NZIFF 2018 Dunedin 9 Aug–26 Aug 2018

Films — by Collection

Staff Picks: Camila Araos-Elevancini

My favourite part of the film festival is being wowed by beautiful images while there’s a terrible storm outside. This selection is just a tiny portion of the films I think can be appreciated at their best in a cinema screen and will light up a rainy day with neon and nostalgic colours colours, animated illustrations and funky dance moves.

Happy As Lazzaro

Lazzaro felice

Alice Rohrwacher

Direct from Cannes where it shared the Best Screenplay award for its amazingly inventive script, Alice Rohrwacher’s seductive rural fable applies fairy-tale logic to explore the troubled soul of Italy.

Merata: How Mum Decolonised the Screen

Heperi Mita

Merata Mita, pioneering Māori filmmaker and international champion of women in indigenous film, is celebrated by her youngest son, archivist Heperi Mita, collaborating with his siblings to deliver a richly personal portrait.

Climax

Gaspar Noé

Direct from Cannes, the latest sensation from French cinema’s premier provocateur Gaspar Noé (Enter the Void) is his best yet, an exhilarating 1990s techno dance musical that spins out into collective freak-out.

Burning

Beoning

Lee Chang-dong

A love triangle and mystery based on a Murakami Haruki short story, Korean great Lee Chang-dong’s (Secret Sunshine,  Poetry) latest was the best-reviewed film at Cannes, an unforgettable now-or-never must-see on a giant screen.