WELLINGTON 24 JULY – 9 AUGUST BOOK AT NZIFF.CO.NZ

44TH WELLINGTON FILM FESTIVAL 2015

Presented by New Zealand Film Festival Trust under the distinguished patronage of His Excellency Lieutenant General The Right Honourable Sir Jerry Mateparae, GNZM, QSO, Governor-General of New Zealand

EMBASSY THEATRE PARAMOUNT SOUNDINGS THEATRE, TE PAPA PENTHOUSE CINEMA ROXY CINEMA LIGHT HOUSE PETONE WWW.NZIFF.CO.NZ NGĀ TAONGA SOUND & VISION CITY GALLERY

Director: Bill Gosden General Manager: Sharon Byrne Assistant to General Manager: Lisa Bomash Festival Manager: Jenna Udy Publicist (Wellington & Regions): Megan Duffy PROUDLY SUPPORTED BY Publicist (National): Liv Young Programmer: Sandra Reid Assistant Programmer: Michael McDonnell Animation Programmer: Malcolm Turner Children’s Programmer: Nic Marshall Incredibly Strange Programmer: Anthony Timpson Content Manager: Hayden Ellis Materials and Content Assistant: Tom Ainge-Roy Festival Accounts: Alan Collins Publications Manager: Sibilla Paparatti Audience Development Coordinator: Angela Murphy Online Content Coordinator: Kailey Carruthers Guest and Administration Coordinator: Rachael Deller-Pincott Festival Interns: Cianna Canning, Poppy Granger Technical Adviser: Ian Freer Ticketing Supervisor: Amanda Newth Film Handler: Peter Tonks Publication Production: Greg Simpson Publication Design: Ocean Design Group Cover Design: Matt Bluett Cover Illustration: Blair Sayer Animated Title: Anthony Hore (designer), Aaron Hilton (animator), Tim Prebble (sound), Catherine Fitzgerald (producer)

THE NEW ZEALAND FILM FESTIVAL TRUST Chair: Catherine Fitzgerald Trustees: Louise Baker, Tearepa Kahi, Jacquie Kean, Robin Laing, Andrew Langridge, Tanya Surrey, Chris Watson Financial Controller: Chris Prowse

The New Zealand Film Festival Trust Box 9544, Marion Square Wellington 6141, New Zealand ph: (64 4) 385 0162 [email protected]

Proudly supported and printed by

TAIPEI ECONOMIC AND CULTURAL OFFICE IN NEW ZEALAND Contact Jim Rendell ph: 0274 774026, (+64 9) 477 0115 [email protected] Resene Resene Wellywood Piha Sand

Resene Resene Pohutukawa Gumboot

Resene Resene Pukeko Koru

Resene Resene Gorse Pavlova

Bringing colour to kiwi life since 1946 Resene’s big screen story began back in 1946 when Ted Nightingale started making paint from his Wellington garage. Over 69 years later and the Resene name lives on as a truly homegrown success story, known for its quality paint, colour and innovation. Our paints are designed and made in New Zealand for our harsh weather conditions and our colours are inspired by everyday kiwi life. So you can be sure they will look great in your home, while also looking after it. Proud supporters of the NZ fi lms in the International Film Festival. CONTENTS

Resene Resene Wellywood Piha Sand 07 12 14 20 36 Big Nights Retro Aotearoa World For All Ages 42 48 52 58 60 Fresh Vision Framing Sport Inside Reality Stories

Resene Resene 62 64 66 70 74 Pohutukawa Gumboot Champions Les Blank Music Portrait Incredibly of an Artist Strange 77 78 79 Shorts Meet the Indices with Features Filmmakers

Resene Resene Pukeko Koru WELCOME

Is that a movie screen in your pocket? With vast libraries of film and television a mere finger tap away for many of us, it behoves any film festival to choose more carefully than ever. At the speed with which today’s audiences demand access to films, our haul from May’s Cannes Film Festival sits squarely with the zeitgeist – but our commitment to getting Inherent Vice, one of the great American films of late 2014, onto the giant screen in July 2015 almost looks like a nostalgic gesture. That is, until you are sitting in the Embassy completely absorbed in the present tense of the film’s unique fictional universe.

Programming NZIFF is more than ever about celebrating the public occasion of movie-going, privileging the big screen experience and enlivening the interaction between films and audiences, ideally with the Resene Resene filmmakers present to contribute in person. The only challenge about finding 150 or so films that fit that agenda in Gorse Pavlova 2015 was finding even more.

We never forget that it’s the support of its audience that keeps NZIFF alive and kicking. Ticket sales contributed 88% of our income in 2014. The major sponsorship we receive from the New Zealand Film Commission is a gratifying institutional endorsement of that support, and we appreciate it immensely. Russell McVeagh once again sponsor our Gala screening allowing us to share their hospitality with other key Wellington stakeholders and supporters.

We welcome Resene for their second year as sponsors of myriad films from New Zealand filmmakers. Māori Television and RadioLIVE are great media partners. NEC very generously escorted us into the digital era and remain highly valued sponsors now that we are fully ensconced. There is not one film print at this year’s festival of film.

Bringing colour to kiwi life since 1946 We’re all of us aboard this enterprise because filmmakers gave whatever it took to get their pictures into the world in the first place. So one wanted to contemplate the immanence of the past in a Thai hospital; another to orchestrate the Resene’s big screen story began back in 1946 when Ted Nightingale started making paint from his Wellington garage. Over 69 comic misunderstandings of a Latin Lothario’s ex-wives; another to count the ways you can bludgeon a zombie with an years later and the Resene name lives on as a truly homegrown success story, known for its quality paint, colour and innovation. oversize dildo? We hope team NZIFF’s advocacy of their many achievements will help lead you to the explorations that Our paints are designed and made in New Zealand for our harsh weather conditions and our colours are inspired by everyday kiwi life. mean the most to you. So you can be sure they will look great in your home, while also looking after it. Proud supporters of the NZ fi lms in the International Film Festival.

Bill Gosden Director 1 TICKET PRICES 2 BUYING TICKETS A CODED SESSIONS BOOKINGS OPEN ON WEDNESDAY 1 JULY FROM 9.00 AM Advance bookings will be available for all NZIFF screenings. For the first time this year you Sessions starting after 5.00 pm weekdays and all weekend sessions. can select your own seats online. Book early to secure the best seats and to ensure your » Full Price $18.50 tickets for screenings at the smaller venues.

» Film Society/Film Industry Guilds/Student ❉ $15.00 ONLINE www.nziff.co.nz (Select your own seat option now available.) Tickets purchased online will be emailed to you, allowing you to print them at home. » Child (15 and under)/Senior (65+) $12.50 Please ensure you either print your ticket, not just your confirmation letter, and bring your B CODED SESSIONS ID if you have booked concession discount tickets. You may also present your ticket on your mobile. Please ensure your ticket is loaded and ready for presentation. Sessions starting before 5.00 pm weekdays or of a shorter duration and others as indicated. IN PERSON BEFORE NZIFF (from Wednesday 1 July to Thursday 23 July) Advance tickets for all NZIFF screenings will be available at the NZIFF box office at the » Full Price $15.00 Paramount, 25 Courtenay Place. » Child (15 and under)/Senior (65+) $12.50 9.00 am – 5.00 pm Monday to Friday, 10.00 am – 4.00 pm Saturday and Sunday. C CODED SESSIONS IN PERSON DURING NZIFF (from Friday 24 July) City Gallery screenings and others as indicated. From Friday 24 July, advance tickets for all NZIFF screenings will be available at the NZIFF box offices at Paramount, Embassy, Nga¯ Taonga Sound & Vision, Light House Petone and » All tickets $11.50 Penthouse Cinema. These box offices will open one hour prior to the first NZIFF session of the day at the venue and close 15 minutes after the start of the day’s final NZIFF session. 3D FILMS Please note: Patrons buying tickets for sessions about to start may be given priority over 3D glasses not included. We encourage you to recycle and bring your own. patrons seeking advance bookings. They can be purchased at the cinema entrance for $1.00. The NZIFF box office at Te Papa can also provide advance bookings for all NZIFF » Full Price $20.50 screenings, but is open only on those days when NZIFF screens at Te Papa (28 July and 3–5 & 7 August). This box office will open one hour prior to the first session of the day » Film Society/Film Industry Guilds/Student ❉ $18.50 at Te Papa and close 15 minutes after the start of the day’s final session. » Child (15 and under)/Senior (65+) $14.50 The box office at The Roxy Cinema offers advance bookings for their own NZIFF screenings only. This box office is operated for NZIFF by the venue itself and is not LC LIVE CINEMA Lonesome equipped to sell tickets for other NZIFF venues. » Full Price $40.00 MAIL » Film Society/Film Industry Guilds/Student ❉ $33.00 A booking form can be found on the NZIFF website. Once printed and completed, post to: New Zealand International Film Festival, PO Box 9544, Marion Square, Wellington 6141. » Senior (65+) $33.00 TELEPHONE Please note: We have limited phone booking services. » Child (15 and under) $25.00 Ph: (04) 801 8054 ONLINE DISCOUNT Before NZIFF (from Wednesday 1 July to Thursday 23 July) Purchase ten Full Price tickets or more in one online transaction and automatically 9.00 am – 5.00 pm Monday to Friday, 10.00 am – 4.00 pm Saturday and Sunday. receive a discount of $2.00 per ticket. During NZIFF (from Friday 24 July) 10.30 am – 5.00 pm daily. TEN-TRIP PASS AT THE VENUE ON THE DAY Valid for all sessions, subject to seat availability. Venue sales only. The box office at Light House Petone opens at 9.00 am daily. The box offices at all other » Ten-Trip Pass $150.00 NZIFF venues will open one hour prior to the first NZIFF session of the day at the venue and close 15 minutes after the start of the day’s final session. The Ten-Trip Pass can be purchased in advance from the NZIFF Paramount Box Office (or from NZIFF venues during NZIFF dates). It can be used to book tickets in advance SCHOOLS AND GROUP BOOKINGS or on the day at NZIFF box offices for any session that is not sold out. The Ten-Trip For group bookings of 20 or more people contact Angela Murphy on (04) 802 2576 or Pass cannot be used for online, phone or mail bookings. The pass cannot be used to [email protected]. secure tickets for the Live Cinema Performance of Lonesome or 3D films. METHOD OF PAYMENT TICKETING FEES Cash: Accepted for box office and venue bookings. A $1.00 per ticket transaction fee is already included in the price of the ticket. EFTPOS: Accepted for box office and venue bookings. There are no additional service fees except for where a courier delivery is selected Visa/Mastercard: Accepted for all bookings. ($5.50). Cheque: Personal cheques are accepted for mail bookings only, and must be received five working days prior to your first screening. Cheques payable to NZ Film Festival Trust.

❉ CONCESSION DISCOUNTS (Film Society/Film Industry Guilds/Student) TICKET COLLECTION Students, Film Society members and Film Industry Guild members are entitled For phone and mail bookings, tickets can be mailed or couriered out if booking is received to purchase one ticket per session at the discount rate. Student/Membership ID at least nine days prior to your first screening. Otherwise they will be held for collection at is required – please ensure you bring it with you to the venue to present to staff the cinema box office of your first screening. Please bring your reference number and/or on request; failure to do so will result in the full price being charged for attendance. credit card and any concession ID as verification of your ticket purchase. REFUNDS Please note that NO REFUNDS will be given for uncollected tickets or tickets collected late. Bookings once made cannot be altered. Please choose carefully as there are no exchanges or refunds except as required by law. GENERAL ENQUIRIES Ph: (04) 802 2579; 9.00 am – 5.00 pm Monday to Friday. VENUE GENERAL 3 INFORMATION 4 INFORMATION FOR ANSWERS TO FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS VISIT www.nziff.co.nz PROGRAMME CHANGES Embassy Theatre (EMB) & Embassy Deluxe (ED): 10 Kent Tce, Ph (04) 801 6483 We reluctantly reserve the right to change the schedule by amending dates or replacing Embassy Deluxe is a 70-seat cinema downstairs at the Embassy. films. From Friday 24 July, confirmation of daily session times can be made by calling the Paramount (PAR) & Paramount Bergman (PB): 25 Courtenay Pl, Ph (04) 801 8054 NZIFF box office on (04) 801 8054. Any necessary changes will be advertised on our Paramount Bergman is a 60-seat cinema at the Paramount. website, at our venues and in our daily newspaper advertising. Soundings Theatre, Te Papa (TP): Cable St, Level 2, top of stairs and sharp right. PLEASE ARRIVE EARLY Ph (04) 381 7000, 10.00 am to 6.00 pm There are no advertising films or trailers at NZIFF. We reserve the right to ask latecomers Nga¯ Taonga Sound & Vision – formerly The Film Archive (NT): cnr Taranaki and to wait until the conclusion of any introductions or short films before they are seated. Ghuznee Sts, Ph (04) 384 7647 Session starting times will not be delayed in deference to late arrivals. If collecting tickets Penthouse Cinema (PH): 205 Ohiro Rd, Brooklyn, Ph (04) 384 3157 prior to a screening please allow extra time in case there are queues. Take bus 7 from Victoria St cnr Manners Mall to Brooklyn village. Check www.metlink.org.nz for timetables. All screenings this year will be held in Cinema 3. MOBILE PHONES Please ensure mobile phones and pagers are switched off before entering the auditorium. Roxy Cinema (RX): 5 Park Rd, Miramar, Ph (04) 388 5555 Take buses 2, 24, 31, 43 or 44 from Courtenay Place to Miramar shops. WHEELCHAIR ACCESS/SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS Check www.metlink.org.nz for timetables. All venues are accessible by wheelchair. The Embassy and Soundings Theatre are Light House Cinema Petone (LHP): 52 Beach St, Petone, Ph (04) 939 2061 equipped with hearing loops with good coverage for all seats. All other venues except Take the Hutt Valley train or buses 81, 83, 84, 85 or 91, from Courtenay Pl or Nga¯ Taonga Sound & Vision and Roxy Cinema have amplified infra-red headphones Lambton Quay to Jackson St. Check www.metlink.org.nz for timetables. (used without hearing aids), which can be obtained from the box office. Please note that City Gallery Wellington (CG): Civic Square, 101 Wakefield St, Ph (04) 913 9032 where films are indicated as having subtitles, this is not the same as full captioning for the hearing impaired. Please advise the ticket seller when purchasing your tickets if you have any special requirements. Visit our website for venue specific information. CENSORSHIP CLASSIFICATION KEY TO VENUE CODES G – Suitable for general audiences EMB Embassy Theatre RX Roxy Cinema PG – Parental guidance recommended for younger viewers M – Unrestricted. Recommended more suitable for mature audiences 16 years and over ED Embassy Deluxe LHP Light House Petone RP13 – Restricted to persons 13 years and over, unless they are accompanied by a parent or guardian PAR Paramount NT Nga¯ Taonga Sound & Vision RP16 – Restricted to persons 16 years and over, unless they are accompanied by a parent or guardian R13 – Restricted to persons 13 years and over (Formerly The Film Archive) PB Paramount Bergman R16 – Restricted to persons 16 years and over TP Soundings Theatre, Te Papa CG City Gallery R18 – Restricted to persons 18 years and over Classifications will be published in NZIFF’s daily newspaper advertising and displayed at the PH Penthouse Cinema venues’ box offices. Children’s tickets are available only for films classified G, PG and M. At the time of printing some films have not been rated. Until they receive a censor rating, they are considered R18 (unless clearly aimed at children) and can only be purchased by and for people aged 18 and over. For more information please visit the ticketing and venue KEY TO ICONS information page on our website. Please note: ID may be requested for restricted films.

Guest Appearance World Premiere WEBSITE www.nziff.co.nz Register on our website to customise your view of NZIFF, select your favourite films, Short Preceding Feature Cannes Selection 2015 send films to your friends, and create your own schedule. You can also sign up for news updates and the chance to win movie tickets and DVDs. The site also features Lunchtime Session Major Festival Award an at-a-glance planner that shows you exactly when each movie is scheduled to start and finish.

www.facebook.com/nzfilmfestival Become a friend, watch trailers and take part in competitions and discussions. THE 2015 FILM QUIZ Hosted by the Wellington Film Society www.twitter.com/nzff Saturday 1 August, 2.00 pm – 4.00 pm in the Paramount lounge Keep up to date with our Twitter feed. Free entry! Team registration is required (space is limited). Memorise www.youtube.com/nzintfilmfestival the NZIFF programme, book in your film buff mates, and head down to the Watch trailers, interviews and much more. Paramount for the 2015 Film Quiz hosted by the Wellington Film Society. The quiz is a celebration of all things film, brought to you by the friendly www.instagram.com/nziff volunteers of the year-round Wellington Film Society. This event is open to Take a peek behind the scenes. the general public. Teams of four to six are encouraged to register for the event on the Film Society’s Facebook page: www.facebook.com/wellingtonfilmsociety MEET THE FILMMAKERS or via email to [email protected]. Interviews and panel discussions with NZIFF guests will be announced soon on our website. Admission to these events is FREE and open to everyone. SPONSORSHIP, BROCHURE AND WEBSITE ADVERTISING Contact: Sharon Byrne Ph: (04) 802 2570 FURTHER INFORMATION Contact us: [email protected], www.nziff.co.nz HELPING TO BRING YOU THE COLOUR AND EXCITEMENT OF WORLD CINEMA

PROUD SPONSOR OF THE NEW ZEALAND INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL SINCE 2002

www.russellmcveagh.com

WELLINGTON AUCKLAND VODAFONE ON THE QUAY 157 LAMBTON QUAY VERO CENTRE 48 SHORTLAND STREET PO BOX 10-214 WELLINGTON NEW ZEALAND DX SX11189 PO BOX 8 AUCKLAND NEW ZEALAND DX CX10085 TELEPHONE 64 4 499 9555 FAX 64 4 499 9556 TELEPHONE 64 9 367 8000 FAX 64 9 367 8163 BIG NIGHTS 7

The Lobster Opening Night

In the world of Yorgos Lanthimos’ wily jet black satire of socially enforced coupledom, single adults are required Director: Yorgos Lanthimos to find a partner within 45 days or be Greece/Ireland/UK 2015 | 118 mins transformed into the animals of their Producers: Ed Guiney, Lee Magiday, Ceci Dempsey, Yorgos Lanthimos choice. Studding his supremely deadpan Screenplay: Yorgos Lanthimos, Efthimis Filippou creation with gags that may have you Photography: Thimios Bakatakis gaping in disbelief, the director of Editor: Yorgos Mavropsaridis With: Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, Jessica Barden, Dogtooth proves as savage and adroit a Olivia Colman, Ashley Jensen, Ariane Labed, surrealist in English as in his native Greek. Angeliki Papoulia, John C. Reilly, Léa Seydoux, Michael Smiley, Ben Whishaw “David (a paunchy Colin Farrell) picks Festivals: Cannes (In Competition) 2015 the lobster, because they live long Jury Prize, Cannes Film Festival 2015 and he likes the sea. Left by his wife In English and French, with English subtitles Censors rating tbc of 11 years, David is taken to a hotel compound where the non-attached – PROUDLY SPONSORED BY played by Ben Whishaw, John C. Reilly, Ashley Jensen, and Jessica Barden, among others – can form couples or earn extensions by hunting down Loners, renegade singles who hide in DESPINA SPYROU the woods. With him, he brings Bob, a police officers badger unaccompanied border collie who used to be his brother. adults for proof of couplehood. As the “Charlie Kaufman or Spike Lanthimos continually introduces shocks and surreal-satirical conceits Jonze couldn’t have new bizarre rules, rituals, and pile on, they accumulate meaning, punishments… It’s a funny, unsettling, leading to a semi-ambiguous finale that written a more exquisite occasionally gruesome riff on the questions whether it’s even possible for dark comedy in the age way a society can prioritize long-term two people to be in love on terms other of Tinder.” relationships while codifying them into than the ones their culture has laid out meaningless gesture… He also keeps for them. There’s comedy that’s weird — Aaron Hillis, Filmmaker A EMB Friday 24 July, 7.15 pm expanding the scope, from the hotel to for its own sake, and then there’s this.” B EMB Thursday 30 July, 3.30 pm the woodland world of the Loners and — Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, AV Club then to a nearby city, where patrolling

The Assassin Nie Yinniang Centrepiece

Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien, as visual a poet of human existence as ever made movies, has been working for Director: Hou Hsiao-hsien almost a decade to produce this ravishing Taiwan 2015 | 105 mins distillation of a vanished world. Winner Producers: Hou Hsiao-hsien, Chen Yiqi, Peter Lam, Lin Kufn, Gou Tai-chiang, Tung Tzu-hsien of the Best Director Award at Cannes. Screenplay: Hou Hsiao-hsien, Chu Tien-wen, “Nominally a martial arts film of the Hsieh Hai-meng, Zhong Acheng swordplay genre, The Assassin, inspired Photography: Mark Lee Ping-bing Editors: Liao Ching-sung, Pauline Huang Chih-chia by 9th-century Tang Dynasty fiction, is Music: Lim Giong actually a breathtakingly contemplative With: Shu Qi, Chang Chen, Zhou Yun, Tsumabuki Satoshi, Juan Ching-tian, historical drama. Filmmakers including Hsieh Hsin-ying, Sheu Fang-yi Zhang Yimou, Ang Lee, and Bernardo Festivals: Cannes (In Competition) 2015 Bertolucci can eat their hearts out, Best Director, Cannes Film Festival 2015 In Mandarin with English subtitles because The Assassin involves the Censors rating tbc most extravagant, intricately detailed, extraordinarily beautiful recreation of PROUDLY SPONSORED BY the interiors, decor, dress and manners of imperial China that has ever likely TAIPEI ECONOMIC AND CULTURAL OFFICE IN been put on film… NEW ZEALAND Yinniang (Shu Qi), a general’s daughter exiled since childhood, is RogerEbert.com assigned by her martial arts master to “Whether shooting through wafting “The Assassin is a beautiful, kill the cousin to whom she was once transparent curtains or mountain mists, beguiling film; it’s betrothed, as punishment for failing to or using muted or saturated colours, complete the political assassination of holding for a long time on a static tableau impossible not to get fully a corrupt governor. This is played out or delivering a quick montage depicting lost in its rarefied world.” as an intricate cat-and-mouse game of Yinniang despatching her enemies with — Dave Calhoun, Time Out stalking, and its pleasures for the viewer deadly ease, Hou constantly makes us are not the ordinary ones of pursuit feel almost as if we’re watching A EMB Saturday 1 August, 6.30 pm and capture, but the quality of living something we’ve never seen before.” B EMB Tuesday 4 August, 3.45 pm completely in each moment through — Geoff Andrew, Sight & Sound Hou’s vision.” — Barbara Scharres, 8

WE’RE BIG FANS OF AND OF THESE FILM GUYS. WELLINGTON FREE AMBULANCE IS THE ONLY PARAMEDIC SERVICE IN GREATER WELLINGTON & WAIRARAPA. NOT MANY PEOPLE KNOW THAT. AND EVEN FEWER KNOW THAT THEY’RE THE ONLY ONES IN THE COUNTRY WHO ARE FREE. GOOD ON YOU WELLINGTON. Supporters of the New Zealand International KEEP ON DONATING. Film Festival and Wellington Free Ambulance. wfa.org.nz/donate BIG NIGHTS 9

