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An incisive investigation into the strange, contradictory drivers behind the political and philanthropic relationship of the religious American right and pro-occupation Israel.

A mysterious film leads Tiriki Onus to trace the life of his grandfather and pioneering Aboriginal activist Bill, revealing a stirring personal story and the dark history of Australian suppression of Indigenous rights.

Deception abounds in this nuanced portrait of lies and loss when a middle-aged woman discovers her recently deceased husband led another life in France, contradictory to the pious Muslim home they built together in England.

Director Jamila Wignot captures the bold and innovative spirit of Alvin Ailey, the legendary American dancer and choreographer, in this deftly handled documentary.

A reminder that “every frame excludes a world beyond its edges”, this visionary film essay explores the entangled histories of cameras, weapons, policing and justice – and the limits of our perceptions.

The work of community leaders seeking to curb gun violence on the streets of Chicago is captured with gritty complexity in this confronting documentary from Oscar-nominated filmmakers Bing Liu and Joshua Altman.

“Beautiful Thing telegraphed to its mid-1990s audiences something they hadn’t heard before: Gay people are just people.” —Brandon Tensley, The Atlantic

A filmmaking couple navigate love, recognition and Ingmar Bergman in Mia Hansen-Løve's triple-layered Cannes darling, a serene and self-reflective ode to film and storytelling.

Justin Chon writes, directs and stars in this stylish drama about a Korean-born, Louisiana-raised man who must go up against an unjust US immigration system to keep his family together.

A retired boxer will stop at nothing in the pursuit of her missing sister, launching herself into the belly of the beast to find and punish those responsible for her disappearance.

A captivating journey into the early 80s moral panic of the “video nasty”, Prano Bailey-Bond’s audaciously meta retro-horror conjures the nightmare visions of David Lynch and Lucio Fulci.

Documentarian Julien Temple explores the close ties between Shane MacGowan, Ireland’s beloved punk poet, and his home country’s tumultuous history.

A pop-tastic and wholly demented animated adventure has zookeepers tasked with safeguarding endangered mythical creatures from warmongers intent on exploiting their powers for destruction.

“An impassioned film with an unflinching Indigenous and feminist perspective.” — Sarah Ward, Screendaily

French director Lucile Hadžihalilović creates an enigmatic and melancholic world that seems to exist in the centre of a Venn diagram of Lynch’s Eraserhead and Cronenberg’s Spider.

Operatives from both sides of the Korean divide, working diplomatic jobs in Somalia, must come together to survive as Mogadishu descends into civil war in a political thriller from writer/director Ryoo Seung-wan.

Jessica Chastain shines in this biopic centred on the trials, tribulations and televangelical legacy of the larger-than-life Tammy Faye Bakker.

Photographer Fiona Clark shocked 1970s New Zealand with her documentary images of Auckland’s burgeoning queer scene. The pictures they tried to ban were just the beginning for one of Aotearoa's photography greats.

The unique power of Australia’s Bangarra Dance Theatre, an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander performing arts organisation, fuels this artful documentary by Wayne Blair and Nel Minchin.

A thrilling tale of resilience, Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winner Flee is just as interested in the quiet toll trauma takes on survivors as it is the extraordinary acts that ensured their survival.

Wes Anderson brings his signature style to this delightful comedic anthology, paying homage to French New Wave and The New Yorker’s golden age journalists of the 50s and 60s.

One of the photography world’s most provocative artists, Helmut Newton’s story is told by the women who knew him best: those who lived with him, inspired him and disrobed for his lens.

Documentarian Heidi Ewing turns to narrative feature filmmaking in this lilting, graceful love story about two Mexican men whose bond is tested by distance, homophobia and hostile immigration systems.

One of the breakout discoveries of Sundance and Cannes festivals this year was Pascual Sisto’s troubling allegorical take on teenage alienation as the titular John decides to trap his family in a deep hole.

