Aotearoa New Zealand

Glorious highly imaginative animated images in myriad formats, selected with an eye to the giant screen, from the world’s best by NZIFF veteran/Melbourne International Animation Festival supremo Malcolm Turner.

Ten short films commissioned to bring visual artists’ work into cinemas in subversive and playful ways. International work from LUX; plus four NZ works curated by Mark Williams with support from Creative New Zealand.

Olympian and transatlantic rowing champion Rob Hamill travels with filmmaker Annie Goldson (Punitive Damage) to Cambodia seeking justice for his eldest brother Kerry, who was murdered by the Khmer Rouge regime in 1978.

Costa Botes’ portrait of New Zealand writer Michael Morrissey is indeed a tiger-ride – an up-close encounter with an extremely intelligent man in the grip of bipolar disorder.

Simon Ogston’s documentary is an affectionate tribute to both an unknown band worthy of rediscovery and to Christchurch's fertile punk underground that spawned them.

Shot on location inChristchurchin early 2009 with a cast of some of the city’s best known faces, Patrick Gilles’ comic urban fairytale is based on Australian co-scripter/lead actor Angus Benfield’s own experiences as a pastor.

From the haunting brutality of war and domestic violence to the depths of romantic and familial relationships, a smorgasbord of works from Aotearoa’s finest up-and-coming filmmakers selected and presented by MIC Toi Rerehiko.

Selecting from a wealth of submissions, MIC Toi Rerehiko presents an eclectic programme of digital shorts by New Zealanders, defying genre, experimenting with technique and storytelling, while evoking otherworldly experiences.

MIC Toi Rerehiko presents New Zealand’s finest new short films, all selected for key international festivals including Sundance, Berlin, Cannes, Tribeca, Melbourne, SXSW and the Puchon International Fantastic Film.

A beautiful new restoration of Leon Narbey’s dramatic tribute to the Chinese immigrants who came to Central Otago for gold in the 19th century. “Magical, dream-like… holds you there, mesmerised.” — NZ Listener

Florian Habicht (Kaikohe Demolition) returns from New York with a one-of-a-kind Love Story embracing doco, fiction, summer, sex, romance, New York and a host of camera-ready New Yorkers in one gregarious, greedy, joyous hug.

In tribute to the late Merata Mita, the New Zealand Film Archive presents a rare screening of her breathtaking documentary, fashioned from archival footage, detailing the construction of waka for the 1940 Waitangi centennial.

Painter and composer Michael Smither is a lucid and engaging commentator on his own work and life in the third of a series of short documentaries about him by filmmaker Tony Hiles.

Korean filmmaker Park Kiyong interviews a Christchurch Korean couple about their decade-long struggle to establish a successful CBD restaurant business – and the impact of the February 22 earthquake.

Set in a fictional backwater and filmed in the beautiful limestone hills of Waipara, north of Christchurch, Netherwood stirs a hefty dose of hardboiled Southern Man stoicism into a modern day Western thriller.

Archive-laden tribute to Chants R&B, a short-lived garage rock combo that thrived in 60s Christchurch.

Research and traditional lore are neatly interlaced in this film by ethnomusicologist Paul Wolffram, who spent two years recording the culture of the Lak people in the remote southern region of New Ireland, New Guinea.

In Amy O’Connor’s lively doco German New Zealander Helga Tiscenko talks about meeting Hitler and the privileges and subsequent travails of growing up the daughter of a loving father who was also a Nazi General.

Richard Riddiford's documentary takes us deep into the ambitions and disappointments of painter, erstwhile architect, reluctant market gardener and voluble non-conformist Rossano Fan.

This extended version of Geoffrey Cawthorn's Artsville doco provides a much fuller picture of internationally celebrated Wellington composer John Psathas in conversation and at work at home here and in his native Greece.