A new film festival program is coming to a coffee table near you, featuring 129 films that all sound great to write. Here are 10 to consider.
Whānau Mārama: New Zealand’s International Film Festival is back, and with it comes a kaleidoscope of exciting international cinema. This year, the 54th festival kicks off in Auckland, opening with Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winner. Anatomy of the Fall on the 19th of July. The next two months will see the festival tour Aotearoa visiting 16 villages and towns.
After a difficult few years, which included the disruption of Covid-19, the death of former director Bill Gosden and the resignation of Marten Rabarts after just two years in the lead, Whānau Mārama: New Zealand International Film Festival is back to normal. feature, running over three weekends in all major locations.
From melancholic love stories to heartwarming and captivating comedies, there is something for everyone in this year’s packed program of 129 films. To help you decide which ones are worth checking out, I’ve scoured them cover to cover to bring you my top 10 favorites.
Fallen Leaves
Director: Aki Kaurismaki
After a short break, Finland’s most famous filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki returns to cinema with Fallen Leaves, a fascinating comedy about two lost people. Awarded the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, the film sees lonely shopkeeper Ansa meet lonely, drunken security guard Holappa – their love blossoms and stumbles, evoking a rare drama that can entertain. Kaurismäki is often preoccupied with the oppressed or alienated from society, he combines the beauty of human nature with the tools of magic, showing a surprisingly singular and unconventional approach to filmmaking. AAt 81 minutes, Falling Leaves promises to be a crowd pleaser that will keep you entertained even when it’s freezing cold in Helsinki.
Old Life
Director: Celine Song
Playwright Celine Song makes her film debut with Old Life, a heartbreakingly beautiful story of childhood sweethearts reuniting years later. The video, which was already known as “The Best of 2023” by others, has a lot of interest – TikTok features appeared of fans who filmed themselves before and after. Old Life. Tears abound as Nora and Hae Sung, classmates attracted to each other but separated, reenter each other’s lives. Awakening “Mu Yun”, the Korean concept of destiny and predestination, a decades-old romance is reshaping the American film scene. Think about it Before Sunrise or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, written from the experience of a Korean immigrant to America who asked, “What if I lived there?”
The New Boy
Director: Warwick Thornton
Since its first appearance in 2009 Samson and Delilah, Thornton has been recognized as one of Australia’s leading filmmakers. his first film in six years, New Baby, sees Kaytetye’s director tell the story of religious colonialism in 1940s rural Australia – a young Aboriginal boy arrives at a monastery run by a rebel nun at night. Mvirigo, played by Cate Blanchett, is the first time two Australian film stars have worked together. While Blanchett has the lead role, the amazing Aswan Reid, in his first role, steals the show as a young man with magical healing powers. Inspired by Thornton’s experiences at a boarding school and his rejection of Christianity, The New Boy It is set to be a reflective vision of the challenges that characterize the Australian experience.
Bread and Roses
Director: Gaylene Preston
To mark 100 years of women’s rights in Aotearoa, Gaylene Preston directed the three-hour epic. Bread and Roses, a stunning tribute to activist Sonja Davies. It was released in 1993 in television format and as a film, Bread and Roses is a famous film that stands alongside Jane Campion Angel On My TablePeter Jacksons Heavenly Creatures and Lee Tamahori Once We Were Soldiers as shining examples of Aotearoa cinema from the 90s. He was also commemorated ahead of the 30th anniversary of Whānau Mārama: the New Zealand International Film Festival, Bread and Roses it was described by Bill Gosden as “a well-developed, sophisticated and well-known work” on its first release. Now recalled, the film and Davies are poised to shine a light on and capture the attention of the next generation of filmmakers, activists, activists and viewers.
Mother Information
Director: Gwen Isaac
For many, including myself, scientist Siouxsie Wiles and her pink hair were a comforting presence and constant source of information during the Covid-19 era. Her leadership during the pandemic, despite being targeted by various conspiratorial groups, Wiles, in this story, openly asks “what is the world’s problem with women like me?” Writing about Wiles’ career and life during the first two years of Covid-19, Mother Information it seems like a light clock at a very important time in Aotearoa’s history.
