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What do this year’s films from Aotearoa reveal? That our filmmakers are asking big questions, pushing into new territory, and telling stories with wit, courage and care. It is a line-up full of range and ambition, from gothic thrillers and offbeat comedies to powerful documentaries and deeply personal portraits.

Kicking things off is The Weed Eaters, a horror-comedy with bite. A mysterious strain of weed turns a group of stoner mates into reluctant cannibals, and things unravel fast. Shot on a shoestring and powered by pure creativity, it’s chaotic, clever and destined to gain cult status. NZIFF Artistic Director Paolo Bertolin calls it a “positively crazy finding”, and one of the “must-see thrills” of this year’s festival. 

If you prefer your chills with a slower burn, Went Up the Hill delivers in spades. Filmed in rural Canterbury and starring Dacre Montgomery (Stranger Things) and Vicky Krieps (Phantom Thread), this gothic psychodrama brings ghosts, grief and some genuinely unsettling twists. 

Workmates finds charm, heartbreak and humour in the wings of a crumbling Auckland theatre. Directed by Sophie Henderson and Curtis Vowell, this romantic dramedy draws on real-life experience to celebrate the chaos of creative work and the moments of magic that

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Since 2012, the Wairoa Māori Film Festival and Pollywood have been part of NZIFF, curating the annual Ngā Whanaunga Māori Pasifika short film programme. The name “Ngā Whanaunga" was gifted by Huia Kaporangi Koziol, who described it as meaning relatedness and connectedness between peoples. Māori are part of the great Pasifika whānau; our Polynesian peoples journeyed on the same waka from Hawaiiki, and are related by culture, language and blood and in wairuatanga (soulfulness) across our vast sea Moana-nui-a-kiwa. From the beginning, screening Māori works alongside Pasifika was symbolic of whānaungatanga and connectedness.

In 2025, we now evolve into Ngā Whanaunga: Aotearoa New Zealand’s Best, with the best of Māori and Pasifika filmmaking now alongside the best films made by everyone in Aotearoa. Wairoa Māori Film Festival founder Leo Koziol (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Rakaipaaka) and Pollywood Film Festival founder Craig Fasi (Niue) continue their role in short film programming, focusing their lens upon Ngā Whanaunga: Aotearoa New Zealand’s Best 2025 Indigenous talent in their role as co-curators. Artistic Director Paolo Bertolin, Programme Manager Michael McDonnell and programmers Carmen Gray and Huia Haupapa (Te Ātiawa,Ngāti Mutunga) round out the selection committee. Notes on each film are provided by the selection committee.

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On this fine Friday 13th, we’re shining the spotlight on our lineup of kooky, creepy, weirdly wonderful and out-of-the-box films, aka the nocturnal strand.

First up - you asked and we listened - David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds is coming to NZIFF 2025! Featuring Cronenberg’s affinity for the macabre, the film follows a recently bereaved app developer who creates GraveTech, a bizarre new technological frontier involving ‘shrouds’, which reproduce the body in the grave as a 3D model that mourners can watch decompose remotely via their smartphone.

Also among the lineup, OBEX blends horror, sci-fi, old-school gaming nostalgia and Lynchian dread into a heady and undefinable mix that will haunt your dreams. The story of a reclusive nerd who must enter a video game to fight a demon and rescue his dog, OBEX is a surreal analog nightmare for anyone who remembers a world before tv’s were flat.

Kiwi comedy-romance, Workmates, will have its world premiere at NZIFF 2025!

Directed by Curtis Vowell (Baby Done, The Outlaws, Seize Them!, Fantail) and written by Sophie Henderson (Baby Done, The Justice of Bunny King, Fantail), Workmates is a funny, heartfelt love story starring Sophie Henderson (Human Traces, Fantail) and Matt Whelan (Narcos, Go Girls) as Lucy and Tom - best friends, theatre-makers, and co-workers.

When an accident threatens to shut down the tiny, underfunded theatre they’ve built together,
Lucy realises she would do anything to save the theatre and keep her friend… who she might be in love with.

Grab your festival Multipass for best value tickets!

It’s official - Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or winner, It Was Just An Accident, is this year’s opening night film.

Filmed in secret in Iran, It Was Just An Accident is a road movie revenge thriller featuring biting black humour, borderline absurd happenings, and vividly shifting viewpoints from a van-load of ex-prisoners. At the same time, it looks at bigger questions around morality, justice, unhealed trauma and the impact of the Iranian regime.

And strikingly, there’s an air of the autobiographical for acclaimed director Jafar Panahi, once imprisoned himself and finally free from a filmmaking ban imposed by Iranian authorities. With It Was Just An Accident, Panahi tempers the anger with irony, and ultimately, he shows us that we can stay human only by seeking justice and truth rather than vengeance.

"Jafar Panahi's film is cinema at its boldest. It challenges the notion of revenge through compassion. It is the kind of cinema that stays with you. I am excited that New Zealand audiences will be among the first in the world to see it!" - Paolo Bertolin, NZIFF Artistic Director.