Whānau Mārama New Zealand International Film Festival 2026
27 August - 9 September 2026
Whānau Mārama: New Zealand International Film Festival is our premiere national cinema event. Presenting a selection of contemporary and classic cinema and capturing the best of the global festival circuit, through curated progammes at locations nationwide.
The 2026 edition of the Whānau Mārama New Zealand International Film Festival (NZIFF) is almost upon us, with films from around the world to delight, educate, shock and move the heart and soul, so grab a brochure and don't miss the chance to escape the wintery days and nights for one of the highlights of the cinema calendar.
The 2026 NZIFF programme is made up of a variety strands, or sections. This structure provides audiences with clear insight of the cinematic experiences they can expect and of the artistic identity of the selected films.
Big Nights:
Opening Night:
Big Girls Don't Cry
Thu 27 Aug 2026 | 6:30 pm – 8:45 pm
All Tickets $25. Pre-screening refreshments from 6:30 pm with screening to follow at 7:00 pm.
2026 | New Zealand | Director: Paloma Schneideman | 99 mins
Premiering at Sundance earlier this year, Paloma Schneideman’s coming-of-age debut launches our festival with a tender portrait of 14-year-old Sid, as she tentatively traverses insecurity, identity and desire during the summer of 2006.
Join us on Thursday 27 August for the New Zealand International Film Festival Opening Night at the Len Lye Cinema. Drinks and canapes from 6.30 pm, with screening to follow at 7pm.
Lomu
Sat 29 Aug 2026 | 5:45 pm
Lomu
2026 | Aotearoa | Director: Gavin Fitzgerald, Vea Mafile'o | 106 mins
Rugby's first global superstar was also one of its most private — a shy, gentle giant caught between two worlds, whose story mirrors Aotearoa's own coming of age.
Sat 29 Aug 5:45 pm
Coward
Sun 6 Sep 2026 | 7:30 pm
Coward
2026 | Belguim/France/Netherlands | Director: Luka Dhont | 125 mins
A tender love story set against the most desolate backdrop imaginable, Coward is an inspirational tale about choosing one's own fate, against all odds.
Sun 6 Sep 7:45 pm
2026 Sections:
Māhutonga:
Māhutonga, or the Southern Cross, is the place for our storytellers from Aotearoa and the South Pacific to shine.
Last Man Standing
2026 | Aotearoa | Director, Gerd Pohlmann | 122 mins
Gerd Pohlmann offers a timely doc tribute to politician Jim Anderton as a long-haul fighter for Labour’s welfare-based values, against a wave of neoliberal deregulation that fundamentally changed New Zealand politics.
Sat 29 Aug 10:30 am
Ngā Whanaunga Aotearoa: New Zealand's Best 2026 Combined Programme
2026 | Aotearoa New Zealand | Director, Various | TBC mins
This is a highlight selection of the best films from both programmes, including all award winners. The featured shorts will be announced 17 August.
Sat 5 Sep 11:00 am
Wonderland:
All ages are welcome in Wonderland. Whether you're an animation fan, looking for something the whole whānau can enjoy together, or simply want an escape with feelgood fun, Wonderland is the strand for good vibes only.
Arco
2025 | France | Director, Ugo Bienvenu | 88 mins
A hand-drawn wonder brimming with imagination and warmth, Arco is the kind of film that reminds you of the joy of discovery.
Sun 30 Aug 10:30 am
Little Amélie or the Character of Rain
2025 | Belguim | Director, Maïlys Vallade, Liane-Cho Han | 76 mins
Amélie loves exploring everything her world has to offer, guided by her friend, Nishio-san, but everything changes when, on her third birthday, an event changes the course of her life forever.
Sun 6 Sep 10:30 am
Fresh Competition:
A section for bold and daring debit films from the best new voices in international cinema.
Goodbye, Cruel World
2026 | Belguim / France | Director: Félix de Givry | 93 mins
In French with English subtitles.
A bullied 14-year-old sends farewell letters to his classmates and vanishes, but when a girl from his school spots him wandering the streets at night, the two begin to build a fragile, secret world of their own.
Mon 31 Aug 8:00 pm
Frames Competition:
Engaging, enlightening, unexpected - Frames if the home of documentaries.
The History of Concrete
2026 | United States | Director: John Wilson | 101 mins
John Wilson gives his inimitably magpie-ish style of documentary-making the big screen treatment in this endlessly digressive investigation into a hilariously mundane topic.
Wed 9 Sep 6:00 pm
Portraits:
Exploring what it is to be human, Portraits us for character-driven tales about the lives of ordinary and extraordinary people.
Calle Málaga
2025 | Belgium / France / Germany / Morocco | Director: Maryam Touzani | 116 mins
In Arabic and Spanish with English subtitles.
