Over 100 of the most engaging, perplexing, confronting and comforting movies of the year are coming to Aotearoa for this year's NZ International Film Festival.
General Manager Sally Woodfield talks Simon Morris through this year's lineup.
A still from the 2022 film War Pony Photo: NZ International Film Festival
We all watch plenty of streamed entertainment but there's nothing better than seeing a really good film on the big screen, Sally says.
"When you're watching at home you're often distracted by other things, you're often looking up the actors or the films or getting the filmography on your phone... When you're in a cinema, you can't stop and do that."
Unfiltered reality is a central theme of this year's festival lineup, she says.
"These are real stories. These are real lives. These are real experiences that we're seeing up on the screen."
Sally's festival team think Kiwi audiences will love the opening night film - the English-French drama Anatomy Of A Fall, which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes this year.
A still from the English-French drama film Anatomy Of A Fall Photo: NZ International Film Festival
Other Cannes winners include the international horror film Tiger Stripes (which run won the Critics' Week Grand Prize) and the British coming-of-age story How To Have Sex (which won the Prize of Un Certain Regard).
Also screening are two Berlin Film Festival winners - the French documentary On the Adamant picked up the Golden Bear and the German comedy Afire won the Silver Bear.
Wes Anderson's star-studded new sci-fi film Asteroid City is one that Sally saw at the Sydney Film Festival recently.
"It's so classic Wes Anderson with those very vibrant colours. You look at it and you go 'this is madness'. And there really is madness in the little in-jokes ... It is kind of like star after star after star."
Jason Schwartzman and Bill Murray in the Wes Anderson film Asteroid City Photo: NZ Film Festival
Other American films in the festival are Todd Haynes' dark comedy May December (starring Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore) and Riley Keough's War Pony, set on an Indian reservation in South Dakota.
Sally absolutely loves the Canadian-Korean coming-of-age film Riceboy Sleeps.
"It's a totally unknown cast because [director Anthony Shim] needed people who were Canadian and spoke fluent Korean. It's a brilliant film that talks to the diaspora and the idea of holding on to your culture when you're living outside of it.
The American-Korean film Past Lives is also a poignant exploration of culture with a "sort of Richard Linklater Before Sunrise type feel to it". It's the debut feature film for director Celine Song, who is visiting Aotearoa for the festival.
A still from the 2023 film Past Lives Photo: NZ International Film Festival
Danish documentarian Christoffer Guldbrandse will also be in attendance, to present his documentary A Storm Foretold - an exploration of Donald Trump’s notorious political fixer Roger Stone - is another film Sally caught at the recent Sydney Film Festival.
"Guldbrandsen had the most incredible behind-the-scenes access the last two years of the Trump's presidency leading up to Capitol Hill, which is a storm that they were foretelling all the way through the film as well ... He's such a great guy. He's a journalist. He's so knowledgeable, and he's been following the story for a long time ... It's captivating, completely captivating."
In the biographical documentary Merkel, Eva Weber delivers an intimate portrait of the long-serving German chancellor Angela Merkel, who Sally loves.
This year's festival features a diverse range of local films, including the dark comedy Bad Behavior (the debut film from Alice Englert), Michael Duignan's fantasy comedy Paragon, and Gwen Issac's documentary Ms Information about fuchsia-haired microbiologist Siouxsie Wiles.
Sally is also looking excited to share the new documentary about the legendary '90s Dunedin band King Loser.
Related:
How to live your best life at the NZ International Film Festival
