Jeremy Quinn’s picks
Despite a vastly downsized programme this year, and a return to just one venue, the International Film Festival still has the advantage of being able to offer a genuine cinematic experience of the type that seems to be in short supply these days.
When a trip to the movies can feel like a poor substitute for watching a film in the comfort of your own home, then something’s gone terribly wrong.
If only for 12 days, there’s the opportunity to take in some of the most acclaimed and unusual releases of recent times in Dunedin’s only existent movie palace, the glorious Regent Theatre, and perhaps in doing so, to reclaim some of that joy and excitement by seeing them as they were meant to be seen - larger than life and in a room full of strangers.
That’s one thing streaming can never take away from us. As is always the case, many of these titles will not come this way again.
Here are 10 that jump out for me as being must-sees.
RYUICHI SAKAMOTO | OPUS
Influential pianist, Oscar-winning film composer, electronic music pioneer ... Japanese musician Ryuichi Sakamoto died in 2023 after living with cancer for nearly a decade. His son, Neo Sora, was tasked with capturing what were to be his final performances on the piano in this quiet and elegiac tribute, shot in a studio over eight days in beautiful black and white. It’s not a conventional music doco or concert film so much as an intimately rendered, touching and poignant autobiographical portrait of "arguably the best-known and most successful Japanese musician in the world" simply playing his heart out. Aug 15 and 25
EVIL DOES NOT EXIST
After winning 2021 with the critical darlings Drive My Car and the even better Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, Japanese arthouse favourite Ryusuke Hamaguchi re-emerges with a hypnotic, deliberately slow-paced environmental parable that tells of a small village, or more accurately a rural eco-paradise, whose delicate natural balance is threatened when a Tokyo company makes plans to set up a high-end glamping operation. The word is that the enigmatic final sequence makes the ending of 2001 look like a masterclass in audience-friendly narrative resolution, so at the very least there should be much to discuss afterwards. Aug 16 and 20
THE TEACHERS’ LOUNGE
This German thriller (extremely tense drama might be more accurate) was nominated for Best International Feature at this year’s Oscars. It tells of a teacher dealing with a string of petty thefts at her school, whose use of a hidden laptop camera, which she sets up to gather evidence, all of a sudden creates a wave of tension and suspicion among staff, students and parents, bringing to light all sorts of racial, social and institutional prejudices that were always hiding in plain sight. What is the German word for "zeitgeist"? Another one for fans of ambivalent endings and/or Academy ratio obsessives. Aug 17 and 21
NEVER LOOK AWAY
Lucy Lawless makes her directorial debut with this documentary about the adventurous, fearless CNN video journalist Margaret Moth, who began her career as New Zealand television’s first news camerawoman in early-1970s Dunedin, before moving to the US and gaining a reputation for taking her camera to some of the world’s most perilous warzones, culminating in her being shot by a sniper in Sarajevo. Lawless’ film looks to delve deep into Moth’s complicated, risk-taking character just as much as it aims to place the viewer head first into the life-threatening situations she found herself in. Aug 18 and 19
THE MONK AND THE GUN
Described as a "gentle satire", this beautiful-looking ensemble comedy, set in Bhutan in 2006, as the country transitions towards democracy, appears to be channelling the multi-character narrative style of a Robert Altman film in its tale of a monk whose tranquillity is shattered with the sudden yet subtle intrusion of violence into his daily life, in the form of a distant gunshot. The clash between Western consumerist values and more traditional ways of life is embodied in the contrast between the monk who is given the seemingly impossible task of finding and retrieving the titular weapon, and an American collector of rare firearms who believes everyone and everything has a price. Aug 19
THE OUTRUN
Stories of alcoholism and addiction are one thing, but those with a searing and truthful lead performance can make it easy to forgive what may sometimes be a hackneyed and exploitative approach. Much like the recent To Leslie, which featured such an astounding turn from Andrea Riseborough that any flaws were quickly forgotten, the rapturous word-of-mouth surrounding The Outrun has almost entirely focused on Saoirse Ronan, playing a woman just out of rehab who returns home to the Orkney Islands. Whether the story, based on a real-life memoir, manages to transcend the usual cliches is most likely a matter of preference. Aug 22 and 24