An intimate and warm story of a life entwined with a deep-rooted sense of belonging, and the inconvenience of aging in a world that continues to move at pace.
Fri 28 Aug 12:00 pm
Flies
2026 | Mexico | Director: Fernando Eimbcke | 99 mins
In Spanish with English subtitles.
As a young boy searches for answers, he is aided by an unlikely individual in this modest and affectionate take on an intergenerational friendship, combining droll humour and neorealism.
Tue 8 Sep 6:00 pm
Jimpa
2025 | Australia / Finland / Netherlands | Director: Sophia Hyde | 113 mins
A filmmaker balances her outspoken father and a boundary-pushing teenager while working on her latest screenplay that only she believes in, in Sophie Hyde's heartfelt, queer family drama.
Sun 30 Aug 12:15 pm
Late Fame
2025 | United States | Director: Kent Jones | 96 mins
Willem Dafoe and Greta Lee bring heart and realness to this wistful, unromantic comedy about the fragility of creative ambition and a bygone, bohemian New York lost to a consumerist era of gentrification and influencers.
Fri 28 Aug 3:00 pm
Rose
2026 | Austria | Director: Markus Schleinzer | 93 mins
A heartrending, austere portrait of a physically and spiritually scarred woman returning to her postwar hometown in the 1600s, posing as a male soldier.
Mon 31 Aug 5:45 pm
The Wizard of the Kremlin
2025 | France / UK / USA | Director: Oliver Assayas | 145 mins
Actors Jude Law and Paul Dano star as Putin and his propagandist in an epic political thriller by Olivier Assayas, that shows how brutal repression in Russia is puppet-mastered behind a veil of manufactured illusion.
Fri 4 Sep 8:00 pm
Sundays
2025 | Spain | Director: Alauda Ruiz de Azúa | 115 mins
Coming off a win for Best Film at the San Sebastián Film Festival, Sundays is a coming-of-age drama with the fragility of family and faith at its forefront.
Wed 2 Sep 8:00 pm
Widescreen:
Vibrant, immersive and engaging, Widscreen is for films that offer snapshots of reality from around the globe.
Comédie-Française
2026 | France | Director: Martin Darondeau, Bertrand Usclat | 75 mins
In French with English subtitles.
Drunk actors, cursed props, clashing egos and a Macbeth that refuses to come together… a gloriously chaotic love letter to theatre and everyone mad enough to make it.
Tue 1 Sep 12:00 pm
The Black Ball
2026 | France / Spain | Director: Javier Calvo, Javier Ambrossi | 155 mins
In Spanish with English subtitles.
A queer epic spanning 85 years of Spanish history, inspired by an unfinished work by poet Federico García Lorca and brought to the screen with breathtaking ambition — The Black Ball left Cannes audiences on their feet for 16 minutes, and it's easy to understand why.
Sun 6 Sep 4:30 pm
The Beloved
2026 | Director: Roderigo Sorogoyen | 135 mins
A ferocious Javier Bardem performance headlines Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s tense and unsettling family filmmaking drama, about the fraught relationship between a controversial filmmaker and his estranged actress daughter.
Sat 5 Sep 2:45 pm
Fjord
2026 | Director: Cristian Mungiu | 146 mins
A divisive talking point at Cannes even before it took its top award, Cristian Mungiu’s story of a conservative immigrant family under institutional suspicion is a barbed interrogation of liberal Nordic attitudes.
Sat 5 Sep 7:30 pm
Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass
2026 | Director: David Wain | 93 mins
High priest of American buffoonery David Wain (Wet Hot American Summer) returns with his latest irresistibly silly slice of nonsense, a Wizard of Oz-aping Hollywood odyssey about a small-town girl with a very particular mission.
Tue 8 Sep 8:00 pm
Hen
2025 | Germany / Hungary | Director: György Pálfi | 96 mins
Beyond the confines of a factory farm, a heroic hen finds a new lease on life in a crumbling restaurant's courtyard. Feathers are ruffled and jokes are cracked in this egg-cellent adventure.
Tue 1 Sep 6:00 pm
Time and Water
2026 | Iceland / USA | Director: Sara Dosa | 93 mins
In English and Icelandic with English subtitles.
As Iceland's ancient glaciers start to vanish, one family's extensive archive becomes a portrait of a disappearing landscape through the passage of a century.
Wed 2 Sep 6:00 pm
The Voice of Hind Rajab
2025 | Tunisia | Director: Kaouther Ben Hania | 90 mins
In Palestinian Arabic with English subtitles.
With the last words of a five-year-old girl, Kaouther Ben Hania's devastating documentary puts a single, unbearable human story at the heart of an ongoing catastrophe.
Tue 1 Sep 3:00 pm
Whispers in the Woods
2025 | France | Director: Vincent Munier | 93 mins
In French with English subtitles.
