winning films.

EO

Hi-han

Jerzy Skolimowski

Strap in for an unforgettable, visionary trip, an Oscar-nominated journey that stunned Cannes with its cinematic flair. Your hosts? An octogenarian Polish auteur – and a donkey.

F

Fallen Leaves

Kuolleet lehdet

Aki Kaurismäki

We close this year’s festival with the most delightful film from Cannes. Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki returns with a deadpan romantic crowdpleaser about two lost souls on a bumpy road to finding each other.

H

How to Blow Up a Pipeline

Daniel Goldhaber

A tense eco-thriller from US director Daniel Goldhaber questions just how far its young activist protagonists are willing to go in order to confront their nation’s complicity in the climate crisis.

I

I Like Movies

Chandler Levack

Love-letters to cinema are a dime a dozen, but not many can lay claim to having the heart and humour of Chandler Levack’s nostalgic, charming debut.

K

Kidnapped

Rapito

Marco Bellocchio

Direct from Cannes this visually rich costume drama rips the jaw-dropping true story of the abduction of a young Jewish boy by the Catholic church from the pages of history.

L

La Chimera

Alice Rohrwacher

Set in 80s Tuscany Alice Rohrwacher’s enchanting new film stars The Crown’s Josh O’Connor as a lovelorn Englishman who teams with an eccentric gang of grave-robbers to plunder ancient Etruscan artefacts.

Last Summer

L'été dernier

Catherine Breillat

A dangerous romance ensues between a successful lawyer and her teenage stepson as Catherine Breillat returns for the first time in a decade having lost none of her propensity to transgress.

Little Richard: I Am Everything

Lisa Cortés

Revealing the black, queer origins of rock n’ roll and the complex genius of its conflicted originator, Little Richard, Lisa Cortés’ stirring documentary takes aim at the white-washed canon of popular music.

M

May December

Todd Haynes

Natalie Portman shadows Julianne Moore in Todd Haynes’ salaciously entertaining metafictional psychodrama about an actress researching for a role in a film about a tabloid sex scandal.

Merkel

Eva Weber

Utilising a treasure trove of archival material, Eva Weber’s documentary delivers an intimate portrait of the long-serving German chancellor who became the most powerful woman in the world.

Monster

Kaibutsu

Kore-eda Hirokazu

Straight from Cannes where its intricately composed script was deservedly awarded, Kore-eda Hirokazu’s latest is a deeply affecting and morally complex drama told from multiple perspectives.

Ms. Information

Gwen Isaac

As the nation plunges into pandemic, Gwen Isaac’s observational documentary delves into the trenches with Siouxsie Wiles, the fuchsia-haired microbiologist who emerged as a national hero and a satanic witch in the minds of a divided New Zealand.

N

The New Boy

Warwick Thornton

Set in 1940s Australia, an Aboriginal orphan arrives in the dead of night at a remote monastery run by a renegade nun (Cate Blanchett) in this spiritual thriller from Warwick Thornton.

O

Of an Age

Goran Stolevski

Goran Stolevski’s tender sophomore film is equal parts coming-of-age and coming-out story, as much a commentary on the pressures of masculinity and heteronormativity as it is a witty, sentimental romance set against the backdrop of turn-of-the-twentieth-century Melbourne.

P

Past Lives

Celine Song

Celine Song’s gorgeous, intensely bittersweet romance ruminates on the lives and loves of two childhood friends fleetingly reunited after decades apart – a remarkable debut feature that was the talk of Sundance.

Perfect Days

Wim Wenders

Wim Wenders hits the sweet spot with this deceptively simple character study chronicling the daily life of a Tokyo cleaner, which is emotionally resonant in its stunning attention to detail and filmic poetry.

R

Radical

Christopher Zalla

This rousing crowdpleaser starring Eugenio Derbez (CODA) as a Mexican teacher who thinks outside the box picked up the top Audience Award at this year’s Sundance film festival.

Reality

Tina Satter

Anchored by a remarkable performance from Sydney Sweeney, Reality reconstructs the interrogation and arrest of American whistleblower Reality Winner in real-time, to disturbing, pulse-pounding effect.

Riceboy Sleeps

Anthony Shim

A Korean single mother immigrates to Canada with her young son in the 1990s and must navigate the challenges of motherhood and adapting to a new world in this poignant award-winning coming of age drama.

Robot Dreams

Pablo Berger

A beautifully ambiguous story of friendship, love and loss. At times heart-warming, at others heart-wrenching, this wordless fable explores what happens when the closest of bonds are weathered away by time and circumstance.

S

Saint Omer

Alice Diop

Drawing on a tragic true event, this multi-awarded and mesmerising, stately courtroom drama upends notions of race, cultural heritage, class and female agency, and the mythologies and social prejudices underpinning received ideas.

Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams

Luca Guadagnino

There are shoemakers, and then there's Salvatore Ferragamo—whose glittering life is explored in this affectionate, glam-packed documentary film by award-winning Italian director Luca Guadagnino.

Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis)

Anton Corbijn

Anton Corbijn’s wildly entertaining doco profiles Hipgnosis, the designers behind the most iconic album covers in rock history for acts like Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and many more.

The Survival of Kindness

Rolf de Heer

Australian maverick Rolf de Heer’s new post-apocalyptic meditation reveals the full spectrum of humanity: from the shadows of discriminatory violence to sparks of redeeming kindness, all told through the journey of one lone traveller, “BlackWoman".

T

Theater Camp

Molly Gordon, Nick Lieberman

This rollicking mockumentary set at a scrappy theatre camp in upstate New York is an affectionate look at a ragtag troupe of eccentric misfits who just want to sing and dance.