Kia ora Aotearoa! I hope you are all having a fun time at this year’s Whānau Mārama New Zealand International Film Festival. I look forward to seeing some of you during Q&As at some of my favourite films soon, but here are a few more of my personal favourites that I hope you will go check out!

Saint Omer

The first fiction feature from documentarian Alice Diop is, on the surface, a courtroom drama about a mother on trial for killing her child. By avoiding melodrama, the film’s matter-of-fact storytelling allows the audience to draw their own conclusions on the crime, while themes of the difficulties and challenges of motherhood; racism; colonialism and generational trauma simmer just beneath the surface.

Tiger Stripes

Winner of the Grand Prize at Critics Week at this year’s Cannes, Amanda Nell Eu’s debut is uncompromising, unapologetic, and really captures the horror of not only a young girl hitting puberty, but the brutality of a pack of girlfriends turning against you. I find this film to be refreshing, a little bit bloody, and a lot of fun. This is original, gritty, exciting filmmaking from a talent to watch.

Hong Kong Mixtape

An important documentary that takes a look at Hong Kong after the 2019 protests and how an all-encompassing “National Security Law” imposed by China is used to stifle any dissent. San San F Young’s bittersweet film is both a sharp look at how actual (aka state-imposed) censorship will always come after art and artists in its first step of oppression, but is also a celebration on how creativity always find a way as a voice for the oppressed.

Orlando, My Political Biography

A deeply moving hybrid documentary that chronicles the lives of multigenerational trans and non-binary people through the re-enactments of Virginia Woolf’s classic novel ORLANDO. Highly inventive in its filmmaking and powerful in the testaments of its many subjects, it is an extremely timely reminder that trans and non-gender conforming people are here, have always been here, and their beautiful existence makes our world a lot richer.

Earth Mama

The debut feature from former Olympian Savanah Leaf is an intimate film that shines a light on Black motherhood through the journey of a single Black mother in the Bay Area in America. It is gentle yet quietly devastating, showing just how institutions operating under systemic racism ultimately traps the vulnerable in the system and making it hard for them to escape the cycle of poverty. Leaf shows her confidence as a filmmaker in crafting a quietly powerful drama, while never shying away from hopeful defiance.

PLAN 75

Some of the best fictional work derives from speculative fiction, and in the near future laid out in PLAN 75, it is one where every life is only measured in economic value. Hayakawa Chie’s debut is one where unfortunately, it is not really that hard to imagine (and one I fear I might live to see one day), and through an incredible performance by Chieko Baisho, it asks whether in our increasingly profit-driven society can really overlook the immeasurable value from those who have lived a full life. I cannot stop thinking about this film days after I have seen it!

Suzhou River

One of the seminal films of Chinese cinema’s Sixth Generation from enfant-terrible Lou Ye, this 1993 classic is Hitchcockian-esque thriller that captures the grittiness of urban life in Shanghai, with an unforgettable performance from Zhou Xun, one of the best actors of her generation. Originally shot on Super-16, this uncompromising film is now screening in a gorgeous 4K restoration and is just as refreshing today as it was 20 years ago.

Monster

Hirokazu Kore-eda is one of my favourite directors, and his latest film is another deeply compassionate and complex drama about the human experience, growing up, and the terrible cost on a young boy who feels societal pressures to supress his true self. Winning Best Screenplay at this year’s Cannes, the Rashomon-esque script leads the viewer into a slowly unfolding mystery, but like all of Kore-eda’s gems, it is his ability to tell compelling tales of everyday life and his deep empathy for his characters that make his films shine.