NZIFF 2024 screened nationwide between 31 July – 7 September in 10 centres, screening 83 feature films and 17 short films across 15 venues. 2024 saw NZIFF present the inaugural Aotearoa Film Focus Weekend at ASB Waterfront Theatre, a weekend dedicated to showcasing Aotearoa filmmaking talent. Among the festival highlights was a special 30th anniversary screening of 'Heavenly Creatures' – a 4K restoration of Peter Jackson’s 1994 classic, presented in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington and Ōtautahi Christchurch, by special arrangement with Wingnut Films.

NZIFF 2023 screened nationwide between 19 July – 10 September across 15 centres, screening 131 films at 30 venues. The festival opened in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland’s stunning Civic with Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winning Anatomy of a Fall commencing proceedings. The festival presented 12 Aotearoa feature-length films and held its annual short film competitions, NZ’s Best (with guest selector Niki Caro) and Ngā Whanaunga Māori Pasifika Shorts. Additional highlights included the return of Live Cinema, with a sold-out screening of The Circus featuring the 1969 score written by Sir Charlie Chaplin, performed by the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, and conducted by Vincent Hardaker. This was followed by the Closing Night film, Aki Kaurismäki’s deadpan romantic crowd-pleaser Fallen Leaves.

NZIFF 2022 saw the festival once again screen nationwide and we were particularly delighted to open in the glorious Civic in Auckland. The impacts of Covid-19 meant that the 2022 festival was smaller in scale and duration with fewer films, a reduced number of venues in Auckland, Wellington, Dunedin, New Plymouth and Hawke's Bay, and reduced number of screenings nationwide. We opened the festival in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin with the world premiere of Tearepa Kahi's Muru featuring Cliff Curtis and Tame Iti, while regional centres opened with Sara Dosa's moving documentary Fire of Love. Our Closing Night film was Palme D'Or winner, Triangle of Sadness, and we also featured David Cronenberg's Crimes of the Future in the main centres. We presented the world premieres of Kāinga, Punch, Gloriavale, Geoff Dixon: Portraits of Us, When The Cows Come Home, and Shut Eye, while Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song was an audience favourite.

Whānau Mārama: New Zealand International Film Festival (NZIFF) 2021 was delayed to take place in October/November following the postponement of the 2021 Cannes Film Festival and the nationwide vaccination rollout. NZIFF 2021 was seriously impacted by the August lockdown and subsequent restrictions due to the Covid-19 Delta outbreak. The Auckland and Hamilton legs of NZIFF 2021 were cancelled and the film festival went ahead in the remaining 11 towns and cities with physical distancing restrictions impacting on audience numbers.
The 2021 festival opening film was Jane Campion's The Power of the Dog, and closed with Palme d'Or winner Titane. Other programme highlights included Paolo Sorrentino's The Hand of God, Cannes Jury Prize winner Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Memoria, Ryusuke Hamaguchi's Drive My Car, Venice Golden Lion winner Happening, and Berlin Golden Bear winner Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn.
Thirteen New Zealand feature films screened with world premieres of MILKED, Juliet Gerrard: Science in Dark Times, Mark Hunt: The Fight of His Life, Whetū Mārama – Bright Star, Signed, Theo Schoon, Millie Lies Low, and Rohe Kōreporepo – The Swamp, the Sacred Place, along with three co-productions, and seven additional NZ short films were selected to screen ahead of features.
NZIFF 2021 marked 50 years of the film festival in Wellington with a special screening of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant. In Wellington, a special screening of the newly colourised version of cult classic Woodenhead celebrated director Florian Habicht as a 2021 New Zealand Arts Foundation Laureate and the recipient of the Dame Gaylene Preston Award for Documentary Filmmakers.
A special programme of films screened in all centres as a tribute to former Director Bill Gosden (1953-2020).

