Festival Programme

Films by Language

English

Anatomy of a Fall

Anatomie d'une chute

Justine Triet

This year’s Palme d’Or winner launches our Festival with a profound and galvanising reflection on truth, facts and fiction, pivoting around another extraordinary central performance from Sandra Hüller—familiar to audiences for her work in Toni Erdmann (NZIFF 2016) and In the Aisles, among other terrific films.

Animation for Kids 4+

We’ve searched near and far, and high and low to collect this latest selection of short film delights, selected especially to charm and captivate our littlest film fans.

Recommended for ages 4+

Animation for Kids 8+

Get ready for your annual wintery fix of animated inventiveness from all corners of our big wide world.

Anselm 3D

Wim Wenders

Wim Wenders takes us on an immersive 3D journey in this architectural exploration of the life and works of one of Germany’s most important post-war artists, Anselm Keifer.

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.

Kelly Fremon Craig

Judy Blume’s ground-breaking novel about puberty—and so much more—gets a heartfelt and poignant pitch-perfect adaptation that captures the essence of growing up, self-discovery, and the quest for identity.

Asteroid City

Wes Anderson

Wes Anderson goes sci fi in his latest colourful concoction, screening first at the Festival as a jaw-dropping A-list cast converge on the small desert town of Asteroid City for a space convention.

Bad Behaviour

Alice Englert

This whimsical Sundance dark comedy charts the fraught relationship between a former child actress and her stunt performer daughter in a feature debut from Alice Englert.

Beyond Utopia

Madeleine Gavin

In this astonishing, edge-of-the-seat chronicle, the camera follows audacious, high-risk quests to escape from North Korea, and the man who plans them, with a rare intimacy and emotional power.

Billion Dollar Heist

Daniel Gordon

A deep-dive into the audacious attempt by a trans-global criminal organisation to steal a billion dollars from the Bangladesh Central Bank, highlighting the vulnerability of even the world’s biggest corporations in cyberspace.

Blue Jean

Georgia Oakley

A closeted PE teacher living in Thatcher’s Britain strives to keep her work and private lives separate, but when a new pupil sees her on a night out, she must reckon with how she chooses to live her life as a queer woman.

Bobi Wine: The People’s President

Christopher Sharp, Moses Bwayo

An extraordinary story of a Ugandan pop-star politician who risks everything to take on a brutal autocrat, told with a rare and potent intimacy.

Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power

Nina Menkes

An eye-opening work which may change the way you look at movies, Nina Menkes’ documentary essay uses footage from hundreds of films to deconstruct and re-examine the male gaze in cinema.

Bread and Roses

Gaylene Preston

Preston*Laing’s film adaptation of activist Sonja Davies’ autobiography beautifully captures the heart-breaking social and societal conditions of mid-century women in New Zealand.

Building Bridges: Bill Youren's Vision of Peace

John Chrisstoffels

Farmer, family man, and—unlikely leftist organiser. Director John Chrisstoffels has compiled a gentle portrait of an ordinary New Zealand farmer capturing extraordinary changes in global twentieth century politics.

Carmen

Benjamin Millepied

Sensual and simmering with tension, Black Swan and Dune choreographer Benjamin Millepied’s debut feature reimagines classic opera Carmen for the modern era, a musical drama set in the hotbed of the America–Mexico border.

Casa Susanna

Sébastien Lifshitz

French documentarian Sébastien Lifshitz's poignant story about trans lives across time. Casa Susanna was a bungalow refuge for cross-dressing men in the 1960s, where they were free to be themselves.

Chop & Steele

Ben Steinbauer, Berndt Mader

Found footage pioneers and pranksters Joe Pickett and Nick Prueher embark on a nationwide tour showcasing the very worst America has to offer and put their friendship (and legal team) to the ultimate test in this hilarious doco.

Close to Vermeer

Suzanne Raes

This behind-the-scenes documentary follows the curators at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam as they put together the largest Vermeer exhibition ever attempted and discover what makes a Vermeer, truly a Vermeer.

The Corridors of Power

Dror Moreh

In this engrossing study of US interventions since the cold war, a cast of senior White House figures across the decades revisit their decisions, set against a visceral catalogue of archival footage.

Detour

Edgar G. Ulmer

Noir doesn’t get much darker than this widely fêted B-movie classic in which a fatalistic cross-country road trip goes catastrophically awry. Screening in new 4K restoration.

