We close the Festival with this quintessentially Icelandic comedy about one woman’s fight against a monopolistic co-op stifling the livelihoods of farmers in a remote valley near Reykjavik. Adroitly blending humour and injustice together with the lightest of touches, it’s a worthy successor to NZIFF18 audience favourite Woman at War.
Festival Programme
Films — by Genre
- Activism
- Adventure
- Americana
- Artist Cinema
- Based on Books
- Comedy
- Coming of Age
- Crime
- Crossing Borders
- Dance
- Documentary
- Fashion
- Feminism
- Films about Films
- Found Footage
- Historical
- Horror
- Human Rights
- Indigenous
- LGBTQIA+
- Love Stories
- Music
- Politics
- Rebellion
- Religion
- Retro
- Rural Life
- Science Fiction
- Seniors
- Sexuality
- Sports and Gaming
- Theatre
- Travel
- WTF?
- War Zones
- Wellbeing
- Youth
Comedy
Dinner in America
This sweet and sour coming-of-age comedy smashed into Sundance with anarchy on its mind and a kickass soundtrack on its turntable. The bad boy-meets-good girl setup has been fodder for cinema for aeons, so it was about time someone took a chainsaw to the status quo.
Ellie & Abbie (& Ellie's Dead Aunt)
In this bright, affirmative lesbian teen rom-com, a girl awkwardly angles for the attention of her high school crush with a little help from the ghost of her aunt, a queer activist with a poignant history in the fight for LGBTQI+ rights.
Heroic Losers
La Odisea de los Giles
After being scammed into bankruptcy, a community of working-class Argentines band together to devise the ultimate payback – an elaborate money heist inspired by the movies – in Sebastián Borensztein’s winning underdog comedy.
Jumbo
Who would have thought one of the most oddly romantic films of recent years would be based on the true encounter of a woman and her love for nuts and bolts?
The Unknown Saint
A bumbling thief plots to infiltrate a mausoleum built inexplicably on top of his buried loot in Alaa Eddine Aljem’s delightful, deadpan tale of spirituality and greed in rural Morocco.
Yummy
Those with a voracious appetite for fresh variations on the zombie genre will lap up this juicy Belgian horror comedy about a virus outbreak in a run-down hospital offering cheap cosmetic surgery to desperate clients.