Eight Must-See Films at the New Zealand International Film Festival 2016

New Zealand International Film Festival is our finest opportunity to devour films that take risks, strike upon unique ideas and engage with staggering international talent. Direct from premier festivals the world over, NZIFF 2016 has amassed a schedule of some two hundred films, shorts and documentaries sure to transport the audience to foreign lands, indulge the inner voyeur, shock, comfort and delight. We've rounded up a selection of films which have piqued our interest for a multitude of reasons – cult directors, pet favourite actors, films which contribute to the political vernacular, rock 'n' roll legends, comedic explorations of social concepts or the simple promise of exquisite dramatic narrative.

EVERYBODY WANTS SOME!

Thursday 21 July 8.45pm/ Sunday 24 July 8.00pm/ Wednesday 27 July 3.45pm

Following the tour de force of Boyhood, Richard Linklater goes full circle on a throwback trip drawn from the same vein as Dazed and Confused. Graduating from high school, Everybody Wants Some! details the weekend hijinks of a Texan college baseball team returning to campus after summer vacation. Set in 1980, welcome to a bro-centric circle of one-upmanship, dorm parties and 'co-ed hunting' as seen through the eyes of the team's new pitcher. In full nostalgia mode, expect a diverse pop soundtrack and subtle narrative clues that hint at something beyond the freshman hazing and disco dancing. All that's left to wonder is if Everybody Wants Some! will deliver a line as enduring as "alright, alright, aright".

Also check out: Captain Fantastic, an anarcho-survivalist solo dad's off the grid attitude to raising his brood is challenged after a family emergency threatens their idealistic existence.

WEINER

Friday 15 July 8.45pm/ Tuesday 19 July 6.30pm/ Friday 22 July 1.30pm.

Christmas came early for political satirists in 2013, when a promising mayoral candidate for the world's most famous city was caught up in a sexting scandal. That the candidate's last name was a phallic euphemism – well, you just couldn't have written it. The fallout from the scandal prompted filmmakers Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg to lobby for behind the scenes access to the campaign, keen to distinguish the man from his media caricature. Shadowing the former congressman for five months, the resulting film has been described as resembling a 'particularly painful episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm' with a protagonist sinking further into a demise of his own making. Fans of HBO's Veep take note.

Also check out: Obit, a fascinating introduction to the writers who craft the obituaries for the New York Times.

THE DAUGHTER

Monday 18 July 6.30pm/ Saturday 23 July 3.45pm/ Thursday 28 July 6.45pm/ Friday 29 July 11.15am

Acclaimed Australian stage-director Simon Stone makes his cinematic debut, reimagining his wildly successful adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's 1884 play The Wild Duck for the screen. The prodigal son returns home to a small Australian town on the advent of his father's wedding. With the town in steady decline, thanks in part to his father's closing of the local saw mill, a long kept family secret begins to unravel, threatening to swallow up the lives of the remaining townspeople. Continuing in the Australian tradition of prevailing familial feuds providing richly inspired cinema, a dream ensemble of down under's finest actors, including Geoffrey Rush, Sam Neill and Miranda Otto promise a striking and well-crafted dramatic thriller.

Also check out: Sunset Song, Terence Davies' passionate adaptation of the 1932 novel of rural Scotland and a bleak existence averted through vulnerability and determination.

PATERSON

Friday 29 July 3.45pm/ Saturday 30 July 9.00pm/ Sunday 31 July 7.45pm

Described as an intentionally slight film, Paterson is crafted as an 'antidote to victimized females and action and violence and drama'. Paterson (GIRLS' Adam Driver) is a former military man turned bus driver, serenely navigating the routine. Where Paterson finds sublime poetry in the humdrum, his wife counters the habitual with sporadic goals and oft humorous art projects – a typically 'Jarmusch' pairing of two odd souls. Always memorable for their soundtrack; Broken Flowers, Ghostdog, Only Lovers Left Alive. Paterson provides the self-described cultural vampire and dilettante his first opportunity to score a film with moody and ambient electronic music, in lieu of the usual garage, hip-hop and rock 'n' roll.

