On Tuesday 24 April we gathered at NZIFF partner venue, Roxy Cinema, in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington to celebrate the arrival of 2024 Artistic Director Paolo Bertolin, who selected Paola Cortellesi's There's Still Tomorrow for a very special screening, attended by film industry moguls, patrons, sponsors, NZIFF staff and friends of the festival. 

Paolo personally introduced the film and greeted our guests beginning with a pēpeha, before going on to say: 

“I am truly humbled and grateful to be given the opportunity of working here as Artistic Director at Whānau Mārama. As a budding film buff in my teens, my cinematic upbringing was profoundly influenced by the emergence of great Antipodean filmmakers like Jane Campion and Peter Jackson in the late Eighties and early Nineties. It feels so serendipitous that after working for several years at the Venice International Film Festival, where Campion and Jackson won acclaim and awards respectively with An Angel at My Table and Heavenly Creatures, I am now in New Zealand to bring the best of international cinema to Aotearoa audiences. At the same time, I feel that this is an exciting moment to showcase and give prominence to NZ content, as a new generation of filmmakers is emerging and deserves to be supported in finding audiences both at home and abroad. I feel that the mission of the festival is to be an organic part of the ecosystem of NZ cinema, providing a space of conversation and connection for local filmmakers, producers, distributors and audiences.” 

There’s Still Tomorrow is set in Rome in 1946, where Cortellesi plays Delia, a woman who cares for everybody: her children, her ailing father-in-law and her rough, violent husband. Somehow, she continues to dream and remain upbeat while working multiple jobs and fulfilling everyone’s expectations but her own. In post-war Italy, Delia senses that change is in the air, and she decides to seize the day not only for herself, but for her daughter’s future. 

Paolo also said: “In this perspective, on the occasion of my first official outing to our partners and industry members in the role of NZIFF Artistic Director, I decided to introduce a film from my home country providing the extraordinary example of a film that manages to be hugely popular but at the same time delivers a powerful statement on gender politics. Italian comedy actress Paola Cortellesi’s directorial debut, There’s Still Tomorrow not only managed to become the most successful Italian film directed by a woman ever, but it also managed to create a society-wide debate on unresolved issues connected to women rights and gender violence. Wisely and bravely adopting the tropes of Italian popular cinema of the 1940s and 1950s, including a neat B&W cinematography, Cortellesi told a story from the past, set at the time when Italian women had their first chance to cast votes in election, that aptly speaks to the present, in surprising and touching ways.  

I really hope that, together with the enthusiastic and passionate team of NZIFF, we will be able to bring to our festival audiences more and more of this kind of films, capable to keep them entertained while providing food for thoughts and conversations.” 

Thank you to our friends at Cinema Italiano Festival and Limelight Distribution for the opportunity to screen this film, thank you to Roxy Cinema for being wonderful hosts, and thank you to our lovely sponsors, who helped to cater the event, such as Behemoth Brewery, Spy Valley Wine and Karma Drinks. Everyone involved helped to give our new Artistic Director a proper welcome. 

Watch the trailer here.

Stay tuned for further announcements regarding NZIFF 2024 over the coming months ahead of the festival’s launch in July.