Science in Dark Times follows the work of a remarkable woman, Dame Juliet Gerrard, Jacinda Ardern's Chief Science Advisor, through three years of dramatic crises, including the Whakaari White Island eruption and the unfolding of the Covid-19 pandemic.

When Nick Cave first heard Karen Dalton’s recording of “Something On Your Mind” he had to pull his car off the road and weep; not because it was sad — though it is — but because it was perfect.

Powerful performances and surgical craft anchor Robert Machoian’s slow-burning thriller, acutely observing the collapse of a family and the breakdown of its patriarch with mounting dread and carefully ratcheted suspense.

Two strangers explore the pleasures and pitfalls of platonic friendship while bonding over online Spanish lessons in this intimate, expressive drama shot during lockdown over video-chat calls.

Welcome to the world of 20-year-old Lily Hevesh – the world’s most successful domino artist. See thousands of dominos patiently set up and impressively toppled in this uplifting and inspiring coming of age documentary.

Melancholic, atmospheric and heartfelt, Ben Sharrock’s feature exploring immigrants awaiting asylum eschews conventional approaches to stories of the modern refugee crisis to create something profound and surprising.

Sensual, subversive and sun-drenched, “even mothers make mistakes” (Peter Debruge, Variety) in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s glittering directorial debut, the 2021 Venice Film Festival winner for Best Screenplay.

Helming this compelling documentary following one of New Zealand's sporting superstars, Kiwi director Peter Brook Bell charts how Mark Hunt overcame a challenging childhood to rise to global success – despite his best efforts to throw it all away.

Fran Kranz’s highly accomplished debut feature takes an unflinching look at the endemic horror of school shootings in America and their lingering scars, through the eyes of the parents of the perpetrator and his victim.

Follow Tilda Swinton on a strange supernatural journey into the Colombian jungle, in this hypnotic new film from the director of Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives and Cemetery of Splendour.

Following the success of David Downs’ book of the same name, NZ director Annie Goldson (Brother Number One NZIFF 2011, Kim Dotcom: Caught in the Web NZIFF 2017) brings his story to the big screen.

The biggest player in the New Zealand economy is put on notice in this spirited documentary that sees a young activist from rural Northland go up against the powerful dairy industry.

After missing her flight to a prestigious internship, an anxiety-ridden architecture grad fakes being in New York while lying low in her home town scrounging for another ticket.

Socialist pioneer Eleanor Marx is fully brought to life – with all her complexities and contradictions – in this stylised, lavish biopic featuring a deeply affecting performance by Romola Garai.

People from all sides of the cultural battlefield confront smartphone footage of the French gilets jaunes protests and the police crackdown they inspired in this intelligent and innovative documentary.

As Tadzio in Death in Venice, Björn Andrésen electrified audiences worldwide with his fragile beauty. Fifty years later, his life is still haunted by the fallout from the role that made him recognised, and coveted, across the globe.

Mothers of the Revolution tells the story of one of the longest protests in history, when between 1981 and 2000, thousands of women from around the world came together at Greenham Common to take a committed stand against nuclear proliferation.

Railing against an oppressive, overbearing father, a teenage girl embraces independence and flirts with desire over the course of a formative weekend in this sunny, sinister Croatian drama.

The life of British post-war photographer Maurice Broomfield is examined by his son, documentary veteran Nick Broomfield, whose own confrontational style lies at odds with his father’s steadfast pacifism.

The great Aboriginal actor David Dalaithngu looks back on his amazing life and career in this personal film memoir, given added pathos as the ageing icon fearlessly faces his impending death.

Based on the 2014 memoir, My Salinger Year is The Devil Wears Prada for the literary world, a young woman’s coming of age as she balances her writing ambitions with her new job at a major New York City literary agency.

Check out the year’s best New Zealand short films as chosen by this year’s guest selector, Kerry Fox, from a total of 117 submitted entries.

Our premium collection of Māori and Pasifika short films from the gifted storytellers of Moana-nui-a-kiwa.

