Whānau Mārama: New Zealand International Film Festival
21 August - 4 September 2024
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 new film by an Academy-Award winning director, a Best International Feature Academy Award nominee, a widely acclaimed teen-vampire horror-comedy, an immersive journey into the work of a music legend, an Iranian meditation on love, loss and loneliness, and a portrait of a ground-breaking CNN camerawoman from Te Tairāwhiti are among the first announced films set to delight Kiwi audiences at this year’s Whānau Mārama New Zealand International Film Festival (NZIFF) when it screens around the country this winter.
The 2024 NZIFF programme is made up of 10 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:
2024 | Aotearoa | Director: Josephine Stewart-Te Whiu | 82mins
Winning the Special Jury Prize at SXSW this year, Josephine Stewart-Te Whiu’s electric debut launches our festival with a fiery trio of delinquent schoolgirls railing against the colonial system in 1950s New Zealand.
Join us on Wednesday 21 August for the New Zealand International Film Festival Opening Night at the Len Lye Cinema. Drinks and canapes from 6.15pm, with screening to follow at 7pm.
Head South
Sat 24 Aug 2024 | 6:15pm - 7:50pm
Tue 27 Aug 2024 | 8:30pm - 10:08pm
Adult $18.00, Child (15 & Under) $12.00, Film Society $14.00, Senior Citizen $15.00, Student $15.00
Buy Here
2024 | Aotearoa | Director: Jonathan Ogilvie | 98mins
Christchurch-born filmmaker Jonathan Ogilvie returns home for this evocative coming-of-age story that brilliantly captures the feeling of growing up weird in the Garden City. Starring Ed Oxenbould, Márton Csókás and featuring Stella Bennett aka Benee in her acting debut, Head South will be our Opening Night film for the Christchurch leg of the festival.
Closing Night: The Substance
Wed 04 Sep 2024 | 8:15pm - 10:35pm
Adult $18.00, Child (15 & Under) $12.00, Film Society $14.00, Senior Citizen $15.00, Student $15.00
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2024 | UK | Director: Coralie Fargeat | 140mins
Direct from wowing audiences at Cannes, Coralie Fargeat’s magnificent shocker closes out this year’s Festival in style and lays down her marker to take the crown as the new queen of carnage with this wildly entertaining feminist body-horror feast.
2024 Sections:
Māhutonga:
While Matariki ushers the sun to its dawn rising, Māhutonga - the Southern Cross, stands sentinel in the evening sky, shining the way to our storytellers from Aotearoa, both narrative and documentary, including three short film programmes.
Alien Weaponry: Kua Tupu Te Ara
2024 | Aotearoa | Director: Kent Belcher | 100mins
Even if you’re not a fan of heavy metal, you can’t help but admire Alien Weaponry. If not for their rise to fame on an international scale, then for being the first band of the genre to sing in te reo Māori.
Fri 30 August 8:30pm | Buy Tickets
The Haka Party Incident with Director Q&A
2024 | Aotearoa | Director, Screenplay: Katie Wolfe | 90mins
In 1979, group of young Māori and Pasifika activists sought to stop Pākehā students at the University of Auckland performing a parody of haka each capping week. Director Katie Wolfe uncovers this largely forgotten event in our history with interviews from both in this resonant and thought-provoking documentary.
Fri 23 Aug 6:00pm | Buy Tickets
This screening will feature a special Q&A with Director, Katie Wolfe.
A Mistake
2024 | Aotearoa | Director: Christine Jeffs | 101mins
On the eve of a move towards greater public health data reporting, a medical error throws life into a spin for a respected surgeon and her surgical team; the downward spiral threatening all in her orbit.
Sun 01 Sep 05:30pm | Tue 03 Sep 01:00pm | Buy Tickets
Never Look Away
2024 | Aotearoa | Director: Lucy Lawless | 86mins
Lucy Lawless makes her directorial debut with a raucous documentary exploring the life of another warrior princess – fierce and fearless Kiwi war video journalist Margaret Moth.
Wed 28 Aug 06:15pm | Fri 30 Aug 04:15pm | Buy Tickets
Taki Rua Theatre - Breaking Barriers with Director Q&A
2024 | Aotearoa | Director: Whetū Fala | 80mins
What began as an experience in biculturalism between Māori and Pākehā grew into Taki Rua Theatre, the unofficial national Māori theatre company. As we tour the motu with the latest ensemble of young artists, we witness the deeply personal and politically visionary story of the 30-year struggle to create a truly bicultural force, and the wāhine toa who agitated for change.
Tue 27 Aug 6:15pm | Buy Tickets
This screening will feature a special Q&A with Director, Whetū Fala.
Ngā Whanaunga Māori Pasifika Shorts 2024
2024 | Aotearoa | Various | 79mins
Support these Māori and Pasifika films and vote for your favourites at screenings all across the motu.
Sat 24 Aug 11:15am | Buy Tickets
New Zealand's Best 2024
2024 | Aotearoa | Various | 81mins
The year’s best New Zealand short films as chosen by guest selector, Gerard Johnstone. A total of 95 films were submitted for this year’s New Zealand’s Best short film competition.
