Whanau Marama: New Zealand International Film Festival 2023

Overview

Heaven for cinephiles is a big screen, a darkened theatre around it, and nothing but flickering pictures and echoing sound to capture your attention. Actually, it's that very combination over and over, complete with the latest and greatest movies whirring through the projector. In other words, it's exactly what Whānau Mārama: New Zealand International Film Festival unspools every year — and, Wellington movie buffs, your dreamy few weeks in a cinema runs from Thursday, July 27–Sunday, August 13 at picture palaces around the city.

Highlights include Celine Song's debut feature Past Lives, telling a bittersweet romance about two childhood friends (Russian Doll's Greta Lee and Decision to Leave's Teo Yoo) who briefly reunite after decades apart; Bad Behaviour, the feature directorial debut of actor-turned-filmmaker Alice Englert (You Won't Be Alone) starring Jennifer Connelly (Top Gun: Maverick); and Anatomy of a Fall, a drama about an author (Sandra Hüller, Toni Erdmann) accused of her husband's murder, which won French director Justine Triet (Sibyl) the French festival's top prize back in May.

Also flickering across Wellington's screens: Sydney Sweeney (Euphoria)-starring whistleblower docudrama Reality; Paul Mescal-led (and Australian-shot and opera-inspired) musical Carmen; Jafar Panahi's (Tehran Taxi) Venice Special Jury Prize-winner No Bears; and 2022 Venice International Film Festival Grand Jury Prize-recipient Saint Omer. There's also Certain Women's Kelly Reichardt reteaming with Michelle Williams again with Showing Up — plus Soda Jerk's first film since Terror Nullius, with Hello Dankness offering a chaotic yet cutting survey of US politics from 2016 onwards.

Other standouts include Passages, from Love Is Strange's Ira Sachs; Shin Ultraman, a kaiju flick springing from the creators of Shin Godzilla and Neon Genesis Evangelion; Australian drama The Survival of Kindness; the obviously film-loving I Like Movies; environmentalist tale How to Blow Up a Pipeline; and talk show-set horror Late Night with the Devil.

Lovers of docos The Staircase, Capturing the Friedmans, The Wolfpack, Hoop Dreams and The Square should instantly add Subject to their must-see list — it spends time with subjects from all five works, diving into what it means to be the focus of a film, plus the duty of care that documentarians owe the people in their frames. And, fans of movies about music can add Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis), which hails from Control's Anton Corbijn and hones in on the titular photo-design company and its contribution to record cover art, to their NZIFF schedule.

The must-sees keep coming, with Cannes 2022 Best Actress winner Holy Spider; the stunning The Inspection, as based on filmmaker Elegance Bratton's true tale about being a gay Black man who joined the marines; documentary The Giants, about the life of Australian environmental activist Bob Brown; Aussie coming-of-age tales Of an Age and Sweet As; and Margaret Qualley (Stars at Noon) and Christopher Abbott (On the Count of Three) as a dominatrix and her submissive in Sanctuary.

Add in the Riley Keough (Daisy Jones & the Six) co-directed War Pony, the dive into the human body that is De Humani Corporis Fabrica, Ennio Morricone tribute Ennio and the also-celebratory My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock, and finding something to watch during the festival's Wellington run clearly isn't an issue.