Tale of Tales Il racconto dei racconti Closing Night

“Salma Hayek eating a serpent’s heart; Toby Jones cuddling a giant flea. Python meets Pasolini in this horrific, Director: Matteo Garrone hilarious – and very grown up – fairy Italy/France 2015 | 125 mins tale anthology… The Italian director Producers: Matteo Garrone, Jeremy Thomas, Jean Labadie, Anne-Laure Labadie Matteo Garrone has abandoned the Screenplay: Edoardo Albinati, Ugo Chiti, heightened social realism of Gomorrah Matteo Garrone, Massimo Gaudioso. Based on and Reality for something much older the book by Giambattista Basile Photography: Peter Suschitzky and eerier: a triptych of fables drawn Editor: Marco Spoletini from a 17th-century book of Neapolitan Production designer: Dimitri Capuani folk stories compiled by the Italian poet Costume designer: Massimo Cantini Parrini Music: Alexandre Desplat Giambattista Basile. The Tale of Tales With: Salma Hayek, Vincent Cassel, Toby Jones, dances on a razor’s edge between John C. Reilly, Shirley Henderson, Stacy Martin, Christian Lees, Jonah Lees, Bebe Cave funny and unnerving, with sequences of Festivals: Cannes (In Competition) 2015 shadow-spun horror rubbing up against CinemaScope/Censors rating tbc moments of searing baroque beauty. The result is a fabulously sexy, defiantly unfashionable readymade cult item.” — Robbie Collin, The Telegraph “Ogres, giant fleas, albino twins, an ©GRETA DE LAZZARIS old woman flaying her skin in search (Vincent Cassel) allows his rampant of youth and a queen feasting on sexual desire to lead him into bed with “It is a masterpiece of the heart of a sea monster: the sheer, an old crone; yet another (John C. black-comic bad taste obstinate oddness of Tale of Tales Reilly) dies after taking the advice of a sends crowd-pleasers like Game of mysterious old man on how to cure the and a positive carnival Thrones and The Hobbit scuttling into inability of his wife (Salma Hayek) to of transgression.” the shadows of the forest in terror… have a child… — Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian What links these strange, seductive There’s much to delight as Tale of tales is a cheeky observation of the Tales takes hold – not least Garrone’s B EMB Friday 7 August, 3.45 pm follies of power. One king (Toby Jones) belief in the power of these stories A EMB Sunday 9 August, 8.30 pm breeds a flea and accidentally marries to travel through the years.” — Dave off his daughter to a brute; another Calhoun, Time Out

45 Years Special Presentation

Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay shared the acting honours at the Berlin Film Festival for their roles as a long- Director/Screenplay: Andrew Haigh married couple suddenly prompted to UK 2015 | 93 mins wonder how well they know each other. Producer: Tristan Goligher Andrew Haigh’s sensitively measured Photography: Lol Crawley Editor: Jonathan Alberts portrait of a marriage finds a well-worn Production designer: Sarah Finlay familiarity in their scenes together Costume designer: Suzie Harman With: Charlotte Rampling, Tom Courtenay, and draws from each actor their most Geraldine James, Dolly Wells, David Sibley, delicately nuanced work in years. Sam Alexander, Richard Cunningham, Comfortably retired in Norfolk, Kate Hannah Chambers, Camille Ucan, Rufus Wright Festivals: Berlin 2015 and Geoff are preparing for their 45th- Best Actress & Best Actor, Berlin International anniversary party, when a letter arrives Film Festival 2015 M sex scenes, offensive language which raises a ghost from the past. It concerns Geoff’s first girlfriend, Katya, PRESENTED IN ASSOCIATION WITH who died in a mountain accident when the two of them were holidaying 50 years ago. Surprised by Geoff’s response, Kate becomes increasingly preoccupied by ©AGATHA A. NITECKA what she doesn’t know about that “A wry, witty, wonderfully true- first affair, and how it shaped the to-life drama notable not only for its “It’s a film of small man she married. All the while she superb performances but also for the moments and tiny tends to arrangements for the party subtlety of its script and direction. in an atmosphere of high anticipation Also impressive for its expressive use gestures that leaves a amongst their friends. Writer-director of Norfolk’s landscape and weather, it very, very big impression.” Andrew Haigh, whose Weekend cut comes across a little like late Bergman — Dave Calhoun, Time Out deep in its account of a relationship – but with rather more laughs. For that lasted a mere two days, proves me at least, it’s one of the finest B PH Thursday 30 July, 11.15 am equally astute and empathetic British films of recent years.” — Geoff A PH Sunday 2 August, 6.15 pm observing a life-long intimacy chaffing Andrew, BFI.com B EMB Wednesday 5 August, 12.00 pm A EMB Sunday 9 August, 6.15 pm at its limitations. 10 BIG NIGHTS

Amy Special Presentation

“To hear Amy Winehouse sing numbers like ‘Back to Black’ and ‘Love Is a Losing Game’ in Asif Kapadia’s sensitive and Director: Asif Kapadia extraordinary documentary Amy is to UK 2015 | 128 mins open yourself to an unsettling rush Producer: James Gay-Rees of grief and joy. Kapadia [Senna] has Editor: Chris King Music: Amy Winehouse, Antonio Pinto conducted interviews with key people With: Amy Winehouse, Tony Bennett, in Winehouse’s life – including her Salaam Remi, Yasiin Bey, Lauren Gilbert, Juliette Ashby, Nick Shymansky, Andrew Morris, ex-husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, and her Raye Cosbert, Mark Ronson, Blake Fielder-Civil longtime best girlfriends, Juliette Ashby Festivals: Cannes (Midnight Screenings), Sydney 2015 and Lauren Gilbert – weaving them Colour and B&W through performance and interview amyfilm.co.uk footage as well as personal videos and stills shot by friends, family, and colleagues. The result is a surprisingly seamless biographical documentary, one that, even though it’s been constructed largely from found elements, feels gracefully whole… Kapadia presents Winehouse looking her best: we see her performing on care not to lose sight of the human Late Show with David Letterman, a being behind the mythology. In the “A commemoration of her glorious vision with Maria Callas eyes beginning, she was just a Jewish girl colossal talent, and a and Ronnie Spector hair, wearing a from North London, with a bawdy polka-dotted supper-club dress that sense of humor and a voice that carried moving tribute to a makes her somewhat thoughtlessly hints, like subtle notes of perfume, of brilliant, witty, vivacious placed tattoos look more glamorous, the singers who’d come before her. In young woman gone far not less. But what really counts is the end, she was both ravaged and the care Kapadia takes in showing radiant, but Amy focuses mostly on the too soon.” B EMB Friday 24 July, 2.00 pm Winehouse in her lowest moments… latter.” — Stephanie Zacharek, Village — Robbie Collin, The Telegraph A EMB Saturday 25 July, 6.30 pm Even if the last third of Amy is Voice B PH Monday 27 July, 1.15 pm Monday 27 July, 8.15 pm painful to watch, Kapadia takes A PH

Embrace of the Serpent El abrazo de la serpiente Special Presentation

An Amazonian shaman, the lone survivor of his tribe, is the commanding central presence in this hypnotic Director: Ciro Guerra reversal of the jungle-explorer genre by Colombia/Venezuela/Argentina Colombian director Ciro Guerra (The 2015 | 125 mins Wind Journeys). It’s majestically shot Producer: Cristina Gallego Screenplay: Ciro Guerra, in the Amazon, in B&W so intensely Jacques Toulemonde Vidal rich and finely detailed that you might Photography: David Gallego wish the world itself could do without Editors: Etienne Boussac, Cristina Gallego Music: Nascuy Linares colour. The shaman Karmakate’s With: Nilbio Torres, Antonio Bolívar, peregrinations are based on actual trips Yauenkü Miguee, Jan Bijvoet, Brionne Davis Festivals: Cannes (Directors’ Fortnight) 2015 documented by two explorers, German Directors’ Fortnight Prize, Cannes Film Festival ethnographer Theodor Koch-Grunberg, 2015 who visited in 1911, and American In Cubeo, Huitoto, Wanano, Tikuna, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Catalan and Latin, scientist Richard Evans Schultes, who with English subtitles followed in his footsteps with Koch- B&W/Censors rating tbc Grunberg’s journals for a guide, three decades later. Ironically, it’s through these men’s explorations that any record of the likes ©ANDRES CÓRDOBA of Karamakate survives. Intercutting entirely submerged in this fantastical, between the shaman as a young man quasi-mythical, soul-crushing yet “At once blistering and and as an older one guiding each of often very funny story… None of the poetic... Ciro Guerra‘s his alien visitors down the river, Guerra arduousness behind-the-scenes shows posits the opposite situation. He turns in the final film, which unfolds with visually majestic film pays an indigenous eye on these stray a stunning directorial sureness and a tribute to the lost cultures Europeans who’ve become uneasy layered intelligence that at times lands and civilizations of the dependents, mocking them, seducing an insight so wincingly wise and true them with animism, and drawing on it takes your breath away.” — Jessica Colombian Amazon.” B EMB Tuesday 4 August, 1.00 pm nature’s pharmacy to cure their ails and Kiang, The Playlist — Justin Chang, Variety A EMB Thursday 6 August, 6.15 pm bend their minds. “Just a few minutes in, the viewer is BIG NIGHTS 11

Holding the Man Special Presentation

Timothy Conigrave’s memoir, Holding Director: Neil Armfield the Man, is a love story for the ages, Australia 2015 | 128 mins and Neil Armfeld’s film honours it Producer: Kylie du Fresne beautifully. Conigrave met John Caleo Screenplay: Tommy Murphy. Based on the memoir by Timothy Conigrave when they were teenagers at Xavier Photography: Germain McMicking College in Melbourne in the 1970s. Tim Editor: Dany Cooper With: Ryan Corr, Craig Stott, Guy Pearce, was an aspiring actor. John was captain Anthony LaPaglia, Camilla Ah Kin, Kerry Fox, of the football team. Their romance Sarah Snook lasted 15 years and endured a good Festivals: Sydney 2015 Censors rating tbc many trials, a fair few of them instigated by Tim. John died at 33, felled by the plague that killed so many young gay men in the 80s. Forbidden by the Caleo family to speak at his lover’s funeral, Tim ensured through his memoir that the world would know the depth of tenderness they shared. The film is deeply romantic, even in its tragic denouement, but feels keenly in touch with the lived experience of its subjects. Unexpected sociological that you wouldn’t want to see it any details feel exactly right: you may other way. Timothy Conigrave’s be surprised who in 1976 can take a There’s fire in Holding the Man, lest unforgettable book couple of mutually smitten schoolboys we ever forget a time when so many in their stride, though it’s no surprise sons, brothers, friends and lovers died informs every moment when an Italian paterfamilias (Anthony amidst such fear and recrimination. of this beautiful film LaPaglia) cannot. But it’s no simplistic denunciation of adaptation. Actors Ryan Corr and Craig Stott bygone homophobia. All it is out to say age 15 years as Tim and John. They are on that score is that these two boys, B EMB Thursday 6 August, 3.30 pm too big to be playing schoolboys, but then men, were the lights of each A EMB Saturday 8 August, 8.45 pm they portray such distinct individuals, other’s lives, that they knew it, and A RX Sunday 9 August, 5.00 pm so sweetly, surprisingly into each other, so why shouldn’t anyone else?

Sherpa Special Presentation

We are unlikely ever to tire of the Director: Jennifer Peedom spectacle of Everest as pure wilderness, Australia 2015 | 96 mins even if, before the terrible events of May, Producers: Bridget Ikin, John Smithson tales of adventure tourists crowding the Photography: Renan Ozturk, Hugh Miller, Ken Sauls mountain were becoming more and Editor: Christian Gazal more common. The Everest captured so Music: Antony Partos vividly in Australian filmmaker Jennifer With: Phurba Tashi Sherpa, Russell Brice, Ed Douglas Peedom’s superb Sherpa is one of Festivals: Sydney 2015 awesome beauty, but it is also one In Nepali and English, with English subtitles CinemaScope teeming with chaotic human activity. sherpafilm.com In 2013 news channels around the world reported that Sherpa guides had turned angrily on European climbers on Everest. Wanting to know what had driven the famously obliging Sherpas to such action, Peedom, already an experienced filmmaker in the Himalayas, set out to film the 2014 climbing season. Her film crew embedded with a commercial expedition operated by Kiwi Himalayan veteran Russell Khumbu Icefall. Having acquainted us, Brice. The 25 Sherpas in his team carry before this tragedy, with the candid This stunning new equipment and ensure the safety of viewpoints of Phurba and his team, documentary explores clients who might pay up to $75,000 Brice and his clients, and numerous for the experience. At the heart of this other denizens of the mountain, the relationship film is Brice’s Sherpa leader Phurba Peedom captures the dramatic between cashed-up Tashi, about to attempt to summit reappraisals that follow, with equal Everest expeditions Everest for the 22nd time. candour. Unforgettably, we watch as Then, in April 2014, a 14 million the Sherpas, facing fierce opposition and their guides. A EMB Sunday 26 July, 8.30 pm ton block of ice crashed down and and blatant misrepresentation, defy B EMB Monday 27 July, 1.45 pm killed 16 Sherpas as they worked the dictates of ‘commercial reality’ and on the climbing route through the unite to restore order to their mountain. 12

Kiss Me Kate 3D RETRO Director: George Sidney USA 1953 | 110 mins Producer: Jack Cummings Screenplay: Dorothy Kingsley. Based on the book by Samuel and Bella Spewack Music: Cole Porter With: Kathryn Grayson, Howard Keel, Ann Miller, Bob Fosse, Keenan Wynn 3D/G cert

‘If she says your behaviour is heinous/ our faces. Gangsters Keenan Wynn kick her right in the Coriolanus’: and James Whitmore invite the Cole Porter had a ball updating The lovelorn Howard Keel to ‘Brush Up Taming of the Shrew for Broadway in Your Shakespeare’ (sample lyric above) 1948. Hollywood responded in 1953 in a soft shoe duet that purports to with a 3D Technicolor extravaganza be improvised on the spot and comes studded with great Porter songs and close to vaudeville perfection. There’s dynamic dance numbers designed to also some warbling from Kathryn be experienced in three dimensions. Grayson, as the operetta diva in the Hitting Hollywood dance with the show within the show, that’s not quite speed and brilliance of a lightning so zippy. But when Fosse and Hermes bolt, Bob Fosse makes one of the most Pan’s choreography hits the screen breathtaking entrances in the history with Porter’s music, this is as fabulous of the medium. Ann Miller dances as movie musicals – or 50s 3D – get. and sings ‘It’s Too Darn Hot’ in high heels, and she’s like a shimmying 3D LHP Saturday 25 July, 3.45 pm tap-dancing dervish in pink, working 3D EMB Sunday 2 August, 6.00 pm a black Spanish hand fan all the while 3D EMB Thursday 6 August, 10.30 am and tossing discarded accessories in

The Misfits

Director: John Huston USA 1961 | 125 mins Producer: Frank E. Taylor Screenplay: Arthur Miller Photography: Russell Metty Music: Alex North With: Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift, Thelma Ritter, Eli Wallach B&W/PG cert

Marilyn Monroe’s final film is famously impossibly tender-hearted Roslyn imbued with the personal traumas of their gentler sides – without telling its iconic stars: Monroe, Clark Gable her that the work they do with wild and jumpy, mesmerising Montgomery horses is anything but gentle. Monroe’s Clift. You’ve never had a better look wary intimacy with the avuncular, at any of them than in this glorious 4K smitten Gable and the ever-hurting digital restoration. The writer Arthur Clift is intensely touching. Director Miller was in Reno securing the divorce John Huston’s love of location pays that cleared the way to marrying dividends in the desert and the horse- Monroe when he had the idea of a wrangling scenes, widely considered story about the old cowboys he met as contributing to the 59-year-old there. By the time he’d remodelled it Gable’s subsequent heart attack, are as a film script for his new wife, that electrifying. marriage too was on the rocks. She plays dreamy, impulsive Roslyn, in Reno to end a loveless marriage with no idea A RX Saturday 25 July, 3.45 pm where she’s headed next. Before the A EMB Saturday 1 August, 1.45 pm movie’s over, all three of the Nevada cowboys she’s met have shown the RETRO 13

Lonesome Live Cinema with Lawrence Arabia and Carnivorous Plant Society

New Zealand indie pop maestro Director: Paul Fejos Lawrence Arabia and collaborators USA 1928 | 69 mins Carnivorous Plant Society bring new Producer: Carl Laemmle Jr life to a long-buried treasure from Screenplay: Mann Page, Edward T. Lowe Jr Photography: Gilbert Warrenton 1920s New York. Unearthed in the Editor: Frank Atkinson 80s, and as kinetic as the metropolis Music: Lawrence Arabia and Carnivorous Plant itself, Lonesome is the creation of the Society With: Barbara Kent, Glenn Tryon, Fay Holderness, little-known but remarkable Hungarian Gustav Partos, Eddie Phillips, Andy Devine émigré Paul Fejos. Lonesome is a lavish B&W/Blu-ray/G cert city symphony, set amidst the mania of Coney Island during the Fourth of July holiday. Two shy and lonely young city folk meet, fall for each other, then get separated in the course of a frantic afternoon. Fejos makes dazzling use of every technique the movie medium could offer – colour tinting, superimpositions, experimental editing, and a roving, even roller-coasting, camera. Three crude dialogue scenes, belatedly added to to try and translate the modernist satisfy the new craze for talkies, only rhythms of early 20th-century New “The term ‘lost classic’ show how sophisticated the visual York into something original that gets thrown around a medium had become before the spoken vibrates with the same energy. It’s word entered the picture. There was also a fine excuse to get to work with fair amount today, but always sound at the silent movies though, some different collaborators in the director Paul Fejos’ rarely- in the form of live music, and we’ve form of Carnivorous Plant Society, an seen Lonesome comes as asked a great, one-of-a-kind band to mix indefinable ensemble of extremely it up with this great, one-of-a-kind movie. talented multi-instrumentalists whose close to the real deal LC PAR Sunday 9 August, 2.00 pm “It was a beautiful surprise to get the music is inherently filmic. I intend to as you’re likely to find.” SPECIAL PRICES APPLY invite to participate in this year’s festival. exploit that trait to its full extent!” See p4 — Pat Kewley, PopMatters It’s going to be a magnificent challenge — James Milne aka Lawrence Arabia

The Colour of Pomegranates Sayat Nova

“With Sergei Parajanov’s death in Director/Screenplay: Sergei Parajanov 1990, cinema lost one of its last true USSR (Armenia) 1969 | 79 mins poets. Despite persistent persecution Photography: Suren Shakhbazian and long-term imprisonment in the Editor: Maria Ponomarenko Music: Tigran Mansurian Soviet gulag, Parajanov made several With: Sofiko Chiaureli, Melkon Alekian, films unparalleled for their hermetic Vilen Galustian, Georgi Gegechkori, Hovhannes Minsasian, Spartak Bagashvili, Medea Japaridze, beauty and formal innovation. Soon Grigori Margarian after completing The Colour of Festivals: Cannes (Classics), Toronto, New York, Pomegranates – a visually dazzling London 2014 In Armenian with English subtitles biography of the 18th-century PG animal slaughter Armenian poet and musician Sayat- Restored by Cineteca di Bologna/L’Immagine Ritrovata Nova related through a succession and The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project, of opulently exotic tableaux, hieratic in association with the National Cinema Centre of Armenia and Gosfilmofond of Russia. Restoration as Byzantine icons one moment, funding provided by the Material World Charitable fleshily sensual the next – Parajanov Foundation and The Film Foundation. was imprisoned for ‘trafficking in art objects and currency, spreading PRESENTED IN ASSOCIATION WITH venereal disease, incitement to suicide, homosexuality and anti-Soviet agitation,’ and spent much of the subsequent decade in and out of jail pomegranates to stain the heavens, during which time his devotion to art The Colour of Pomegranates is a “Watching The Colour of and the making of beauty remained stunning conflation of the medieval Pomegranates is like undiminished. and modernist, of pagan and Christian The Film Foundation’s painstaking influences, inhabiting the unlikely opening a door and restoration of the original Armenian frontier between Soviet silent cinema walking into another version [is] a cinematic Holy Grail and the outré artistry of such figures dimension, where time [and] represents ‘the closest thing as Jack Smith and James Lee Byars.” we have to Parajanov’s eccentric, at — James Quandt, Toronto International has stopped and beauty A NT Tuesday 28 July, 8.15 pm times bawdy, yet profound vision Film Festival has been unleashed.” B NT Friday 31 July, 4.45 pm for the film’, according to scholar A NT Tuesday 4 August, 8.30 pm — Martin Scorsese James Steffen. Bursting with enough 14

Act of Kindness AOTEAROA

Costa Botes Directors: Costa Botes, Sven Pannell New Zealand 2015 81 mins Photography: Sven Pannell, Fabrice Kirwa Editor: Costa Botes Music: Olive Musique, Richard Heacock, Bernie Gardner, Tom Mcleod

©AOK PRODUCTIONS LIMITED In 1999, Sven Pannell, a Kiwi traveller broadcasting his compelling testimony in Africa, escaped from a perilous to millions via Rwandan radio. run-in with rebel soldiers, bargaining Throughout this affecting chronicle, for his life with a wad of cash he had Pannell and co-director Costa Botes hidden in his boot. Broke and without capture an intimate, grassroots portrait any place to stay, Pannell came across of a nation’s resilience and compassion, a crippled, homeless samaritan named observing the will of a people who’ve Johnson, who fed and sheltered him refused to be defined by the horrors of until he was able to flee the region. He their tumultuous history. — JF left in such a hurry he never got the chance to thank him. A decade later, Pannell returned to Rwanda with the hope of doing just that. Armed with a camera and a surfeit of optimistic pluck, he launches a dogged hunt for the man A PAR Saturday 25 July, 3.15 pm who generously came to his aid all B NT Monday 3 August, 12.00 pm those years ago – plastering up flyers, B NT Thursday 6 August, 11.45 am searching through registries, even

Belief: The Possession of Janet Moses NEW ZEALAND FILMS AT NZIFF ARE PROUDLY SUPPORTED BY

David Stubbs Director/Screenplay: David Stubbs New Zealand 2015 88 mins Producers: David Stubbs, Thomas Robins Photography: Mathew Knight Editor: Bradley Warden With: Kura Forrester, William Davis, Tina Cook, Hariata Moriarty CinemaScope/M content may disturb NZIFF is proud to provide big screen premieres for striking work made within our own In October 2007, 22-year-old Janet nightmare experienced by Janet and Moses died and a 14-year-old female her whānau. Invoking traditions they shores. In fact it’s one of our key objectives. relation was hospitalised during a haven’t entirely mastered, they are In 2015 we platform a marvellous diversity of mākutu-lifting in the Wellington consumed by their anxiety to rescue suburb of Wainuiomata. In 2009 nine her from the torments of her illness. documentaries – several of them significantly members of Janet’s family, all siblings The escalation of dread and conviction international in scope – and three very different of her mother or their spouses, were that enveloped them progresses charged in relation to her tragic death. incrementally and so convincingly in programmes of short films. We’re proud to Their trial was reported around the Stubbs’ telling that rational disbelief at host screenings for two films that mark the world and widely portrayed as a what occurred is no longer an option. head-to-head collision of Western law Dramatic without ever relishing drama 2014 Tu¯hoe Crown Settlement – and the first and traditional belief. In Belief, David for its own sake, this is a persuasive documentary about New Zealand Cinema since Stubbs, a Pākehā filmmaker who and moving picture of humanity in grew up in Wainuiomata, proceeds extremis. Sam Neill’s Cinema of Unease made its indelible with impressive tact and sensitivity to mark 20 years ago. understand and describe just what A PAR Sunday 26 July, 5.30 pm happened. He weaves together witness B PAR Monday 27 July, 11.15 am interviews, items of public record and A LHP Sunday 9 August, 5.45 pm re-enactments to draw us into the AOTEAROA 15

