Festival Programme

Films by Genre

Comedy

Héraðið

Grímur Hákonarson

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.

Adam Rehmeier

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.

Monica Zanetti

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.

La Odisea de los Giles

Sebastián Borensztein

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.

Zoé Wittock

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?

Alaa Eddine Aljem

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.

Lars Damoiseaux

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.