Blending stunning wildlife footage with generational storytelling, Whispers in the Woods invites the audience to be immersed in an untouched world shrouded in mist, where nature reigns supreme.
Thu 3 Sep 12:00 pm
Yellow Letters
2026 | France / Germany / Turkey | Director: İlker Çatak | 128 mins
In French with English subtitles.
Turkish filmmaker İlker Çatak follows up his Oscar-nominated The Teacher’s Lounge with this story of a liberal upper-class family’s downward spiral amidst political turmoil and authoritarian scrutiny, capturing the nation’s terrifying slide into far-right oppression.
Tue 8 Sep 12:00 pm
Nocturnal:
Whether it's kooky, frightening, awe-inspiring or simply undefinable, Nocturnal is for films that are the stuff of dreams - or nightmares.
I Want Your Sex
2026 | USA | Director: Gregg Araki | 90 mins
Provocative and horny as ever, New Queer Cinema icon Gregg Araki’s first film in over a decade is a riotous antidote to the Gen Z sex recession.
Wed 9 Sep 8:00 pm
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma
2026 | USA | Director: Jane Schoenbrun | 106 mins
As a maven of pop-culture detritus, American director Jane Schoenbrun’s campground of twisted delights is a heady, horny headtrip of the highest order.
Sat 29 Aug 8:00 pm
Visions:
Films told through distinct cinematic style, Visions showcases the work of master filmmakers and emerging talent.
100 Nights of Hero
2026 | UK | Director: Julia Jackman | 91 mins
Based on a graphic novel, this dazzling sapphic fable is a whimsical ode to the power of storytelling.
Mon 7 Sep 6:00 pm
Bitter Christmas
2025 | Spain | Director: Pedro Almodóvar | 111 mins
An intricate nesting doll structure provides Spain’s most iconic auteur a lens with which to reflect on his own creative foibles, in frequently scathing terms, in this lacerating self-portrait.
Sat 29 Aug 3:30 pm
Dead Man's Wire
2025 | USA | Director: Gus Van Sant | 105 mins
After a seven year hiatus, Gus Van Sant is back behind the camera with this star-studded true-crime thriller, earning an 11-minute standing ovation after its premiere in Venice.
Fri 28 Aug 8:15 pm
Father Mother Sister Brother
2025 | USA | Director: Jim Jarmusch | 110 mins
Indie cinema’s long-time King of Cool Jim Jarmusch finds mystery and melancholy alike in this triptych of family short stories, each grappling with the weight of shared history.
Sun 30 Aug 2:30 pm
Fatherland
2026 | France / Germany / Italy / Poland | Director: Pawel Pawlikowski | 82 mins
A pristine masterpiece from Polish Academy Award winner Paweł Pawlikowski, reflecting on history and its shadows on the present, as well as on the undying bond of family ties.
Fri 4 Sep 6:00 pm
Minotaur
2026 | France / Germany / Latvia | Director: Andrey Zvyaginsev | 135 mins
A classic French psychosexual thriller about infidelity is expertly reimagined within a modern Russia of citizens feeding an inhuman war machine, in director-in-exile Andrei Zvyagintsev’s taut, chilling Cannes winner.
Sun 30 Aug 4:45 pm
Rose of Nevada
2025 | UK | Director: Mark Jenkin | 114 mins
Sci-fi strangeness meets working-class struggle in Cornish director Mark Jenkin’s haunting vision, meticulously crafted with analogue methods, of a fishing boat lost decades ago that claims a new crew from the present.
Mon 7 Sep 8:00 pm
Journeys:
Stories that bring fresh insight to a place, identity, or experience. This year's selection focuses on Lebanese and Japanese films.
Sheep in the Box
2026 | Japan | Director: Kore-eda Hirokazu | 126 mins
In Japanese with English subtitles.
Kore-eda's nuanced exploration of how grief manifests is distinctly Japanese yet universally resonant, in this empathetic consideration of how technology may serve as a vehicle for healing.
Mon 7 Sep 12:00 pm
Treasures:
A curated selection of cinema classics and recently restored films.
Footrot Flats: The Dog's Tale
1986 | Aotearoa New Zealand / Australia | Director: Murray Ball | 68 mins
40 years ago, New Zealand’s most loved cartoon strip was adapted into our first-ever animated feature and the result broke the box office and captured the hearts of a far more innocent nation.
Fri 5 Sep 1:00 pm
Out of the Blue
2066 | Aotearoa New Zealand | Director: Robert Sarkies | 103 mins
Dunedin’s Robert Sarkies ventured into weightier territory after Scarfies, reckoning with a defining tragedy of gun violence that rocked Aotearoa’s sense of security in his chilling but sensitively measured sophomore feature.
Sun 30 Aug 7:30 pm