Disco Boy

Giacomo Abbruzzese

Franz Rogowski (Great Freedom, Transit) is thrilling as a foreign legionnaire fighting demons on the battlefront and urges on the dance floor in Giacomo Abbruzzese’s striking debut feature.

Earth Mama

Savanah Leaf

A pregnant single mother with two children in foster care fights an impossible system in this affecting debut feature from Savanah Leaf.

The Elephant 6 Recording Co.

C.B. Stockfleth

Using interviews and archival footage, a fascinating picture emerges of the eclectic collective Elephant 6 from talented filmmaker C.B. Stockfleth.

Ennio

Giuseppe Tornatore

Giuseppe Tornatore (Cinema Paradiso NZIFF 1990) pays tribute to legendary composer Ennio Morricone and his prolific career that spanned over seven decades and included the scores to more than 70 award-winning films.

EO

Hi-han

Jerzy Skolimowski

Strap in for an unforgettable, visionary trip, an Oscar-nominated journey that stunned Cannes with its cinematic flair. Your hosts? An octogenarian Polish auteur – and a donkey.

Even Hell Has Its Heroes

Clyde Petersen

Clyde Peterson’s documentary collaboration with drone metal legends Earth, perfectly melds their cinematic soundscape with grungy and timeless Super8 footage of the Pacific Northwest.

Fantastic Machine

Axel Danielson, Maximilien Van Aertryck

Leaping between Georges Méliès, Leni Riefenstahl, Ted Turner, YouTubers, and the Earth as a pale blue dot, this fascinating, foreboding documentary examines the world as we see it—and ourselves within it—through photography.

Fremont

Babak Jalali

This deadpan delight from Iranian filmmaker Babak Jalali stars real-life Afghan refugee Anaita Wali Zada as a new US immigrant finding her place the eponymous Bay Area city. Also featuring comedian Gregg Turkington and The Bear breakout Jeremy Allen White.

The Giants

Laurence Billiet, Rachael Antony

Interweaving the inspirational activism of Australian Greens co-founder Bob Brown with the stories of the ancient trees he is fighting to save, this environmental documentary is a rousing call to action.

The Grab

Gabriela Cowperthwaite

A stunning investigation into the money, influence, and alarming covert efforts of governments and private investors to gain control of the most vital resources on the planet – food and water.

Grant Sheehan: Light, Ghosts & Dreams

Robin Greenberg

Filmmaker Robin Greenberg celebrates the life and art of avant-garde New Zealand photographer and publisher Grant Sheehan and his creative Artificial Intelligence (AI) explorations

Hello Dankness

Soda Jerk

Cultural anarchists Soda Jerk remix hundreds of bootlegged clips into a gutbusting, memeified satire on the parlous period before and after the 2016 American elections.

Home Kills

Haydn Butler

Declining Kiwi backblocks set the stage for dirty deeds done with darkest humour as two brothers hatch a desperate plan to save their struggling butchery business by switching livestock for human lives.

Hong Kong Mixtape

San San F Young

Both hopeful and heart-breaking, Hong Kong Mixtape chronicles the change in the creative landscape of Hong Kong as the shadow of Beijing, and the draconian laws it imposes, looms large.

How to Blow Up a Pipeline

Daniel Goldhaber

A tense eco-thriller from US director Daniel Goldhaber questions just how far its young activist protagonists are willing to go in order to confront their nation’s complicity in the climate crisis.

How to Have Sex

Molly Manning Walker

This stunning, neon-drenched debut from cinematographer-turned-director Molly Manning Walker about a trio of British teen girls on a wild booze-fuelled holiday wowed all comers at Cannes.

I Like Movies

Chandler Levack

Love-letters to cinema are a dime a dozen, but not many can lay claim to having the heart and humour of Chandler Levack’s nostalgic, charming debut.

The Innocents

Jack Clayton

Henry James’s 1898 novella Turn of the Screw is vividly adapted for the screen in Jack Clayton’s unnerving, gothic psychological chiller—among the eleven scariest horror films of all time according to Martin Scorsese.

Inside

Vasilis Katsoupis

Willem Dafoe plays a thief trapped alone inside a luxury Manhattan apartment with a hi-tech security system and an invaluable art collection in this ingenious and incredibly immersive survival thriller.

The Inspection

Elegance Bratton

Based on a true story, The Inspection follows a young US Marine from his life on the streets to his rise within the armed forces, all the while searching for his mother’s love and acceptance.

Is There Anybody Out There?