Crossing Rachmaninoff

Enthralled, like its hero, by the turmoil, Rebecca Tansley* lyricism and sheer melodic grandeur of one of the most beloved works in the Director/Producer: Rebecca Tansley Romantic piano repertoire, Rebecca New Zealand 2015 | 79 mins Tansley’s documentary recounts the Co-producer: Lyn Collie voyage of Italian-born Auckland pianist Photography: Simon Raby Editor: Thomas Gleeson Flavio Villani. From picking out TV jingles Sound: Mike Westgate on a rusty keyboard as a child to his With: Flavio Villani debut last Christmas with a Calabrian In English and Italian, with English subtitles orchestra playing Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto, his path has been circuitous but purposeful. Beginning in Auckland, where Villani arrived at the age of 26 to study performance at Auckland University, the film starts four months before the big night, but incorporates a good measure of his backstory into its countdown to show time. We see him with his own students. We see him rehearsing, performing and taking his son is gay or that he could ever notes from his mentor, Matteo Napoli. make a living playing the piano. “We don’t choose the Then it’s time to return to Italy a mere Villani’s modestly avowed assurance music. The music chooses ten days ahead of the performance. and his easy intimacy with the You may never want to spend filmmaker make him an entirely winning us.” — Matteo Napoli another Christmas in the sun once subject even when he’s not channelling you’ve hung out for a winter evening Rachmaninoff. The more he talks about in the cucina Villani, though there’s the concerto, the easier it is to see what A EMB Sunday 26 July, 3.45 pm* something of the prodigal son about a vivid and exhilarating existence he’s B EMB Monday 27 July, 11.15 am* this food-filled homecoming. Villani found within it. Watching and hearing A LHP Saturday 1 August, 2.15 pm explains his struggle with his father, an him live it in the film’s last act is a B PH Friday 7 August, 11.15 am ex-military man unable to accept that joyous consummation indeed. A PH Saturday 8 August, 3.00 pm

Ever the Land Michael Smither: Prints

Sarah Grohnert Tony Hiles Director/Photography: Director/Producer/ Sarah Grohnert Photography: Tony Hiles New Zealand 2015 New Zealand 2015 90 mins 56 mins Producer: Alexander Behse Editors: Ryan Gray-McCoy, Editor: Prisca Bouchet Paul Wedel In English and Māori, with With: Michael Smither, Don Tee English subtitles Blu-ray evertheland.com

Architect Ivan Mercep famously arrived Made under strict sustainability The simplest film at NZIFF this year is based on an earlier oil painting; the to pitch for Te Wharehou o Tūhoe certification as part of the Living the sixth instalment in filmmaker Tony third a new edition of a large earlier equipped with a blank sheet of paper, Building Challenge, Te Wharehou o Hiles’ amiable chronicle of a decade screen print, sumptuous stylised tides and was given the job. Perhaps the Tūhoe is both a mammoth undertaking in the life and work of artist Michael with rocks and jet-black gulls. same tabula rasa principle applied to watch unfold and a potent symbol Smither. As the two attend to the repetitive when Tūhoe and Mercep granted of Tūhoe philosophy. Framed against In a brief prologue Smither explains and meticulous adjustments of colour relative outsiders, German-New ongoing negotiations with the how indelibly screen-print work was and registration, they share their Zealand residents Alexander Behse Government, which culminated in associated with his father, and that insights and information about the and Sarah Grohnert, extensive access the Crown’s historic apology last year, he abandoned the medium after his technical process and its evolution to hui, meetings and the building site Grohnert’s film extols the beauty of father died. A meeting with screen – and we observe the understated over two years for a documentary on a people wounded by injustice, but printer Don Tee eventually brought camaraderie of perfectionists at work. the planning and construction of their doggedly persistent in preserving him back to it, and it’s a medium he building. the integrity of land, culture and relishes for keeping his work affordable Bereft of talking heads, narration community. — JF and accessible. The remainder of the or identifying titles, this purely film is spent in the print shop watching observational portrait invites us into A TP Tuesday 28 July, 6.15 pm the two of them executing editions of C CG Tuesday 28 July, 12.15 pm the gentle ebb and flow of Tūhoe life. B PAR Wednesday 29 July, 11.30 am three pieces. One is a small black- C CG Tuesday 28 July, 1.45 pm The fruits are as unassuming as they on-white piece commemorating Rita C CG Thursday 6 August, 1.15 pm are serenely artful. Angus; another a colour composition 16 AOTEAROA 17

MADMAN ENTERTAINMENT New Zealand’s Best 2015 JURY PRIZE 82 mins approx. | R13 violence, offensive language, nudity, content may offend

Help give the year’s best New Tits on a Bull Ow What! Feeder Zealand short films the homegrown NZ 2015 | 16 mins | Director/Screenplay: Tim NZ 2015 | 15 mins | Director/Producer/Screenplay: NZ 2015 | 16 mins | Director: Christian Rivers recognition they deserve by voting Worrall | Producers: Piripi Curtis, Lara Northcroft Michael Jonathan Producer: Mhairead Connor | Screenplay: Guy McDouall for your favourite at this screening. For The star player of a Ma¯ori women’s Te Mauri dreams of following in his our fourth New Zealand’s Best short rugby team must choose between absent rugby-playing father’s footsteps A down-on-his-luck musician finds film competition, NZIFF programmers loyalty to her coach and love for her and finds encouragement from an inspiration when he moves into a Bill Gosden and Michael McDonnell teammate. The narrative skilfully takes unusual source. A charming story creepy derelict flat, but success comes viewed 75 submissions to make a us to the heart of the relationships. with surprising power. A memorable at a cost... Dark narrative with a twist. shortlist of 12 from which filmmaker Realistic and full of feeling. Refreshing. performance from Timoti Tiakiwai Surprises keep coming to the end. Christine Jeffs selected these six which places us firmly in his world. Madam Black finalists. Not Like Her Funny and poignant all at once. | | A jury of three will select the NZ 2015 | 14 mins | Director/Screenplay: Hash NZ 2014 11 mins Director/Producer: Ivan Barge Screenplay: Matthew Harris winners of the $5,000 Madman Perambalam | Producers: Lucy Stonex, Brendan Donovan The Tide Keeper Entertainment Jury Prize and the NZ 2014 | 10 mins | Director/Producer/Screenplay: An errant photographer must concoct $3,000 Friends of the Civic Award. A rebellious teenager is forced to Alyx Duncan | Festivals: Melbourne, Vancouver 2014 an elaborate story when he runs over A separate jury appointed by the spend the day with her estranged An old seaman dreams the ocean into a beloved pet. The tricky situations we New Zealand Cinematographers mother when she is suspended his bed. Gloriously filmed, powerful get ourselves into. Sweet and quirky Society will present the Allen Guilford from school. Edgy performances and provocative, with strength of tale which abounds with charm and Cinematography Award of $2,000 with perfect moments of solitude. vision and clarity of tone that resonates humour. and an engraved pan glass. The Understated with intensity. Could have beautifully with feeling. winner of the Audience Choice Award seen more. takes away 25 percent of the box office from the NZIFF screenings. Christine’s comments on each film appear in italics.

A PAR Wednesday 29 July, 6.15 pm B PAR Thursday 30 July, 2.00 pm

NOT LIKE HER TITS ON A BULL MADAM BLACK

PRESENTED IN Nga¯ Whanaunga Ma¯ori Pasifika Shorts 2015 ASSOCIATION WITH 94 mins approx. | Censors rating tbc

A collection of Māori and Pasifika Taniwha Coral a Māori soldier. Rachel Morris’ story of short films curated by Leo Koziol NZ 2015 | 3 mins | Director: Mika (Nga¯i Tahu, Takata¯pui) NZ/Samoa 2015 | 15 mins | Director/Screenplay: her grandmother beautifully depicts the (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Rakaipaaka), Giacomo Martelli | Executive Producer: Maea landscape of Far North Awanui. — LK We open with waiata from Ma¯ori Director of the Wairoa Māori Film Tamasese (Samoan) | Producers: Steve Finnigan, magician Mika, another divination, an Grant Baker, Fuimaono Alex Wright (Samoan) Festival, with guest co-curator Craig Mrs Mokemoke expression of the spirit of Taniwha! — LK Fasi (Niue), Director of the Pollywood A fisherman finds something disturbing NZ 2015 | 9 mins | Director/Screenplay: Li Gent Xin in a forbidden lagoon. Shot fully in Producer: Tia Barrett (Nga¯ti Maniapoto, Nga¯i Tahu) Film Festival. Ma This year’s expression of ‘Ngā Samoan, this native noir tale lingers Mrs Mokemoke loves her husband, NZ 2014 | 16 mins | Director/Screenplay: Nikki with you long after it ends. — LK Whanaunga’ – which means Si’ulepa (Samoan) | Producers: Ngaire Fuata but he’s more interested in her (Rotuman), Nikki Si‘ulepa inheritance. A mind-expanding mash- relatedness and connectedness La¯haina¯ Noon between peoples – is realised with When a grandmother discovers one up of Lindauer portraits, silent-era USA 2014 | 14 mins | Director/Screenplay: storytelling, film noir and Kubrickian films from Aotearoa, Hawaii, Samoa of her precious toys is missing, she Christopher Kahunahana (Hawaiian Ka¯naka Maoli) and Tuvalu. Native noir, cultural takes matters into her own hands. Ma Producer: Patricia Buskirk intrigue. — LK comedy and deep drama combine is a no-nonsense kind of lady. Never Three short stories are woven together Elevation in an expression of ‘Hawaiiki Hōu’ – underestimate Ma! — CF during a yearly tropical solar NZ 2015 | 14 mins | Director/Screenplay: Tihini Voices of a New Hawaiiki. Curators’ phenomenon. Hawaiians believe Grant (Te Arawa) | Producer: Lara Northcroft comments on each film appear in Islet that during La¯haina¯ Noon the sun (Te Arawa) italics. Tuvalu 2015 | 11 mins | Director/Producer/ rests on the brain and for one minute Screenplay: Andrew John Fakaua Ponton (Tuvaluan) Trapped in an elevator, a white your mana magnifies. — CF supremacist and a Māori gang member A 13-year-old boy must navigate the confront their issues and come out expectations of his ultra-conservative Netta Jones better men, or not. In this dark community. This comic tale is the NZ 2015 | 12 mins | Director: Pablo Araus Lobos comedy, a common hate creates an first full Tuvalu language short shot in Producer/Screenplay: Rachel Morris (Te Aupo¯uri) unlikely union. — CF Tuvalu. — LK During WWII 16-year-old Netta falls for

B TP Friday 7 August, 11.30 am A TP Friday 7 August, 6.15 pm

CORAL ISLET MRS MOKEMOKE 18 AOTEAROA

Place Unmaking 96 mins approx.

Contemporary New Zealand artists Curated by Janine Randerson and Mark Williams Cascade Cove in the I would rather be the are often called on to engage in Presented by CIRCUIT Artist Film and Video Aotearoa New Zealand circuit.org.nz ‘place-making’ in public art projects. shadow of 150,000 bones worst at something than Alex Monteith | New Zealand 2015 | 14 mins the best Yet they also play a role in ‘un-making’ G.I. Area A & B: Housing place by interrogating or reinventing A storm brews on an unusual boat Tim Wagg | New Zealand 2015 | 4 mins in New Zealand (1946– ) our heroic landscape tradition. This expedition through Dusky Sound. A lone figure walks a barren programme traces the promise of the Dieneke Jansen | New Zealand 2015 | 17 mins EYE I AYE embankment strewn with the traces of post-war boosterism of government An evicted house in 2015 becomes consumption and waste. | | newsreels; the end of the neighbourly the screen for a 1940s film promoting Martin Rumsby New Zealand 2015 9 mins dream of state housing; urban state housing. Now in their 40s, Dida and Erana have The Open Broken beaches constructed from the soil lived on the streets in Manurewa since Richard Von Sturmer | New Zealand 2015 | 7 mins of motorways; the bicultural politics Seawater and Dust they were ten years old. “Now that the great transformation of air; a taonga collection in Dusky Janine Randerson | New Zealand 2014 | 9 mins has taken place, those of us who Sound. New Zealand filmmakers also A torch and a light (cover) A condemned bridge and the remain feel a sense of relief.” negotiate landscapes of the Americas | | construction of an artificial beach Shannon Te Ao New Zealand 2015 7 mins – in Andrew Denton’s film of the documented on 40-year-old film stock. Domestic objects are manipulated into Aspects of Trees escalating pine beetle epidemics landscape. Andrew Denton | New Zealand 2015 | 16 mins that have decimated forests in the Heron Park Ray A eulogy to the lost mountain forests USA; and in Phil Dadson’s film shot Tim Danko | New Zealand 2015 | 1 min Desert Tomb (Atacama) caused by the pine beetle infestation. in an isolated gorge of the Atacama Philip Dadson | New Zealand 2014 | 11 mins Desert, northern Chile. These artists A purple ray of sun filters through the both document and construct post- suburbs. An earth-bound camera maps the Free Air | | natural landscapes where social and parched expanse of Chile’s Atacama Layne Waerea New Zealand 2015 1 min bio-physical ecologies are captured in Desert. Instruction: to give away air for free. intimate performances of the camera. — JR & MW

A PB Sunday 26 July, 6.00 pm A PB Tuesday 28 July, 6.30 pm

ASPECTS OF TREES EYE I AYE THE OPEN BROKEN

Out of the Mist

Tim Wong

Director/Screenplay: Tim Wong New Zealand 2015 80 mins Producer: Melinda Jackson Photography: Daniel Rose Editor: Peter O’Donoghue Music: Svenda Ström, Jason Erskine Narrator: Eleanor Catton Blu-ray

The best conversation you have narration belongs to one of our own, about movies at NZIFF this year may Eleanor Catton. Most of the other be the one you have in your head films Wong feeds into the conversation watching and listening to Tim Wong’s are much less generally known and advocacy for some remarkable New barely political at all. There are such Zealand films and filmmakers who tantalising excerpts on display that we don’t make it into the standard tour wish we had the space on our schedule guides. The regular line-up is shrewdly to bring you the screenings you’ll be characterised in the process too, but craving of myriad cinematic treasures, there’s no rancour in his account of not least Annie Goldson’s Wake (1994), the mainstream, magnificently and Tony Williams’ Next of Kin (1982), absurdly characterised by a sweeping Gabriel White’s Oracle Drive (2013) shot of the Southern Alps from a 50s and maybe even Cinerama South Seas travelogue while Orson Welles savours Adventure (1958). every syllable of ‘Aorangi’, ‘Aotearoa’ and ‘Māori’ on the soundtrack. He A NT Sunday 2 August, 7.00 pm cuts soon enough to civil war on the A NT Thursday 6 August, 6.15 pm streets in Merata Mita’s Patu! – and the B NT Friday 7 August, 4.00 pm Saturday 8 August, 1.15 pm voice we will hear delivering Wong’s A NT AOTEAROA 19

Philip Dadson: Sonics From Scratch The Price of Peace

 Simon Ogston, Kim Webby Orlando Stewart

Arid Edge (p77) Director: Kim Webby New Zealand 2015 Directors/Producers: 87 mins Simon Ogston, Producers: Christina Milligan, Orlando Stewart Roger Grant, Kim Webby New Zealand 2015 Photography: Jos Wheeler 85 mins Editor: Cushla Dillon Music: Joel Haines Photography: Simon Ogston With: Tame Iti Editors: Jacob Parish, In English and Māori, Simon Ogston with English subtitles With: Philip Dadson, Don McGlashan, Geoff Chapple

Few New Zealand artists have had Orlando Stewart craft a comprehensive There’s an enlightening and moving legal quandary as a microcosm of the such an enlivening impact on fine arts overview of Dadson’s life and work, portrait of Tūhoe activist, artist and tension between Ngāi Tūhoe and the as Philip Dadson with his international roping in various academics, historians, kaumātua Tame Iti at the heart of Crown, Webby observes a people reputation for sonic invention, and even some of his old scratch Kim Webby’s film about the trial of who never lose their integrity or sense sophisticated video-installation art, orchestra alumni to weigh in. Featuring the ‘Urewera Four’ and its aftermath. of independence despite the long and innovative experimentation in a wealth of archival footage infectious She outlines the perils of surveillance shadows of injustice. A startling and the field of sound. He is arguably best enough to prompt involuntary toe- in her account of the trial, in which engaging companion piece to the known for founding the avant-garde tapping, this is a vivid portrait of Iti and three others were accused of more contemplative Ever the Land, ensemble From Scratch, which would creative Kiwi ingenuity, and a paean to plotting terrorist activities after an The Price of Peace reveals a national use everything from old lampshades to the role of collectivism in realising great alleged paramilitary training camp was failure of maddening proportions, customised PVC pipes to perform its art. — JF discovered by police in the Urewera culminating in an emotionally cathartic intricate, rhythmic compositions. Preceded by Arid Edge (8 mins, p77), in 2007. denouement that’s deeply personal This polished and engaging a new film by Dadson himself. Charting Iti’s youth as a young in scale – yet crucially hopeful in its documentary charts Dadson’s career activist through to his perspective historic significance. from his humble beginnings in Napier on the polarising trial, the film offers through to his eventual recognition on A TP Monday 3 August, 8.30 pm us a rich, multifaceted portrait of A TP Tuesday 4 August, 6.15 pm the world stage. Aided by the warm, B TP Tuesday 4 August, 11.15 am the man, peppered with both his B TP Wednesday 5 August, 1.30 pm laid-back presence of the subject warm humanism and his rightly himself, filmmakers Simon Ogston and embittered philosophy. Viewing Iti’s

PROUDLY SPONSORED BY Return of the Tom Who? The Enigma of Tom Kreisler TAIPEI ECONOMIC AND CULTURAL Free China Junk OFFICE IN NEW ZEALAND

Robin Greenberg Shirley Horrocks Director/Producer: Director: Robin Greenberg Shirley Horrocks New Zealand 2015 New Zealand 2015 96 mins 73 mins Photography: Chen Wen-chin, Producers: Shirley Horrocks, Tony John Chrisstoffels Green Editor: Peter Metcalf Photography: Adrian Greshoff, In English and Mandarin, Leon Narby, Ron Egozi with English subtitles Editor: Steven Mountjoy Narrator: Jennifer Ward Lealand

When Robin Greenberg embarked on firewood in California and return it to If the art of Tom Kreisler (1938–2002) statue’s penis. Averse to marketing Huloo (2008), her loving film portrait of Taiwan. It takes heroic persistence to remains a secret, Shirley Horrocks’ and the politics of the art world, he the Christchurch tai chi master Loo-Chi make it happen, but Dione’s project richly illustrated doco does everything preferred to live with his family in Hu (aka Huloo), she took on a much finds support on both sides of the right to make it less so. A uniquely New Plymouth and do his own thing, bigger story than she knew. In her next Pacific, and crucially from a Taiwan cosmopolitan figure in the New teaching art to high school students, film,The Free China Junk (2010), she ready to embrace its conflicted past. Zealand arts scene, he grew up in though at one point he attempted a traced the amazing journey he and By the time Huloo and his two Argentina, the son of Austrian refugees break for Mexico. Exploring the artist’s five mates made from Taiwan to San surviving junkmates, all in their 80s, from Nazi Europe. At age 13 they sent inspiration, Horrocks heads to Mexico Francisco in 1955, crossing the Pacific rejoin the junk at their original point him to Christchurch, where a well-to- too, to explore the Day of the Dead in a wooden Chinese sailing junk. In of departure, you may be as moved as do uncle and aunt adopted him. (Ian culture that was a lifelong influence. effect escaping martial law in Taiwan, they are by the cohesion of resources Athfield was a boyhood friend.) Back in New Zealand, family, curators they had the nerve to persuade the and goodwill that’s gone into keeping He left New Zealand and travelled and numerous artists share their stories, authorities to back their adventure, their legend alive. the world before returning and making those of us who never met the making their boat the national entrant entering art school. In his first man wish that we had. in a Trans-Atlantic (sic) race. dealer show, with what proved to In this new film Dione Chen, the A NT Sunday 26 July, 1.30 pm be characteristic Pop Art verve he B TP Wednesday 5 August, 11.00 am daughter of Huloo’s junk-mate Reno, B NT Tuesday 4 August, 12.00 pm mocked the Arts Council 1967 tour A TP Wednesday 5 August, 6.15 pm heads an international effort to rescue of a replica of Michelangelo’s David the historic junk before it’s turned into by exhibiting a giant painting of the 20 FROM ARGENTINA TO BRAZIL

El Cinco El 5 de Talleres WORLD Director/Screenplay: Adrián Biniez Argentina/Uruguay 2014 | 100 mins Photography: Guillermo Nieto Editor: Fernando Epstein With: Esteban Lamothe, Julieta Zylberberg, Nestór Guzzini Festivals: Venice 2014; Tribeca 2015 In Spanish with English subtitles CinemaScope/M nudity, offensive language, sexual content

Life begins at 35 in this shrewdly tactfully nurturing Ale may sound observed romantic drama, the long- like every man-child’s dream partner, awaited new film from Argentinian but in Julieta Zylberberg’s vivacious writer/director Adrián Biniez (Gigante). performance the emotional attachment Patón (Esteban Lamothe) has been feels sexy and true: by movie’s end playing professional football since he you might be happy to know that was 19. Banned for eight matches she and Lamothe are married in real after a major foul, he begins to think life too. about hanging up his boots full time. “Biniez doesn’t so much subvert But what the hell can he do with the [sports drama] genre as divert it the rest of his life? He was never the into romantic channels as charming brightest of students or the most as they are unexpected.” — Ronnie ingratiating of men, and there are no Scheib, Variety accumulated earnings to fall back on. His father in particular is dismayed at the prospect of retirement. But his B PAR Monday 3 August, 1.45 pm wife Ale never wavers in believing A PAR Wednesday 5 August, 6.15 pm that Patón’s got what it takes to make the rest of their lives worthwhile. The

The Second Mother Que horas ela volta?