A DIFFERENT MAN
This year’s big A24 hit from Sundance (there’s always one) is a subversive, Charlie Kaufman-esque tale of identity and longing, as an aspiring actor named Edward (Sebastian Stan doing some serious indie work between Marvel gigs), living with neurofibromatosis, is given the opportunity to reverse his condition and pursue the girl of his dreams, only to find that the operation hasn’t done any wonders for his defective personality. Complicating matters is the arrival on the scene of another man born with the same disability who seems to have none of Edward’s hangups. A quirky, dreamlike satire about the way our personas are innately structured around our looks. Aug 22
PROBLEMISTA
Staying in quirky country, and not uncoincidentally also from A24, Problemista is the directorial debut from actor-writer-comedian Julio Torres, a Salvadoran American whose surrealist work often reflects on the difficulties navigating the US immigration system and the iniquities of the gig economy. Here he plays a recent immigrant who dreams of working for a toy company but is unable to secure a visa until he meets a misanthropic art critic who needs him to help her put on an exhibition of her cryogenically frozen husband’s paintings. So nothing too outlandish. Aug 23 and 24
GREEN BORDER
Hugely controversial in its native Poland, this potent drama about the recent refugee crisis at the Polish-Belarusian border aims to achieve something only cinema can do so well — to show the human face of a seemingly abstract humanitarian situation, allowing the viewer to vicariously experience a reality that we would normally only hear about, if at all, through the filtering of the media and the propaganda of the various instigators and puppet masters. Director Agnieszka Holland, who was mentored by such Polish Film School luminaries as Andrzej Wajda, has crafted a shattering indictment of the government policies that treat these people as pawns. Aug 24
NO OTHER LAND
It might seem an obvious thing to apply the word "timely" to this cinema verite documentary, made by a collective of Palestinian and Israeli film-makers, and centred around the displacement of the residents of a West Bank village called Masafer Yatta which dates back to the 1830s, but the events of the past 10 months undoubtedly make it seem more so. Although filming began in 2019, this is a conflict that has been going on as long as almost anyone can remember, yet if the focus is now primarily on Gaza, it’s a crucial part of the history to know what has happened and is still happening in the West Bank. Furthermore, it’s a testament to the power of cinema that the proof of these events can remain documented for eternity, held as evidence and shown the world over. Aug 25
Amasio Jutel’s picks
From going to the animated shorts with my family as a young child to discovering some of my all time favourite international films as an adult, the New Zealand International Film Festival has been a mainstay in my life as a movie buff. Here are the 10 films this reviewer will be looking out for at the festival this year, ordered by the films I think will be most worth seeing.
THE SEED OF THE SACRED FIG
Near-three-hour Iranian crime-dramas aren’t often what I seek out to watch in my own time, but they’re always at the top of my docket when the NZIFF rolls around. In The Seed of the Sacred Fig, political thriller meets family drama in volatile present-day Iran, integrating real-life elements of Iranian political turmoil that led to the director’s exile from his own country. After the Sacred Fig was selected for the Cannes Film Festival, the film’s criticism of Iranian officialdom’s misogyny and theocracy saw director Mohammed Rasoulof sentenced to eight years in prison. He has since fled to Germany. A few years ago, this is the kind of film I would have found tremendously intimidating to tackle — three hours of subtitles is a lot to ask of the casual movie-goer — but with strong reviews out of Cannes, if you’re going to step out of your comfort zone for a movie at this year’s festival, I’d encourage you to take the leap with this one. Aug 18 and 21
I SAW THE TV GLOW
