Here's the news you've been waiting for ... announcing the full programme for NZIFF 2022, with the festival making its highly anticipated return to The Civic for the Opening Night Gala in Tāmaki Makaurau on Thursday 28 July.

 “We couldn’t be prouder of our 2022 programme – as well as having an outstanding collection of films from Aotearoa, our international selection is packed with award-winning, critically acclaimed films from all around the world. We look forward to presenting our programme to audiences around the country and we thank New Zealanders for their continued support of the festival,” says NZIFF General Manager Sally Woodfield.

“It feels particularly momentous to celebrate NZIFF’s return to Tāmaki Makaurau at the city’s iconic venue The Civic after a pandemic-inflicted hiatus, and we’re thrilled to be kicking off proceedings with the World Premiere of local filmmaker Tearepa Kahi’s much anticipated action-drama Muru.”

As previously announced, Muru will open Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin festivals, while Swedish director Ruben Östlund’s Palme d'Or-winning Triangle of Sadness will bookend the festival programme in all centres.

In total, 70 feature films and four short film collections will screen at NZIFF 2022 in Auckland at The Civic, ASB Waterfront Theatre, Hollywood Avondale and a special presentation at Stardome Planetarium.

Additional titles direct from Cannes Film Festival 2022 joining the line-up include Charlotte Wells’ directorial debut Aftersun, starring Normal People’s breakout star Paul Mescal, David Cronenberg’s sci-fi spellbinder Crimes of the Future, staring Viggo Mortensen, Léa Seydoux and Kristen Stewart, Queer Palm winner Joyland, a trans love story from first-time Pakistani director Saim Sadiq, and blacker-than-black Norwegian comedy Sick of Myself, directed by Kristoffer Borgli and from the producers of The Worst Person in the World.

 Award winners from this year’s Berlin Film Festival include Golden Bear winner Alcarràs, Carla Simón’s vibrant ensemble drama about a Catalonian peach-growing family facing eviction and Mexican-Bolivian filmmaker Natalia López Gallardo’s Silver Bear Jury winning Robe of Gems, a story of crime, class, and corruption in modern Mexico.

Joining the collection of New Zealand films will be documentary Gloriavale, a probing and poignant investigation behind closed doors of the Gloriavale Christian Community, and exclusively in Auckland for one-night only screenings, Shut Eye, the feature debut from Auckland writer-director Tom Levesque that centres on a disconnected young woman who becomes fixated on a local ASMR streamer; and New Zealand-USA co-production Ka Pō, a magical work that meditates deeply on the tragedy of methamphetamine addiction in Polynesian communities from Hawaiian director Etienne Aurelius and produced by Oscar-nominee Chelsea Winstanley (Ngati Ranginui, Ngāi te Rangi, Pākehā).

Other 2022 programme highlights include stop motion delight Marcel the Shell with Shoes On from our Square Eyes Collection, a collection curated especially for both the youngest cinephiles and those young at heart, and, from the other end of the spectrum, in the Incredibly Strange strand –  a collection that promises to burrow into your mind, haunt your waking moments and ward off any chance of a peaceful night’s sleep – comes vacation-from-hell thriller Speak No Evil from Danish director Christian Tafdrup and a double-dose of absurdism from French director Quentin Dupieux with his twisted mind-bender Incredible but True and wacky super hero parody Smoking Causes Coughing direct from Cannes.

Browse the full programme on the website and printed programmes will be available at festival venues in Auckland from Friday 8 July with tickets for Auckland sessions on sale from Thursday 14 July.