Mine (p77) Director/Screenplay: Anna Muylaert Brazil 2015 | 110 mins With: Regina Casé, Michel Joelsas, Camila Márdila Our pick of the features we have encountered Festivals: Sundance, Berlin 2015 Special Jury Prize (World Cinema), in a year of intense engagement with Sundance Film Festival 2015 In Portuguese with English international cinema. We do what we can subtitles CinemaScope/M drug use, to cover many bases, while always insisting offensive language on that certain indefinable quality. We pay attention too, to the films lavished with praise Centred on a warm and humorous arrival of Val’s biological daughter, performance by Brazilian actress and Jéssica. Educated and assured, she or box office success in their countries of origin. TV host Regina Casé, The Second hasn’t seen her estranged mother in a Mother brings an edge of social decade. To Val’s intense embarrassment, critique to its heart-tugging tale of Jéssica assumes equal status with her mother and child reunion. Val (Casé) employers and sparks a crisis that’s has been a devoted live-in housemaid been a long time coming. The boss- for a São Paulo family for 13 years. housemaid dynamic at play here may She serves impeccable dinner parties be deeply rooted in Brazilian society, for Bárbara, the brusque, self-made but writer/director Anna Muylaert businesswoman who’s her boss; she clearly appreciates that seeing one’s keeps track of the layabout husband’s child emancipated beyond one’s reach medicine regimen; and she is confidant might hurt in any language. and comforter to Fabinho, the teenage son. In short, the good-natured maid is B PH Friday 24 July, 11.15 am the nurturing figure in the household. A PH Sunday 26 July, 12.45 pm The disconnect with actual motherhood A EMB Tuesday 28 July, 6.15 pm is brought into strong relief with the B EMB Thursday 6 August, 12.45 pm FROM BELGIUM TO CHINA WORLD 21

The Brand New Testament Le Tout nouveau testament

In Belgian director Jaco Van Dormael’s universe, God (Benoît Poelvoorde) is a mean-spirited bastard lounging around Director: Jaco Van Dormael his Brussels apartment in dressing Belgium/France/Luxembourg 2015 gown and trackies, watching sport on 117 mins TV and wreaking havoc on the world Producers: Jaco Van Dormael, Olivier Rausin, Daniel Marquet from his DOS-run PC. Goddess (the Screenplay: Thomas Gunzig, Jaco van Dormael marvellous Yolande Moreau), his long Photography: Christophe Beaucarne suffering wife, sticks to her embroidery Editor: Hervé de Luze Music: An Pierlé and bides her time. But ten-year-old With: Pili Groyne, Benoît Poelvoorde, daughter Éa (played by a fantastic Catherine Deneuve, François Damiens, Yolande Moreau, Laura Verlinden, young actress, Pili Groyne) has taken Serge Larivière, Didier De Neck, Romain Gelin one too many strappings from the old Festivals: Cannes (Directors’ Fortnight) 2015 man and resolves – with the help of In French with English subtitles CinemaScope/Censors rating tbc her better-known older brother – to liberate the world from the malign hand of Dad. Not to give away too much about her mission, she sets about recruiting six disciples whose testimony about their own miracle-free ®FABRIZIO MALTESE lives will constitute the Brand New storytelling momentum and a highly Testament. Surreal silliness ensues, creative visual scheme. He’s in the “Such a divinely with some florid CGI assistance, and Gondry/Gilliam zone, but if you can’t entertaining story memorable encounters with, amongst get down with a floating fish skeleton others, a small boy who wants to be humming ‘La Mer’, why do you go to is sure to become a a girl and Catherine Deneuve as a the movies in the first place?… This is cult classic.” wealthy shopaholic who bonds with a a vision of optimism, of people being — Nina Hudson, The Upcoming gorilla. Literal adherents of the previous given the opportunity to help one two Testaments need not apply, but another and doing it with tenderness. B EMB Monday 3 August, 3.45 pm there’s a daffy innocence – a touch of If you can get past the initial blasphemy, A EMB Wednesday 5 August, 8.45 pm Amélie – about this brand new one. you’ll find a highly moral film.” A LHP Friday 7 August, 6.15 pm “Van Dormael maintains a blazing — Jordan Hoffman, The Guardian

The Club 10,000 Years Later 3D El club Yi wan nian yi hou

Yi Li* Director: Pablo Larraín Director: Yi Li Chile 2015 | 97 mins China/New Zealand Screenplay: Guillermo Calderón, 2015 | 97 mins Daniel Villalobos, Pablo Larraín Producers: Yi Li, Rong Ma Festivals: Berlin 2015 Screenplay: Yi Li, Liu Yong, Grand Jury Prize, Berlin Nie Sheng-jie, Chen Jingxing International Film Festival 2015 Photography: Liu Yong, In Spanish with English subtitles Nie Sheng-jie, Chen Jingxing CinemaScope/Censors rating tbc Editors: Nie Sheng-jie, Dong You In English 3D/M violence, content may disturb

In films as different and inventive front rank of international arthouse The first fully CGI-animated film from must assemble a motley band of as Tony Manero and No, Chilean filmmakers… China, 10,000 Years Later draws on allies from the surviving tribes to stop writer-director Pablo Larraín has been The Club is a bold and bracing a Tibetan fable about the dangers of Wushen from gaining control over an singularly successful in framing Chilean allegory of a church tainted by technology, but technology is what it ancient power. The imagery is both subjects in ways that have resonated scandals – most notably pedophile flaunts – in delirious outbursts of wildly surreally beautiful and mind-blowingly internationally. In the blackly funny The sexual abuse by priests and related inventive imagery. nightmarish – from a fantastic valley Club he turns his sights on the Catholic cover-ups – and undergoing painful Many thousands of years after the where broccoli grows like redwoods Church and “offers up a morosely but overdue reform under the current collapse of civilisation, the world is to a ravenous pack of skeletal dogs comic and deeply sacrilegious portrait pontiff. Indeed, given His Holiness’ flair a post-tech wasteland inhabited by who hunt down our heroes. The awe- of four priests exiled to the outskirts for publicity and embrace of modernity, fantastical humanoid tribes. Peace inspiring animation is complemented of their faith, where they lead an it’s no stretch to imagine the picture is threatened by the return of an evil by striking sound work from POW! existence that’s closer to the exploits becoming compulsory viewing for all warlord, Wushen – a sinister shape- Post in Wellington in a first-of-its-kind of the Soprano family than to anything bishops across the planet.” — Neil shifting manifestation of the evils of China/New Zealand collaboration. authorized by the Vatican.” — Jordan Young, Indiewire modern technology – who threatens Mintzer, Hollywood Reporter to enslave all comers. The unlikely “This tart, smart and consistently A PH Saturday 25 July, 8.00 pm heroine is Zhuma, a ten-year-old girl 3D EMB Wednesday 29 July, 9.00 pm* surprising blend of ultra-serious A PAR Friday 31 July, 6.30 pm accompanied by Zhanggong, her 3D ED Sunday 2 August, 8.00 pm material and darkly comic execution lion-esque Tibetan Mastiff dog. With 3D ED Thursday 6 August, 2.00 pm looks set to catapult Larraín… into the the help of an ethereal goddess she 22 WORLD CHINA

Coming Home PROUDLY SPONSORED BY Red Amnesia Gui lai Chuangru zhe

Director: Zhang Yimou Director: Wang Xiaoshuai China 2014 | 109 mins China 2014 | 115 mins Screenplay: Zou Jingzhi. Based Producer: Liu Xuan on the novel by Yan Geling Screenplay: Wang Xiaoshuai, With: Chen Daoming, Gong Li, Fang Lei, Li Fei Zhang Huiwen Photography: Wu Di Festivals: Cannes (Out of With: Lü Zhong, Shi Liu, Feng Competition) 2014 Yuanzheng, Qin Hao, Amanda In Mandarin with English Qin subtitles Festivals: Venice, Toronto 2014 CinemaScope/PG coarse In Mandarin with English language subtitles PG violence

Centred on an intensely moving “Filmmaking doesn’t get more In this engrossing amalgam of suspense real and exacting payback for their performance by the great Gong Li, traditional or timeless than Chinese drama and sharp social critique, business debts. But Mrs Deng soon Zhang Yimou’s new film observes master Zhang Yimou’s Coming director Wang Xiaoshuai (11 Flowers) has reason to suspect that something historic tragedy with domestic intimacy. Home, a family drama of guilt, love dramatises the plight of a senior more disturbing is behind it, arousing In the early 70s, Wanyu (Gong Li) is and reconciliation set during the generation who raised their children long-suppressed shame about her a devoted wife to professor Lu Yanshi aftermath of the Cultural Revolution. during the Cultural Revolution. self-preserving actions as a young Red (Chen Daoming), whose ‘rightist’ Heartbreaking in its depiction of His protagonist, recently widowed Guard. views have landed him in prison. Their ordinary lives affected by political Mrs Deng, is feeling increasingly Veteran stage actress Lü Zhong gives teenage daughter Dan Dan (the striking upheaval, this ode to the fundamental superfluous in the lives of her two a richly layered and deeply moving Zhang Huiwen) is a dancer whose values that survive even under such adult sons. One of them clearly lives performance as a woman seeking revolutionary ardour is fired by her dire circumstances has an epic gravity with a male lover, though he denies it; atonement in a society that would desire to star in a propaganda ballet. that recalls another great historical the other is married to a professional rather delete her bitter experience from When Lu makes a break for freedom romance, Doctor Zhivago.” — Maggie woman whose brisk management of the record. and appeals to Dan Dan for help, the Lee, Variety household affairs leaves little space ambitious girl sees no choice but to for the old woman. When Mrs Deng deny him. Twenty years later, in a A LHP Monday 3 August, 6.15 pm reports threatening, anonymous A PH Wednesday 29 July, 6.15 pm very different China, Lu sets out to B PH Thursday 6 August, 11.15 am phone calls to her house, her family B TP Monday 3 August, 11.45 am repair the terrible consequences of his A PH Thursday 6 August, 8.30 pm suggest dementia, though they are A TP Wednesday 5 August, 8.30 pm A PAR Saturday 8 August, 4.00 pm A LHP Thursday 6 August, 6.15 pm daughter’s betrayal. secretly fearful that the tormenter is

Keeping good company.

citygallery.org.nz

JASMINA CIBIC • HENRY COOMBES • OLAFUR ELIASSON ZBIGNIEW LIBERA • KIRSTY LILLICO

Jasmina Cibic A DOUBLE GAME 2014 27 JUNE – 08 NOVEMBER 2015 FROM ETHIOPIA TO FRANCE WORLD 23

Clouds of Sils Maria

In this wiser, gentler 21st-century spin on themes of thespian rivalry, Juliette Binoche brings her own stellar Director/Screenplay: Olivier Assayas status to the role of lauded actress France/Germany/Switzerland 2014 Maria Enders. Maria’s transition to 124 mins ‘mature’ roles presses hard on her Producer: Charles Gillibert Photography: Yorick Le Saux when she’s invited to appear in a new Editor: Marion Monnier production of the play that made With: Juliette Binoche, Kristen Stewart, Chloë Grace Moretz, Lars Eidinger, Johnny Flynn, Angela her famous at 18. The legend of her Winkler, Hanns Zischler, Nora von Waldstätten, brilliant debut as a young woman who Brady Corbet seduces and abandons a powerful Festivals: Cannes (In Competition), Locarno, Toronto, Vancouver, New York 2014 older woman has clung to her, but this Winner Best Supporting Actress (Kristen Stewart), time she’s being cast as the victim. Jo- César Awards 2015 CinemaScope/M offensive language Ann (Chloë Grace Moretz), a hellraising Hollywood starlet, fresh out of rehab, will take the star-making role. The echoes of earlier films about thespian rivalry resound, but the central dynamic in Olivier Assayas’ thoroughly engrossing film lies in Maria’s bond with her savvy personal “Inquisitive and enchanting… A story assistant Val. Kristen Stewart brings a which revolves around three women, “The chance to look warm naturalism to the role, playing one that explores uneven relationships behind the curtain that a super-aware young woman whose and rivalries in a manner seldom seen independence won’t be compromised, onscreen… Clouds of Sils Maria dips Assayas has lifted so as much as she admires the woman and soars in its grand ambitions but, artfully is a temptation who depends on her. The film takes at its best, blends the rampant egos one shouldn’t resist.” place largely in the Swiss Alps where and raging insecurities of All About B EMB Friday 24 July, 11.15 am the eponymous snaking clouds provide Eve with a fresh and playful modernity.” — Betsy Sharkey, LA Times A LHP Sunday 26 July, 3.30 pm breathtaking respite from the dramatic — Emma Simmonds, The List A EMB Wednesday 29 July, 6.15 pm hall of mirrors in which the restless B PH Friday 31 July, 11.15 am actress searches for significance. A PH Sunday 2 August, 1.45 pm

Lamb

Ethiopian filmmaker Yared Zeleke’s The Chicken (p77) first feature looks at a little boy in an Ethiopian village who loves cooking Director: Yared Zeleke much more than ploughing the land. Ethiopia/France/Germany/Norway This beautifully crafted film (shot by 2015 | 94 mins Josée Deshaies, cinematographer of Producers: Ama Ampadu, Laurent Lavolé, Johannes Rexin the lush Saint Laurent) provides an Screenplay: Yared Zeleke, Géraldine Bajard insider view of rural life, observing Photography: Josée Deshaies the strength of women in a purely Editor: Véronique Bruque Music: Christophe Chassol patriarchal society – and portraying With: Rediat Amare, Kidist Siyum, Welela Assefa, a new generation bridling at gender Surafel Teka, Rahel Teshome, Indris Mohamed expectations and traditional mores. Festivals: Cannes (Un Certain Regard) 2015 In Amharic with English subtitles After the death of his mother, Censors rating tbc nine-year-old Ephraim is taken from his drought-stricken village in the volcanic flatlands to relatives in the south, while his father heads to the city to look for work. With his beloved pet lamb in tow, he’s stretching the limited resources of his new family. Ephraim’s Uncle ©YARED ZELEKE Solomon wants to make a man out of ingenious scheme to save his pet and the boy, though Ephraim would much return to his village. “A delicately satisfying rather stay at home with the women, “Much of Lamb’s run time is spent drama… deeply under the benign eye of the matriarch, simply absorbing the culture, and Emama, and dedicate himself to his Zeleke has a really sharp eye. Amid sympathetic to its passion: cooking. Ephraim’s cousin is the gorgeous landscapes, we watch characters and very much also challenging Solomon’s authority: the family as they farm and celebrate, attuned to the landscape she’d rather read books than get living a lifestyle far removed from one married. lived in the West.” — Jordan Hoffman, around them.” B EMB Monday 3 August, 1.15 pm When Solomon orders him to The Guardian — Jay Weissberg, Variety A EMB Sunday 9 August, 1.00 pm slaughter the sheep for the upcoming holiday feast, Ephraim devises an 24 WORLD FRANCE

Far from Men Loin des hommes

Featuring a fine performance from Director: David Oelhoffen Viggo Mortensen and an original France 2014 | 110 mins soundtrack by Nick Cave and Warren Producers: Marc Du Pontavice, Matthew Gledhill Ellis, Far from Men is a tense tale of Screenplay: David Oelhoffen. Based on the short story ‘The Guest’ by Albert Camus honour and friendship that bears all the Photography: Guillaume Deffontaines hallmarks of a classic frontier Western, Editor: Juliette Welfling not least in its vast Algerian desert Music: Nick Cave, Warren Ellis With: Viggo Mortensen, Reda Kateb, setting. The year is 1954; the war is Djemel Barek, Vincent Martin, Nicolas Giraud, beginning and village schoolteacher Jean-Jérôme Esposito, Hatim Sadiki, Yann Goven, Antoine Régent, Sonia Amori Daru (Mortensen), an ex-French Army Festivals: Venice, Toronto, London 2014; soldier, is caught in the crossfire. Born Rotterdam, Tribeca 2015 In French and Arabic, with English subtitles in Algeria but Spanish by lineage, he’s CinemaScope/M violence perceived as alien by both locals and colonisers alike. He’s obliged by the French police to escort a dissident (Reda Kateb, A Prophet) to a regional court to face trial for murder. Skirmishes with groups of soldiers, locals and rebels are fraught with suspicion and danger, constantly forcing the question of ©MICHAEL CROTTO where Daru’s loyalties truly lie. intimate story of personal duty and the Based on ‘The Guest’, a short story power of friendship that nonetheless “A must-see for Mortensen’s by Albert Camus, writer/director David unfolds against a huge backdrop, a characteristically Oelhoffen’s drama underplays its contrast in scale that is a characterizing contemporary relevance to resonant element of a great genre Western. wonderful performance.” effect. And Guillaume Deffontaines’ luxuriant — Chuck Bowen, Slate “Far from Men is a quietly grand, photography mirrors that contrast, beautiful film… Taking the conventions expending just as much care in the of Western films to different countries, lighting of faces and expressions as A PAR Friday 24 July, 7.00 pm planets, time periods or political in the luscious widescreen desert and A LHP Saturday 25 July, 8.15 pm situations is hardly new, but when it’s mountain vistas.” — Jessica Kiang, B PAR Monday 27 July, 4.00 pm Saturday 1 August, 8.15 pm done well, it never gets old… It’s an The Playlist A PH

Marie’s Story The Measure of a Man Marie Heurtin La Loi du marché

Director: Jean-Pierre Améris France 2014 | 95 mins Director: Stéphane Brizé Producers: Sophie Révil, France 2015 | 93 mins Denis Carot Screenplay: Stéphane Brizé, Screenplay: Philippe Blasband, Olivier Gorce Jean-Pierre Améris With: Vincent Lindon Photography: Festivals: Cannes Virginie Saint-Martin (In Competition) 2015 With: Isabelle Carré, Best Actor (Vincent Lindon), Ariana Rivoire Cannes Film Festival 2015 Festivals: Locarno 2014 In French with English subtitles In French with English subtitles CinemaScope/Censors rating tbc PG cert

©MICHAEL CROTTO © NORD-OUEST FILMS - ARTE FRANCE CINÉMA Education and divine mission are at Beautifully wild and understandably Vincent Lindon, modern French a moving pitch… Brizé devotes nearly the fore of this French drama based on angry, deaf actress Ariana Rivoire cinema’s icon of down-to-earth every other scene to Thierry’s domestic the true story of Marie Heurtin, born portrays Marie’s incredible journey masculinity, was a popular choice for life, where there is stress but no strife. deaf and blind in 1885. Raised alone with honesty and dynamism, as her the Best Actor Award at Cannes for his There is love in that house, stability, with her parents, the sensations of the life totally transforms through the magnetically contained performance and a tentative happiness… Through it natural world are the defining features discovery of language. Simple in its as Thierry, a former factory worker all, Lindon takes in every atom of every of her universe, and she thrashes storytelling, yet moving in its climax, struggling to keep home and family situation, every pointer, every negative violently at anything unpleasant. Her Marie’s Story reminds us of the together without a job. Filmmaker word, considering what’s of value, exhausted father takes her to Larnay graciousness of teachers in opening Stéphane Brizé (Mademoiselle discarding what’s not. This is one of Convent for deaf girls – but the sisters doors of understanding, and that Chambon) earns comparison with the the most sensitively shaded depictions don’t want to take Marie, except for however unlikely an outcome seems, Dardenne brothers and the best films of listening I’ve ever had the pleasure impassioned Sister Marguerite (Isabelle there is always the possibility of a fuller of Laurent Cantet. to watch. He’s playing the pressure, but Carré), who believes it God’s will that experience of life. — JR “Very quietly, the film damns a his way: tense, cool.” — Wesley Morris, she teach Marie to communicate. system that throws workers overboard Grantland Audiences are more likely to be familiar A LHP Saturday 25 July, 1.45 pm and either dangles a lifeboat just out with the parallel tale of American A NT Saturday 25 July, 2.15 pm of reach or changes the definition of A PH Monday 27 July, 6.15 pm Helen Keller, born five years ahead A NT Monday 27 July, 6.15 pm drowning. Eventually, Thierry takes a B PH Tuesday 28 July, 1.45 pm of Marie Heurtin, and their incredible B NT Tuesday 28 July, 2.00 pm job working security at a department A EMB Thursday 30 July, 6.15 pm A LHP Saturday 1 August, 4.00 pm student/teacher bond. B NT Thursday 30 July, 2.00 pm store, where the film’s critique reaches FRANCE WORLD 25

Saint Laurent

The second lavish film biography of Yves Saint Laurent in a single year, this ‘unauthorised’ version is the Director/Music: Bertrand Bonello more sensuous affair, less concerned France/Belgium 2014 | 151 mins with ticking off the life story than Producers: Eric Altmayer, Nicolas Altmayer with sampling the man’s excesses, his Screenplay: Thomas Bidegain, Bertrand Bonello Photography: Josée Deshaies influences, his demons and the sheer With: Gaspard Ulliel, Jérémie Renier, Louis Garrel, delight of his creative triumphs. Léa Seydoux, Amira Casar, Aymeline Valade, Micha Lescot, Helmut Berger, “Bertrand Bonello’s Saint Laurent Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, Valérie Donzelli, beckons with the promise of an inside Dominique Sanda, Jasmine Trinca Festivals: Cannes (In Competition), New York, look at the hectic and mysterious Busan 2014 world of fashion… You are transported Best Costume Design, César Awards 2015 into the workshops where Yves In French and English, with English subtitles R16 offensive language, sexual references, nudity, Saint Laurent designed his couture drug use collections of the late 1960s and early 70s, and into the business meetings where his brand-extension strategies were hatched. After-hours you follow the designer, in the company of friends, lovers and hangers-on, to Paris nightclubs and cruising areas, to a perspective on his subject – played in Morocco and to bed. A few names are his prime by the epicene, hollow- “Focusing on a dark, dropped – Andy Warhol, Loulou de la cheeked Gaspard Ulliel – that is at once hedonistic, wildly creative Falaise – but mostly you sweep through intimate and detached. Beginning at a the parties and runway shows without low moment in 1974, flashing back to decade in Yves Saint stopping for introductions, as if you the glory days of 1967 and later jumping Laurent’s life and career, already knew everyone who mattered. ahead to Saint Laurent’s final years Bonello considers the It’s a giddy, intoxicating, decidedly (when he’s played by Helmut Berger), B EMB Friday 7 August, 11.00 am decadent feeling, but Saint Laurent is the film is a compulsively detailed swirl couturier as a myth, a A EMB Friday 7 August, 6.30 pm more than merely seductive. In of moods and impressions, intent on brand, an avatar of his A PH Saturday 8 August, 4.45 pm dispensing with the usual plodding capturing the contradictions of the man A LHP Saturday 8 August, 8.15 pm era.” — Dennis Lim, Artforum routines of the biopic, Mr Bonello offers and his times.” — A.O. Scott, NY Times A PH Sunday 9 August, 1.00 pm

My Golden Days Trois souvenirs de ma jeunesse

French writer-director Arnaud Desplechin delighted Cannes audiences with this new classic – a fresh, richly Director: Arnaud Desplechin individual memoir of youthful adventure, France 2015 | 120 mins friendships, and formative first love. Screenplay: Arnaud Desplechin, Julie Peyr My Sex Life Photography: Irina Lubtchansky Devotees of Desplechin’s Editor: Laurence Briaud will recognise this film’s central couple, Music: Grégoire Hetzel seen here in the earliest phases of their With: Quentin Dolmaire, Lou Roy-Lecollinet, Mathieu Amalric, Dinara Droukarova, relationship, but no acquaintance with Cécile Garcia Fogel, Françoise Lebrun, the earlier movie is required to get Irina Vavilova, Olivier Rabourdin Festivals: Cannes (Directors’ Fortnight) 2015 totally caught up in this one. In French with English subtitles “The French title translates to ‘three CinemaScope/Censors rating tbc memories of my youth’. The first two chapters are short, dispensing with the boy Paul’s childhood and recounting a too-odd-not-to-be-true late-80s high- school smuggling mission to Minsk. The third chapter, which constitutes the bulk of the movie, focuses on Paul (Quentin Dolmaire) as a student and his ©JEAN-CLAUDE LOTHER - WHY NOT PRODUCTIONS courtship of Esther (luminous newcomer humor, loving all its characters without Lou Roy-Lecollinet). A magnet for every necessarily showing them to be good “A coming-of-age film that teen guy in town, Esther is nonetheless people… Desplechin’s assembled a stands strongly amongst drawn to Paul’s idiosyncratic style. (No remarkable young cast, almost all of one else has tried to win her attention whom are newcomers. It feels like a the best in French cinema.” by teaching her how to play the new generation of talent emerging — Adam Cook, Fandor board game Go.) Their burgeoning who’ll likely be cropping up in French relationship, its separations bridged by cinema for decades to come… It’s letters, will haunt him for decades.” written, shot, cut and performed with A EMB Tuesday 4 August, 6.15 pm — Ben Kenigsberg, RogerEbert.com such palpable joy, intelligence and “This is a rich and literary film, full warmth that it ends up feeling entirely of warmth and life and sadness and fresh.” — Oliver Lyttelton, The Playlist 26 WORLD FROM GERMANY TO IRAN

