The British & Irish Film Festival has kicked off across Aotearoa. Have a butcher’s hook at the big titles they’re bringing to NZ cinemas.
A Ralph Fiennes double-header, new films from Andrea Arnold and Mike Leigh, spotlights on blur and Merchant Ivory—this is just a taste of what Kiwi audiences can expect from this year’s British & Irish Film Festival programme.
Playing in 20 towns/cities across the motu (see here for details), the BIFF opens in Auckland and Wellington Wednesday 23 October and plays throughout the country until Wednesday 13 November. Boasting a mighty line-up (see full programme), this will be your first—and in some cases, only—chance to catch these films on the big screen.
Here are seven film highlights from the British & Irish Film Festival:
Conclave
As the latest trailer purports, this one’s getting all sorts of buzz—especially for Ralph Fiennes’ lead performance which sees him gunning for a third Academy Awards nomination. The screen and stage legend plays the Cardinal who oversees the group tasked with picking a new leader after the passing of the pope. The holiest of positions leaves a vacuum of power attracting would-be popes to fill it, which makes for an already tense situation made worse by a conspiracy that could rattle the Catholic Church.
If you want more Fiennes at BIFF (who wouldn’t?), you can also catch him looking rather cut in The Return. Starring alongside the brilliant Juliette Binoche, the film delivers a gritty retelling of Odysseus’ return home from war.
Bird
Oscar-winning filmmaker Andrea Arnold mirrors her lauded 2009 feature Fish Tank with another Palme d’Or-nominated coming-of-age film set in England. Newcomer Nykiya Adams plays young Bailey opposite Saltburn star Barry Keoghan as her dad Bug, who has little time for her or her brother Hunter, so she goes out and lets her curiosity run amok. The film also stars sublime German actor Franz Rogowski (Transit, Great Freedom) as the titular Bird.
We Live in Time
We’ve all seen the goofy horse meme, but don’t let that distract from the tenderness powering this A24 movie. Oscar-nominees Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield play the star-crossed lovebirds whose chance encounter leads to a romance burning through the ages. Director John Crowley has proven himself an effective heartstring-puller before with 2015’s Academy Award-nominated love story Brooklyn so don’t go into this one with an empty tissue box.
Timestalker
Premiering at SXSW 2024, this time-jumping comedy from actor-filmmaker Alice Lowe centres on Agnes—a woman reincarnated in different ages. Unfortunately for her, she keeps falling in love with the wrong man. Flicks’ Fatima Sheriff praised the film earlier this year: “Each line delivery is pointed and laugh-out-loud funny, and every scene brings a new layer to Agnes’ desperation.”
Hard Truths
Actor Marianne Jean-Baptiste and filmmaker Mike Leigh team up for the first time since 1996’s Secrets & Lies, which earned both of them Oscar nominations, for this tragicomedy revolving around fear-prone, afflictions-affected, rage-wrecked Pansy (Jean-Baptiste). While she makes life difficult for her husband, son, and generally everyone around her, her cheerful sister Chantal still manages to be a sympathetic ear.
blur: To the End
British band blur deserves a thorough, celebratory, how-they-made-it documentary. This, however, captures the year they made the surprise decision to bring the band back together after many, many years. It would be nigh impossible to resist following this up with this year’s concert experience blur: Live at Wembley Stadium, which also screens as BIFF.
Merchant Ivory: The Documentary
Howards End and The Remains of the Day return to cinemas as part of BIFF’s retro offerings this year. Those films are also tied to one of the fest’s big documentaries: a loving look at the Merchant Ivory partnership that generated some of the most cherished period dramas of the late 1980s and early 1990s.