A nail-biting rescue thriller wrapped up in a chilling vision of near-dystopia, this Kiwi-Canadian co-production tackles Canada’s dark colonial roots through strong genre craft.

What if you had to audition for your own life before being born? “A film of dizzying conceptual ambition – No Exit meets Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” — Variety

The first Australian film featured in Cannes’ Official Selection in a decade, Justin Kurzel’s disturbing dive into the tormented mind and soul of a mass-shooter is bolstered by four remarkable lead performances.

After learning he only has months to live, a working-class father reckons with guilt and grief as he searches for a replacement family for his young son.

When a stranger on a bridge utters a single word in his ear, Günter finds himself falling deep into the rabbit hole of his mysterious childhood in Alex van Warmerdam’s new, paranoia-fuelled thriller.

A refreshingly original, genre-hopping exploration of where our developing technologies might take us, that fuses offbeat humour anda lo-fi meets hi-tech vision of the world with moments of wry Herzogian philosophy.

A refreshingly original, genre-hopping exploration of where our developing technologies might take us, that fuses offbeat humour anda lo-fi meets hi-tech vision of the world with moments of wry Herzogian philosophy

A refreshingly original, genre-hopping exploration of where our developing technologies might take us, that fuses offbeat humour anda lo-fi meets hi-tech vision of the world with moments of wry Herzogian philosophy

Path 99 combines planetarium immersion with an enveloping electronic soundtrack, showing us how, now more than ever, it is crucial that we all have our heads in the clouds.

Patu! is the definitive film of the 1981 Springbok tour protests, a technically complex piece of guerrilla filmmaking that explicitly connects apartheid abroad and racism at home. Newly preserved by Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision.

Bella Cherry arrives in LA from Sweden ready to take the adult film world by storm, but the often-abusive, male-dominated industry presents its own unique pitfalls in Ninja Thyberg's feature debut.

Poly Styrene was one of the most ebullient and original figures to come out of punk rock’s first wave. A decade after her death, Poly’s daughter is ready to tell her mother’s story.

Dame Jane Campion returns with her Venice Silver Lion-Best Director winner; a rich, menacing neo-Western tackling cowboy brothers and the mother and son who come between them.

When neurosurgeon Márta abandons a brilliant career to follow her lover to Budapest, she instead finds a man who claims they’ve never met. “A treat – sinewy, seductive and beautifully strange.” —The Guardian

Moving with the breathless intensity of a political thriller, this disturbing document of potential voter fraud in the 2018 Zimbabwe election is elevated by astonishing access to key players behind-the-scenes.

This pressure-cooker Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Film puts viewers on the frontlines of an impending massacre in the Bosnian genocide – with harrowing power.

Taking as its inspiration the groundbreaking book of the same name by autistic thirteen-year-old Naoki Higashida, this documentary attempts to present the world as it might be experienced by neuro-divergent individuals.

An intimate work of journalism examining the fate of ‘ISIS brides’, women lured to Syria and radicalised by the militant group, who now flounder in a Kurdish-run refugee camp, desperate to return home.

Let this exultant ode to the life-sustaining waterways that criss-cross our planet wash over you, captured in jaw-dropping imagery by Mountain director Jennifer Peedom.

The life of celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain was about so much more than just food, as affectionate documentary Roadrunner illustrates in interviews with those whose lives were touched by the curious, convivial rover.

An uplifting documentary featuring Māori and Pākehā kaitiaki repo, or swamp guardians, working across the motu to restore Aotearoa’s precious wetlands.

Equal parts arthouse mystery and erotic melodrama, Saint-Narcisse sees queer iconoclast Bruce LaBruce pushing Greek myth through his 70s B-movie aesthetic to deliver this twisted tale of twincest, turmoil and treachery.

An infamous creepy tabloid story becomes a gleefully deranged examination of our conspiracy-ridden time in cult-favourite dirtbag podcaster Dasha Nekrasova’s debut feature.