Phoenix

German director Christian Petzold and his actress muse Nina Hoss follow up Barbara (2012) with Phoenix, an almost Director: Christian Petzold Hitchcockian drama of mistaken identity Germany/Poland 2014 | 98 mins set in Berlin immediately after WWII. Producers: Florian Koerner Von Gustorf, Hoss plays Nelly, a jazz singer, injured Michael Weber Screenplay: Christian Petzold, with the while escaping from a concentration collaboration of Harun Farocki. Based on the camp. Successful reconstructive surgery novel Le Retour des cendres by Hubert Monteilhet Photography: Hans Fromm has rendered her barely recognisable Editor: Bettina Böhler to her few surviving acquaintances. Music: Stefan Will With: Nina Hoss, Ronald Zehrfeld, Nina Despite their warnings, she searches Kunzendorf, Trystan Pütter, Michael Maertens, the blitzed city hoping to confront Imogen Kogge, Felix Römer, Uwe Preuss, the missing husband who may have Frank Seppeler, Kathrin Wehlisch Festivals: Toronto, San Sebastián, Vancouver, betrayed her to the Nazis in the first London 2014; Rotterdam 2015 place. When he fails to recognise her, a FIPRESCI Prize, San Sebastián International Film Festival 2014 bizarre new courtship ensues. The film In German and English, with English subtitles is a haunted chamber piece, finding M adult themes new depths of experience in one of the great heartbroken songs of all time: Kurt Weill and Ogden Nash’s ‘Speak Low (When You Speak Love)’. “Petzold is probing away at the “Phoenix once again proves that nature of love, memory and betrayal “The threads of a German filmmaker Christian Petzold …Hoss is an extraordinarily expressive concentration camp and his favorite star, Nina Hoss, are and soulful actress, able to convey her clearly one of the best director–actor character’s fragility and fear as well as survivor’s return to duos working in movies today… The her determination to confront her past… postwar Germany are plot alone would probably make As more wartime lies are exposed, the woven into a masterful this latest effort worthy enough, but real drama here is less in the outrageous A EMB Saturday 25 July, 4.00 pm it’s the masterly craftsmanship and plot twists than in the quiet but searing web by Christian Petzold.” B EMB Monday 27 July, 4.00 pm performances that reveal Petzold to intensity of Hoss’s performance.” — Ryan Gilbey, The Guardian A PH Thursday 30 July, 6.15 pm be at the top of his game.” — Jordan — Geoffrey Macnab, The Independent A LHP Saturday 1 August, 6.00 pm Mintzer, Hollywood Reporter A PH Saturday 1 August, 6.15 pm

Ixcanul Volcano Tehran Taxi

 Director/Screenplay: Pacific Magazine 09 Jayro Bustamante – Drive In Bank (p77) Guatemala/France 2015 Director/Screenplay: 95 mins Jafar Panahi Photography: Luis Armando Iran 2015 | 82 mins Arteaga With: Jafar Panahi Editor: César Díaz Festivals: Berlin 2015 Music: Pascual Reyes Golden Bear (Best Film), Berlin With: María Mercedes Coroy, International Film Festival 2015 María Telón, Manuel Antún In Farsi with English subtitles Festivals: Berlin 2015 Censors rating tbc In Kaqchikel and Spanish, with English subtitles M sex scenes, offensive language, nudity JAFAR PANAHI Richly atmospheric and steeped and returned there to make his film, The great Iranian director Jafar Panahi interests. The surprisingly informative, in Mayan folklore, director Jayro holding workshops, asking people to (Offside, The Circle) has never let entertaining and layered sampling of Bustamante’s film seems at first to have tell stories from their own lives and being barred from filmmaking stop life in Tehran that emerges won the emerged from another age, though the experiencing living conditions of the him. For the third time since the ban Golden Bear for Best Film at Berlin. setting turns out to be contemporary. Maya at close range. But Dickens might was imposed, he’s managed to apply “More than ever before, Panahi’s The drama centres on the choices have taught him about the power of his considerable art to production on composite picture of contemporary facing María, a 17-year-old Kaqchikel pathos. The persuasive authenticity and a very small scale – and to get the Iranian reality puts on a satirical shape, Maya who works with her parents on sombre observation of social realities in resulting work out of Iran and into but the melancholy smile on the a coffee plantation in the shadow of this first film from Guatemala mark it as competition at a major international driver’s face – and in this case driver the eponymous volcano. She is set to one of the year’s most distinctive from film festival. and director are one and the same be married to the farm’s foreman, a all of Latin America. In Tehran Taxi, shot entirely inside person – is more eloquent than any loveless match that will at least protect a car, he poses as a cab driver and piece of dialogue.” — Dan Fainaru, the livelihood of her parents. But María films interactions with a succession Screendaily is secretly working on other plans that of lively customers, not least his own will take her away from traditional life – feisty niece who’s making a film and towards a startling contradiction of B NT Friday 24 July, 2.00 pm too. It’s never entirely clear whether A EMB Wednesday 5 August, 6.30 pm the natural order as she understands it. A NT Friday 24 July, 8.15 pm the passengers are aware of their B PAR Thursday 6 August, 11.30 am Bustamante grew up in the region A NT Saturday 25 July, 6.15 pm participation, adding an ambiguity all of the Kaqchikel Maya in Guatemala B NT Thursday 30 July, 12.00 pm the more teasing for being in their best FROM ICELAND TO INDIA WORLD 27

Rams Hrútar

Made in Iceland – and inconceivable anywhere else – this wryly observed

winter’s tale about two obstinate The Lawnmower Bandit (p77) bachelor farmers was the jury and audience favourite in the Un Certain Director/Screenplay: Grímur Hákonarson Regard section at Cannes. Iceland/Denmark 2015 | 93 mins In a spectacular, weather-swept Producer: Grímar Jónsson valley, brothers Gummi and Kiddi are Photography: Sturla Brandth Grøvlen neighbours, sharing the family land and Editor: Kristján Lođmfjörđ tending to their small flocks of sheep. Music: Alti Örvarsson With: Sigurđur Sigurjónsson, Theodór Júlíusson, It’s 40 years since they spoke to one Charlotte Böving, Jón Benónýsson, Guđrún another. When communication can’t Sigurbjörnsdóttir, Sveinn Ólafur Gunnarsson, Jörundur Ragnarsson be avoided, Kiddi’s dog trots between Festivals: Cannes (Un Certain Regard) 2015 houses carrying their handwritten notes Un Certain Regard Prize, Cannes Film Festival 2015 between his teeth. Kiddi is a boozer and In Icelandic with English subtitles CinemaScope/Censors rating tbc brawler, a popular figure at community get-togethers, but it’s through the eyes of the gentle, sober-sided Gummi that we see him acting out. They both do love their sheep, though, so when their rare and precious stock is threatened feels both folkloric and true. by disease, there’s every reason for “Gummi’s scheme to ensure the “Rams plunges audiences them to set aside a lifetime of hostility. survival of the flock has elements of into a coarse, laconic Surely? Ealing comedy but it is the deadpan Director Grímur Hákonarson is a sensibility of a Kaurismäki or a Bent world… which is former documentarian with a strong Hamer that percolates through the film nonetheless full of kinship to these dogged old buggers, in both visual gags and the general humour and tenderness and his portrait is one of exasperated tone.” — Allan Hunter, Screendaily affection. There’s a tall-tale dimension under its thick skin.” A PAR Tuesday 4 August, 6.15 pm to their feuding that’s sometimes very — Fabien Lemercier, Cineuropa B PAR Wednesday 5 August, 11.45 am funny, but Hákonarson taps into the elemental, leaving us with a tale that

PROUDLY Court Umrika SPONSORED BY

Director/Screenplay: Director/Screenplay: Chaitanya Tamhane Prashant Nair India 2014 | 116 mins India 2015 | 98 mins With: Vira Sathidar, Vivek With: Suraj Sharma, Tony Gomber, Geetanjali Kulkarni Revolori, Smita Tambe Festivals: Venice, London 2014 Festivals: Sundance 2015 Horizons Award, Audience Award (World Cinema Venice Film Festival 2014 Dramatic), Sundance Film In Marathi, Hindi, English and Festival 2015 Gujarati, with English subtitles In Hindi with English subtitles CinemaScope/M cert CinemaScope/M violence, offensive language

©ZOO ENTERTAINMENT On trial: an elderly poet and singer involved. The defense lawyer’s family Winner of Sundance’s Audience Award viewed through an ironic prism of of protest songs charged with inciting just wants him to settle down. The for World Cinema, writer/director local misconceptions, and a soundtrack suicide. Antiquated features of the female prosecutor is respected in her Prashant Nair’s handsomely produced peppered with America-influenced Indian legal system are enlisted to professional career, but still cooks Indian indie film tells a classic tale of vintage Indian pop, Umrika handles silence dissent in this richly detailed dinner and follows orders from her country lads finding their bearings in its big themes with a light, personal and provocative court drama. husband and children. The film explores the big city. touch. Its bittersweet tone is anchored A prize-winner in Mumbai and Venice, caste system prejudice in a grander As a young boy, Ramakant watches by Life of Pi star Suraj Sharma in a Chaitanya Tamhane’s film has been sense, while also telling a riveting tale his older brother Udai set off from moving debut – while The Grand widely admired, not least for taking of a singular victim whose life may their remote mountain village en Budapest Hotel’s bellboy Tony Revolori time to understand the individual lives never rise above his status.” — Casey route to America (‘Umrika’). Udai’s turns up as his well-meaning buddy and motivations of the key players Cipriani, Indiewire letters home are a long time coming, and light relief. entrammelled by the laborious but, lavishly illustrated with magazine machinations of the law. clippings, they infuse the whole village “The story is simultaneously hilarious with American dreams, and even for its ridiculousness and tragic as a provide the impetus for Ramakant to A PAR Saturday 25 July, 5.45 pm result of its unfairness. As we watch A PAR Saturday 1 August, 3.45 pm learn to read. After a family tragedy, A LHP Monday 27 July, 6.15 pm the infuriating trial unfold over months, B PB Tuesday 4 August, 11.15 am Ramakant himself sets out for Mumbai, A PH Tuesday 28 July, 6.15 pm Tamhane uses the down time to B PB Wednesday 5 August, 11.15 am determined to follow his brother’s path. B PH Wednesday 29 July, 1.45 pm examine the intimate lives of those Set in the mid-80s, with global events B PAR Friday 31 July, 11.45 am 28 WORLD ITALY

The Mafia Kills Only in Summer La mafia uccide solo d’estate

The winner of the 2014 European Film Toehold on a Harbour (p77)* Award for Best European Comedy, this Italian box office hit follows the Director: Pierfrancesco Diliberto growing pains of Arturo, a Palermo boy aka ‘Pif’ whose life, from conception onwards, Italy 2013 | 90 mins is impacted in dramatic ways by the Producers: Mario Gianani, Lorenzo Mieli Screenplay: Michele Astori, Pierfrancesco operations of the Mafia. For a romantic Diliberto, Marco Martani comedy, it delivers a disconcertingly Photography: Roberto Forza effective protest at Cosa Nostra Editor: Cristiano Travaglioli Music: Santi Pulvirenti domination of Sicilian life: it portrays With: Cristiana Capotondi, Pif, Alex Bisconti, historic Mafia violence as idiotic. It’s a Ginevra Antona, Claudio Gioè, Ninni Bruschetta, Barbara Tabita, Rosario Lisma, Enzo Salomone, bold big-screen debut for actor/director Maurizio Marchetti Pierfrancesco ‘Pif’ Diliberto, a satirical Festivals: Karlovy Vary 2014 current affairs broadcaster whose In Italian with English subtitles M violence, offensive language, sex scenes Italian TV profile is broadly comparable to Jon Stewart’s in the US. “Diliberto’s film, a buoyant farce, chronicles two decades in the history of Palermo and the Cosa Nostra, lampooning the atrocities and hypocrisies of the Mob… heartrending emotion in his terrific Cleverly splicing himself into archival feature debut… There are moments “Diliberto has devised a news footage and dramatizing a when audiences will wonder if laughing rather… unusual method romance around the historical action, about gangland whackings isn’t in bad Diliberto has managed to make a taste, yet it becomes increasingly clear of addressing Palermo’s political comedy that seems at once that the director-scripter is using humor Mafia infestation. If he tremendously funny and intensely to cut Mafia bosses down to size, can’t fight them, he’ll serious.” — Calum Marsh, Village thereby turning an accusatory glare A LHP Saturday 25 July, 6.00 pm* Voice at an Italy that granted these people skewer them… with great A EMB Sunday 26 July, 6.15 pm* “Pierfrancesco Diliberto does a power.” — Jay Weissberg, Variety comic verve.” B EMB Tuesday 28 July, 2.00 pm remarkable job negotiating the A PH Friday 31 July, 6.15 pm* — Calum Marsh, Village Voice delicate balance between humor and B PH Monday 3 August, 11.15 am*

Black Souls Anime nere

Director: Francesco Munzi Italy/France 2014 103 mins With: Marco Leonardi, Fabrizio Ferracane, Barbora Bobulova Festivals: Venice, Toronto 2014 Best Film, Best Director & Best Screenplay, Donatello Awards 2015 In Italian with English subtitles CinemaScope/M violence, offensive language, drug use

FRANCESCA CASCIARRI The far-flung brothers of a mob family deadly machismo… As the body count are compelled to regroup after a escalates, you observe the implosion bumptious young nephew stirs up a of an airtight mob community whose long-dormant feud. Though the action code of silence is embraced by wives encompasses Amsterdam and Milan, and family members… Black Souls is the dark heart of their tale is located the antithesis of a sensationalist splatter in Calabria, in the tiny mountainous movie. There is not an operatic flourish town of Africo, where the ’Ndrangheta to be seen in a film whose killings exerts control. are executed with a cold blooded Based on a true story, Francesco efficiency. This isn’t entertainment; it’s Munzi’s film explores the tributaries of life and death.” — Stephen Holden, catastrophe with meticulous, almost NY Times anthropological realism. The hand of death hovers over every character, but you might not guess where or when it will strike. A RX Saturday 1 August, 6.15 pm “Black Souls is an ominous, well- B PAR Wednesday 5 August, 4.00 pm acted portrait of an ingrown feudal A LHP Thursday 6 August, 8.30 pm society of violence, retaliation and A PAR Saturday 8 August, 6.30 pm

UnityAKL-ad-FF-1.indd 1 29/05/15 5:36 pm FROM ITALY TO KOREA WORLD 29

Mia madre

Italian favourite Nanni Moretti returned to the Cannes Competition this year with his best film since The Son’s Room Director: Nanni Moretti was awarded the Palme d’Or in 2001. Italy/France 2015 | 107 mins In lightly disguised autobiographical Producers: Nanni Moretti, Domenico Procacci mode, he tells the story of Margherita Screenplay: Nanni Moretti, Francesco Piccolo, Valia Santella (Margherita Buy), a filmmaker anxiously Photography: Arnaldo Catinari juggling the demands of her career, Editor: Clelio Benevento With: Margherita Buy, John Turturro, her teenage daughter and the decline Giulia Lazzarini, Nanni Moretti, Beatrice Mancini, of her ageing mother, Ada. Moretti Stefano Abbati, Enrico Ianniello, Anna Bellato, Tony Laudadio, Lorenzo Gioielli himself plays Margherita’s brother, Festivals: Cannes (In Competition) 2015 who has taken leave from his job to Best Actress (Margherita Buy), Best Supporting nurse their dying mother. Actress (Giulia Lazzarini), Donatello Awards 2015 In Italian with English subtitles With characteristic openness to the CinemaScope/Censors rating tbc big questions and the way they are manifested in our everyday existence, Moretti moves between Margherita’s personal and professional lives in a lifelike mix of thoughtfulness and wry comedy. Playing Barry Huggins, an ©SACHER FILM LE PACTE outrageously grandstanding – and that is greater than the sum of its parts. needy – American actor in the film Declaredly inspired by Moretti’s own “Nanni Moretti’s Mia Margherita is making, John Turturro is mother’s death during the editing of madre is warm, witty a comic treat. Habemus papam, Mia madre is one “Its relatively tranquil surface, its of the Roman director’s least showy and seductive… a small amusements (many of them films, but also one of those that most tremendously smart revolving around a tasty turn by John successfully rises above his personal and enjoyable movie.” Turturro), its moments of touching, tics and mannerisms to achieve a kind B EMB Friday 31 July, 11.15 am almost Sirkian melodrama, above all of universal pathos.” — Lee Marshall, — Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian A EMB Sunday 2 August, 3.30 pm its ability to tease resonant themes out Screendaily B PH Tuesday 4 August, 11.15 am of seemingly inconsequential scenes A PH Wednesday 5 August, 6.15 pm or lines of dialogue, make for a film A LHP Sunday 9 August, 3.15 pm

PRESENTED IN Latin Lover ASSOCIATION WITH Hill of Freedom Jayueui eondeok

  Food for Thought (p77) Oh Lucy! (p77) Director: Director/Screenplay: Cristina Comencini Hong Sang-soo Italy 2015 | 104 mins Korea 2014 | 66 mins Producer: Lionello Cerri Producer: Kim Kyoung-hee Screenplay: Giulia Calenda, Photography: Park Hong-yeol Cristina Comencini With: Kase Ryo, Moon So-ri, Photography: Italo Petriccione Seo Young-hwa With: Virna Lisi, Marisa Paredes, Festivals: Venice, Toronto 2014 Angela Finocchiaro, Valeria Bruni In English, Korean and Japanese, Tedeschi with English subtitles In Italian with English subtitles PG coarse language, sexual CinemaScope/M low level references offensive language

In this vivacious female ensemble departed one. The cast includes the Hong Sang-soo’s droll tale of romantic of seeing Kwon again? At what point comedy, two of the wives and all five late Virna Lisi in her final role, as the near misses begins when Kwon returns did he drink himself into a lonely known daughters of a womanising official first wife, and Almodóvar to Seoul from a restorative stay in the stupor? Hong’s second conceit yields movie star congregate in the South regular Marisa Paredes as the Spanish mountains. She is presented with a equally teasing and funny results: the Italian sun for a public celebration actress Crispo married during his packet of letters left by an earnest charming Mori speaks no Korean. of his memory. Italy, Spain, France, Spaghetti Western era. Valeria Bruni young Japanese visitor, Mori (Kase The key conversations take place in Sweden and Hollywood are each Tedeschi parodies her own neurotic Ryo), who met her on an earlier trip textbook English. The well-rehearsed represented by a daughter: for every screen persona as the Parisian daughter, to Korea. It appears he had returned phrase ‘Are you here on business or phase in Saverio Crispo’s international an actress who’s never felt part of in her absence with the intention of pleasure?’ becomes a running gag, but career, there was at least one partner the clan, and gradually wakes up to proposing. there’s often disarming aptness to the left with a child. the news that papa was an equal- As she walks down a flight of stairs, words these characters choose to tilt at Co-writer/director Cristina opportunity evader of family ties. Kwon drops and scatters the letters, meaningful communication. Comencini contrasts the fizz of sisterly all of which are undated. As she “Clever and exquisite.” — Richard disputes, showbiz rivalries and survivor reassembles them, and we watch the Brody, New Yorker solidarity with the earnest critical A PH Sunday 26 July, 3.15 pm events they describe, Mori’s emotional dissertations and tributes of the official B PH Wednesday 29 July, 11.15 am confessions become a chronological A NT Saturday 25 July, 4.15 pm commemoration. In film-clip pastiches A LHP Sunday 2 August, 2.45 pm jigsaw. Did he sleep with the waitress A NT Friday 31 July, 6.30 pm revelling in Italy’s movie past, we revisit B EMB Tuesday 4 August, 10.15 am from the Hill of Freedom café, we the career highlights of the feckless A EMB Saturday 8 August, 1.45 pm wonder, before or after he despaired 30 WORLD FROM JAPAN TO RUSSIA

Our Little Sister Umimachi Diary

Kore-eda Hirokazu (Like Father, Like Son; I Wish) sustains his place as the current master in the great Japanese Director/Editor: Kore-eda Hirokazu cinema tradition of exquisitely nuanced Japan 2015 | 128 mins family dramas. His new film reaches us Producers: Matsuzaki Kaoru, Taguchi Hijiri Screenplay: Kore-eda Hirokazu. Based on the direct from competition at Cannes. graphic novel by Yoshida Akimi “This irresistible, light-filled family Photography: Takimoto Mikiya drama from Japanese writer-director Production designer: Mitsumatsu Keiko Music: Kanno Yoko Kore-eda Hirokazu brims with small With: Ayase Haruka, Nagasawa Masami, moments and slips down as easily as Kaho, Hirose Suzu the many meals it shares with us. Festivals: Cannes (In Competition), Sydney 2015 In Japanese with English subtitles Kore-eda gives us three sisters, Sachi Censors rating tbc (Ayase Haruka), Yoshino (Nagasawa Masami) and Chika (Kaho), all in their 20s, who meet their teenage half-sister, Suzu (Hirose Suzu), for the first time at their estranged father’s funeral far away in the countryside. Immediately getting on well with this balanced, smart young woman, they invite Suzu to share with them the old family it radiates joy and harmony despite home in Kamakura that their father playing out entirely in the shadow of a “Japanese director abandoned 15 years earlier and where difficult father’s death. Out of darkness, Kore-eda Hirokazu’s the three still live, eating, drinking Kore-eda discovers light, and there’s and talking together like friends as a meandering, extremely personable lovingly crafted small- much as siblings. Their close rapport charm to this film that means that scale family drama is full and reliance on each other – and the even its more soppy moments – such of characters you won’t dignity with which they welcome as when two characters cycle through A PH Sunday 26 July, 5.45 pm their new sister, despite her presence an avenue of cherry blossom – feel want to leave behind.” B PH Tuesday 28 July, 11.15 am unearthing old resentments – is deeply well-earned and entirely fitting. Deeply — Tim Robey, The Telegraph B EMB Wednesday 29 July, 10.30 am infectious… charming and quietly moving.” — Dave A LHP Friday 31 July, 6.15 pm An intimate, warm embrace of a film, Calhoun, Time Out A EMB Sunday 9 August, 3.30 pm

The Postman’s White Nights Belye nochi pochtalona Alekseya Tryapitsyna

Veteran Russian director Andrei Konchalovsky was named Best Director at Venice last September for this Director/Producer: uncannily affecting semi-documentary Andrei Konchalovsky portrait of everyday life on a tiny island Russia 2014 | 101 mins community in the remote northwest of Screenplay: Andrei Konchalovsky, Elena Kiseleva Photography: Alexander Simonov Russia. It is summer, the sun never sets, Editor: Sergei Taraskin and the sparsely inhabited wilderness Music: Eduard Artemyev of lake, forest and grassland is lush With: Aleksey Tryapitsyn, Irina Ermolova, Timur Bondarenko and placid. Our guide is Lyokha the Festivals: Venice, CPH:DOX 2014; San Francisco postman, unmarried at 60 but still 2015 Best Director, hopeful, as he runs his speedboat Venice International Film Festival 2014 to pick up mail from the mainland In Russian with English subtitles and then deliver it to his far-flung M sex scenes, offensive language, nudity customers. Lyokha plays de facto babysitter to young Timur but that doesn’t mean boo to the boy’s bored and restless mother, Irina. She can’t get out of this backwater fast enough. Little happens – there’s a visit to a nearby ‘spaceport’, a work crisis summer, we know how that feels. that nearly drives Lyokha back to that “Anton Chekhov wrote with both “One of those films in ‘damned vodka’ that he’s offered at profound melancholy and droll which ‘nothing happens’, virtually every port of call, and a cat humor of the erosion of aristocratic that turns up when he’s sleeping and Russian society, left behind in a fast- yet every moment seems stares meaningfully in his direction. transitioning late 19th-century world. full of life – humorous, But in Konchalovsky’s poetic vision There are faint mirror reflections in rueful, occasionally a mundanity can harbour the sublime the way Konchalovsky casts his tender, and his film pulses with the sheer contemplative gaze over the opposite bit surreal.” B PH Friday 24 July, 1.45 pm elation of belonging somewhere. When end of the social spectrum at the start — Dennis Harvey, San Francisco A PH Saturday 25 July, 4.00 pm we’re out on the water with Lyokha of the 21st century.” — David Rooney, A EMB Monday 27 July, 8.45 pm International Film Festival gliding through the tranquil, nightless Hollywood Reporter FROM RUSSIA TO THE UK WORLD 31

