It’s that time again – a mid-winter Xmas for film fans, gifted with this year’s NZ International Film Festival. Grab a programme or visit their website (where you can make your own schedule and share with friends) and start pondering which of the 150+ films you’ll head along to. As we do each year, Flicks will help you navigate the programme – for starters, our writers have picked five films each that jump out as must-sees upon first impression. Read on for their picks, collected in handy image form, and click on each pic for more info.
Alex Casey’s Picks
You might call me crazy for putting this at number one, but you know what else is crazy? Finding a man’s mummified leg chilling in a secondhand barbecue. After the Incredibly Strange documentary Kung Fu Elliot knocked me on my absolute arse last year, I’m hankering for that same jaw-dropping feeling again. This is the real life, real absurd tale of one man’s journey to retrieving his crotchety old disembodied leg from another man. I want to see it. Now.
Vanessa Castle’s Picks
So, this wasn’t my number one pick but my top two picks (The Misfits, my favourite six-weeks-in-Reno-to-get-a-divorce film, and The Lobster, the six-weeks-to-couple-up-or-become-an-animal film), are practically the same film with different titles. So let’s not pretend I’m the only one at Flicks looking forward to Love 3D, Gaspar Noé’s homage to the Sky One after-dark movies. Instead of sneaking into the living room after midnight hoping not to get caught by your mum watching soft-porn, now you can experience porn the way it was always supposed to be seen – in 3D at 1.30pm on a Thursday in a cinema on Queen St surrounded by strangers… and your mum. Heads up, she’ll probably be there with the other ladies from her office, because art.
Adam Fresco’s Picks
A violent yakuza vampire fantasy from Takashi Miike, the prolific director of no-holds-barred Japanese gore-fests, Ichi The Killer, and Lesson of the Evil, starring Yayan Ruhian (The Raid 1 and 2)? You had me at Takashi Miike. I’m in.
Rebecca Barry Hill’s Picks
The spine-chilling trailer for this doco about the late modern soul singer Amy Winehouse hints at her future mental anguish; even in the early days of her success, the thought of fame seemed to unsettle her. Asif Kapadia’s film reveals unseen performances and interviews with the star, in a film international critics are calling “stunning”, “deeply personal” and “heartbreakingly sad”.
Alan Holt’s Picks
Guy Maddin makes some of the most twisted, visionary and deep films on the planet. The last film I saw of his was called Keyhole and involved gangsters, ghosts, sex and death and sex with the dead, drowning, and electrocution. It was cool. If I won Lotto the first thing I would do after hugging the slightly awkward shop assistant at the West Coast Rd Dairy Glen Eden would be to buy all of his films on DVD as his director commentaries are entertaining beyond measure . The Forbidden Room will be grouse as. [and yes, the trailer is supposed to look like this – Ed.]
Liam Maguren’s Picks
The festival is my hunting ground for unusual cinema that can hook you with a single description, like last year’s single-shot-time-travelling-
Frances Morton’s Picks
The documentary section always sucks me in bad because no matter how weird the arty dramas direct from Cannes get, they’ll never reach the levels of bizarre that real life does. Six brothers practically imprisoned in their Lower East Side apartment somehow overcome their oppressive childhood by watching and re-enacting films. What a salute to the power of movies. Can’t wait to hear what director Crystal Moselle has to say about it at her festival appearance.
Steve Newall’s Picks
A homegrown splatter horror-comedy about smalltown bogan metallers, whose band unwittingly unleashes the forces of evil, that boasts a kickass Kiwi soundtrack? Yes. Holy shit yes. The Civic is going to get torn a new one, and I’ll be there throwing the goat. Can’t wait for this international crowdpleaser to finally play here!
Tony Stamp’s Picks
Neither Gomorrah or Reality worked 100% for me, but every description of Matteo Garrone’s new film sounds like something I could well love. I’ve been fond of folk stories on screen since Jim Henson’s TV show The Storyteller, and this sounds like an awesomely dark addition to the genre. Black comedy (tick), horror (tick), all around weirdness (tick). Yes please, movie, now get into my brain.
Aaron Yap’s Picks
The singular work of Argentine filmmaker Lisandro Alonso has eluded New Zealand screens for far too long. He’s hypnotised me with every film he’s made: La Libertad, Los Muertos, Fantasma, Liverpool. With the pull of a major star — Viggo Mortensen — this amazing-looking, enigmatic-sounding period piece set in 1882 Patagonia should help him find an audience, especially among those partial to the so-called “slow cinema” genre.
