Charlie Chaplin’s 1921 heart-warming classic The Kid, preceded by his 1917 short The Immigrant, amps up the delights of our annual engagement with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra; and the rarely-screened Lonesome (1928) from Hungarian director Paul Fejos, boasts a World Premiere score by New Zealand's pop maestro Lawrence Arabia with cinematic jazz ensemble Carnivorous Plant Society.

Moving, funny and affectingly personal, The Kid was Charlie Chaplin’s first feature-length film. The already world-famous Little Tramp is accompanied by a smaller, spirited foil and dependent in the form of a newsboy-capped kid (Jackie Coogan). The blend of agile physical comedy and unabashed sentiment in his portrayal of Victorian London street life is still stirring to this day, never more so than when experienced with the gloriously symphonic score Chaplin composed for the film in 1981.

The Kid is preceded by The Immigrant, one of the last shorts Chaplin made before stepping up to feature-length films, and one of his most gob-smackingly inventive. The Little Tramp causes havoc on board a crowded ship from Europe; then on the mean streets of New York.

A long buried treasure from Hollywood’s golden age, Lonesome (1928) was only unearthed in the 1980s, a remarkable piece of cinema from the little-known but audaciously creative Hungarian émigré, Paul Fejos. A lavish New York City tale set amidst the mass mania of Coney Island during the Fourth of July holiday, Lonesome pulls out all the stops for a film of its era: colour tinting, superimpositions, experimental editing, and a roving camera, plus three dialogue scenes, belatedly added to satisfy the new craze for talkies. At the heart is a winning love story - making their way through the visual pandemonium are two shy and lonely young city folk falling in love.

New Zealand's pop maestro Lawrence Arabia will be joined by cinematic jazz ensemble Carnivorous Plant Society to perform a World Premiere score for Lonesome.

Tickets for our one-off screenings of The Kid and Lonesome are now on sale online and at the Civic box office.

The full Auckland programme will be announced on the evening of Monday 22 June, with tickets on sale from Friday 26 June. NZIFF screens in Auckland from 16 July to 2 August.