It’s that time of year again when film lovers are busy preparing for an annual onslaught of cinematic delights.
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. Catch a glimpse of some of this year’s selections in the NZIFF trailer for 2025:
The programme’s only just hit the streets, but Steve Newall has spotted seven films that get his immediate attention. You can also check out seven picks from Liam Maguren.
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.
Ebony and Ivory
Most people could imagine some version of what happens when two music legends (squint and maybe, just maybe, they resemble Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney) hole up in a Scottish cottage ahead of a possible collaboration. But only a minority could see this the way The Greasy Strangler filmmaker Jim Hosking conceives it—probably for the best given how absurdly oddball this all looks. Perfect harmony, my ass.
Life in One Chord
Shayne Carter’s a music legend with the sharpest of wits, as demonstrated in 2019 autobiography Dead People I Have Known. Droll is a word that gets bandied about, which might hint at a somewhat reluctant subject. Nevertheless, Carter cooperates with director Margaret Gordon here, as she traces his life on and offstage, and through musical eras including punk, the Dunedin Sound and the perplexing possibilities of ProTools and digital recording. One of our true rock stars.
Not Only Fred Dagg
Claimed on both sides of the Tasman, the late John Clarke found his way onto the TVs of households across Aotearoa as comic farmer Fred Dagg before decamping to Australia for a hugely successful and decades-long satirical partnership with Bryan Dawe. The pair’s work includes superb ahead-of-its-time mockumentary series The Games (watch this clip). Here, John’s daughter Lorin gives her comic icon father the chance to tell his story in his own words, drawing on recorded conversations with (and archive footage of) one of the all-time greats—no matter whether you call him Aussie or Kiwi.
Pavements
Unconventional indie music group Pavement gets the unconventional film to match their career and catalogue thanks to director Alex Ross Perry (Her Smell). Paralleling the slacker culture of the 90s, Pavement never seemed outwardly career-oriented or introspective about their own work, with frontman Stephen Malkmus a cunning evader of scrutiny, rock royalty wrapped up in a riddle. Somehow it makes sense, then, that a film about them fuses documentary, stage play and biopic elements, cos why not?
Prime Minister
First premiering (no pun intended) at Sundance, Prime Minister is an intimate account of former NZ PM Jacinda Ardern’s five years in power. Featuring footage shot by Ardern’s husband and unheard audio clips recorded by the Alexander Turnbull Library’s Political Diaries project, this will push all sorts of buttons with Ardern fans and detractors in Aotearoa. Further afield, audiences have taken to this personal pic with fewer biases… as its Sundance Audience Award: World Cinema Documentary win attests.
Resurrection
Director Bi Gan returns after leaving an indelible mark on us with Long Day’s Journey into Night in 2019. An award-winner at Cannes, Resurrection seems to infuse the dreamlike qualities of that previous noir with a more explicitly sci-fi premise. Set in a world where no one dreams any more, except one man, the NZIFF programme promises Resurrection “invites us on a wild ride through the ages of cinema and its styles,” presumably as it travels through these dreamscapes.
The Weed Eaters
After excitedly donating to what was simply called Untitled Sports Team Horror Film back in 2023, I can’t wait to see the results of this micro-budget homegrown horror project. Perhaps best known for their music video output (until Callum Devlin’s scream heard around the world, or at least around the Viaduct, at this year’s Aotearoa Music Awards) creative duo Sports Team decamped to Canterbury with cast and crew in tow to make…
…a tale of stoners straying across the wrong crop of electric puha, one that blows stereotypical munchies out of the water by turning tokers into bloodthirsty cannibals.