Ella Glendining

A disabled filmmaker sets out to find someone with a body just like hers, while painting a deeply authentic portrait of what it means to live a proudly disabled life in an ableist world.

Kim's Video

David Redmon, Ashley Sabin

Part personal video essay, part documentary, part creative intervention, Kim's Video charts the rise, the fall and the relocation of a New York video store improbably transplanted into the heart of Mafia country.

King Loser

Cushla Dillon, Andrew Moore

King Loser’s fractious farewell tour sets the stage for not just the career-spanning documentary the legendary 90s band deserve, but also a poignant and powerful meditation on the toll the rock and roll dream takes.

Kokomo City

D. Smith

Winner of Audience awards in both Sundance and Berlin, this vibrant, taboo-busting, music-filled documentary invites us into the lives of four black trans sex workers in New York and Atlanta.

La Chimera

Alice Rohrwacher

Set in 80s Tuscany Alice Rohrwacher’s enchanting new film stars The Crown’s Josh O’Connor as a lovelorn Englishman who teams with an eccentric gang of grave-robbers to plunder ancient Etruscan artefacts.

Late Night with the Devil

Colin Cairnes, Cameron Cairnes

A live television broadcast on Halloween 1977 goes horribly wrong, as all hell literally breaks loose. This pitch perfect period recreation serves up an equal mix of 70s showbiz cheese and demonic thrills.

Little Richard: I Am Everything

Lisa Cortés

Revealing the black, queer origins of rock n’ roll and the complex genius of its conflicted originator, Little Richard, Lisa Cortés’ stirring documentary takes aim at the white-washed canon of popular music.

Loop Track

Tom Sainsbury

A man on the verge of a nervous breakdown retreats to the bush, only to encounter other trampers—and someone or something else entirely—in this psychological thriller, a big screen first for comedian Tom Sainsbury.

May December

Todd Haynes

Natalie Portman shadows Julianne Moore in Todd Haynes’ salaciously entertaining metafictional psychodrama about an actress researching for a role in a film about a tabloid sex scandal.

Ms. Information

Gwen Isaac

As the nation plunges into pandemic, Gwen Isaac’s observational documentary delves into the trenches with Siouxsie Wiles, the fuchsia-haired microbiologist who emerged as a national hero and a satanic witch in the minds of a divided New Zealand.

Mutt

Vuk Lungulov-Klotz

A young trans man must summon all his resilience to endure a whirlwind 24 hours in New York City as his foreign father, his straight ex-boyfriend and his 13-year-old sister are all thrust back into his life.

My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock

Mark Cousins

How do you make a documentary about Alfred Hitchcock in 2023? As this film from Mark Cousins reveals—by putting the words in the mouth of the auteur himself.

Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV

Amanda Kim

A thorough (and thoroughly enjoyable) deep dive into the life and work of Nam June Paik, the Korean visionary who brought the art world into the video age and coined the electronic superhighway decades before the Internet.

The New Boy

Warwick Thornton

Set in 1940s Australia, an Aboriginal orphan arrives in the dead of night at a remote monastery run by a renegade nun (Cate Blanchett) in this spiritual thriller from Warwick Thornton.

Of an Age

Goran Stolevski

Goran Stolevski’s tender sophomore film is equal parts coming-of-age and coming-out story, as much a commentary on the pressures of masculinity and heteronormativity as it is a witty, sentimental romance set against the backdrop of turn-of-the-twentieth-century Melbourne.

Omen

Augure

Baloji

An invigorating tale of alleged witchcraft seeped in magical realism, director Baloji tackles grief and guilt as a Congolese man returns home in this Kinshasa set mind-bender.

Palm Trees and Power Lines

Jamie Dack 

This bold, semi-autobiographical debut from American director Jamie Dack is a tense coming-of-age drama that navigates the insidious and all too real threat of stranger danger.

The Paragon

Michael Duignan

The spirit of shoestring-budget, seat-of-your-pants filmmaking of the most inventive sort is alive in Aotearoa, in this homegrown psychedelic fantasy courtesy of Kiwi filmmaker Michael Duignan.

Passages

Ira Sachs

A gay couple’s marriage spirals into chaos when one of them begins an affair with a younger woman in Ira Sach’s seductive and bitterly amusing Paris-set drama. Starring Franz Rogowski, Ben Whishaw and Adèle Exarchopoulos.

