Retro

Our popular annual collaboration with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra presents the last of the great Buster Keaton comedy features and Cops, a classic short. Marc Taddei conducts scores by Timothy Brock.

A rarely seen classic of world cinema, Satyajit Ray’s deft and moving adaptation of a novella by Nobel Prize winner Rabindranath Tagore is presented in a brand new digital restoration direct from its Cannes screening.

This astounding and rarely seen masterpiece of 20s cinema juxtaposes individual dreams and the mass energy of pre-Depression New York City to mesmerising effect. With a live score composed by Cloudboy’s Jo Contag.

In the only Hitchcock movie ever shot in 3D, quintessential cool blonde Grace Kelly stars as a society woman for whom jealous husband Ray Milland arranges the perfect murder. But thanks to a well-placed pair of scissors, the tables are turned, and Milland’s carefully laid plans begin to disintegrate.

For one night only the Mighty Civic is transformed into a Gothic cathedral of psychedelic doom. NZIFF plays host to a unique live cinema performance from Italian rock legends Goblin as they accompany the eye-popping visuals of Dario Argento’s horror masterpiece Suspiria with their own pulsating score.

Gaylene Preston was behind the scenes on Utu. Her documentary captures the chutzpah, ingenuity and burgeoning national pride of the filmmakers and their newly evolving respect for tikanga Māori.

Hitchcock’s masterpiece of popular cinema, simply one of the most entertaining thrillers ever made, looks better than ever in this fabulous new 4K digital restoration. With Cary Grant, James Mason, Eva Marie Saint.

New York’s Milestone Films continues its essential mission of restoring the perceptive and socially conscious works of underground American filmmaker Shirley Clarke with this mesmerizing 1985 portrait of jazz icon Ornette Coleman.

Fascinating portrait of animator Richard Williams (Who Framed Roger Rabbit) who ploughed massive resources into a legendary animated feature, The Thief and the Cobbler, and saw it destroyed. With dazzling surviving sequences.

Recently restored, Shirley Clarke’s Oscar-winning portrait of poet Robert Frost lives on as a precious, gleaming artefact of the JFK era.

The glorious peak achievement of the new feature film culture that burgeoned here in the 70s, Geoff Murphy’s 1983 Utu is unveiled afresh in its ravishing, pictorial splendour. Here it is, our own turbulent history transcribed with cinematic élan – and an elegiac, absurdist vision of the devil’s mischief in paradise.

In May 1971, Roman Polanski went to Monaco with documentarian Frank Simon to shadow the world’s greatest Formula One racer, Jackie Stewart. The resulting film was praised by racing enthusiasts but considered too specialised for wide release.