USA

Curated by Malcolm Turner, animation programmer at NZIFF since 1988, and director of the Melbourne International Animation Festival.

Karen Gillan delivers two knockout performances in Riley Stearns’ hilarious, ultra-deadpan comedy about a woman and her nightmarishly perfect clone who must battle it out to be the last one standing.

An art-school-dropout drowning in student debt, Aubrey Plaza discovers she has a talent for credit card fraud in this gripping Sundance breakout from first-time writer/director John Patton Ford.

Discover the wild story of pioneering English photographer and great-uncle of cinema Eadweard Muybridge in this fascinating documentary that sifts legend from truth.

This stunning documentary portrait of French volcanologists Maurice and Katia Krafft is skilfully constructed from their amazing archival footage collected from numerous volcanic expeditions in the 1970s and 80s.

A documentary deep-dive into the life and legacy of legendary Canadian singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen told through the prism of his most anthemic and well-known song.

A family gathers to celebrate Thanksgiving in a rundown lower Manhattan apartment, Stephen Karam’s piercingly haunting adaptation of his own play explores the hidden dread beneath family bonds.

A young Hawaiian woman escapes an abusive relationship and discovers her roots in this wild Aotearoa-produced Indigenous adventure set in the rugged wilderness of Kauai, Hawaii.

An unconventional portrait of an unconventional author that not only chronicles the extraordinary life, work and legacy of Kurt Vonnegut but also his decades long friendship with the filmmaker who set out to document it.

Meet Marcel, a tiny talking shell, on a big-hearted big-screen stop-motion adventure, as tender and funny as it is insightful and poignant.

Tennis legend John McEnroe dishes on the highs and lows of his epic career and how his drive for perfection nearly broke him in this engaging doco packed with amazing archival footage and rare insight.

A young woman with dangerous powers escapes a mental asylum and lets loose on the seedy neon-lit streets of New Orleans in this mind-bending fantasy-adventure from the director of A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (NZIFF 2015).

This staggering, fly-on-the-wall portrait of the charismatic anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny, filmed in secret following an assassination attempt on his life, is one of the year’s most electrifying films.

Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman’s one-of-a-kind feature is an Afro-futurist science-fiction musical centred on a grieving coltan miner and an intersex hacker who find liberation through technology.

You’ll never look at diamonds the same way after seeing Jason Kohn’s stunning exposé of the true value of these precious gems and the secretive industry that sets their price.

Andrew Semans’ deliciously unhinged thriller stars Rebecca Hall as a single mom with a dark secret that threatens to overwhelm her cosy corporate lifestyle.

Director Chloe Okuno and lead actress Maika Monroe bring a fresh femme perspective to this heart-stopping 70s-style psychological thriller dripping with Hitchcockian voyeurism and rampant paranoia.