Music

A quintessential French icon gets his big-screen bio. Sixties singer Serge Gainsbourg mixed pop outlawry with low-down lechery to blaze his own hipster manifesto, seducing Brigitte Bardot and Jane Birkin along the way.

“If you want to know why Glenn Gould is considered one of the greatest pianists of the last century… this is the movie to see.” — Vancouver International Film Festival. “An invigorating and brightly unsettling journey.” — Patti Smith

“Julien Temple concludes his cinematic history of punk… making a persuasive, highly entertaining case for why rabble-rousing musical renegades Dr Feelgood are the unsung progenitors of the movement.” — The Scotsman

Charming portrait of Stefan Knüpfer, Steinway piano tuner at work with some very famous clients: Lang Lang, Alfred Brendel, Rudolf Buchbinder, Till Fellner and Pierre-Laurent Aimard.

Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning as Joan Jett and Cherie Currie, front girls of the 70s-era teen proto-punk sensation, The Runaways. “The sheer force of the girl-power energy… will leave you jumpy.” — Vanity Fair

For the third successive year the Festival’s long-standing, popular and much-cherished collaboration with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra is dedicated to the eternal comic wonder of the great silent clowns.

Fascinating, funny portrait of Stephin Merritt, the notoriously bad-tempered writer of beguiling literate American pop, and his band the Magnetic Fields. “Will intrigue and entertain even those unfamiliar with their music.” — Time Out

Infectious portrait of Trimpin, an eccentric, extremely talented kinetic sculptor, sound artist, musician and composer who uses scavenged materials to craft fanciful musical instruments of his own design. With the Kronos Quartet.

Sarah Hunter’s music-filled documentary is a sharp and lively memento of the jazz-inflected Wellington reggae unit TrinityRoots, with fresh interviews and great footage of the band rehearsing, recording and performing.

Musicians Warren Maxwell, Maaka McGregor and Himiona Grace perform a new soundtrack bringing humour and fresh perspective to this ‘Māori folk drama’ made in New Zealand by Hollywood’s Universal Studios in 1928.

Indie rock hipster Sean Bones goes with the flow on the beaches and backroads of Jamaica in this smart and funny comedy about a skinny New York white boy trying to cut it in a Rastaman world.