Dizzying and captivating, Emma Seligman’s feature-length debut stars Rachel Sennott as a young woman who cannot escape her sugar daddy, her ex-girlfriend or her own lies at a family wake.

Tracing the story of one of our more complex characters, this layered portrait re-examines the exploits of influential outsider, Dutch immigrant artist Theo Schoon, told in his own words and through first-hand accounts.

This joy of a documentary, narrated by avant-garde artist Laurie Anderson, is a long overdue study of the remarkable women who pioneered the world of electronic music.

Bill Gosden championed countless New Zealand films during his tenure as Festival Director, and not all the obvious ones, either. Maybe it was its lust for Americana, the protagonist’s escape from southern parochialism (Bill grew up in Dunedin), or Gillian Ashurst’s darkly cartoonish take on Goodbye Pork Pie’s road movie legacy, that made him regard Snakeskin with such fondness.

Fascinated, he wrote, “I wouldn’t be surprised if, played backwards, it turns out to contain the solutions to every unsolved murder in the South Island”.

This queer coming-of-age romance combines all the sensuality of François Ozon’s best with the infectious energy of a CW drama and how meeting one person can open you up and change the trajectory of your life.

“The Liberace of Sandusky” emerges from retirement for one last day in the sun – and one final night on stage – in a knock-out turn by Udo Kier. 

This portrait of a woman on the verge follows fitness influencer Sylwia Zając, a social media celebrity with 600,000 followers, whose glossy, energetic brand begins to crack as she grows more and more isolated by her fame.  

Filmed on the same land where the Unabomber once lived, Ted K draws viewers into the psyche of a haunting figure in America’s history.

In love, newly engaged and maintaining a long-distance relationship, director Jan Oliver Lucks and his fiancée decide to throw traditional rules out the window by opening up their relationship before they tie the knot.

Based on a true story, Tigers is a riveting look at the price of success in the cut-throat world of professional football.

A captivating exploration of the loving but tumultuous relationship between two of America's finest writers.

This urgent documentary takes an intimate look at young political activists in Hong Kong as they take a determined stand against a global superpower to fight for freedom, democracy and a better future.

What Sir Edmund Hillary did in conquering Everest, Sir Hekenukumai Busby has done in reclaiming the lost art of traditional Māori voyaging, sailing the vast Pacific navigating by the stars – restoring the past to carve our way into the future.

Can an indigenous art economy compete with a multinational plantation? Artist Renzo Martens travels into the Congo to see if he can bring local art to the international stage and return the profits where they belong.

Equipped with keen intelligence and a big heart, lawyer Jeffery Robinson educates and challenges in equal measure, giving voice to the silenced and seeking acceptance of racist realities in pursuit of lasting change.

A shocking crime covered up in childhood bubbles back to the surface for two estranged Ojibwe men in a relentless debut feature from Native American director Lyle Mitchell Corbine Jr.

A stirring reflection on the too-short life of David Wojnarowicz, one of the most important artists and activists of the AIDs crisis. A thoughtful, moving reminder of not just what we’ve lost, but who we’ve lost.

Innocent Gert, who works in a rubbish dump, can't believe his luck when he's ordered by his boss to take his beautiful mute daughter, Princess Plum, to meet her prospective husband.

Our Bill Gosden tribute wouldn’t be complete without a wall-to-wall Technicolor classic. Bill’s love of early cinema, vibrant studio-era musicals, and frankly anything starring Elvis could be felt throughout his retrospective programming, not least in the carefully curated Live Cinema events he looked forward to most. Douglas Sirk, Hollywood’s unrivalled melodramatist, influenced some of Bill’s absolute favourites — Fassbinder and Almodóvar, most famously — and this presentation of one of the director’s late masterpieces is a fitting occasion to luxuriate in larger-than-life filmmaking on the biggest screen available, as only Bill would have it.

“Y'all wanna hear a story about why me & this bitch here fell out???????? It's kind of long but full of suspense.” — @_zolarmoon