Queen and Country

At 82 John Boorman, British director Director/Screenplay: John Boorman of such Hollywood classics as Point UK/Ireland/France/Romania 2014 Blank and Deliverance, picks up the 115 mins autobiographical thread left dangling Producers: Keiran Corrigan, John Boorman at the end of Hope and Glory to Photography: Seamus Deasy Editor: Ron Davis deliver this funny, richly nostalgic Music: Stephen McKeon portrait of the artist as a young and With: Callum Turner, Caleb Landry Jones, Pat Shortt, David Thewlis, Richard E. Grant, unenthusiastic conscript in the British Tamsin Egerton, Vanessa Kirby, Aimeé-Ffion Army. It’s the early 50s and Britain is Edwards, Brían F. O’Byrne, Sinéad Cusack, David Hayman still recovering from the last war. The Festivals: Cannes (Directors’ Fortnight), possibility that the next one looms Vancouver, Busan, New York, London 2014 in Korea is the only thing that Bill Censors rating tbc queenandcountrythefilm.com (charming Callum Turner) and his rebellious mate, Percy (Caleb Landry Jones), find remotely serious about having landed in the army. Happily they never get further than a Home Counties barracks, where they engage in exasperated and increasingly fiendish struggle with the mindlessly SOPHIE MUTEVELIAN officious Sgt Major Bradley – the an old master who still has one of the brilliant David Thewlis. most magical eyes in the business… “Achingly romantic… Outside the barracks, at classical Age has not slackened his famous A moving portrait of a music concerts, in smoky cinemas command of tempo or diminished his and society parties there are lessons ability to draw bold, vivid performances nation that couldn’t to be learned about love. The tone is from his cast (Thewlis is especially account for all it had lost gently comedic and Boorman taps into alarming, and moving), but it has in a war that it won.” an intense mixture of nostalgia and deepened his rueful sympathy for dismay for an era when Great Britain the follies of the young.” — Stuart — David Ehrlich, Time Out NY B EMB Monday 3 August, 10.45 am was still clinging to class hierarchies, Klawans, The Nation A EMB Saturday 8 August, 6.15 pm duty and repression. “Queen and Country is the film of

The Fool Wrinkles Durak Arrugas

Director/Screenplay/ Ernie Biscuit (p77) Editor/Music: Yury Bykov Russia 2014 | 121 mins Director: Ignacio Ferreras Producers: Aleksey Uchitel, Spain 2011 | 89 mins Kira Saksaganskaya Screenplay: Ángel de la Cruz, With: Artem Bystrov, Nataliya Paco Roca, Ignacio Ferreras, Surkova, Boris Nevzorov, Kirill Rosanna Cecchini. Based on the Polukhin, Darya Moroz, Yury graphic novel by Paco Roca Tsurilo, Alexander Korshunov With: Martin Sheen, Festivals: Locarno, Vancouver Matthew Modine, George Coe 2014; New Directors/New Films In English 2015 M offensive language In Russian with English subtitles CinemaScope/M violence, offensive language, drug use

The lives of hundreds are at stake in this “An explosive combination of highly Let’s hope we’ll never tire of portraits novel by Paco Roca, the film is both compulsive Russian suspense drama personal moral drama and a wider, of inspiring seniors – and there’s no understated and piercing, laid out very that does double service as a vehement scathing portrait… This well-oiled shortage at NZIFF this year – but it’s deftly to pinpoint the crises in Emilio’s exposé of a society devoured by narrative machine is further aided by reassuring too that we’re seeing films perception. Wrinkles finds humour and crony capitalism. Investigating a burst a clever ticking-clock mechanism that made that grapple with the grim humanity in the games and survival pipe in a decaying provincial housing actually ratchets up the tension the challenges frequently presented by strategies of second childhood, not project, plumber and student engineer longer the characters’ vodka-soaked, old age. The most rewarding to cross least in Miguel’s hare-brained plan to Dima (Artem Bystrov) discovers two blame-game speeches are allowed to our paths this year is an animated escape, but never betrays its subjects massive cracks running the length of go on.” — Boyd van Hoeij, Hollywood feature from Spain, first released in with false cheer or sentimentality. the building. Realising that the block is Reporter 2011, but only now dubbed, seamlessly, Preceded by Ernie Biscuit (21 mins, about to collapse, he decides that the into English. Wrinkles is about Emilio p77), a new claymation life story from mayor must be alerted at once, even (voiced by Martin Sheen), an elderly Adam Elliot, the maker of Harvie if it’s the night of her 50th birthday ex-bank manager who reluctantly Krumpet. celebration. The party is in no mood enters a retirement home. Befriended for whistle-blowing plumbers, but and guided by his room-mate Miguel faced with Dima’s mounting alarm, the A LHP Tuesday 28 July, 8.00 pm (George Coe), the home’s resident A ED Saturday 25 July, 1.45 pm assembled councillors and contractors B PB Thursday 30 July, 3.45 pm cynic – and the film’s crooked voice of A ED Tuesday 28 July, 6.30 pm sober up enough to recognise what B PB Monday 3 August, 3.30 pm reason – he sets about hiding the onset A ED Wednesday 29 July, 6.30 pm A PAR Friday 7 August, 6.30 pm B ED Thursday 30 July, 2.15 pm scams a fatal collapse might expose. of Alzheimer’s. Adapted from a graphic 32 WORLD USA

54: The Director’s Cut

Seen at last in next-to-original form, Director/Screenplay: Mark Christopher Mark Christopher’s 1998 movie plugs USA 2015 | 106 mins us into late-70s discorama at its most Producers: Richard N. Gladstein, Dolly Hall, delirious. Ryan Phillippe, 22 and Ira Deutchman Photography: Alexander Gruszynski shirtless in virtually every scene, is Editor: Lee Percy the starstruck Jersey studmuffin who Music: Marco Beltrami With: Ryan Phillippe, Salma Hayek, Neve becomes a busboy – delivering drugs Campbell, Mike Myers, Sela Ward, Breckin Meyer, and sexual services – at Manhattan’s Sherry Stringfield, Lauren Hutton, Michael York, legendary Studio 54. Mike Myers’ Daniel Lapaine, Ron Jeremy Festivals: Berlin, San Francisco 2015 impersonation of club co-owner Steve R16 drug use, sex scenes, offensive language Rubell is brilliant – an uncanny mix of swish and swagger, sour wit and predatory guile. Salma Hayek is both touching and alarming as a coat-check girl making impulsive grabs at stardom. Alas, it was all too deviant for producer Harvey Weinstein. He cut 40 minutes and ordered reshoots, eliminating the hero’s bisexuality, toning down his amorality and creating a redemptive romance starring actress restored, the film now is a gritty Neve Campbell. The resulting travesty masterpiece, a classic of bored excess “54: The Director’s Cut rates 13% on Rotten Tomatoes. and existential longing, framed by represents an act of Meanwhile, thanks to bootleg VHS sweaty abs, jeroboams of quaaludes copies, Christopher’s original cut and the pulsing beat and recreated jubilant resurrection… garnered cult status. Now, Miramax performances of music’s most Mike Myers and Ryan has funded him to reinstate the tasty celebrated and reviled era.” — Noah Phillippe are revealed in bits, not to mention the narrative Cowan, San Francisco International arc, and treat us to the tragicomic Film Festival all their hedonistic glory.” A PAR Friday 31 July, 8.45 pm celebration of pre-plague decadence — Ryan Gilbey, The Guardian B PAR Monday 3 August, 4.00 pm he always had in mind. A RX Friday 7 August, 6.15 pm “With the original footage

Understanding Modern Iran starts Thursday 6 August, 6pm-8pm

Behind the Scenes of Vatican Art and Architecture starts Thursday 20 August, 6pm-8pm

Writing Short Fiction starts Saturday 31 October, 10am-4:30pm It’s never too late to begin a new adventure

TH For more information visit our website www.victoria.ac.nz/conted IN CINEMAS JULY 16 USA WORLD 33

Experimenter

Social psychologist Stanley Milgram’s Director/Screenplay: obedience tests, conducted at Yale Michael Almereyda during the 60s, are studied, referenced USA 2015 | 90 mins and debated to this day. Reconstructing Producers: Uri Singer, Fabio Golombek, Aimee Schoof, Isen Robbins, Danny A. Abeckaser, these polarising experiments, in which Per Melita subjects were instructed to administer Photography: Ryan Samul painful electric shocks to a stranger, Editor: Kathryn J. Schubert Music: Bryan Senti filmmaker Michael Almereyda explores With: Peter Sarsgaard, Winona Ryder, Jim Gaffigan, the troubling implications of Milgram’s Edoardo Ballerini, John Palladino, Kellan Lutz, Dennis Haysbert, Danny A. Abeckaser, Taryn landmark study against the backdrop Manning, Anthony Edwards, Lori Singer of his personal life. Ingeniously Festivals: Sundance, San Francisco 2015 structured and slyly provocative, his M offensive language experimentermovie.com film might be the most distinctive biopic you see this year. Shaking off genre tropes, Almereyda seems less interested in ticking off Milgram’s substantial achievements than he does in examining the sociological impact of that most significant of milestones. Peter Sarsgaard’s performance draws us deep JASON ROBINETTE into the question of his own responses increasing discomfort of his obedient to the behaviour he’s exploring. Winona participants led many to call Milgram’s “Milgram gets a biopic Ryder is vivid as his wife. — JF ethics into question and the experiment as polymorphous as one “Readers who’ve heard of only one remains a campus debate-starter today.” psychology experiment in their lives — John DeFore, Hollywood Reporter of his own research probably know Milgram’s: in 1961’s “Almereyda has created an studies… a highly formal, ‘obedience study’, he found that the experiment of his own: a kind of always fascinating movie.” majority of subjects would give fellow cinematic Rorschach test, prodding volunteers horrible electric shocks if viewers to consider what they would — Scott Foundas, Variety A PAR Saturday 25 July, 8.00 pm instructed to do so by an authority do if sitting in the same seat as A RX Wednesday 29 July, 6.15 pm figure. The shocks weren’t real, but Milgram’s subjects.” — Anthony B PAR Friday 31 July, 2.00 pm the subjects didn’t know that; the Kaufman, Screendaily

99 Homes A Most Violent Year

Director/Editor: NZ News & Views – T & G Ramin Bahrani Building (p77) USA 2014 | 112 mins Director/Screenplay: Screenplay: Ramin Bahrani, J.C. Chandor Amir Naderi. Based on a story by USA 2014 | 125 mins Bahareh Azimi Photography: Bobby Bukowski Photography: Bradford Young With: Andrew Garfield, With: Oscar Isaac, Jessica Michael Shannon, Laura Dern Chastain, David Oyelowo, Festivals: Venice, Toronto 2014; Alessandro Nivola, Albert Brooks Sundance 2015 In English and Spanish, CinemaScope/Censors rating tbc with English subtitles CinemaScope/M violence, offensive language, content may disturb amostviolentyear.com

Ramin Bahrani’s visceral drama is terrific as the everyman wrestling In this loaded slow burn of a thriller, Anna (Jessica Chastain) sees things of real estate agency run amok is with a profound ethical conflict, but the director of Margin Call turns the differently: playing by the rules was not keenly honed to make your blood this is Shannon’s show – reining in same forensic skills to the nexus of the way her father made his fortune. boil. Michael Shannon is magnetic his trademark histrionics for a coolly crime and business in an earlier era. “Chastain is killer good, shooting off as Rick Carver, a reptilian broker contained (but no less ominous) It’s 1981, a peak year in the annals of her mouth like a Brooklyn bombshell: who specialises in home foreclosure. portrait of greedy malevolence. — JF New York violence, but Abel (Oscar ‘You’re not gonna like what’ll happen Andrew Garfield plays one of his many “A timely, terrifically acted moral Isaac), proud owner of an indie oil sales once I get involved.’ And Isaac is an victims, a hard-working tradesman nail-biter… Carver’s nihilistic state-of- company, has the big time within his implosive powerhouse. Chandor gives who finds himself evicted from his the-nation rants recall Tony Montana in grasp. He’s paid the deposit on the him the space to set up psychological home, only to then be offered work his self-actualising pomp, and Shannon Jersey waterfront storage that’s going torments that reverberate hellishly… with Carver – doing unto others what’s delivers them with Tyrannosaur to make all the difference and all he You watch with nerves clenched, just been done to him. Bahrani’s charisma.” — Robbie Collin, The needs is 30 days to raise the rest. But holding on tight.” — Peter Travers, gripping premise is fuel for an enraged Telegraph someone, somewhere, is determined Rolling Stone and enthralling indictment of the to squeeze him out – and the nasty American wealth divide, heightened surprises keep on coming. Abel’s a with the clammy pulse of a crime A RX Wednesday 5 August, 6.15 pm sharp operator – as a pep talk to his B PAR Friday 24 July, 4.15 pm thriller. Garfield, channelling the B PAR Thursday 6 August, 1.45 pm sales team makes super clear – but he’s A PAR Sunday 26 July, 8.15 pm wounded desperation of his star- A PAR Friday 7 August, 9.00 pm determined to take on his opposition A RX Tuesday 28 July, 6.15 pm making turn in The Social Network, by legitimate means. His wife 34 WORLD USA

Grandma

Lily Tomlin’s no cuddly movie granny Director/Screenplay: Paul Weitz in this richly loaded comedy of inter- USA 2015 | 80 mins generational female camaraderie – and Producers: Paul Weitz, Andrew Miano, exasperation. She’s just sent her young Terry Dougas, Paris Latsis Photography: Tobias Datum girlfriend (Judy Greer) packing and she Editor: Jonathan Corn is super cranky. When her teenage Music: Joel P. West With: Lily Tomlin, Julia Garner, Marcia Gay granddaughter Sage (Julia Garner) Harden, Judy Greer, Laverne Cox, Sam Elliott, turns up out of nowhere, Elle (Tomlin) Nat Wolff, John Cho gets the picture in no time: Sage is Festivals: Sundance, Tribeca 2015 M drug use, offensive language pregnant and whatever she decides to do, she’s counting on grandma to come out fighting for her. In the course of a day, Elle fronts up to anyone who could or should, in her opinion, help Sage out: the hapless impregnator, her own friends and ex-lovers, and, most unlikely of all, Elle’s daughter, Sage’s uptight lawyer mother (a hilarious Marcia Gay Harden). Writer/director Paul Weitz (About a Boy, American AARON EPSTEIN Pie) knows just how to pace his stellar Sage… However, everything in the cast and lightly convey the poignancy movie revolves around the irreplaceable “This is really a story about of imperfect life choices that make Tomlin, and rightly so. Her entire history three generations of laughing out loud so essential. as an actor, a comedian, a feminist “This is a refreshingly modest, no- and a pioneering voice for LGBT rights women and how they frills movie that is character-driven in comes into play in this formfitting interact with each other… the most rewarding possible sense, role. Anybody who loves her – and if Lily Tomlin adds heart, with an ample share of priceless you don’t, why are you even reading? dialogue played for truth, not for – won’t want to miss this.” — David soul, and, naturally, tons A PH Friday 24 July, 6.15 pm jokes. The performances are lovely, Rooney, Hollywood Reporter of comedy.” A PH Saturday 25 July, 6.15 pm including that of up-and-comer Garner, B EMB Tuesday 28 July, 12.15 pm — Brian Moylan, The Guardian who has many touching moments as A EMB Saturday 1 August, 4.30 pm

PROUDLY Results SPONSORED BY While We’re Young

Director/Screenplay: Director/Screenplay: Andrew Bujalski Noah Baumbach USA 2015 | 104 mins USA 2014 | 97 mins Producers: Sam Slater, Photography: Sam Levy Paul Bernon, Houston King Music: James Murphy Photography: Matthias Grunsky With: Ben Stiller, Naomi Watts, With: Guy Pearce, Cobie Adam Driver, Amanda Seyfried, Smulders, Kevin Corrigan Adam Horovitz, Maria Dizzia Festivals: Sundance, SXSW 2015 Festivals: Toronto, New York Censors rating tbc 2014 M offensive language while-were-young.com

Andrew Bujalski’s amiably off-kilter never before set foot outdoors. He is In Noah Baumbach’s wittily observed person of Josh’s father-in-law, a doyen rom com circles around three characters unemployed, recently divorced and, comedy of generation envy, Ben Stiller, of the New York documentary scene and a Texas gym called Power 4 Life. thanks to an inheritance, newly very master of furrowed self-regard, plays played with multi-layered bemusement The Australian owner and founder, rich. Trevor is in no position to turn Josh, a 44-year-old documentary by the great Charles Grodin. Trevor (Guy Pearce), is sincere about down the cheques Danny hands over maker, stalled on a project for almost a “It’s about the desire of every the self-motivation mantras that are for Kat’s house calls. But if Danny can decade. Josh is amazed and delighted generation to usurp the position of his stock in trade. That 4 stands 4 the be energised at all, it’s by an interest in when he’s schmoozed by the up-and- another… It’s about retro hip, VHS, four Wellnesses: Physical, Emotional, Kat that doesn’t extend to her fitness coming 25-year-old Jamie, played with typewriters and vinyl being the domain Mental and Spiritual, and Trevor plans programme. Any self-improvement that lolloping faux naif charm by Adam of cool young things, while their elders to dedicate real estate to each of them. takes place for this trio may be purely Driver. Talk about on-the-nose casting: go digital and attempt with tragic His most hardcore trainer Kat (Cobie accidental, but it’s excellent fun to Naomi Watts and Amanda Seyfried vanity to keep their fingers on the Smulders) concentrates solely on the watch so much self-denial unravel. slot in just as neatly as the wives swept pulse.” — Tim Robey, The Telegraph Physical: there’s nothing wrong with along by the booby-trapped bromance. Kat that a vigorous run can’t put right. Soon the older couple abandon their Their regimes are upended by the child-rearing contemporaries to hang arrival of a transplant from New York A PAR Sunday 26 July, 3.00 pm out at ayahuasca ceremonies with A LHP Friday 24 July, 6.00 pm in dire need of a tone up in every B PAR Monday 27 July, 1.45 pm their much cooler new best friends. A EMB Friday 31 July, 7.15 pm department. Danny (the deeply funny A LHP Friday 31 July, 8.45 pm The plot thickens with the appearance B EMB Wednesday 5 August, 2.00 pm Kevin Corrigan) looks as though he’s A RX Saturday 1 August, 4.00 pm of another generation again, in the A PH Sunday 9 August, 6.30 pm WORLD 35

Animation Now 2015 89 mins approx. | M violence

When NZIFF took the plunge and hired The Story of Percival Pilts Locus of Everyday Life The Sleepwalker me to programme animated shorts Janette Goodey, John Lewis | Australia/New Zealand Kynd, Sawako | Japan 2014 | 7 mins Theodore Ushev | Canada 2015 | 4 mins in 1997, the job seemed massive: the 2015 | 8 mins number entered that year was 600. All Abstraction of astounding beauty and If Miro had been an animator, he Young Percival vows he will not let his arrived in the mail on VHS tapes. To visual complexity. might have come up with this. feet touch the ground. Narration by get to this year’s programme, a grand Mark Hadlow. total of 3,535 shorts had to be sifted, Cruise Patrol Play like a Driver Bobby de Groot, Arjan van Meerten | The Netherlands Manabu Himeda | Japan 2013 | 3 mins weighed and catalogued – and fewer Bendito Machine V 2013 | 7 mins than 100 arrived in a physical format. Confounding mini-masterpiece from That speaks volumes for what is – Pull the Trigger On a lonely highway in the blazing one of Japan’s most audacious rising Jossie Malis | Spain 2014 | 12 mins happening in the world of creative desert heat, a patrolman interrupts a stars. animation. There is a diversity, Doomsday rendered in exquisitely couple of homicidal teddy bears. World of Tomorrow complexity and an intriguing, filigreed silhouettes. Bear Story ingenious artfulness to so much Don Hertzfeldt | USA 2015 | 17 mins Gabriel Osorio Vargas | Chile 2014 | 10 mins animation that never makes it into the Me and My Moulton One of the year’s great short films, Torill Kove | Canada/Norway 2014 | 14 mins cinemas. As always, the overarching A bear’s autobiography as played out animated or otherwise, World of mission is to cut to the essence of This droll short traces a young girl’s at his own marvellous tin marionette Tomorrow takes a young girl on a truly what auteur animators are creating struggle with her parents’ obsession theatre. mind-bending tour of her future. and showcase it here in one glorious with modernism. big-screen hit. It’s a special pleasure Nothing Else but Water to open this year’s programme with a Scoop Carlos De Carvalho | France 2014 | 5 mins stunning film that has many of its roots The Brothers McLeod | UK 2014 | 2 mins Celebrating the safe return of a ship in New Zealand. — Malcolm Turner Hallucinogenic nuttiness. of intrepid explorers, a young pig wonders just where he fits into it all.

A ED Friday 31 July, 6.30 pm A ED Monday 3 August, 6.30 pm B ED Tuesday 4 August, 2.15 pm

LOCUS OF EVERYDAY LIFE PLAY LIKE A DRIVER WORLD OF TOMORROW

Dark Hearts 90 mins approx. | R18 violence, sexual violence, offensive language, nudity, content may offend

If Uncle Walt wound up creating The Pride of Strathmoor The Master Hipopotamy the happiest place on earth, the Einar Baldvin | USA 2014 | 9 mins Riho Unt | Estonia 2015 | 18 mins Piotr Dumala | Poland 2015 | 13 mins dark legion of anti-Walts down through the decades have mined the WARNING: Contains strobing effects Things don’t necessarily get better A canvas of velvet cruelty plays out psychic depths and brought forth Georgia, USA in the summer of 1927; once the victimised assume control. in a tranquil paradise, bringing to the visions of mayhem and woe – some pastor John Deitman descends into surface impulses that are as old as life of them with exacting precision, madness. Wawd Ahp itself. Steve Girard, Josh Chertoff | USA 2013 | 3 mins others in splurges of sheer violence. This programme is the realm too of Pilots on the Way Home A severed head is bullied by the body it Trusts and Estates Jeanette Bonds | USA 2013 | 5 mins scabrous satire, where lynch mobs and Olga Pärn, Priit Pärn | Estonia 2014 | 16 mins just separated from. lunching lawyers get what’s coming. A dark meditation on male-female Four lawyers engage in a bantering There are no happy endings here and relations from two living masters of Splintertime lunch conversation, disgorging their | | much that has the potential to shock the art form. Rosto The Netherlands 2014 11 mins empathy-free world views. and offend. The latest monstrous masterpiece from The Andes the Baron of Bizarro. His crew ‘Thee House of Cristóbal León, Joaquin Cociña | Chile 2012 | 4 mins Wreckers’ winds up in a nightmarish Unconsciousness A bright light shone into a ghostly ambulance ride to freedom or oblivion. Priit Tender | Estonia 2015 | 11 mins room illuminates a search for a A man must navigate a bizarre hell precious treasure. of his own making if he is to save everything that matters to him.