The 2020 film festival was the first for new Director – Kaiwhakatere Marten Rabarts.
Due to the impacts of the COVID-19 global pandemic, the festival was presented online as NZIFF At Home – Online, with a capsule programme of films in cinemas. NZIFF was the first major hybrid film festival in the world and included online filmmaker introductions and Q&As (live and recorded), masterclasses and special opening/closing online events with a welcome by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
The festival was also rebranded Whānau Mārama: New Zealand International Film Festival with the nationwide marketing campaign featuring images of real people and representing the many different film festival fans.
The 2020 festival opening film was True History of The Kelly Gang, and closed with Grimur Hárkonarson’s The County. Five world premieres featured – New Zealand feature films LOIMATA – The Sweetest Tears, Beyond Everest, and The Girl on the Bridge, web-series Rūrangi, and Australian director Eammon Ashton-Atkinson’s debut film Steelers: The World’s First Gay Rugby Club. The most-watched film of the festival was Kore-eda Hirokazu’s film The Truth, starring Catherine Deneuve, Juliette Binoche and Ethan Hawke, while The Kingmaker and Corpus Christi also proved popular. The competition section of the festival was expanded with awards for films in Ngā Whanaunga Māori Pasifika Short Films including the inaugural Wellington UNESCO City of Film Award for Best Film.

We opened 2019 with the international premiere of the charming French comedy La Belle Époque and closed with the world premiere of Tearepa Kahi’s documentary Herbs: Songs of Freedom. Audiences flocked to the sublime Aretha Franklin concert doco Amazing Grace and to the delightful Kiwi comedy Bellbird. Our own Incredibly Strange Ant Timpson introduced his own directorial debut Come to Daddy and we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the moon landing with Apollo 11. We also screened a mini-retrospective of works from the inimitable Agnes Varda along with her final documentary and presented a live cinema screening of Hitchcock’s The Lodger.

We celebrated our 50th anniversary in Auckland with a retrospective of festival favourites from our first fifty years, including a live cinema screening of Buster Keaton’s The General, Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire and the film that opened the first ever Auckland International Film Festival, the Danish drama Hunger. We opened with Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra’s indigenous gangster film Birds of Passage and director Debra Granik attended screenings of her off-the-grid drama Leave No Trace along with her Kiwi star Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie. The Japanese drama Shoplifters and the documentary Three Identical Strangers pulled record crowds, while a strong programme of New Zealand documentaries included Yellow Is Forbidden, Celia and Merata: How Mum Decolonised the Screen.

Ruben Ostlund’s jaw-dropping satire The Square opened NZIFF in Auckland at the Civic. Audiences fell in love with the blossoming friendship of JR and Agnes Varda on a tour de France in Faces, Places (Visages villages) and Gaylene Preston’s My Year with Helen was one of our most popular titles of the year. Our debut Secret Screenings, simultaneously presented for Incredibly Strange audiences in Auckland and Wellington, proved to be a winning formula even if the film The Belko Experiment divided opinion.
We screened our largest contingent of NZ-made films ever with 15 feature-length films. Jane Campion and Gerard Lee welcomed full houses for their six-part, six hour TV series Top of the Lake: China Girl for audiences at the Embassy Theatre and our gleaming new Auckland venue, ASB Waterfront Theatre.

Big screen events at Autumn Events 2017 included Terrence Malick's journey through space and time, a return to the peace and love of Woodstock 1969, Herzog's exploration of the insanity of an entrepreneur in Fitzcarraldo, Woody Allen's love letter to New York, and Judy Garland and James Mason playing Hollywood’s archetypal view of showbiz coupledom in a landmark musical drama from 1954.

NZIFF 2016 opened with an ode to joy: World Premiere screenings of Tearepa Kahi’s Poi E. Phil Keoghan’s Le Ride had its World Premiere in Christchurch ahead of a whirlwind tour of the NZIFF circuit. Terence Davies in person turned out to be much more cheerful and a lot funnier than his marvellous films. His compatriot Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake moved one patron to organise a screening at Parliament. A much less responsible direct-from-Cannes selection, Paul Verhoeven’s Elle put our closing night in the hands of someone as perpetually youthful as NZIFF itself, Isabelle Huppert.

