Aotearoa New Zealand

The extraordinary true story of a Kiwi couple – journalist Helen Smyth and Tim Rose, of Havana Coffee Works – who went to Cuba and accidentally befriended one of Fidel Castro's top spies.

Art, fun, folly, fairytales and folkstories: A fine collection of outstanding animation, tested by our most demanding audience, aged between four and seven.

Drawn from a record 2,200 submissions, this diverse selection of 15 short animations from France, South Africa, Taiwan and beyond showcases an incredible swirl of styles, techniques and genres.

Wellington architect Bill Toomath talks about his life and architecture in the context of a new room he has added to his house that's based on a famous Renaissance painting.

Alister Barry's new film documents the 11-year war that raged between teachers and the New Right after Tomorrow's Schools shifted education towards a market economy model.

Director Shirley Horrocks explores the highly creative and under-rated New Zealand subculture of comics and graphic novels, revealing its rich local history and international following.

Local doco-maker Jess Feast tells the fascinating, vibrant story of über-cool Berlin burlesque bar White Trash Fast Food and the diehard communist neighbour who tried to shut it down.

Local Oscar nominee Taika Waititi's debut feature is a deliciously tangy, deadpan love story between two incurable fancy dress and gaming geeks, Lily (Loren Horsley) and Jarrod (Jemaine Clement).

A fitting documentary eulogy to one of New Zealand's most underrated Modernist artists, Edith Collier (1885-1964), whose talent was sadly crushed by unsympathetic Victorian tastes.

This selection of short films to mark the 20th anniversary of the Wellington Fringe Festival includes early work by Robert Sarkies, Glenn Standring, Greg Page, Sima Urale and Jonathan Brough.

Eight Wellington 20-somethings are locked in an agonising merry-go-round of unexpressed lust and longing in Alexander Greenhough and Elric Kane's winning new feature.

Lala Rolls (Children of the Migration) directs this gentle, moving doco-portrait of Maori artist Darcy Nicholas, whose work is held in public collections in New Zealand, Britain and Germany.

Incomplete documentary about the late, great historian Michael King, who talks candidly in this film about milestones in his professional life.

Local director Glenn Standring's second feature is a sci-fi horror set in a retro-futuristic New Zealand where humans coexist with a race of intellectual vampires called The Brotherhood.

Director Shirley Horrocks tracked landscape painter, photographer and Arts Foundation Laureate John Reynolds from the Sydney Biennale to Otago and the Kaipara for this intimate portrait.

Indulge your nostalgia with a stunning restoration of the three-screen film made for Expo 70, along with a lighthearted doco on the event and a swinging pop tourist film from 1970.

Using sound, image and text, these four ingenious live film explorations from Australia, New Zealand and the US redefine the frontiers of cinematic possibility. Presented at the majestic St James Theatre.