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What do this year’s films from Aotearoa reveal? That our filmmakers are asking big questions, pushing into new territory, and telling stories with wit, courage and care. It is a line-up full of range and ambition, from gothic thrillers and offbeat comedies to powerful documentaries and deeply personal portraits.

Kicking things off is The Weed Eaters, a horror-comedy with bite. A mysterious strain of weed turns a group of stoner mates into reluctant cannibals, and things unravel fast. Shot on a shoestring and powered by pure creativity, it’s chaotic, clever and destined to gain cult status. NZIFF Artistic Director Paolo Bertolin calls it a “positively crazy finding”, and one of the “must-see thrills” of this year’s festival. 

If you prefer your chills with a slower burn, Went Up the Hill delivers in spades. Filmed in rural Canterbury and starring Dacre Montgomery (Stranger Things) and Vicky Krieps (Phantom Thread), this gothic psychodrama brings ghosts, grief and some genuinely unsettling twists. 

Workmates finds charm, heartbreak and humour in the wings of a crumbling Auckland theatre. Directed by Sophie Henderson and Curtis Vowell, this romantic dramedy draws on real-life experience to celebrate the chaos of creative work and the moments of magic that

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We've made a change to one of our most important competitions and combined what were previously two separate collections. Ngā Whanaunga Māori Pasifika Shorts and New Zealand’s Best have been merged into a single, inclusive competition, Ngā Whanaunga: Aotearoa New Zealand’s Best. This year, we have a stellar lineup of finalists carefully selected from 88 submissions. 

With 13 finalists chosen by the selectors, a jury of three will select the winner of the $7500 NZIFF Patrons Best Short Film Award, the $4000 Spirit of the Civic Award and the $1000 Letterboxd Award for Māori Pasifika Talent. The jury awards will be presented following the Auckland screening.  

The winner of the audience vote takes away the coveted Audience Award, consisting of 25% of the box office from NZIFF screenings in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin. 

Programme One 

96 mins  

When the Geese Flew

Picking Crew

Stage Challenge

Chrysanthemum  

Wild Nights, Wild Nights!

Our Party

Programme Two 

95 mins 

Mirumiru 

Puti 

Nausea 

Growing Still

Womb 

I Am Not Your Dusky Maiden

Let’s Settle This

On this fine Friday 13th, we’re shining the spotlight on our lineup of kooky, creepy, weirdly wonderful and out-of-the-box films, aka the nocturnal strand.

First up - you asked and we listened - David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds is coming to NZIFF 2025! Featuring Cronenberg’s affinity for the macabre, the film follows a recently bereaved app developer who creates GraveTech, a bizarre new technological frontier involving ‘shrouds’, which reproduce the body in the grave as a 3D model that mourners can watch decompose remotely via their smartphone.

Also among the lineup, OBEX blends horror, sci-fi, old-school gaming nostalgia and Lynchian dread into a heady and undefinable mix that will haunt your dreams. The story of a reclusive nerd who must enter a video game to fight a demon and rescue his dog, OBEX is a surreal analog nightmare for anyone who remembers a world before tv’s were flat.

Kiwi comedy-romance, Workmates, will have its world premiere at NZIFF 2025!

Directed by Curtis Vowell (Baby Done, The Outlaws, Seize Them!, Fantail) and written by Sophie Henderson (Baby Done, The Justice of Bunny King, Fantail), Workmates is a funny, heartfelt love story starring Sophie Henderson (Human Traces, Fantail) and Matt Whelan (Narcos, Go Girls) as Lucy and Tom - best friends, theatre-makers, and co-workers.

When an accident threatens to shut down the tiny, underfunded theatre they’ve built together,
Lucy realises she would do anything to save the theatre and keep her friend… who she might be in love with.

Grab your festival Multipass for best value tickets!

It’s official - Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or winner, It Was Just An Accident, is this year’s opening night film.

Filmed in secret in Iran, It Was Just An Accident is a road movie revenge thriller featuring biting black humour, borderline absurd happenings, and vividly shifting viewpoints from a van-load of ex-prisoners. At the same time, it looks at bigger questions around morality, justice, unhealed trauma and the impact of the Iranian regime.

And strikingly, there’s an air of the autobiographical for acclaimed director Jafar Panahi, once imprisoned himself and finally free from a filmmaking ban imposed by Iranian authorities. With It Was Just An Accident, Panahi tempers the anger with irony, and ultimately, he shows us that we can stay human only by seeking justice and truth rather than vengeance.

"Jafar Panahi's film is cinema at its boldest. It challenges the notion of revenge through compassion. It is the kind of cinema that stays with you. I am excited that New Zealand audiences will be among the first in the world to see it!" - Paolo Bertolin, NZIFF Artistic Director.