Family Stories

Deception abounds in this nuanced portrait of lies and loss when a middle-aged woman discovers her recently deceased husband led another life in France, contradictory to the pious Muslim home they built together in England.

Subtle and slow-burning, this quietly perceptive rural drama elegantly exhibits the social barriers and economic polarities operating in contemporary Uruguay.

On the banks of the river Godavari, an embittered man’s frustrations threaten to boil over.

Debut director Panah Panahi’s stunning Iranian road movie wowed critics at Cannes with its rich emotional nuance and sly political critique.

Powerful performances and surgical craft anchor Robert Machoian’s slow-burning thriller, acutely observing the collapse of a family and the breakdown of its patriarch with mounting dread and carefully ratcheted suspense.

Caught between the inaction of local authorities and the senseless cruelty of the cartels, a Mexican mother takes matters into her own hands when her daughter is kidnapped in Teodora Ana Mihai’s fierce first feature.

A pregnant teen and her mother look to the women of their community for help in Cannes-selected abortion drama Lingui, the Sacred Bonds, set amidst the natural beauty and religious strictures of Chad.

Offering an intimate window into the migrant experience, director Samuel Kishi Leopo has shaped a tender and honest drama about displacement, family and hope, recalling aspects of his own childhood in an immigrant community.

This Maltese maritime drama combines fascinating cultural specifics, a captivating colour palette, and an affecting central performance with a perceptive examination of societal and economic change.

Brazilian-Algerian filmmaker, and NZIFF veteran, Karim Aïnouz invites us on his first ever journey to Algeria, the homeland of his estranged father, in this evocative diary film bending space and time.

Fran Kranz’s highly accomplished debut feature takes an unflinching look at the endemic horror of school shootings in America and their lingering scars, through the eyes of the parents of the perpetrator and his victim.

The life of British post-war photographer Maurice Broomfield is examined by his son, documentary veteran Nick Broomfield, whose own confrontational style lies at odds with his father’s steadfast pacifism.

After learning he only has months to live, a working-class father reckons with guilt and grief as he searches for a replacement family for his young son.

An ensemble cast under direction of filmmaker Aditya Vikram Sengupta pays poetic homage to modern day Kolkata, weaving tales both personal and epic in the triumphant Once Upon a Time in Calcutta.

An unflinching study of the impact of bipolar disorder on a French artist and his family. “Lafosse administers the tension like a seasoned anaesthetist who knows exactly what dose to deliver.” — Hollywood Reporter

A tonic for the nerves, Rosa’s Wedding is an uplifting and spirited ode to loving thyself, drenched in the dreamy seaside sunshine of the Costa del Azahar.

Offering an intimate look into organised crime in the Calabria region of Italy, To Chiara forgoes the shock-value of violence and drug addiction to consider the heartbreaking impact on family and culture.

The withering grip of the patriarchy pervades Kira Kovalenko's Cannes Un Certain Regard-winning tale of a young woman coming of age within a suffocating family in Russia’s desolate North Caucasus.

Borgen and Duke of Burgundy star Sidse Babett Knudsen is the imperious matriarch of a criminal empire in this fleet, brutal crime drama about bad luck and bad families from debut director Jeanette Nordahl.