The 2016 Autumn Events line-up presented a lively mix of restored big screen classics, freshly minted documentaries – and an unforgettable skirmish with hellfire and damnation (The Witch).
Tickled, a funny, dramatic and totally surprising exposé conducted by David Farrier and Dylan Reeve, had its New Zealand premiere at the glorious Civic Theatre.

NZIFF 2015 opened with Yorgos Lanthimos’ supremely deadpan black comedy The Lobster, direct from its Cannes premiere. A surprise hit was Hou Hsiao-hsien’s stunning The Assassin, which amazed and bemused festival audiences. Australian filmmaker Jennifer Peedom visited with her documentary Sherpa, which also christened our newest festival venue: the restored Isaac Theatre Royal in Christchurch.

New digital restorations gave us the best possible reason to celebrate A Hard Day’s Night and Bertolucci’s ravishing The Conformist. We revelled in freshly minted studio digital transfers of Walt Disney’s Pinocchio and two very different Kubrick epics. Christopher Pryor and Miriam Smith debuted a fresh new classic, The Ground We Won.

NZIFF 2014 opened with the World Premiere of James Napier-Roberston’s The Dark Horse. Gerard Johnstone’s Housebound was the other homegrown cause célèbre. It was a bumper year for long movies with Boyhood, twelve years in the making, a popular hit and Cannes winner Winter Sleep clocking in at three and a quarter hours.

Digitally restored classic movies lit up the second Autumn Events programme, alongside the New Zealand premiere of highly anticipated Studio Ghibli animated feature The Wind Rises. A 4K digital presentation of Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront, Carol Reed's The Third Man, and Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face screened in the main centres.

NZIFF 2013 opened flamboyantly with Michael Douglas's Liberace in Behind the Candelabra and closed with the cool melancholy of Jim Jarmusch's Only Lovers Left Alive. The world premieres of two New Zealand documentaries, Antarctica: A Year on Ice and Gardening with Soul, were hits nationwide.

Giant screen digital presentations of Lawrence of Arabia and Guys and Dolls, New Zealand premieres of Kon-Tiki and The ABCs of Death, and retrospectives of Jean-Luc Godard and Asghar Farhadi's work were the tentpoles of the inaugural Autumn Events.

NZIFF 2012 opened with the exhilarating Beasts of the Southern Wild and closed with the wonderfully weird Holy Motors. We had a double dose of The Shining and Peter Jackson brought us Amy Berg’s West of Memphis. The New Zealand selection featured a strong collection of documentaries, inventive features and, straddling both categories, Alyx Duncan’s The Red House.

NZIFF 2011 opened with the joie de vivre of Florian Habicht's Love Story and closed with Lars von Trier's apocalyptic fable Melancholia. We screened 3D marvels from Werner Herzog and Wim Wenders, and Terrence Malick's enigmatic Tree of Life. The retrospective selection included Scorsese's Taxi Driver, the recently found most complete version of Metropolis and a tribute to Merata Mita.

NZIFF 2010 opened in Auckland with Luca Guadagnino’s luscious I Am Love and saw the world premiere of Jason Stutter’s adaptation of R.H. Morrieson’s Predicament in Wellington. Australian filmmaker David Michôd visited with his stunning feature debut Animal Kingdom, while audiences flocked to Banksy’s art world provocation Exit through the Gift Shop. Retro selections included Leone’s Once upon a Time in the West, Visconti’s Senso and Powell & Pressburger’s The Red Shoes.

NZIFF 2009 opened with Jane Campion's Bright Star direct from Cannes and wrapped up with Pedro Almodóvar's Broken Embraces. Festival hits included Audrey Tatou in Coco before Chanel, Miyazaki's animated wonder Ponyo and Warwick Thornton's clear-eyed drama Samson & Delilah. Visiting composer Neil Brand performed his show The Silent Pianist Speaks as well as accompanying silent classics Spies (in Auckland) and The Black Pirate (in Wellington).

