Some highly anticipated pics and some intriguing discoveries are to be found among the first films announced for Whānau Mārama: New Zealand International Film Festival 2021.
This spring, movie-lovers in 13 towns and cities around Aotearoa are set to be thrilled by the films on offer in this year’s Whānau Mārama: New Zealand International Film Festival (NZIFF).
NZIFF 2021 opens in Auckland on Thursday 28 October, followed by Christchurch on the following day, with Dunedin and Wellington to follow a week later.
The festival then touches down in Gore, Hamilton, Hawke’s Bay, Masterton, Nelson, New Plymouth, Palmerston North, Tauranga and Timaru throughout November and the first week of December.
The six films announced today include A24 Twitter-inspired road trip drama Zola; Apichatpong Weerasethaku’s English-language debut Memoria, starring Tilda Swinton; and Barbara director Christian Petzold’s dark fantasy-drama Undine.
Read on for more info on all six films announced today, as described by NZIFF:
Fiona Clark: Unafraid
Photographer Fiona Clark shocked 1970s New Zealand with her documentary images of Auckland’s burgeoning queer scene. The pictures they tried to ban were just the beginning for one of Aotearoa’s photography greats.
Flee
Structured around a series of interviews conducted by director Jonas Poher Rasmussen, Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner, Flee blurs the line between documentary and narrative filmmaking to tell the affecting survival story of Amin’s escape from Afghanistan in the mid-80s. Told in animated form, complimented with historical news footage, Flee examines the quiet toll that trauma takes on survivors.
Memoria
Follow Tilda Swinton on a strange supernatural journey into the Colombian jungle, in this hypnotic new film from the director of Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives and Cemetery of Splendour, Apichatpong Weerasethakul.
Nine Days
We are born, we live, we die. Before we can get on that merry-go-round, however, we must first be interviewed. If we are lucky, we are chosen to go forth, from cradle to grave. If not, perhaps the man will do what he can to give us one fleeting moment of happiness, before we disappear into the ether. This is the premise of Nine Days, Edson Oda’s offbeat portrait of a pre-life purgatory.
Undine
Undine is a historian living in Berlin, but underneath her seemingly ordinary city lifestyle lurks an old myth: if the man she loves betrays her, she must kill him and return to the water she once came from. When her lover leaves her for another woman, Undine feels her destiny is fated, until she encounters Christoph and falls in love with him. They share a happy love, but Christoph feels Undine is running from something. Undine must face her curse or risk her relationship. A captivating tale drawing on myth and fantasy.
Zola
Based on the infamous Twitter thread by A’Ziah ‘Zola’ King, Zola chronicles a 72-hour fever dream of a road trip in search of a quick fortune in Florida. After meeting Stefani on a waitressing shift, Zola and Stefani become fast friends. So fast that Zola agrees to join Stefani, her milquetoast boyfriend, and their ‘roommate’ on an impromptu trip to Tampa the very next day to turn a quick buck in the local strip clubs. What’s the worst that could happen?
