Films — by Collection

Staff Picks: Rosie Jones

This has been my first experience of NZIFF, after travelling over from the UK at the start of May to work here with the team. I have found both Wellington and NZIFF amazing places to be, bursting with creativity and a uniqueness that you won’t find anywhere else. Seeing the process from start to finish, watching the programme unfold has been astounding, and I feel very lucky to have been a part of it. My love of films has been amplified and this leads to the list below, filled with in my opinion both the unmissables that I have watched and the films that I must see!

Midnight Special

Jeff Nichols

Michael Shannon, Joel Edgerton, Adam Driver, Kirsten Dunst and newcomer Jaeden Lieberher star in this dazzling, genre-defying sci-fi/chase movie from the director of Mud and Take Shelter.

Neruda

Pablo Larraín

Not your conventional biopic, this enthralling dramatic exploration of the legacy of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda conjures up a fiction in which he is pursued into political exile by an incompetent detective played by Gael García Bernal.

Theeb

Naji Abu Nowar

Set in 1916, this suspenseful, historically freighted Jordanian film concerns a watchful young Bedouin obliged to guide a British officer through the spectacular desert of Wadi Rum. Best Foreign Language Oscar Nominee 2016.

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.