From Milked to Night Raiders: Ten films to see at the New Zealand film festival – The Guardian

The current moment is an uncertain time for just about every public-facing business and initiative including and especially those in the arts. You are, frankly speaking, lucky if youre able to attend a film festival these days as the good people of Auckland know, given the New Zealand international film festival sadly will not be rolling into town this year.

It is however full steam ahead in Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin, with the festival boasting a chunky programme: 164 feature-length films sourced from 51 countries. Here are 10 titles that should be on your radar.

Director: Jane Campion / Country: New Zealand/Australia

Few things compel cinephiles quite like the words directed by Jane Campion. The great auteurs first film in a dozen years is a sumptuous-looking western about less than sumptuous subject matter: toxic men circa Montana in 1925.

Benedict Cumberbatch and Jesse Plemons play wealthy ranch owners, one of whom feels outraged and betrayed when the other abruptly gets married. Shocking confrontations ensue, in a film that (quoting Xan Brooks four star review) is a brawny, brooding drama about the wreckage caused by men.

Director: Lula Cucchiara / Country: New Zealand

One of New Zealands most renowned photographers, Fiona Clark is celebrated particularly for her documentation of Aucklands LGBT scene in the 1970s captured of course at a more repressive and conservative time. Sermons were preached about her, photographs were censored, and as the artist recounted in a 2017 essay everything to do with being gay or camp, or expressing sexuality in a different way, was illegal.

An element of fearlessness is synonymous with Clarks legacy, and reflected in the third word in the title of director Lula Cucchiaras new documentary.

Director: Paolo Sorrentino / Country: Italy

Sheer decadence is a good way to describe the all-out, everything-and-the-kitchen sink style of Italian auteur Paulo Sorrentino, whose films and TV series (including Il Divo, The Great Beauty and The Young Pope) reek of exuberance. Like with Baz Luhrmann, whose movies also often have the feel of epic shindigs, one imagines what itd be like to attend a party in his honour but you know none of your clothes will be fancy enough.

Sorrentinos latest film is reportedly his most personal, set around the time of the tragic death of his parents (caused by a carbon monoxide leak) when he was a teenager.

Director: Natalie Morales / Country: USA

Natalie Moraless dramedy belongs to the Zoom film genre, which received a shot in the arm during the pandemic. Captured entirely through screens and online interactions, Language Lessons emotionally unites two geographically distanced people, exploring the platonic friendship between a Costa Rica-based Spanish teacher (Morales) and her new California pupil (Mark Duplass).

Director: Amy Taylor / Country: New Zealand

taua-raised activist Chris Huriwai sets out to investigate, among other things, the veracity of dairy company Fonterras claim that New Zealands dairy industry is the most sustainable in the world. Hints about the kind of conclusions he arrives at can be found in billboards the makers of Milked launched this week in Auckland and Wellington. They arent exactly complimentary, congratulating the dairy industry for being our #1 polluter.

Director: Justin Kurzel / Country: Australia

Justin Kurzels film about Martin Bryant the perpetrator of Australias worst mass shooting event, which transpired in Tasmania in 1996 was always going to be controversial. This non-didactic and hauntingly poetic film, however, refuses easy answers, explores morally complex questions, and doesnt make the exploitative mistakes of other productions in this ethically icky genre such as presenting simple and/or sympathetic portrayals of killers.

Caleb Landry Jones is intensely eerie in the lead role, which won him a best actor award at this years Cannes film festival.

Director: Danis Goulet / Country: New Zealand / Canada

The festivals official synopsis for writer/director Danis Goulets thriller, executive produced by Taika Waititi, informs us that the film is based in a future world on the brink of collapse which also describes how most of us view the state of the present world. Set in 2043, in military-occupied North America, Goule follows Cree woman Niska (Elle-Mij Tailfeathers) as she teams up with Indigenous dissidents in order to free her daughter from the oppressive hands of the state.

Director: Wes Anderson / Country: USA

Just about any actor in the world would love to work with Wes Anderson, for the same reason audiences love to watch his films: style. The great American auteur has spawned many imitators but nobody is like the real thing with his symmetrical compositions, his overhead shots, his diorama-like set designs, his glorious tweeness and kitchiness.

The French Dispatch is Andersons love letter to The New Yorker: an anthology film capturing the lives of journalists working for a newspaper in a fictional French town called Ennui-sur-Blas.

Director: Michelle Savill / Country: New Zealand

Remember that famous New Yorker cartoon On the Internet, nobody knows youre a dog? On the internet nobody necessarily knows where youre located, either. Mille Lies Low embraces the idea of online geographical obfuscation, which is a spiffy way of saying that the film revolves around a young woman using social media to fool people into thinking she is living in New York (whereas shes actually keeping a low profile in Wellington).

Director: Asghar Farhadi / Country: Iran

Oscar-winning Iranian film-maker Asghar Farhadi is known for directing psychologically complex dramas tightly centred around characters and performances. A Hero follows a divorced father (Amir Jadidi) who, on parole after being imprisoned for not paying his debts, launches a desperate plan to square things over with his creditor and if things go to plan free himself from the Big House. Expect a morally messy world filled with consequential decisions.

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From Milked to Night Raiders: Ten films to see at the New Zealand film festival - The Guardian