Films by Collection

Staff Picks: Nic Marshall

We’re continually spoilt for choice with the scope of NZIFF offerings – it can take quite some time to digest the full array and whittle down an over-long personal must-see list to essential viewing. There are just so many terrific films – and only so many viewing hours a day. As the FOR ALL AGES programmer, it would be extremely remiss of me not to champion attendance at all of our FOR ALL AGES screenings – I’m so jazzed to see these films (The Eagle Huntress, Long Way North, The Idol, Animation For Kids and Girls' POV: NYICFF Retrospective) on our brilliant New Zealand screens. I’m also eagerly anticipating the following films.

After the Storm

Umi yori mo mada fukaku

Kore-eda Hirokazu

A formerly successful novelist tries to reconnect with his ex-wife and young son in this affectionate, shrewdly observed drama of family life from Japan’s unassuming master, Kore-eda Hirokazu (Our Little Sister).

I, Daniel Blake

Ken Loach

This often funny and ultimately intensely moving tale of the friendship between an out-of-work Newcastle carpenter and a young single mother won for Britain’s Ken Loach a second Palme d’Or for Best Film at Cannes this year.

Life, Animated

Roger Ross Williams

This incredibly moving and fascinating doco takes us into the interior life of autistic Owen Suskind, and explores how his love of Disney animated features gave him the tools as a child to communicate with the world.

Poi E: The Story of Our Song

Tearepa Kahi

NZIFF 2016 opens with the World Premiere screenings of the Kiwi feel-good movie of the year: Tearepa Kahi’s richly researched celebration of Dalvanius Prime and the many rivers that flowed into the making of ‘Poi E’.

A Quiet Passion

Terence Davies

Cynthia Nixon, Jennifer Ehle and Keith Carradine star in Terence Davies’ lively, witty and ultimately intensely moving dramatisation of the sheltered life of 19th-century New England poet Emily Dickinson.

The First, the Last

Les premiers, les derniers

Bouli Lanners

Two bounty hunters searching the flatlands of Western Europe for a stolen cellphone cross paths with two lovers on the run from the end of the world in this deadpan delight from Belgian actor/director Bouli Lanners.

The Red Turtle

La Tortue rouge

Michael Dudok de Wit

Studio Ghibli’s first international co-production is a ravishing castaway fable that combines beauty, mystery, drama and heartbreak – with not a word spoken. It’s a triumph for animator Michael Dudok de Wit.

The Rehearsal

Alison Maclean

In Alison Maclean’s vibrant screen adaptation of Eleanor Catton’s debut novel, a first-year acting student (James Rolleston) channels the real-life experience of his girlfriend’s family into art and sets off a moral minefield.

Weiner

Josh Kriegman, Elyse Steinberg

An amazingly up-close and personal view inside the New York mayoral campaign that became a media frenzy when the charismatic candidate with the excruciatingly appropriate name couldn’t keep himself from sexting.