Obsessions, raves, sovereignty and surveillance—that’s just a taste of what NZIFF’s offering this year.
As this year’s Whānau Mārama New Zealand International Film Festival programme is unveiled, it comes with some big titles and plenty of intriguing oddities to discover. Palme d’Or winner It Was Just an Accident sets the tone as 2025’s opening night film, Jacinda Ardern documentary Prime Minister is the festival centrepiece, and Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value closes the 2025 fest.
Between these, you’ll find a strong crop of local features and shorts, films by a number of returning festival faves, exciting new voices and plenty more.
The programme’s only just hit the streets – but Liam Maguren has eyed seven films that instantly gets his blood pumping for some cinema. You can also check out seven picks from Steve Newall.
See them if you can as NZIFF 2025 takes over cinemas in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland (31 July – 10 August), Ōtautahi Christchurch (8 – 24 August), Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington (14 – 24 August), Ōtepoti Dunedin (15 – 31 August), Kirikiriroa Hamilton (28 August – 10 September), Whakatū Nelson (28 August – 10 September), Ahuriri Napier (28 August – 7 September), Ngāmotu New Plymouth (28 August – 7 September), Tauranga-moana Tauranga (28 August – 7 September), and Whakaoriori Masterton (28 August – 7 September).
For full info, pick up a physical programme or visit the NZIFF website.
Lurker
Much like a child arsonist with a magnifying glass, I’m sickly invested in films that focus intensely on the psychology of combustive celebrity worship (see: Ingrid Goes West). Alex Russell’s critically lauded feature debut promises to be my kind of wildfire, a drama morphing into a thriller as a young man’s friendship with a rising musician slips from his grasp.
Maya, Give Me a Title
I caught filmography doco Michel Gondry: Do it Yourself not too long ago (recommended) and it ended on a sweet note that saw the French auteur starting a stop-motion short film for an audience member of one: his daughter. Well, he just couldn’t bloody help himself, could he? Now he’s gone and made an entire hour-long animated feature for the world to see. Collaborating with his kid Maya—a la Axe Cop—I’m very excited to see what creative carnage this duo’s concocted.
Sirât
Being nominated for the Palme d’Or and winning a bunch of awards at Cannes (including the highly coveted Palm Dog) makes Spanish-French filmmaker Óliver Laxe’s odyssey an easy enough sell. Really, though, it’s the premise that got me: a father and son wander a seemingly endless rave in the Moroccan desert to search for their missing daughter/sister. Our own Stephen A Russell sealed the deal, declaring it his favourite experience at this year’s Sydney Film Festival. Get those wide vistas in my eyes and pummel my ears with the bass-heavy DOOF DOOF.
Sorry, Baby
Writer-director-actor Eva Victor needn’t apologise for seismically catapulting herself onto the world filmmaking stage with Sundance-winning slam dunk of a debut, the story of a student on the long road back to resilience when an abusive supervisor tips her life over. I’m often cautious about indie-flavoured American dramedies—I’ve seen one too many that amounted to nothing—but the film’s superb trailer and its near-unanimous accolades have melted all my cynicism. Also, welcome back Lucas Hedges!
Stranger Eyes
Yeo Siew Hua’s surveillance thriller dumps one horrible scenario on top of another: a couple’s baby daughter goes missing AND some creep’s sending secret video recordings of them on DVD to their house. A sickening situation. Pure paranoia fuel. I’m in. Probably pairs nicely with Raoul Peck’s Orwell: 2+2=5, also playing as part of Whānau Mārama.
TOITŪ Visual Sovereignty
I’ve only recently made an effort to understand art. As in, art art, the kind found in galleries oft visited by people with hands clasped behind their backs. My journey with te ao Māori, on the other hand, started when I was born and will end when I’m dead. Chelsea Winstanley’s film couldn’t have come at a better point in my life, relaying the triumph of exhibition Toi Tū Toi Ora: Contemporary Māori Art and the institutional turbulence that followed.
The Wolves Always Come at Night
With her exceptional 2018 film Island of the Hungry Ghosts, Gabrielle Brady melted the crab migration of Christmas Island with the Australian government’s detention facility to mould a hard-to-shake experience that my mind still revisits every so often. Reading Luke Buckmaster’s piece on her latest work, it seems I’ll have to make some more brain space for this “very pleasurable experience, with a satisfying ebb and flow” revolving around a nomadic Mongolian family during extreme weather events.