Our Festivals still went by their regional names in 2008. We opened in Auckland with the world premiere of Sima Urale's Apron Strings and closed with Ari Folman's fearless animation Waltz with Bashir. James Marsh's documentary Man on Wire wowed audiences with its feat of daring while Vincent Ward's Rain of the Children had its NZ premiere. There was a triple-dose of Harold Lloyd Live Cinema with The Kid Brother screening in Auckland, The Freshman in Wellington and Safety Last! in Dunedin, as well as a comprehensive retrospective of films from the late Edward Yang.

Guest director Richard King kicked things off with Michael Winterbottom’s A Mighty Heart, launched Olivier Dahan’s Piaf biopic, La vie en rose, still one of our all-time hits, and premiered Taika Waititi’s Eagle vs Shark. Stellar retro programming included the magnificent restoration of This is New Zealand, Auckland Philharmonia Live Cinema presentation of The Cat And the Canary (scored for orchestra and theremin) and a tasty 70s Mavericks lineup, with director Charles Burnett in person to present To Sleep with Anger. Epic Death Note action loomed large at Incredibly Strange.

Ken Loach’s The Wind That Shakes the Barley won the Palme d’Or and opened the festival. Rolf de Heer’s Ten Canoes and Terrence Malick’s The New World celebrated wilderness while Cristi Puiu’s The Death of Mr Lazarescu drew us into the dark dank indoors and signalled the cresting of a new wave from Romania. This was the year An Inconvenient Truth hit home. Maurice Pialat was given a full scale feature retrospective. Andrew Moore’s No More Heroes was a homegrown Incredibly Strange hit.

Michael Haneke shook up opening night with his provocative psychological thriller Hidden. Anime fans were treated to new films from Miyazaki Hayao (Howl’s Moving Castle), Oshii Mamoru (Ghost in the Shell 2) and Otomo Katsuhiro (Steamboy), while Steven Chow’s martial arts extravaganza Kung Fu Hustle animated audiences. Werner Herzog returned to the festival fold with Grizzly Man and The White Diamond. Our retrospective section screened a selection of films from Hollywood maverick Nicholas Ray.

The festival opened with Walter Salles’ biopic of the young Che Guevara, The Motorcycle Diaries, but this was the year of Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, which sold out in record time. Brad McGann’s In My Father’s Den and Florian Habicht’s Kaikohe Demolition premiered on the very same day, while fans of Asian action had much to savour with Zhang Yimou’s sumptuous Hero and the energetic Ong Bak hitting festival screens along with a retrospective of martial arts classics from Hong Kong. Ant Timpson joined the crew with his “That’s Incredible Cinema” selection, introducing us to guest Edgar Wright and his Shaun of the Dead among other genre treats.

The mockumentary genius of Christopher Guest’s A Mighty Wind opened the festival while audiences flocked to the stunning wildlife documentary Travelling Birds. Florian Habicht bemused and delighted festival audiences for the first time with Woodenhead and the oft-imitated, but never bettered doco Spellbound screened. Retrospective selections included the meticulous comedies of Jacques Tati, a Blaxploitation touchstone Sweet Sweetback’s BaadAsssss Song and silent cinema’s man of a thousand faces, Lon Chaney.

Our opening night film in Auckland, Alfonso Cuarón’s Y tu mamá también was almost stopped by a cunningly targeted legal injunction over a censorship review. Alexander Sokurov’s Russian Ark showcased St Petersburg’s fabled Hermitage Museum in one stunning take, while David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive confused and amazed. Future cult favorites Donnie Darko and Ghost World were seen for the first time. We screened a near complete retrospective of the films of 1970s enfant terrible Jean Eustache and remixed Alphaville with multimedia artist Scanner.

We opened with Francis Veber’s The Closet in Auckland and celebrated 30 years in Wellington with Lukas Moodysson’s Together. The Thai western Tears for the Black Tiger wowed audiences, while Wong Kar-wai had us In the Mood for Love. The festival premiered Christine Jeffs’ Rain and Gillian Ashurst’s Snakeskin. The work of Swedish director Roy Andersson and the westerns of Budd Boetticher were featured, as were debut films by future heavyweight auteurs such as Jia Zhangke, Lucrecia Martel and Apichatpong Weerasethakul.