Loop Track
Director: Tom Sainsbury
If you know the who’s who of Aotearoa television and film, you’ll know Tom Sainsbury. He gained national fame in 2017 as the “Snapchat Dude” and has been performing regularly. Wellington Paranormal. Now Sainsbury’s and Chillbox Creative, who regularly work with the 48Hours video competition, are behind it. Loop Track, a low-budget horror comedy set in the remote bush of Aotearoa. As the director, writer, producer and star of the film, Sainsbury describes its origin as coming from a single image: “someone in the bush walking and seeing a man in the distance. He can’t quite make out what he’s looking at, but the presence of this man is ominous.” Independent as a person. An anxious boy named Ian, terrified of another nervous breakdown, Sainsbury’s latest project is both scary and fun.
How to Sleep
Director: Molly Manning Walker
If there was one film from the Cannes Film Festival that my Twitter timeline couldn’t shut down, it was Molly Manning Walker’s appearance. How to Sleep. Videos of the British director went viral as he paid late for an awards ceremony, leaving the city without expecting to win anything. To thunderous applause and cheers, Walker ran down the hall and onto the stage to collect the Un Certain Regard award, the festival’s top award.
Set on the party island of Malia in Crete, three British girls go on their first unaccompanied holiday abroad, trying to forget about the exams they just took. Tara and Sky aren’t virgins, but Em hopes the trip leads to more than a platonic encounter; he is about to have sex. The neon-drenched beauty and limitless displays of hedonism and holiday drunkenness beg for comparison. Spring breakers, but How to Sleep he has a different heart. It’s this unflinching look at the anxieties surrounding women’s sexual desire that makes this game so important.
How to Blow a Pipe
Director: Daniel Goldhaber
The explosive thriller was inspired by Andreas Malm’s 2021 book of the same name, which says climate activists and “non-violent commitment” should be abandoned. Protests, petitions and sharing of Instagram infographics have not changed anything; the agency to save our dying country is leaving. In How to Blow a Pipea dramatic change of pace from Goldhaber’s earlier work CamA group of young protesters plans to detonate a bomb in West Texas.
The content of the film has alerted many people from North America, where the FBI sent a statement saying that. How to Blow a Pipe they have “the ability to encourage people who are threatening to look for oil and gas facilities with explosives or other destructive devices.” This video does not provide guidance on how to do things like this; instead, it serves as a shrill battle cry for a generation of environmentalists outraged by the visible movement of change. Mix in the fun elements of heist movies like Ocean’s Eleven, Rescue Dogs, A thief and The riff is You now have instant classics.
Orlando, My Political History
Director: Paul B. Preciado
Cinema that tells diverse stories about trans and non-binary people often focuses on tragedy. Paul B. Preciado’s reinterpretation of Virginia Woolf’s novel Orlando: A Biography, however, is an interesting and imaginative tale for those who do not agree with the way people think about gender. Preciado organizes the play and brings together 26 contemporary trans and non-binary people, ranging in age from 8 to 70, who have a part in Orlando. By blurring the lines between reality and fiction, the play subverts the myth of gender, Woolf’s own powerful speech saying, “Look! Here we are!”
Last night is the Devil
Directors: Colin Cairnes, Cameron Cairnes
Every year Ant Timpson and his sidebar “Incredibly Strange” promise the joy of movie attractions. This year is no different, it is Last night is the Devil being a stand-in for those who love spiritual instability. The latest experiments by Colin and Cameron Cairnes of Australia breathe new life into the dangers found. A love letter to 1970s horror shows and movies, Last night is the Devil they see television broadcasting go horribly wrong as they spew ugliness into America’s living rooms. Returning to the fear of Satan, this horror features the chameleonic David Dastmalchian playing a Merv Griffin version of the talk show host. Struggling to get more viewers, on Halloween 1997, he decided to do a special hair-raising show calling a psychic, a skeptic, and a girl who might be possessed by the devil. The tapes of what happened were lost… until now.
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