Aotearoa New Zealand

A young Chinese New Zealander and her Pakeha boyfriend seek her parents’ blessing for their marriage in Roseanne Liang’s funny and poignant documentary of cross-cultural navigation.

New Zealander Alex Monteith’s open-ended, experimental documentary invites us to consider her images of a Northern Ireland ‘defined by the troubles’, and to listen to the eloquent voices of the troubled.

These short New Zealand documentaries selected by the Moving Image Centre observe artists and artisans at work. We meet master craftsmen, musicians, contemporary painters, writers and sculptors and follow these passionate people through the process of creation.

This year MIC’s Homegrown selection of 35mm shorts by New Zealand filmmakers is one of the strongest in years. Full of hope and subtle drama, framed with a local perspective, these films run the gamut from black comedy to apocalypse.

This year’s selection of homegrown short films finished on video covers a range of genres from comedy and computer animation through to drama and dance. Each display a unique take on the world – through current events, imagined histories or fable-like fantasies.

An amazingly layered, provocative work that takes us inside the struggle of Kaipara locals to obtain government support to rescue their depleted fisheries. It’s hard to imagine the New Zealander who’d not be moved by this picture of Māori and Pakeha acting in common cause, from Barry Barclay, the director of Ngāti and Feathers of Peace.

Intimate, acutely observant filmmaking with true emotional power, Campbell Walker’s superbly acted digital feature concerns a young couple’s struggle to survive one partner’s crushing bouts of depression.

A documentary portrait of New Zealand motor racer Kim Newcombe, best remembered as the New Zealander who came second in the 1973 World 500 Grand Prix Championship and for the Konig bike he built himself using the engine from an outboard motor.

A remarkable and disquietingly aestheticised documentary portrait of the North Island forestry town of Minginui, offering an eerily beautiful picture of torpor, isolation and decay – and of Maori culture enduring on the land, inhabiting the detritus of a western economy.

Shirley Horrocks’ portrait of novelist, poet and educator Albert Wendt provides insight into a charismatic, intellectual Pacific man who continues to make a very real difference.

Russell Campbell’s documentary tells the stories of New Zealanders who stuck to their passionate anti-war commitment through World War II – and the draconian government crackdown on their dissent.

This digital romantic comedy set in Pakuranga announces the arrival of Scott Boswell whose abundant talents are happily evident in every jocular frame. His deftly balanced comic exploration of love and friendship bespeaks a natural flair for reveling in the formulaic, while hitting on a few home truths.

One-man documentary team, New Zealander Hayden Campbell shows us the daily scramble of life in the West Bank town of Qalqiliya through the eyes of Palestine’s one and only zookeeper.