Last year’s I Like Movies was the young cinephile pick of the NZIFF catalogue: an indie character drama about the pleasures of media. With this year’s I Saw the TV Glow, Jane Schoenbrun crafts a radiant film about ’90s nostalgia and television viewership that is bound to scratch that same itch. Schoenbrun’s previous feature, We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, gave us an early taste of their cinematic profundity, integrating the fantasy elements of the internet to craft colourfully surreal horror-dramas that psycho-socially unsettle and ask us to re-evaluate our relationships to popular culture. I Saw the TV Glow is a substantial evolution in thematic development and cinematic stylisation from Schoenbrun’s prior work. It radically breaks from their preoccupation with the internet to explore identity and friendship in the age of lo-fi ’90s television, discovering a supernatural world in a mysterious late-night television show. It’s a profoundly deep film that speaks to media, identity, and nostalgia in a pre-internet era, but above all, I Saw the TV Glow carries transcendent queer and trans themes, not simply in its narrative subject matter, but in its compelling cinematic composition. So far, there has been no film from 2024 that I can recommend higher than this. Aug 17 and 19
DIDI (##)
If any film is speaking directly to my young heart this festival, it is undoubtedly this one. Didi is a heartwarming coming-of-age story about the pleasures and pains of teen life, a film for the younger millennials and older Gen Z, diving into the awkward adolescent experience in the age of AOL chatrooms, Nickelodeon and iPods. The film looks nostalgically boyish while taking a nuanced lens to think about the marginalised experience of being Asian-American in the mid-2000s. Aug 16 and 17
THE BEAST
An experimental science fiction film from the director who put Twin Peaks: The Return on his Sight & Sound ballot, I can’t say that I’m not full of excitement to see The Beast. A melodramatic pastiche of mind-bending genres, with techno-thriller-horror-romance wrapped up in a waking dream of a movie and starring one of the decade’s breakthrough stars, Lea Seydoux, The Beast is certainly one to keep an eye on this festival. Aug 18
THE REMARKABLE LIFE OF IBELIN
With a strong positive reception out of the Sundance Film Festival, The Remarkable Life of Ibelin has been the documentary on my radar for 2024. Ibelin was the World of Warcraft virtual avatar of Mats Steens, a Norwegian gamer born with a degenerative muscular disease who tragically passed at the young age of 25. This film documents his remarkable life and family in the gaming world, stylistically experimenting with video games to capture the power of the cyber-real for escapism and community. I would encourage anyone who plays MMORPG video games, or is close to friends or family who do, to check out this film. Aug 15 and 18
THE SUBSTANCE
I try to avoid any knowledge of the plot details of films — especially genre movies — I’m bound to enjoy, so let me pass on the few bits of information about this film that have struck me in the hope it encourages you to check it out too: emulating David Cronenberg (the king of body-horror), eternal beauty becomes repulsive disgust in The Substance, a gory, visually vibrant, feminist body-horror starring Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley and Dennis Quaid. Aug 25
CUCKOO
I’m eagerly awaiting the dive into this year’s festival hot property euro-horror, which has been teased as "Shining-esque". Director Tilman Singer is perhaps best known for his strong visual sensibilities, previous feature Luz was a cinematic marvel, but perhaps not landing the plane from a narrative-execution standpoint. The retro-aesthetic in Cuckoo’s trailer hints that this will be one of the most stylistically gratifying cinematic experiences of the year. Cuckoo is Euphoria-star Hunter Schafer’s first chance to lead a film, and (fingers crossed) cement herself as one of the best young actors working today — and scream queen. Aug 16 and 20
KNEECAP
A semi-fictionalised biopic about "Belfast’s Beastie Boys", Kneecap is unique in this year’s festival line-up. The titular Irish hip-hop group — with members Mo Chara, Moglai Bap, and DJ Provai — inject their music with Irish republican themes, using their songs as a means of resistance. Kneecap is a full Irish-language film that guarantees to capture that urban musicality of the hip-hop genre. Aug 15 and 16
HUMANIST VAMPIRE SEEKING CONSENTING SUICIDAL PERSON
Idiosyncratic, lo-fi genre movies are always bound to be a hit among the 20-somethings, and as a 20-something myself, I am eagerly anticipating Humanist Vampire. With a catalogue of fantasy-genre shorts to her name, accompanied by a couple of Canadian Screen Awards in the short film category, Ariane Louise-Seize’s debut feature takes a fresh approach to tackling the world of horror monsters through a sensitive, slightly quirky lens. Aug 23
PARIS, TEXAS
Lastly, a reissue of Wim Wenders’ finest achievement, Paris, Texas, should undoubtedly be on the watchlist of any reader who considers themselves a film fan. Paris, Texas is a mystical and painful tale about the formative trauma of absent parents and the unreliability of memory. A sentimental tale about father-son relationships, Wenders crafts the film with an offbeat whimsy that revels in the tenderness of family. Aug 22
