The festival will open in Dorothy Brown's Cinema, Arrowtown, with Christian Vincent's Haute Cuisine, on Thursday. The film is based on the extraordinary true story of former president Francois Mitterrand's private chef, Daniele Mazet-Delpeuch, and showings have been selling out.
This year, the festival boasts its most ambitious film selection yet, with a number of outstanding releases, including the Academy Award-nominated War Witch, Lorraine Levy's The Other Son and Jalil Jespart's Against the Wind.
Organisers said they were proud to bring the festival to the Lakes district for the first time, a development which was continuing from a remarkable period of nationwide growth sustained over the past two years, in which festival attendances had tripled.
