The NZ International Film Festival Adds 21 Cannes Titles to Their 2017 Program

The time has come to start rearranging your diary to make room for some very serious viewing. The New Zealand International Film Festival has announced that 21 films from last month's Cannes Film Festival will screen this year, including all major competition winners.

You may have already caught wind of three Cannes features drip-fed across the past month, including gothic thriller The Beguiled which saw Sofia Coppola become the first woman in 50 years to claim the Best Director gong. In past announcements there was also season two of Jane Campion's Top of the Lake:China Girl and Blade of the Immortal — a gory samurai flick from Japanese filmmaker Takashi Miike. And that's just the beginning.

Winner of the Palme d'Or, The Square, will open the NZIFF in Auckland on 20 July and Wellington on 28 July. The 2017 Swedish satirie directed by Ruben Östlund steps into a contemporary art museum as its curator prepares to unveil the thought-provoking installation of a square drawn on the floor.

Further competition winners direct from Cannes include Robin Campillo's account of Parisian AIDS activists in the early '90s, BPM (Beats Per Minute) — winner of the Grand Prix, The Killing of a Sacred Deer — winner of the Best Screenplay, and Loveless — winner of the Cannes Jury Prize.

Also being flown in for NZIFF will be the Safdie brothers' latest heist thriller, Good Time, which welcomed a six-minute standing ovation at Cannes; British-French drama I Am Not a Witch which was inspired by real-life witch camps in Africa; Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts, a deadpan adventure that delivers a feminist spin on a tale of murder and revenge; and A Prayer Before Dawn, following a British Muay Thai fighter's tale of survival in Thailand's Klong Prem prison.

The 21 films announced from Cannes are: BPM (Beats Per Minute), A Gentle Creature, Good Time, Happy End, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Loveless, The Square, The Desert Bride, Western, Wind River, The Workshop, I Am Not a Witch, Let the Sunshine In, Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts, Patti Cake$, Claire's Camera, The Venerable W., The Merciless, A Prayer Before Dawn, Faces Places and Napalm.

The NZIFF starts in Auckland on 20 July and in Wellington from 28 July.