A PB Monday 27 July, 8.15 pm A PB Tuesday 28 July, 8.15 pm B PB Wednesday 29 July, 4.30 pm A PB Wednesday 29 July, 6.30 pm

THE PRIDE OF STRATHMOOR PILOTS ON THE WAY HOME THE MASTER 36

Enchanted Kingdom 3D ALL AGES ALL FOR Directors: Patrick Morris, Neil Nightingale UK 2014 | 87 mins Producers: Myles Connolly, Amanda Hill, Neil Nightingale Photography: Rod Clarke, Robin Cox, Mark Deeble, Jonathan Jones, Brendan McGinty, Jamie McPherson, Simon Werry Music: Patrick Doyle Narrator: Idris Elba 3D/G cert

©BBC EARTH PRODUCTIONS AFRICA LIMITED AND RELIANCE PRODCO LLC 2014 This amazing, immersive big-screen and lava-spewing volcanoes, to adventure offers a glorious visual crashing waterfalls and deep fantastical rhapsody to the natural wonders of a seas, as we experience some of the continent. Delightfully voiced by Idris greatest gatherings of wildlife ever Elba, this really is an ideal all-ages captured on film. With up-close-and- film. — NM personal animal encounters and “The creators of BBC’s groundbreaking absolutely stunning scenery, this is Walking with Dinosaurs 3D and Earth an unspeakably beautiful film that take us on a spellbinding journey presents nature in all her epic through seven realms of Africa to reveal grandeur.” — New York International a natural world stranger, more magical, Children’s Film Festival and more mystical than anything we might imagine. The film flows likes a stream, with extraordinary timelapse photography, sweeping aerial shots, and macro and micro lensed 3D 3D EMB Saturday 25 July, 11.45 am propelling us from enchanted forests 3D LHP Sunday 2 August, 1.00 pm to the boiling edge of the underworld, 3D EMB Saturday 8 August, 11.45 am from celestial ice-capped mountains

Landfill Harmonic

PROUDLY PRESENTED IN Directors: Brad Allgood, ASSOCIATION WITH Graham Townsley USA 2015 | 84 mins Co-director/Producer: Juliana Penaranda-Loftus With: The Recycled Orchestra of Cateura Festivals: SXSW 2015 Audience Award (24 Beats Per Second), SXSW Film Festival 2015 In Spanish with English subtitles landfillharmonicmovie.com

The ingenuity of a music teacher Harmonic follows their progress as they Features selected by Nic Marshall of Square provides the means for children from tentatively begin to perform orchestral Eyes – New Zealand Children’s Film Foundation, a poor South American community to classics in public. Boosted by a viral reach out to the world at large in this video and a growing fan base which ardent promoters of international cinema uplifting documentary. Their home includes their heroes-turned-sponsors, to our youngest audiences and their movie- is one of the grimiest locations in Megadeth, the Recycled Orchestra South America – an enormous landfill of Cateura travels the world. When going companions. The animated short film sprawling across the flood plains of floods engulf their ramshackle housing, programmes are selected by Malcolm Turner, Paraguay. Scavenging materials from can the visibility these children have the dump, a rubbish picker and a music achieved through music make a with assistance from Nic. teacher begin to improvise instruments. difference for their families back home? Used X-ray printouts serve as the skins of a drum set. A battered aluminium salad bowl and strings tuned with table forks make a violin. Bottle caps work perfectly as keys for a saxophone. Soon A NT Saturday 1 August, 2.00 pm they enlist children from local families A NT Sunday 2 August, 11.00 am to join a small orchestra. A PH Monday 3 August, 6.15 pm Filmed over five years, Landfill B PH Wednesday 5 August, 11.15 am FOR ALL AGES 37

Song of the Sea

Here’s something super special with all- Director: Tomm Moore ages appeal. Years in the making, Tomm Ireland/Luxembourg/France/Belgium/ Moore’s Oscar-nominated, handmade Denmark 2014 | 90 mins animated feature serves up a heady brew Producers: Tomm Moore, Ross Murray, Paul Young, Stephan Roelants, Serge Umé, Marc Umé, of Irish folklore in a dazzling procession Isabelle Truc, Clément Calvet, Jérémie Fajner, of story book images. Its story of a Frederik Villumsen, Claus Toksvig Kjaer Screenplay: Will Collins. Based on an original motherless boy and his speechless little story by Tomm Moore sister finding their place (and her voice) Editor: Darragh Byrne in a world of restless spirits is fraught Production designer: Adrien Merigeau Music: Bruno Coulais, Kíla with adventure and imbued with Voices: David Rawle, Brendan Gleeson, Fionnula emotions anyone might recognise. Flanagan, Lisa Hannigan, Lucy O’Connell, Jon Kenny, Pat Shortt, Colm Ó’Snodaigh, Liam “This visually stunning animation Hourican, Kevin Swierszcz masterwork, steeped in Irish myth, Festivals: Toronto, Busan, London 2014; folklore and legend, so adroitly mixes Sydney 2015 PG cert the magical and the everyday that to watch it is to be wholly immersed in an enchanted world. Those who saw director Tomm Moore’s previous film, 2009’s The Secret of Kells, will hardly be surprised. Like Japan’s transcendent Hayao Miyazaki, Moore has a great gift appear… including energetic fairies, for diving deeply into his culture and unpleasant elves, a disconcerting witch “It’s about story and heart coming back with treasures for all… called Macha, the legendary storyteller and emotion and wonder Song of the Sea begins with the the Great Seanachaí and the sea god myth of the selkie, a creature who Mac Lir… One of the messages of this and craftsmanship and manages to be a seal in the ocean but emotional film is the power of song to because of that it becomes a human on land. That legend and change worlds. So it’s appropriate that timeless, a beautiful piece others from Ireland’s great treasure Song of the Sea’s music, composed house of tales come to play a major by Bruno Coulais in collaboration with of art that will delight A EMB Sunday 26 July, 1.30 pm part in the lives of a young brother and the Irish group Kíla, is exceptionally audiences old and young.” A PH Saturday 1 August, 2.30 pm sister and their family… A whole flotilla melodic and pure pleasure to listen to.” A LHP Saturday 8 August, 3.15 pm — Todd Brown, Twitch Sunday 9 August, 3.00 pm of lively and colorful supernatural folk — Kenneth Turan, LA Times A RX

When Marnie Was There Omodie no Marnie

From the house of Miyazaki, bearing Director: Yonebayashi Hiromasa his praise but not his participation, Japan 2014 | 103 mins comes this delicately crafted tale Producers: Nishimura Yoshiaki, Hoshino Koji of a timid girl and her mysterious Screenplay: Niwa Keiko, Ando Masashi, Yonebayashi Hiromasa. Based on the novel by new friend by director Yonebayashi Joan G. Robinson Hiromasa (Arrietty). Based on the 1967 Animation director: Ando Masashi Production designer: Taneda Yohei children’s novel by British author Joan Music: Muramatsu Takatsugu G. Robinson, its setting (and spirit Japanese voices: Takatsuki Sara, Arimura Kasumi, world) have been elegantly transposed Matsushima Nanako, Terajima Susumu, Negishi Toshie, Moriyama Ryoko, Yoshiyuki Kazuko, to an idyllic Japanese village that feels Kuroki Hitomi faintly Gothic and totally Ghibli. Anna, English voices: Hailee Steinfeld, Kiernan Shipka, Geena Davis, John C. Reilly, Grey Griffin, an artistically gifted but withdrawn Catherine O’Hara, Ellen Burstyn, Vanessa Williams girl, is sent from Sapporo to spend the Festivals: Rotterdam 2015 summer convalescing from asthma at PG cert her aunt and uncle’s home by the sea. While out walking, Anna beholds an abandoned mansion across the bay, where she meets Marnie, a mysterious blond girl. They form an instant club of two – but the lines between reality and ©2014 GNDHDDTK fantasy blur as Marnie’s story is pieced Bursting with color and detail, together from an intriguing trail of buoyed along and uplifted by pianist The latest – and we hope hints and clues. Muramatsu Takatsugu’s feather-light not last – feature from “Marnie is about friendship, and score, the film’s traditional animation In Japanese with English subtitles the bond that brings Anna around to style gives the already old-fashioned Studio Ghibli is a A LHP Sunday 26 July, 1.15 pm socializing with other girls her age. narrative an even more timeless feel. beautifully animated tale A RX Sunday 26 July, 3.00 pm Yonebayashi’s open-hearted tale, more Instead of marking what could be the of the growing friendship A EMB Sunday 2 August, 1.00 pm than any other Ghibli offering, could end of an era, it arrives almost like conceivably have worked just as well a classic heirloom, uncovered and and emotional adventures In English – dubbed in live-action, and yet the tender restored for contemporary eyes.” of two 12-year-old girls. A PH Saturday 8 August, 12.45 pm story gains so much from the studio’s — Peter Debruge, Variety delicate, hand-crafted approach. 38 FOR ALL AGES

Animation for Kids 2015 60 mins approx. | NZIFF recommends this programme for children aged 9–12 | Censors rating tbc

Animation is uniquely capable of The Story of Percival Pilts Crowded Johnny Express creating worlds of almost boundless Janette Goodey, John Lewis | Australia/New Zealand Andrew Khosravani, Cristina Florit Gomila | UK 2014 Kyungmin Woo | Korea 2014 | 5 mins originality and creativity, each with its 2015 | 8 mins 3 mins own perfectly imagined rules and logic Johnny, a lazy intergalactic courier, has A whimsical story about living an Our best ideas and our best intentions – just like kids really. This programme is a delivery to make. His package isn’t impractical life based on a childhood will only help us so far. bookended by two stunning examples very big and he seems to have been promise. of this. New Zealand animator, Janette Scoop sent to an empty planet to drop it off. Goodey, although mostly resident in Petux The Brothers McLeod | UK 2014 | 2 mins Rosso Papavero Australia these days, did much of the | | Leonid Shmelkov Russia 2015 6 mins Martin Smatana | Slovakia 2015 | 6 mins design and costuming work on The Clark and Tiffany take their Chopper- Story of Percival Pilts in Auckland. It is Things are plenty weird down on the Chopper to the annual Lava Fish Day. A boy becomes dazzled by the farm – and it’s got something to do narrated with consummate skill by our MiMO glittering charms of a fantastic circus own Mark Hadlow. And the closing with that cord hanging from the sky and finds himself swept into the new that the farmer keeps pulling. Yee Chang Pei, Shannon Oon Qian Yi | Singapore film, one of the most complex films we 2014 | 2 mins reality on the other side of the tent have shown in the Kids programme, My Big Brother flap. navigates a world where bullies can A charming and beautifully hand- Jason Rayner | USA 2014 | 3 mins hold sway and you might not know drawn film channelling the art of a The Dam Keeper who your true friends are. In between, Lots of kids have a big brother. But very famous artist called Joan Miró. Daisuke Tsutsumi, Robert Kondo | USA 2014 | 18 mins are liberal doses of hilarity, intrigue how big is TOO big? Balloona Laguna A big story of a small town relying and a chicken with special powers. Matisse Gonzalez | Germany 2014 | 7 mins on a little pig who takes care of the windmill that keeps them all safe. A bizarre encounter with a mean- spirited balloon animal seller turns into a wild and crazy jam session.

B PAR Saturday 1 August, 11.45 am

THE STORY OF PERCIVAL PILTS MY BIG BROTHER BALLOONA LAGUNA

Toons for Tots 2015 73 mins approx. | NZIFF recommends this programme for children aged 4–8 | Censors rating tbc

Welcome to Toons for Tots – a Hello World No Toast The Law of the Jungle collection of films for one of our most Eric Serra | France 2012 | 6 mins Stephen Templer | New Zealand 2015 | 2 mins Pascale Hecquet | France 2015 | 6 mins discerning audiences aimed at bringing the simple fascination and pure An inquisitive newborn owl emerges No toast, no for me. I’m sailin’ across In the jungle there are big monkeys, wonder of animation to our youngest in a world full of surprises and strange the sea! A scurvy crew set sail. there are little monkeys and then there cinephiles. A richly imagined roster of new friends. are smart monkeys. magical animals populates this year’s The Elephant and the cinematic journey. From sparky little Frabbits Bicycle A Fright to Remember Charlie Kothe | USA 2014 | 6 mins Harry Gold | Australia 2014 | 5 mins owls to street-sweeping elephants and Olesya Shchukina | France 2014 | 9 mins dumb dinosaurs to genius reindeer, all A swamp of weird little critters dodge One elephant’s crazy quest to earn Monsters to the left of me, monsters of these colourful characters offer up a explosions and try to avoid all the bits enough money to buy a bicycle. to the right – but fields of dancing diverse assortment of thrills, spills and that fall off their friends. flowers in front of me every time I – quite often – giggles galore. Toons Wayne the Stegosaurus close my eyes. for Tots is what fun looks like! The Little Cousteau Aran Quinn, Jeff Dates | USA 2014 | 2 mins Jakub Kouril | Czech Republic 2013 | 8 mins Bzz For a Stegosaurus Wayne is a great Luca Fattore | Denmark 2014 | 2 mins A little boy dreams of daring undersea guy. But he’s not the smartest dinosaur adventures. on the block. Flies fly fast and high. But spider webs can change everything. Larisa Can Fly Zebra | Polina Manokhins, Elizaveta Manokhins Russia Julia Ocker | Germany 2013 | 3 mins Rabbit and Deer | 2013 7 mins Péter Vácz | Hungary 2012 | 17 mins This little zebra is really having some Welcome to a poetic world where a problems getting its stripes together. Rabbit and Deer are best friends. But granny can fly. lately Deer has started a very odd science experiment.

B EMB Saturday 25 July, 10.00 am

ZEBRA WAYNE THE STEGOSAURUS A FRIGHT TO REMEMBER 39

CG City Gallery NT Nga¯ Taonga Sound & Vision PH Penthouse Cinema Schedule EMB Embassy Theatre (formerly The Film Archive) RX Roxy Cinema ED Embassy Deluxe PAR Paramount TP Soundings Theatre, Te Papa LHP Light House Petone PB Paramount Bergman

Friday 24 July A 9.30 pm Turbo Kid (EMB) 95 p76 A 8.15 pm Amy (PH) 128 p10 B 11.15 am Clouds of Sils Maria (EMB) 124 p23 A 10.00 pm The Duke of Burgundy (PAR) 106 p48 A 8.15 pm Dark Hearts (PB) 90 p35 B 11.15 am The Second Mother (PH) 110 + 14 p20 A 10.00 pm Yakuza Apocalypse (ED) 115 p76 A 8.15 pm The Enemy Within (NT) 116 p62 A 8.30 pm 808 (ED) 107 p66 B 12.00 pm Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict (NT) 96 p73 Sunday 26 July B 1.45 pm The Postman’s White Nights (PH) 101 p30 A 8.45 pm Being Evel (PAR) 100 p58 A 11.00 am Going Clear (EMB) 120 p54 B 2.00 pm Amy (EMB) 128 p10 A 8.45 pm The Postman’s White Nights (EMB) 101 p30 A 11.30 am Balikbayan #1 (PAR) 140 p49 B 2.00 pm Ixcanul Volcano (NT) 95 p26 A 11.30 am Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict (NT) 96 p73 Tuesday 28 July B 2.00 pm The Silences (PAR) 73 p56 A 12.45 pm The Second Mother (PH) 110 + 14 p20 B 11.00 am Balikbayan #1 (TP) 140 p49 B 4.00 pm Listen to Me Marlon (NT) 97 + 18 p70 A 1.00 pm Lambert & Stamp (ED) 117 p66 B 11.15 am Our Little Sister (PH) 128 p30 B 4.15 pm A Most Violent Year (PAR) 125 + 2 p33 A 1.15 pm When Marnie... (Subtitled) (LHP) 103 p37 B 12.00 pm Awake: The Life of Yogananda (NT) 87 p53 B 4.45 pm The Diary of a Teenage Girl (EMB) 102 p43 A 1.30 pm Return of the Free China Junk (NT) 96 p19 B 12.15 pm Grandma (EMB) 80 p34 A 6.00 pm While We’re Young (LHP) 97 p34 A 1.30 pm Song of the Sea (EMB) 90 p37 C 12.15 pm Michael Smither: Prints (CG) 56 p15 A 6.15 pm ‘71 (RX) 99 p42 A 2.15 pm The Russian Woodpecker (PB) 82 + 7 p56 B 1.00 pm From Scotland with Love (PAR) 75 p67 A 6.15 pm Grandma (PH) 80 p34 A 3.00 pm Results (PAR) 104 p34 B 1.15 pm A Pigeon Sat on a Branch... (PB) 100 + 15 p51 A 6.15 pm Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict (NT) 96 p73 A 3.00 pm When Marnie... (Subtitled) (RX) 103 p37 C 1.45 pm Michael Smither: Prints (CG) 56 p15 A 7.00 pm City of Gold (ED) 89 p60 A 3.15 pm Jauja (ED) 108 p50 B 1.45 pm The Measure of a Man (PH) 93 p24 A 7.00 pm Far from Men (PAR) 110 p24 A 3.15 pm Latin Lover (PH) 104 + 14 p29 B 2.00 pm Marie’s Story (NT) 95 p24 A 7.15 pm The Lobster (EMB) 118 p7 A 3.30 pm Clouds of Sils Maria (LHP) 124 p23 B 2.00 pm The Mafia Kills Only in Summer (EMB) 90 p28 A 8.00 pm Ex Machina (PH) 108 p44 A 3.45 pm Crossing Rachmaninoff (EMB) 79 p15 B 2.15 pm The Russian Woodpecker (TP) 82 + 7 p56 A 8.15 pm Ixcanul Volcano (NT) 95 p26 A 4.00 pm The Enemy Within (NT) 116 p62 B 3.30 pm Mommy (ED) 139 p45 A 8.15 pm Victoria (LHP) 140 p47 A 4.15 pm Censored Voices (PB) 87 p53 B 3.30 pm Western (PAR) 93 p51 A 9.00 pm 808 (ED) 107 p66 A 5.15 pm The Wolfpack (RX) 84 p57 B 3.45 am The Tribe (PB) 132 p47 A 9.15 pm Tangerine (PAR) 88 p46 A 5.30 pm Belief (PAR) 88 p14 B 4.00 pm Ex Machina (EMB) 108 p44 A 10.00 pm Yakuza Apocalypse (EMB) 115 p76 A 5.30 pm Mommy (ED) 139 p45 B 4.00 pm The Enemy Within (NT) 116 p62 Saturday 25 July A 5.45 pm Our Little Sister (PH) 128 p30 B 4.15 pm Prophet’s Prey (TP) 93 p56 B 10.00 am Toons for Tots 2015 (EMB) 73 p38 A 6.00 pm Going Clear (LHP) 120 p54 A 6.15 pm A Most Violent Year (RX) 125 + 2 p33 A 6.00 pm Place Unmaking (PB) 96 p18 A 6.15 pm Ever the Land (TP) 90 p15 A 11.00 am Alice Cares (PAR) 79 p52 A 6.15 pm Tchoupitoulas (NT) 80 p50 A 6.15 pm From Scotland with Love (PAR) 75 p67 3D 11.45 am Enchanted Kingdom 3D (EMB) 87 p36 A 6.15 pm The Mafia Kills Only in Summer (EMB) 90 + 10 p28 A 6.15 pm Iris (LHP) 83 p71 A 12.00 pm Red Army (ED) 85 p58 A 7.45 pm Censored Voices (PB) 87 p53 A 6.15 pm The Chinese Mayor (NT) 89 p54 A 12.15 pm Awake: The Life of Yogananda (NT) 87 p53 A 8.15 pm A Most Violent Year (PAR) 125 + 2 p33 A 6.15 pm The Second Mother (EMB) 110 + 14 p20 A 12.45 pm The Silences (PAR) 73 p56 A 8.15 pm Being Evel (PH) 100 p58 A 6.15 pm Umrika (PH) 98 p27 A 1.45 pm Marie’s Story (LHP) 95 p24 A 8.15 pm Partisan (ED) 98 p46 A 6.30 pm Place Unmaking (PB) 96 p18 A 1.45 pm Wrinkles (ED) 89 + 21 p31 A 8.30 pm ‘71 (LHP) 99 p42 A 6.30 pm Wrinkles (ED) 89 + 21 p31 A 2.00 pm Iris (EMB) 83 p71 A 8.30 pm Sherpa (EMB) 96 p11 A 8.00 pm The Fool (LHP) 121 p31 A 2.00 pm Seymour: An Introduction (PH) 81 p68 A 8.15 pm A Girl Walks Home Alone... (PH) 100 p43 A 2.15 pm Marie’s Story (NT) 95 p24 Monday 27 July A 8.15 pm Dark Hearts (PB) 90 p35 A 3.00 pm The Russian Woodpecker (PB) 82 + 7 p56 B 11.15 am Belief (PAR) 88 p14 A 8.15 pm The Colour of Pomegranates (NT) 79 p13 A 3.15 pm Act of Kindness (PAR) 81 p14 B 11.15 am Crossing Rachmaninoff (EMB) 79 p15 A 8.30 pm Mommy (ED) 139 p45 3D 3.45 pm Kiss Me Kate 3D (LHP) 110 p12 B 11.15 am Seymour: An Introduction (PH) 81 p68 A 8.45 pm The Wolfpack (PAR) 84 p57 A 3.45 pm The Misfits (RX) 125 p12 B 1.00 pm The Tribe (PB) 132 p47 A 9.00 pm Only the Dead (TP) 78 p61 A 4.00 pm Phoenix (EMB) 98 p26 B 1.15 pm Amy (PH) 128 p10 A 9.00 pm Sunshine Superman (EMB) 100 + 13 p59 A 4.00 pm The Postman’s White Nights (PH) 101 p30 B 1.45 pm Results (PAR) 104 p34 A 4.15 pm Hill of Freedom (NT) 66 + 22 p29 B 1.45 pm Sherpa (EMB) 96 p11 Wednesday 29 July A 4.15 pm James White (ED) 86 + 15 p45 B 2.00 pm Red Army (ED) 85 p58 B 10.30 am Our Little Sister (EMB) 128 p30 A 5.00 pm How to Change the World (PB) 109 p62 B 2.00 pm Tchoupitoulas (NT) 80 p50 B 11.15 am Latin Lover (PH) 104 + 14 p29 A 5.45 pm Umrika (PAR) 98 p27 B 3.45 pm A Pigeon Sat on a Branch... (PB) 100 + 15 p51 B 11.30 am Ever the Land (PAR) 90 p15 A 6.00 pm The Mafia Kills Only in Summer (LHP) 90 + 10 p28 B 3.45 pm Yakuza Apocalypse (ED) 115 p76 B 11.45 am Very Semi-Serious (NT) 83 + 24 p61 A 6.15 pm City of Gold (ED) 89 p60 B 4.00 pm Far from Men (PAR) 110 p24 C 12.15 pm Hot Pepper (CG) 54 p65 A 6.15 pm Grandma (PH) 80 p34 B 4.00 pm Phoenix (EMB) 98 p26 B 1.15 pm Iris (EMB) 83 p71 A 6.15 pm Ixcanul Volcano (NT) 95 p26 B 4.15 pm The Chinese Mayor (NT) 89 p54 C 1.30 pm Always for Pleasure (CG) 58 p65 A 6.30 pm Amy (EMB) 128 p10 A 6.15 pm Girlhood (EMB) 113 p44 B 1.45 pm Umrika (PH) 98 p27 A 7.15 pm The Forbidden Room (PB) 130 p50 A 6.15 pm Marie’s Story (NT) 95 p24 B 2.00 pm Democrats (NT) 99 p54 A 8.00 pm Experimenter (PAR) 90 p33 A 6.15 pm The Measure of a Man (PH) 93 p24 B 2.00 pm The Wrecking Crew (PAR) 101 p69 A 8.00 pm The Club (PH) 97 p21 A 6.15 pm Umrika (LHP) 98 p27 B 3.15 pm Victoria (EMB) 140 p47 A 8.15 pm 600 Miles (ED) 85 p42 A 6.15 pm Western (PAR) 93 p51 B 4.15 pm Banksy Does New York (NT) 80 + 16 p70 A 8.15 pm Far from Men (LHP) 110 p24 A 6.30 pm Going Clear (RX) 120 p54 B 4.15 pm Partisan (ED) 98 p46 A 8.15 pm The Chinese Mayor (NT) 89 p54 A 6.30 pm James White (ED) 86 + 15 p45 B 4.15 pm Tangerine (PAR) 88 p46 A 8.30 pm Inherent Vice (RX) 149 p50 A 6.30 pm Pervert Park (PB) 77 p55 B 4.30 pm Dark Hearts (PB) 90 p35 40

