Our writers share their thoughts on this year’s Whānau Mārama: New Zealand International Film Festival selections.
This year’s festival features plenty of gems – check out what we’re watching, and keep checking this page for the latest mini-reviews, updated throughout the festival.
All 2024 mini-reviews:
Latest reviews | A-G | H-O | P-Z
The Haka Party Incident
The Haka Party Incident
An incredibly illuminating examination of a moment in time that says so much about Māori-Pākehā relations/tensions over the past 50 years. The Māori activists interviewed provide insightful (often funny, sometimes contradictory) accounts of the titular incident while the perpetrating engineering students dish out some invaluable reflections on their actions—some defending themselves, most acknowledging the ignorance of receiving the baton of a racist tradition. There’s anger to be felt about the injustice of the situation, but also a significant feeling of hope seeing everyone (aside from one guy) using this history as a means to learn and grow. LIAM MAGUREN
Hollywoodgate
The elevator pitch for Hollywoodgate is that Egyptian filmmaker Ibrahim Nash’at is granted access for a year to follow and film a Taliban air force commander and one of his officers around inside a freshly abandoned American military base, complete with billions of dollars worth of weaponry, advanced war helicopters and planes, and … well… exercycles. If you’re looking for a documentary that’ll show you the light-hearted, actually-pretty-cool-guys side of the Taliban, this is only very temporarily almost that, with early scenes that show the “clueless” Talibs scratching their heads at all this “krazyyyy” equipment they’ve just inherited eventually giving way to some fairly nightmarish displays of power and prospects. Still thinking about this one… MATTHEW CRAWLEY
Fascinating on-the-ground account made by a solo documentarian with rare (and strict) permission to capture events as the Taliban helps itself to matériel abandoned by US forces fleeing Afghanistan—everything from cough drops to Black Hawk helicopters. Hollywoodgate‘s observational camera follows Taliban air force commander Mawlawi Mansour as he embraces newfound airborne capabilities, and within its regime-enforced parameters is at turns tense, surprising, and revealingly banal. STEVE NEWALL
Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person
This French teen vampire black comedy lovingly collages together several ideas from wonderful films and shows that have preceded it; Let The Right One In, Wednesday, What We Do In The Shadows, and plenty more, to create something of a sweet gateway drug for the next generation. It’s a kind of Lil’ Only Lovers Left Alive, complete with killer soundtrack that’s gifted me a few new favourites. Sweeter than shocking, but with enough fresh blood in its veins to make it charming and worthwhile. MATTHEW CRAWLEY
I Saw the TV Glow
A lock for end-of-year best movies lists. This visually stunning film about loners connecting over their shared love for a cult TV show gives way to something much deeper and emotionally resonant—Owen and Maddy are brought together by late-night airings of The Pink Opaque, but it’s a closeness that leaves Owen adrift when his friend disappears. This A24 smash is set to be a highlight of NZIFF (and 2024 overall) with the heart to match its auteurist contemporary queer Lynch-y leanings, an Alex G score and its soundtrack including the likes of Caroline Polachek, Phoebe Bridgers and Snail Mail. STEVE NEWALL
Janet Planet
For the majority of the film, Janet Planet holds strictly to the perspective of its 11-year-old protagonist. It moves slowly, painting a detailed portrait of a mother and daughter and the people that drift through their lives. Has the quality of a world that has always existed, discovered by the filmmakers totally intact and just put up onto the cinema screen. CALLUM DEVLIN
How to urge you to see this while simultaneously telling you not to expect too much? This understated slow American cinema gem set in rural Massachusetts circa 1991 will tickle the hearts of those who get their kicks from the work of the likes of Kelly Reichhardt and All the Real Girls-era David Gordon Green. Poignant without asking anything of us, plenty of quirks but never grating, and with impeccable performances from all in the small cast that includes the fabulously natural Julianne Nicholson, veteran character actor Will Patton, and young one-to-watch Zoe Ziegler, whose character might not be out of place in a Todd Solondz movie were she not so somehow endearing. This one might just be the sweet strange surprise of the festival. MATTHEW CRAWLEY