Also check out: Neruda, festival favourite Gael Garcia Bernal re-teams with No director for an unconventional biopic of a Chilean poet and his fictional political exile at the hands of a bumbling detective.

CHEVALIER

Saturday 16 July 6.00pm/ Sunday 17 July 8.15pm/ Tuesday 19 July 4.15pm

In a group of friends, who is the best in general? On a yacht in the Aegean Sea, six buddies test this hypothesis, devising a method and rules for getting to the bottom of a question that has plagued generations of insecure males. The men are pitted against each other in a series of bizarre tests of masculinity. From displays of physical strength, to catching the largest fish, handling excessive consumption of alcohol to more nuanced acts of male dominance such as prowess in the kitchen, verbal trickery and other random gestures which exude a certain undeniable machismo. Directed by Greek Weird Wave director Athina Rachel Tsangari (Attenberg), Chevalier comically critiques the absurd concept of human subjectivity.

Also check out: Family Film, blissful ignorance proves the undoing of a well-off Czech family in this darkly humorous tale of parental negligence and youthful irresponsibility.

BURDEN

Saturday 23 July 6.30pm/ Monday 25 July 12.15pm & 9.00pm

Burden is a surname well suited for the artist who spent his impressionable years creating work which strained against even the most liberal definition of the word 'art'. Being shot with a .22 rifle (Shoot, 1971), crucified to a Volkswagen Beetle (Trans-fixed, 1974) and stuffed inside a locker for days on end (Five Day Locker Piece, 1971) are all moments in his performance art oeuvre. Burden intends to unpack the translation of notoriety earned through dangerous early pieces into a lengthy career creating large scale installations that have been exhibited the world over, adored by the masses and in one instance, become the most photographed Los Angeles landmark, second only to the 'Hollywood' sign.

Also check out: Author, The JT LeRoy Story revisits the literary scandal of a 40-year-old Brooklyn woman, who passed her work off under the identity of a trailer trash turned prodigy teenaged author.

THE SALESMAN

Monday 25 July 1.30pm/ Friday 29 July 6.30pm/ Saturday 30 July 3.00pm

The masterful director of A Separation returns to Tehran for a thoughtful morality piece with an unmistakable political core. A married couple due to perform in a local production of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman are rocked by a seemingly innocuous misunderstanding. After the wife accidentally lets a man into their apartment, an insatiable hunger for revenge arises in her husband. Winning both Best Actor and Best Screenplay at Cannes, The Salesman is an inquiry into male aggression, the human desire to punish our enemies and the tension that exists in conservative Islam's damnation of 'loose' women.

Also check out: A Dragon Arrives!, weaving truth and fiction to create a narrative of equal parts noir, mockumentary and fantasy, this political mystery could be Iran's first big screen genre movie.

GIMME DANGER

Wednesday 20 July, 8.30pm/ Sunday 24 July 8.15pm/ Tuesday 26 July 4.00pm

When Iggy Pop mentioned that he hoped it would be Jim Jarmusch who makes the inevitable film that chronicles the history of the Stooges, Jarmusch responded, "Man, are you asking me to make a Stooges film? Because I will start tomorrow." Recounting the rise, untimely fall and late career comeback of Michigan's formative proto-punk band, Gimme Danger splices archival footage, photography and interviews around conversations with Iggy Pop himself for an unadulterated peep into raw power that has transfixed generations of musos and musicians alike. Jarmusch's affection for the band is evident in the homage to Stooges members both surviving and passed, with the documentary serving as an eloquent reminder of just how eternal their trademark jams are in the enduring rock 'n' roll canon.

Also check out: Eat That Question: Frank Zappa In His Own Words, captures the idiosyncratic musician's non-conformist ideas through archived interviews and found footage of his frequent appearances on American talk-shows.