Past Lives

Celine Song

Celine Song’s gorgeous, intensely bittersweet romance ruminates on the lives and loves of two childhood friends fleetingly reunited after decades apart – a remarkable debut feature that was the talk of Sundance.

Pray for Our Sinners

Sinéad O'Shea

Journalist Sinéad O’Shea delivers a powerful portrait of those who resisted the Catholic Church’s historic abuse of women and children in small-town Ireland ranging from corporal punishment and oppressive mother-and-baby homes.

Reality

Tina Satter

Anchored by a remarkable performance from Sydney Sweeney, Reality reconstructs the interrogation and arrest of American whistleblower Reality Winner in real-time, to disturbing, pulse-pounding effect.

Red Mole: A Romance

Annie Goldson

Drawing on extensive archival material, Annie Goldson has pulled together a raucous and entertaining portrait of the radical and boundary-pushing New Zealand theatre troupe Red Mole.

Riceboy Sleeps

Anthony Shim

A Korean single mother immigrates to Canada with her young son in the 1990s and must navigate the challenges of motherhood and adapting to a new world in this poignant award-winning coming of age drama.

Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed

Stephen Kijak

A trove of archival footage accompanies this whirlwind overview of the life of Rock Hudson, one of the Hollywood studio system’s brightest stars and closeted member of the LGBTQ+ community.

Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams

Luca Guadagnino

There are shoemakers, and then there's Salvatore Ferragamo—whose glittering life is explored in this affectionate, glam-packed documentary film by award-winning Italian director Luca Guadagnino.

Sanctuary

Zachary Wigon

Set over one night in one hotel room, this psychosexual thriller–cum-romantic comedy charts the ever-shifting power plays between a wealthy heir and his long-time dominatrix.

The Settlers

Los colonos

Felipe Galvez

Set in on the remote frontier in early 20th-century Chile, first-time filmmaker Felipe Gálvez’s exhilarating and provocative revisionist Western takes a sidelong glance at Chile’s dark colonial past.

Showing Up

Kelly Reichardt

A sculptor preparing to open a new show must balance her creative life with the daily dramas of family and friends, in Kelly Reichardt's vibrant and captivatingly funny portrait of art and craft.

Sisu

Jalmari Helander

A one-man death squad will go to outrageous lengths to get his gold back—even if it means killing every last Nazi in his path. Jalmari Helander’s gleefully entertaining actioner delivers gory mayhem by the bucketload.

Space: The Longest Goodbye

The Longest Goodbye

Ido Mizrahy

An absorbing look at the modern-day realities of space travel that goes beyond the nuts and bolts to probe the most unpredictable element of cosmic exploration: the vulnerability of the human mind.

Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis)

Anton Corbijn

Anton Corbijn’s wildly entertaining doco profiles Hipgnosis, the designers behind the most iconic album covers in rock history for acts like Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and many more.

A Storm Foretold

Christoffer Guldbrandsen

A close-up portrait of Roger Stone, Trump’s disgraced political “fixer” and architect of the January 2021 insurrection. A compelling, frightening image of unbridled power and how far people will go to hang on to it.

The Strangest of Angels

Rebecca Tansley

Rebecca Tansley brings us a dramatic, moving interpretation of NZ Opera’s contemporary chamber opera inspired by a pivotal event in the life of New Zealand writer Janet Frame.

Subject

Jennifer Tiexiera, Camilla Hall

The subjects of famous documentaries (The Staircase, Hoop Dreams, Capturing the Friedmans) talk about how the experience changed their lives—for better and worse.

Sweet As

Jub Clerc

Set in Australia’s remote Pilbara, Jub Clerc’s multi award-winning debut feature is a triumphant coming-of-age road movie that honours the power of country, community and art to transform lives.

Theater Camp

Molly Gordon, Nick Lieberman

This rollicking mockumentary set at a scrappy theatre camp in upstate New York is an affectionate look at a ragtag troupe of eccentric misfits who just want to sing and dance.

Tiki Taane in Session with CSO

Tiki Taane

Fans of dub musician Tiki Taane are in for a treat with the film of his one-off 2021 concert extravaganza, ‘Otautahi Proud’.

The Tuba Thieves

Alison O’Daniel 

This thrilling and playful story of stolen brass and the L.A. deaf community explores new possibilities in cinematic expression through creative sound design, deft editing and stunning photography.

War Pony

Riley Keough, Gina Gammell

Dreams, lack of means, and poodle schemes on the rez! Aided by their community, two young men push back against deprivation and systemic discrimination to forge their own paths.