With over a hundred titles in the festival this year, it can be hard to decide what films to spend your time with! We asked several of our committee members for their picks of surprising, unexpected or underappreciated films in the programme that they’re really looking forward to. We hope to see some of you there!
Johnny recommends:
Black Rain
Across a near half-century career, Shōhei Imamura directed some of Japan’s most politically uncompromising films. His late-career masterpiece Black Rain is a gut-wrenching look at the drawn-out fallout for those who ‘survived’ America’s nuclear attack on Hiroshima. Young protagonist Yasuko and her uncle Shigematsu determinedly try to go on with their lives in post-war Japan in the face of radiation sickness and the associated stigma. Released at the end of the 1980s, a decade that featured some of the most effective cautionary tales about nuclear annihilation, Black Rain seems like the definitive say on the matter and it is sadly still relevant decades after its release.
We Are All Strangers
I know Singapore’s Anthony Chen for his lovely small-scale character pieces Ilo Ilo and Drift but it seems he’s been harbouring grander ambitions. I shouldn’t be surprised – after all, he picked Edward Yang’s four-hour New Taiwanese epic A Brighter Summer Day for his Sight and Sound ballot. We Are All Strangers uses the sweeping, intergenerational scope of films like Yang’s as a template for a story set in contemporary Singapore. The movie finds parallels in the lives of a working class father and son, each trying to find enough money and love to get by, while living in a city that doesn’t care about them.
Palestine 36
The increased international attention on the self-determination of Palestinian people since October 2023 has brought with it belated interest in Palestine’s long-overlooked national cinema. Much of this interest has focused on the immediate situation on the ground, as seen in several (excellent) documentaries that NZIFF has screened in recent years. But Palestinian filmmakers have a decades-long history of showcasing different ways of living under occupation. One such filmmaker, Annemarie Jacir made her name with Salt of this Sea, an absolute banger in its own right that happens to be the first feature directed by a Palestinian woman. Her new film is set during the British occupation, with a decolonial struggle that long predates the Nakba. With a cast that includes several consistently excellent screen presences like Hiam Abbass (who you might recognise from Succession) and Saleh Bakri, this is sure to be a highlight among the late additions.
George recommends:
The History of Concrete
It’s hard to think of an international filmmaker with a more Wellingtonian sensibility than John Wilson. The eponymous multi-hyphenate behind HBO’s How To with John Wilson has carved out a niche in the documentary space, fossicking through thousands of hours of low-fi street videography to assemble his signature essayistic reflections on small talk, public restrooms, and risotto recipes (to name a few). His works are splattered industrial mosaics, an impression of a city charted in neuroses. To Wilson, a tarpaulin draped across a swimming pool is a crest of possibility and a bag of bread tied to a handlebar spells a lifetime of uncertainty. With The History of Concrete, Wilson has expanded this tradition to feature length, using his titular subject as a means of ruminating on hallmark movies, urbanism, cult leaders, and 90s hip-hop (call it Life, Death, and DMX). Wilson’s observational stylings call out to the Wellingtonian in me: his droll, digressive accounts of forgotten grocery lists and faulty kitchenware reflected by a city as topographically eccentric as its nasally narrator is.
Landmarks
Lucrecia Martel’s first foray into documentary filmmaking, Landmarks (‘Nuestra Tierra’ in its original Spanish and elsewhere westernised as Our Land) looks as haunting as anything in the programme this year. A plunge into recent Argentinian history, Landmarks traces the turbulent nine-year trial that erupted in the wake of Chuchagasta chief Javier Chocobar’s murder, a shocking injustice that dragged to the surface centuries of institutional prejudice and indigenous mistreatment. It should come as no surprise that this story rings painfully true in light of the ongoing struggle for land rights and indigenous sovereignty here in Aotearoa. What’s less immediately apparent is Martel’s approach to the material: a riveting digital tapestry that weaves archival footage, clinical courtroom documentation, and impossibly omnipotent drone footage into an eerie collision.
Renee recommends:
The Fox
My favourite films to watch are the genuinely strange and completely unexpected, so it will come as no surprise that the Nocturnal section of the programme is always my first stop. This film promises to be a truly bizarre Australian folktale about being very careful what you wish for. A man meets a fox that promises (yes, she talks!) to turn his cheating fiancé into the perfect woman. Of course, chaos must ensue. Jai Courtney was a revelation in Dangerous Animals and truly shines in these types of demented dark tales, so it’s great to see him leading this. If you need even more reasons to give this film a go, it has the voice talents of Olivia Colman as The Fox and the incomparable Sam Neill as The Crow. The audience just needs to hold on for the weird and hilarious journey.
Saccharine
The premise hooked me immediately: how far would you be willing to go to achieve your ideal body? For the protagonist, the answer is shocking and deeply disturbing, consuming human ashes. At a time when social media and popular culture constantly reinforce appearance-focused ideals, this feels like an especially timely theme to examine. Following the success of The Substance, which delivered one of the most grotesque and memorable body horror experiences in recent years, this feels like a worthy successor in the genre. This film does explore some sensitive issues on dysmorphia and body culture that might trigger some viewers, but it still seems like a gripping treatment of its subject.
Russ recommends:
Comédie-Française
While the festival is always a good time to settle in for a grand epic, I’m particularly enthusiastic about the sub-90-minute films that can be a good palate cleanser between bigger courses. As someone with a bit of experience in theatre, I know how deserving of a satire it can be, and this yarn of a cursed production of Macbeth promises to be a good laugh. It looks like it has real The Show That Goes Wrong vibes, which I deeply appreciate during a year when it feels like so many great films are also exercises in grappling with deep issues. A good laugh might just be the thing to restore my strength mid-festival.
I Want Your Sex
What made Gregg Araki come out of a ten-year hiatus? Maybe it’s the changing landscape of culture, and how the world is simultaneously more open about sex and yet ever more prudish. Araki’s always been an advocate for the revolutionary power of sex, whether it’s in his early and more explicit films, or in the gentler, more introspective Mysterious Skin (also screening this year). As modern films grow more earnest about relationships and sexual subcultures, maybe it’s time someone like Gregg Araki comes along and rattles our cage once more. Will his new film be good? No idea. But I wouldn’t miss the opportunity to find out.