Kneecap
Kneecap
Despite being pretty tired by the time I got to this Friday night screening, this absolute party of a film jolted me back to life like a cocaine-dusted slap in the face. A hip-hop biopic with punk in its veins (along with other substances), filmmaker Rich Peppiatt goes full steam ahead though its story of rap as a means of contributing to the preservation of the Irish language. Naoise Ó Cairealláin isn’t quite as natural on-screen as his bandmates Liam Óg Ó Hannaidh or JJ Ó Dochartaigh, but that’s really the only big negative note I’ve got. This film rules. LIAM MAGUREN
A frothy, highly fictionalised biography of the Irish rappers who held a finger up to the establishment, rapping in the Irish language, and never shying away from the complex history and politics of British imperialism. Despite Michael Fassbender popping in briefly, It can’t avoid music-biopic cliché and soon runs out of steam. The tracksuited central trio of original band members play themselves with charm, but the clunky drama ultimately fails to live up to the vitality of the band’s music. ADAM FRESCO
Hard-partying, foul-mouthed Irish hip hop trio Kneecap’s origins are recounted here (with the musos playing themselves) and the result is the most provocative, drug-laced, anti-authoritarian movie you’re likely to see that’s also about… language revitalisation? Here in Aotearoa, we will find familiar beats in this story of cultural pride and the group’s (initially) unwelcome pro-Irish language musical stance. But beware, you may also acquire the desire to snort prodigious lines and mouth off at the peelers (cops). Oh well, that just makes for an even more fun take on celebrating Indigenous culture. STEVE NEWALL
Menus-Plaisirs – Les Troisgros
Frederick Wiseman’s latest observational documentary is a meditative four-hour look inside a three Michelin-star French fine dining institution. At turns meditative, humourous, and fascinating, Menus-Plaisirs – Les Troisgros has some surprising digressions to producers of beef, cheese, wine and so on, which show how interlinked a restaurant can be with those around it. Sits interestingly alongside heightened chef dramas like The Bear, or modern ‘food porn’ by seldom showing us inflamed egos—or “beauties” (as Top Chef calls the perfectly lit shots of individual dishes on the show). Like most Wiseman, this this about the institution, and the people who make it—and there’s a lot revealed in its patient runtime. Side note: experienced a record low bar in audience behaviour during this. STEVE NEWALL
The Monk and the Gun
Hell of a title, hell of a film. “I need guns,” is a pretty ominous thing to hear from a Lama, but while the sinister implications hang over the entire film, it never stops being an infectiously funny fish-out-of-water story where the fish is Bhutan and the land is democracy. Filmmaker Pawo Choyning Dorji’s love of the country and its people has the warmth of a long hug and I snuggled in it. As for that ending? Simply amazing. LIAM MAGUREN
New Zealand’s Best 2024
Full disclosure: I was one of the three jury members tasked with nominating the big awards for the five local shorts selected by Gerard Johnstone. (Shout outs to my fellow jurors Philippa Campbell and Judah Finnigan, who were incredible people to talk about films with.) It’s perhaps the biggest compliment to say that judging these films was both a privilege and a total brain-basher, as they all gave us so much to deconstruct and reflect upon. LIAM MAGUREN
No Other Land
This documentary of Israel’s inhuman destruction of Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank finished filming in October 2023, making it a grimly coincidental prelude to the unbelievable new level of horror that started that month and continues to this day. While some of the film’s calmer moments away from conflict seem somewhat staged and a little too polished, this does not detract from the raw authenticity of the bulk of it. The film is also repetitive, but this is a strength rather than a flaw. Watching village after village be demolished, hearing the same agonised cries of protest from so many different families, works as an overall whole that carries tremendous emotional oomph. Punctuating it are several moments of more singular impact, some of which will stay with me for a long, long time. This is an urgent document of appalling injustice that deserves a wide audience. DANIEL RUTLEDGE
All 2024 mini-reviews:
Latest reviews | A-G | H-O | P-Z
