The New Zealand International Film Festival has announced two films playing as part of Ant Timpson’s Incredibly Strange selection for 2016, and we’re too damn excited about both of them. This comes off the back of their first announcement, which announced five films including High-Rise and Midnight Special.
The full NZIFF programme will be available online from Monday 20 June 7pm, and on the streets from Tuesday 21 June for Auckland and Friday 24 June for Wellington. NZIFF starts in Auckland on 14 July and in Wellington from 22 July in 2016.
For now, here are the two new films announced…
Green Room
The director of cult hit Blue Ruin returns with this confined thriller that inserts tension like a knife to the stomach. It casts Patrick Stewart as the frighteningly smart leader of a neo-Nazi gang targeting an innocent punk band who lock themselves in the green room after seeing something they can’t unsee.
“In an alternate universe, Captain Jean Luc Picard is transformed into a ruthless neo-Nazi who operates a criminal empire in the backwoods of Oregon. The problem is this is no episode of Star Trek: TNG; it’s director Saulnier’s punks-vs-skins follow-up to his acclaimed indie thriller Blue Ruin (NZIFF13). Much like a nastier version of John Carpenter’s seminal Assault on Precinct 13, this is a classic wrong place, wrong time set-piece that takes well-worn tropes, amps them up to 11 and then stomps on their faces.” – Ant Timpson
‘Green Room’ – More Info and More Trailers
The Lure
Winner of the Special Jury Prize at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, this Polish horror musical sets out to make mermaids terrifying again.
“Hands down the greatest vampire mermaid musical fairytale ever made. It’s refreshingly welcome to see a filmmaker returning The Little Mermaid to ferocious man-eater in one of the most entertaining and utterly bat-shit feature debuts in a very long time. Slithering across the screen like some intoxicating sexy fusion of 80s cult hits Café Flesh, Splash and The Hunger, The Lure tells the seductive tale of mermaid sisters and the ill-starred sequence of events when one of them falls hard for a striking 20-something earthbound musician.” – Ant Timpson
‘The Lure’ – More Info and NSFW Teaser