Sun 01 Sep 10:30am | Buy Tickets
Portraits:
A gallery of character-driven narrative and documentary films that draw us into the lives of ordinary and extraordinary people. Hilarious and moving, these films will reconcile you with the beauty and complexity of being human.
Dying
2024 | Germany | Director, Screenplay: Matthias Glasner | 181mins
This triptych tale of a family in turmoil is equal parts incredibly moving and scabrously funny, Matthias Glasner’s award-winning drama may be called Dying, but it’s really a celebration of the messiness of life.
Sun 25 Aug 02:15pm | Fri 30 Aug 12:45pm | Buy Tickets
My Favourite Cake
2024 | Iran/France/Sweden/Germany | Directors, Screenplay: Maryam Moghaddam, Behtash Sanaeeha | 97mins
A lonely but fiercely determined 70-year-old widow takes second chance on love in this charming and funny yet politically subversive romance from Iran.
Fri 23 Aug 12:00pm | Mon 26 Aug 06:15pm | Buy Tickets
The Outrun
2024 | UK/Germany | Director: Nora Fingscheidt | 118mins
Saoirse Ronan brings Amy Liptrot’s award-winning memoir to the screen in this ardently moving portrait of addiction recovery set in the majestic Orkney Islands of Scotland.
Thu 29 Aug 11:15am | Sat 31 Aug 05:30pm | Buy Tickets
Sons
2024 | Denmark/Sweden | Director: Gustav Möller | 100mins
A corrections officer sees her placid work life thrown into disarray upon the arrival of a new inmate, a mysterious figure from her past, in this sophomore feature from Gustav Möller.
Thu 22 Aug 08:30pm | Mon 26 Aug 04:15pm | Buy Tickets
Widescreen:
A diverse and engaging panorama of narrative and documentary films that provide snapshots of reality from different corners of the globe; these are films that will spark vibrant conversations about the world we live in.
Black Dog
2024 | China | Director: Guan Hu | 110mins
An ex-convict finds redemption in the bond he forms with an unwanted mutt in Guan Hu’s dynamically shot and darkly comic Un Certain Regard Prize winner.
Sun 01 Sep 07:45pm | Wed 04 Sep 04:00pm | Buy Tickets
Crossing
2024 | Sweden/Denmark/France/Turkey | Director: Levan Akin | 106mins
An aging aunt must voyage from her rugged Georgian home to cosmopolitan Istanbul in search of an estranged trans niece in this graceful cross-cultural panorama from Levan Akin.
Mon 26 Aug 08:15pm | Wed 28 Aug 02:00pm | Buy Tickets
Green Border
2023 | Poland/Czech Republic/Germany | Director: Agnieszka Holland | 152mins
Brutal, enraging and heartrending, Polish writer-director Agnieszka Holland’s controversial take on the Polish-Belarusian border crisis serves as a startling call to arms in the face of a little-seen humanitarian crisis.
Sun 25 Aug 07:30pm | Tue 27 Aug 03:15pm | Buy Tickets
No Other Land
2024 | Palestine/Norway | Directors: Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor | 95mins
Filmed in Palestine between 2019 and 2023, No Other Land is a documentary film performing its calling. An urgent and irresistible reminder as to why we choose to understand the world, and others, through cinema.
Mon 02 Sep 04:15pm | Wed 04 Sep 06:15pm | Buy Tickets
The Seed of the Sacred Fig
2024 | Iran/France/Germany | Director: Mohammad Rasoulof | 172mins
A conflicted family implodes as protests spread throughout Iran, Mohammad Rasoulof’s courageous and urgent film delivers a bold middle finger to the totalitarian regime of his homeland.
Sat 24 Aug 01:00pm | Mon 02 Sep 01:00pm | Buy Tickets
Tatami
2023 | Georgia/USA | Directors: Guy Nattiv, Zar Amir | 105mins
An Iranian judo champ weighs her principles and ambitions against the safety of her family and herself as government forces threaten violence unless she tows the party line, in this riveting political-sports-thriller.
Thu 29 Aug 01:45pm | Tue 03 Sep 06:15pm | Buy Tickets
The Teachers' Lounge
2023 | Germany | Director: İlker Çatak | 98mins
Driven by a captivating central performance, this unsettling Oscar-nominated classroom thriller thoughtfully probes the grey area of student care versus culpability, and to what degree our systems promote or constrain our humanity.
Thu 22 Aug 02:15pm | Sat 24 Aug 04:15pm | Buy Tickets
When the Light Breaks
2024 | Iceland/Netherlands/Croatia | Director: Rúnar Rúnarsson | 82mins
A poignant and beautiful snapshot of grief that asks us, how can you know what to do when the light breaks on the day following a major tragedy?
Sun 25 Aug 05:45pm | Wed 04 Sep 02:15pm | Buy Tickets
Nocturnal:
A strand devoted to the kind of cinema flourishing out of dreams - and nightmares. Irreverent genre and out-of-the-box films bound to take you on exhilarating journeys of amusement, fear and awe.
Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person
2023 | Canada | Director: Ariane Louis-Seize | 92mins
A sensitive vampire meets a depressed teenage boy in this deadpan romantic comedy about two loners connecting.
Thu 22 Aug 04:15pm | Thu 29 Aug 08:30pm | Buy Tickets
I Saw the TV Glow
2024 | USA | Director: Jane Schoenbrun | 100mins
Gunge, goons, and girls with unbreakable psychic bonds are your new late-night obsession in this unsettling fable about what happens when you get offered a chance at a fantasy, but choose to settle for reality.
Sat 24 Aug 08:15pm | Wed 28 Aug 08:15pm | Buy Tickets
Rhythms:
Six narrative and documentary films focused on music and its many forms and styles. This selection highlights the power of music, be it rap or classical, as a tool of enlightenment and liberation.
Gloria!
2024 | Italy/Switzerland | Director: Margherita Vicario | 106mins
An energetic re-envisioning of Baroque music through the lens of the fiery female composers whose revolutionary work was concealed throughout history.
Fri 30 Aug 10:30pm | Sat 31 Aug 03:15pm | Buy Tickets
In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon
2023 | Director: Alex Gibney | 209mins
Paul Simon is that rare popular artist who has produced vital music across seven decades. Drawing on archives and intimate new footage, this comprehensive documentary examines the creative career of a lifelong seeker.
Fri 23 Aug 02:00pm | Sat 31 Aug 11:15am | Buy Tickets
Kneecap
2024 | Director: Rich Peppiatt | 105mins
Belfast’s own Beastie Boys become unlikely figureheads of the Irish Language Act in this madcap biopic of sex, drugs, and Gaelic rap.
Fri 23 08:30pm | Tue 03 Sep 08:30pm | Buy Tickets
Midnight Oil: The Hardest Line
2024 | Director: Paul Clarke | 105mins
Defying the traditional rock ’n’ roll narrative, this is the story of how a young Australian hard rock band developed a political conscience and brought their audience along with them.
Thu 29 Aug 06:15pm | Mon 02 Sep 08:15pm | Buy Tickets
Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus
2023 | Director: Neo Sora | 103mins
Opus is a starkly intimate, self-performed elegy capturing a dying man’s genius.
Sun 25 Aug 12:00pm | Tue 27 01:00pm | Buy Tickets
Visions:
Critically acclaimed films and contemporary masterpieces are gathered here for the joy of cinephiles. These works showcase the distinct cinematic style of revered masters and emerging talents, including a hugely engrossing animated feature.
All We Imagine As Light
2024 | Director: Payal Kapadia | 114mins
Direct from Competition in Cannes where it scored the Grand Prix, this radiant Indian drama follows two nurses looking for love but finding sisterhood in the vibrant, heaving 20 million plus populace of Mumbai.
Mon 26 Aug 02:00pm | Sun Sep 03:15pm | Buy Tickets
The Beast
2023 | Director: Bertrand Bonello | 145mins
Léa Seydoux and George MacKay’s fatal attraction endures across space and time in Bertrand Bonello’s audacious Lynchian reflection on love and obsession, mixing sci-fi, melodrama, and horror across three different time frames.
Tue 03 Sep 03:15pm | Fri 06 Sep 06:15pm | Buy Tickets
Evil Does Not Exist
2023 | Director: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi | 106mins
Ryûsuke Hamaguchi follows up his Oscar-winning film Drive My Car with a modern eco-fable that provides a gorgeous meditation on humanity’s relation to nature and an unnerving commentary on the price of progress.
Wed 28 Aug 11:45am | Fri 30 Aug 06:15pm | Buy Tickets
Journeys:
A special focus on the countries and regions whose films emerged as groundbreaking and topical. This year, we zero in on endearing works showing the reality of life in the Himalayas and the thought-provoking and irreverent films out of Norway.
Agent of Happiness
2024 | Directors: Arun Bhattarai, Dorottya Zurbó | 94mins
“Agent of happiness” Amber sets out on a cross-country road trip surveying the satisfaction of the Bhutanese public, as this crowd-pleasing doco questions whether the Himalayan country really is the happiest place on Earth.
Wed 28 Aug 04:15pm | Mon 02 Sep 06:15pm | Buy Tickets
The Monk and the Gun
2023 | Director: Pawo Choyning Dorji | 107mins
Is “political freedom” worth the cost of familial or social discord? When Bhutan’s king abdicates in favour of democratic reform, a strange series of events unfolds, where the old and the new collide in wondrous fashion.
Thu Aug 22 06:15pm | Thu 29 Aug 04:00pm | Buy Tickets
Treasures:
A selection of hand-picked classics and recently restored films. A valuable opportunity to watch landmarks from the history of cinema on the screen, and unearth some unsung gems.
Paris, Texas
1984 | West Germany/France | Director: Wim Wenders | 148mins
Starring the late great Harry Dean Stanton in his most iconic role, Wim Wenders’ newly restored modern classic delivers one of the definitive outsider views of America.
Sun 01 Sep 12:15pm | Buy Tickets