A 6.15 pm Clouds of Sils Maria (EMB) 124 p23 B 4.45 pm Girlhood (EMB) 113 p44 A 2.45 pm Latin Lover (LHP) 104 + 14 p29 A 6.15 pm Dreamcatcher (LHP) 104 p63 B 4.45 pm The Colour of Pomegranates (NT) 79 p13 A 3.00 pm How to Smell a Rose (NT) 65 + 10 p64 A 6.15 pm Experimenter (RX) 90 p33 A 6.15 pm Our Little Sister (LHP) 128 p30 A 3.00 pm Lambert & Stamp (RX) 117 p66 A 6.15 pm New Zealand’s Best 2015 (PAR) 82 p17 A 6.15 pm Pervert Park (PB) 77 p55 A 3.30 pm Cemetery of Splendour (PAR) 122 p48 A 6.15 pm Red Amnesia (PH) 115 p22 A 6.15 pm Red Army (RX) 85 p58 A 3.30 pm Mia madre (EMB) 107 p29 A 6.15 pm She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry (NT) 93 p63 A 6.15 pm The Mafia Kills Only in Summer (PH) 90 + 10 p28 A 3.45 pm How to Change the World (PB) 109 p62 A 6.30 pm Dark Hearts (PB) 90 p35 A 6.30 pm Animation Now 2015 (ED) 89 p35 A 4.15 pm 600 Miles (ED) 85 p42 A 6.30 pm Wrinkles (ED) 89 + 21 p31 A 6.30 pm Hill of Freedom (NT) 66 + 22 p29 A 4.15 pm Around the World in 50 Concerts (PH) 94 p67 A 8.15 pm Goodnight Mommy (PB) 99 p74 A 6.30 pm The Club (PAR) 97 p21 A 4.45 pm Very Semi-Serious (NT) 83 + 24 p61 A 8.15 pm Listen to Me Marlon (NT) 97 + 18 p70 A 7.15 pm While We’re Young (EMB) 97 p34 A 5.15 pm Mavis! (LHP) 80 p69 A 8.30 pm Best of Enemies (PH) 88 p61 A 8.00 pm The Forbidden Room (PB) 130 p50 A 5.30 pm Turbo Kid (RX) 95 p76 A 8.30 pm Cartel Land (LHP) 98 p53 A 8.15 pm Partisan (ED) 98 p46 A 6.00 pm How to Change the World (PB) 109 p62 A 8.30 pm The Duke of Burgundy (ED) 106 p48 A 8.30 pm Sunshine Superman (PH) 100 + 13 p59 3D 6.00 pm Kiss Me Kate 3D (EMB) 110 p12 A 8.45 pm Peace Officer (PAR) 109 p63 A 8.30 pm Welcome to Leith (NT) 86 p57 A 6.15 pm 45 Years (PH) 93 p9 3D 9.00 pm 10,000 Years Later 3D (EMB) 97 p21 A 8.45 pm 54: The Director’s Cut (PAR) 106 p32 A 6.15 pm 600 Miles (ED) 85 p42 A 8.45 pm Results (LHP) 104 p34 A 6.15 pm Red Army (PAR) 85 p58 Thursday 30 July A 9.30 pm Deathgasm (EMB) 86 p75 A 7.00 pm Out of the Mist (NT) 80 p18 B 11.00 am Peace Officer (PAR) 109 p63 A 10.15 pm Yakuza Apocalypse (ED) 115 p76 3D 8.00 pm 10,000 Years Later 3D (ED) 97 p21 B 11.00 am Seymour: An Introduction (EMB) 81 p68 A 8.15 pm Goodnight Mommy (PAR) 99 p74 B 11.15 am 45 Years (PH) 93 p9 Saturday 1 August A 8.15 pm Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans (PH) 112 p59 B 12.00 pm Ixcanul Volcano (NT) 95 p26 A 11.30 am Seymour: An Introduction (EMB) 81 p68 A 8.30 pm Inherent Vice (EMB) 149 p50 C 12.15 pm A Well Spent Life (CG) 44 p65 B 11.45 am Animation for Kids 2015 (PAR) 60 p38 B 1.00 pm Going Clear (EMB) 120 p54 A 12.00 pm Awake: The Life of Yogananda (NT) 87 p53 Monday 3 August B 1.15 pm Best of Enemies (PH) 88 p61 3D 1.00 pm Iraqi Odyssey 3D (ED) 162 p54 B 10.45 am Queen and Country (EMB) 115 p31 C 1.30 pm Spend It All (CG) 41 p65 A 1.30 pm The 50 Year Argument (PAR) 97 p60 B 11.15 am The Mafia Kills Only in Summer (PH) 90 + 10 p28 B 2.00 pm Marie’s Story (NT) 95 p24 A 1.45 pm The Misfits (EMB) 125 p12 B 11.30 am City of Gold (PAR) 89 p60 B 2.00 pm New Zealand’s Best 2015 (PAR) 82 p17 A 2.00 pm Landfill Harmonic (NT) 84 p36 B 11.45 am Red Amnesia (TP) 115 p22 B 2.15 pm Wrinkles (ED) 89 + 21 p31 A 2.15 pm Crossing Rachmaninoff (LHP) 79 p15 B 12.00 pm Act of Kindness (NT) 81 p14 B 3.30 pm The Lobster (EMB) 118 p7 A 2.15 pm Pervert Park (PB) 77 p55 C 12.15 pm Hot Pepper (CG) 54 p65 B 3.45 pm The Fool (PB) 121 p31 A 2.30 pm Song of the Sea (PH) 90 p37 B 1.15 pm Lamb (EMB) 94 + 15 p23 B 4.00 pm Listen to Me Marlon (NT) 97 + 18 p70 A 3.45 pm Court (PAR) 116 p27 B 1.30 pm Iris (PH) 83 p71 B 4.15 pm A Girl Walks Home Alone... (ED) 100 p43 A 4.00 pm Banksy Does New York (NT) 80 + 16 p70 C 1.30 pm Spend It All (CG) 41 p65 B 4.15 pm Turbo Kid (PAR) 95 p76 A 4.00 pm Mommy (ED) 139 p45 B 1.45 pm El Cinco (PAR) 100 p20 A 6.15 pm Ex Machina (RX) 108 p44 A 4.00 pm Results (RX) 104 p34 B 2.15 pm Awake: The Life of Yogananda (NT) 87 p53 A 6.15 pm Girlhood (LHP) 113 p44 A 4.00 pm Tell Spring Not to Come This Year (PB) 83 p57 B 2.15 pm James White (TP) 86 + 15 p45 A 6.15 pm Phoenix (PH) 98 p26 A 4.00 pm The Measure of a Man (LHP) 93 p24 B 3.30 pm The Fool (PB) 121 p31 A 6.15 pm Tell Spring Not to Come This Year (PB) 83 p57 A 4.30 pm Grandma (EMB) 80 p34 B 3.45 pm The Brand New Testament (EMB) 117 p21 A 6.15 pm The Measure of a Man (EMB) 93 p24 A 4.30 pm Iris (PH) 83 p71 B 4.00 pm 54: The Director’s Cut (PAR) 106 p32 B 6.15 pm William Yang: Blood Links (NT) 59 + 2 p57 A 5.45 pm Tell Spring Not to Come This Year (PB) 83 p57 B 4.15 pm Merchants of Doubt (NT) 96 p55 A 6.30 pm The Duke of Burgundy (ED) 106 p48 A 6.00 pm Phoenix (LHP) 98 p26 B 4.15 pm Only the Dead (TP) 78 p61 A 6.30 pm The Wrecking Crew (PAR) 101 p69 A 6.00 pm Welcome to Leith (NT) 86 p57 B 4.15 pm Spring (ED) 109 p47 A 8.15 pm Censored Voices (PH) 87 p53 A 6.15 pm Black Souls (RX) 103 p28 A 6.15 pm Alice Cares (NT) 79 p52 A 8.15 pm Democrats (NT) 99 p54 A 6.15 pm Lambert & Stamp (PAR) 117 p66 A 6.15 pm Censored Voices (RX) 87 p53 A 8.15 pm Tell Spring Not to Come This Year (PB) 83 p57 A 6.15 pm Phoenix (PH) 98 p26 A 6.15 pm Coming Home (LHP) 109 p22 A 8.30 pm Sunshine Superman (LHP) 100 + 13 p59 A 6.30 pm The Assassin (EMB) 105 p7 A 6.15 pm Landfill Harmonic (PH) 84 p36 A 8.30 pm Victoria (EMB) 140 p47 A 6.45 pm A Girl Walks Home Alone... (ED) 100 p43 A 6.15 pm Mustang (EMB) 94 p45 A 8.45 pm Jauja (ED) 108 p50 A 7.30 pm The Forbidden Room (PB) 130 p50 A 6.15 pm Some Kind of Love (TP) 78 p73 A 8.45 pm The Invitation (PAR) 90 p75 A 8.00 pm Princess (NT) 92 + 28 p46 A 6.15 pm The Russian Woodpecker (PAR) 82 + 7 p56 A 8.15 pm Far from Men (PH) 110 p24 A 6.30 pm Animation Now 2015 (ED) 89 p35 Friday 31 July A 8.15 pm Turbo Kid (LHP) 95 p76 A 8.00 pm Merchants of Doubt (NT) 96 p55 B 11.15 am Clouds of Sils Maria (PH) 124 p23 A 8.45 pm Finders Keepers (PAR) 84 p74 A 8.15 pm Girlhood (PH) 113 p44 B 11.15 am Mia madre (EMB) 107 p29 A 8.45 pm The Invitation (ED) 90 p75 A 8.15 pm Spring (ED) 109 p47 B 11.45 am Umrika (PAR) 98 p27 A 9.00 pm Ex Machina (EMB) 108 p44 A 8.30 pm A Pigeon Sat on a Branch... (PAR) 100 + 15 p51 C 12.15 pm Spend It All (CG) 41 p65 A 8.30 pm Philip Dadson: Sonics From Scratch (TP) 85 + 8 p19 B 12.45 pm William Yang: Blood Links (NT) 59 + 2 p57 Sunday 2 August A 8.30 pm Red Army (LHP) 85 p58 C 1.30 pm A Well Spent Life (CG) 44 p65 A 10.45 am City of Gold (EMB) 89 p60 A 8.30 pm Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans (EMB) 112 p59 B 1.45 pm Around the World in 50 Concerts (PH) 94 p67 A 11.00 am Landfill Harmonic (NT) 84 p36 B 1.45 pm Inherent Vice (EMB) 149 p50 A 11.00 am She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry (PAR) 93 p63 Tuesday 4 August B 2.00 pm Experimenter (PAR) 90 p33 A 12.45 pm Democrats (NT) 99 p54 B 10.15 am Latin Lover (EMB) 104 + 14 p29 B 2.00 pm Lambert & Stamp (ED) 117 p66 3D 1.00 pm Enchanted Kingdom 3D (LHP) 87 p36 B 11.15 am Court (PB) 116 p27 B 2.45 pm The 50 Year Argument (NT) 97 p60 A 1.00 pm The End of the Tour (PAR) 106 + 10 p71 B 11.15 am Mia madre (PH) 107 p29 B 4.00 pm Finders Keepers (PAR) 84 p74 A 1.00 pm When Marnie... (Subtitled) (EMB) 103 p37 B 11.15 am Philip Dadson: Sonics From Scratch (TP) 85 + 8 p19 B 4.15 pm The Duke of Burgundy (ED) 106 p48 3D 1.15 pm Iraqi Odyssey 3D (ED) 162 p54 B 12.00 pm Return of the Free China Junk (NT) 96 p19 B 4.30 pm Pervert Park (PB) 77 p55 A 1.45 pm Clouds of Sils Maria (PH) 124 p23 C 12.15 pm Abandoned Goods (CG) 38 p52 41

B 1.00 pm Embrace of the Serpent (EMB) 125 p10 Thursday 6 August A 11.30 am Dreamcatcher (PAR) 104 p63 C 1.15 pm Abandoned Goods (CG) 38 p52 3D 10.30 am Kiss Me Kate 3D (EMB) 110 p12 3D 11.45 am Enchanted Kingdom 3D (EMB) 87 p36 B 1.30 pm Some Kind of Love (PH) 78 p73 B 11.15 am Coming Home (PH) 109 p22 A 12.45 pm When Marnie... (Dubbed) (PH) 103 p37 B 1.45 pm Dreamcatcher (TP) 104 p63 B 11.30 am Tehran Taxi (PAR) 82 + 3 p26 A 1.15 pm Out of the Mist (NT) 80 p18 B 1.45 pm The End of the Tour (PAR) 106 + 10 p71 B 11.45 am Act of Kindness (NT) 81 p14 A 1.45 pm Around the World in 50 Concerts (PAR) 94 p67 B 2.15 pm Animation Now 2015 (ED) 89 p35 C 12.15 pm Abandoned Goods (CG) 38 p52 A 1.45 pm Latin Lover (EMB) 104 + 14 p29 B 2.30 pm Merchants of Doubt (NT) 96 p55 B 12.45 pm The Second Mother (EMB) 110 + 14 p20 A 3.00 pm Crossing Rachmaninoff (PH) 79 p15 B 3.45 pm The Assassin (EMB) 105 p7 C 1.15 pm Michael Smither: Prints (CG) 56 p15 A 3.00 pm Under Electric Clouds (ED) 138 p51 B 4.00 pm Cartel Land (TP) 98 p53 B 1.30 pm Mustang (PH) 94 p45 A 3.15 pm How to Smell a Rose (NT) 65 + 10 p64 B 4.15 pm A Poem Is a Naked Person (ED) 90 p64 B 1.45 pm 99 Homes (PAR) 112 p33 A 3.15 pm Song of the Sea (LHP) 90 p37 B 4.15 pm Deathgasm (PAR) 86 p75 3D 2.00 pm 10,000 Years Later 3D (ED) 97 p21 A 4.00 pm Coming Home (PAR) 109 p22 B 4.30 pm Welcome to Leith (NT) 86 p57 B 2.00 pm How to Smell a Rose (NT) 65 + 10 p64 A 4.15 pm Mavis! (EMB) 80 p69 A 6.15 pm Being Evel (RX) 100 p58 B 3.30 pm Holding the Man (EMB) 128 p11 A 4.15 pm Women He’s Undressed (RX) 99 + 11 p73 A 6.15 pm My Golden Days (EMB) 120 p25 B 3.45 pm Princess (NT) 92 + 28 p46 A 4.45 pm Saint Laurent (PH) 151 p25 A 6.15 pm Rams (PAR) 93 + 11 p27 B 4.00 pm 808 (ED) 107 p66 A 5.00 pm Alice Cares (NT) 79 p52 A 6.15 pm Some Kind of Love (PH) 78 p73 B 4.15 pm The Wolfpack (PAR) 84 p57 A 5.15 pm Inherent Vice (LHP) 149 p50 A 6.15 pm The Diary of a Teenage Girl (LHP) 102 p43 A 6.15 pm Embrace of the Serpent (EMB) 125 p10 A 5.45 pm Cemetery of Splendour (ED) 122 p48 A 6.15 pm The Price of Peace (TP) 87 p19 A 6.15 pm Out of the Mist (NT) 80 p18 A 6.15 pm Queen and Country (EMB) 115 p31 A 6.15 pm Very Semi-Serious (NT) 83 + 24 p61 A 6.15 pm Red Amnesia (LHP) 115 p22 A 6.30 pm Black Souls (PAR) 103 p28 A 6.30 pm Dope (ED) 115 p43 A 6.15 pm Very Semi-Serious (PH) 83 + 24 p61 A 6.30 pm Deathgasm (RX) 86 p75 A 8.30 pm Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans (LHP) 112 p59 A 6.15 pm Women He’s Undressed (PAR) 99 + 11 p73 A 6.45 pm I Am Thor (NT) 84 p75 A 8.30 pm The Colour of Pomegranates (NT) 79 p13 A 6.30 pm A Poem Is a Naked Person (ED) 90 p64 A 7.45 pm Prophet’s Prey (PH) 93 p56 A 8.30 pm The Tribe (PAR) 132 p47 A 8.15 pm The Forbidden Room (PB) 130 p50 3D 8.15 pm Love 3D (ED) 134 p76 A 8.30 pm Victoria (PH) 140 p47 A 8.30 pm Black Souls (LHP) 103 p28 A 8.15 pm Saint Laurent (LHP) 151 p25 A 8.45 pm Prophet’s Prey (TP) 93 p56 A 8.30 pm Coming Home (PH) 109 p22 A 8.45 pm Dope (PAR) 115 p43 A 8.45 pm Spring (ED) 109 p47 A 8.30 pm Dope (ED) 115 p43 A 8.45 pm Holding the Man (EMB) 128 p11 A 9.00 pm Meru (EMB) 89 p59 A 8.30 pm I Am Thor (NT) 84 p75 Sunday 9 August Wednesday 5 August A 8.45 pm The Look of Silence (PAR) 99 p55 A 11.00 am Best of Enemies (EMB) 88 p61 B 11.00 am Tom Who? The Enigma of Tom Kreisler (TP) 73 p19 A 9.00 pm The Diary of a Teenage Girl (EMB) 102 p43 A 1.00 pm Lamb (EMB) 94 + 15 p23 B 11.15 am Court (PB) 116 p27 Friday 7 August A 1.00 pm Saint Laurent (PH) 151 p25 B 11.15 am Landfill Harmonic (PH) 84 p36 B 11.00 am Saint Laurent (EMB) 151 p25 A 1.15 pm How to Change the World (PB) 109 p62 B 11.45 am Rams (PAR) 93 + 11 p27 B 11.15 am Crossing Rachmaninoff (PH) 79 p15 LC 2.00 pm Lonesome (PAR) 69 p13 B 12.00 pm 45 Years (EMB) 93 p9 B 11.30 am Nga¯ Whanaunga 2015 (TP) 94 p17 A 3.00 pm Song of the Sea (RX) 90 p37 C 12.15 pm Always for Pleasure (CG) 58 p65 C 12.15 pm Always for Pleasure (CG) 58 p65 A 3.15 pm Mia madre (LHP) 107 p29 B 12.30 pm She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry (NT) 93 p63 B 1.00 pm Women He’s Undressed (PH) 99 + 11 p73 A 3.15 pm Under Electric Clouds (ED) 138 p51 B 1.15 pm The Silences (PH) 73 p56 C 1.30 pm Hot Pepper (CG) 54 p65 A 3.30 pm Our Little Sister (EMB) 128 p30 C 1.30 pm A Well Spent Life (CG) 44 p65 3D 1.30 pm Love 3D (ED) 134 p76 A 4.00 pm Lambert & Stamp (PH) 117 p66 B 1.30 pm The Price of Peace (TP) 87 p19 B 1.30 pm The Look of Silence (PAR) 99 p55 A 4.00 pm She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry (NT) 93 p63 3D 1.45 pm Iraqi Odyssey 3D (ED) 162 p54 B 2.00 pm Mavis! (EMB) 80 p69 A 4.30 pm Cartel Land (PAR) 98 p53 B 2.00 pm Best of Enemies (PAR) 88 p61 B 2.00 pm Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict (TP) 96 p73 A 5.00 pm Holding the Man (RX) 128 p11 B 2.00 pm While We’re Young (EMB) 97 p34 B 3.45 pm Tale of Tales (EMB) 125 p9 A 5.45 pm Belief (LHP) 88 p14 B 2.30 pm Alice Cares (NT) 79 p52 B 4.00 pm Dope (ED) 115 p43 A 6.00 pm A Poem Is a Naked Person (ED) 90 p64 B 4.00 pm Around the World in 50 Concerts (TP) 94 p67 B 4.00 pm Out of the Mist (NT) 80 p18 A 6.00 pm Banksy Does New York (NT) 80 + 16 p70 B 4.00 pm Black Souls (PAR) 103 p28 B 4.15 pm ’71 (PAR) 99 p42 A 6.15 pm 45 Years (EMB) 93 p9 B 4.15 pm I Am Thor (NT) 84 p75 B 4.15 pm 600 Miles (TP) 85 p42 A 6.30 pm While We’re Young (PH) 97 p34 B 4.15 pm Mustang (EMB) 94 p45 A 6.15 pm 54: The Director’s Cut (RX) 106 p32 A 6.45 pm A Girl Walks Home Alone... (PAR) 100 p43 B 4.45 pm The Invitation (ED) 90 p75 A 6.15 pm Cemetery of Splendour (ED) 122 p48 A 8.00 pm Cemetery of Splendour (ED) 122 p48 A 6.15 pm 99 Homes (RX) 112 p33 A 6.15 pm Nga¯ Whanaunga 2015 (TP) 94 p17 A 8.15 pm Being Evel (LHP) 100 p58 A 6.15 pm El Cinco (PAR) 100 p20 A 6.15 pm The 50 Year Argument (NT) 97 p60 A 8.30 pm Meru (PH) 89 p59 A 6.15 pm Listen to Me Marlon (NT) 97 + 18 p70 A 6.15 pm The Brand New Testament (LHP) 117 p21 A 8.30 pm Tale of Tales (EMB) 125 p9 A 6.15 pm Mia madre (PH) 107 p29 A 6.15 pm Women He’s Undressed (PH) 99 + 11 p73 A 6.15 pm The Wrecking Crew (LHP) 101 p69 A 6.30 pm Saint Laurent (EMB) 151 p25 Please note the following screening times are outside the A 6.15 pm Tom Who? The Enigma of Tom Kreisler (TP) 73 p19 regular NZIFF dates. A 6.30 pm The Fool (PAR) 121 p31 A 6.30 pm Tehran Taxi (EMB) 82 + 3 p26 A 8.30 pm Deathgasm (LHP) 86 p75 Monday 10 August A 6.45 pm 808 (ED) 107 p66 A 8.30 pm Mustang (PH) 94 p45 A 8.30 pm Arabian Nights – Volume 1 (PAR) 125 p49 A 8.15 pm Dope (LHP) 115 p43 A 8.30 pm Princess (NT) 92 + 28 p46 A 8.30 pm ’71 (PAR) 99 p42 Tuesday 11 August A 8.45 pm A Poem Is a Naked Person (ED) 90 p64 A 8.30 pm Going Clear (PH) 120 p54 A 8.30 pm Arabian Nights – Volume 2 (PAR) 131 p49 A 8.45 pm James White (TP) 86 + 15 p45 A 8.30 pm Merchants of Doubt (NT) 96 p55 A 9.00 pm 99 Homes (PAR) 112 p33 Wednesday 12 August A 8.30 pm Meru (RX) 89 p59 3D 9.45 pm Love 3D (EMB) 134 p76 A 8.30 pm Arabian Nights – Volume 3 (PAR) 125 p49 A 8.30 pm Red Amnesia (TP) 115 p22 A 8.45 pm The Brand New Testament (EMB) 117 p21 Saturday 8 August A 9.00 pm Spring (ED) 109 p47 A 11.15 am The 50 Year Argument (NT) 97 p60 42

’71 FRESH Director: Yann Demange UK 2014 | 99 mins Producers: Angus Lamont, Robin Gutch Screenplay: Gregory Burke Music: David Holmes With: Jack O’Connell, Paul Anderson, Richard Dormer Festivals: Berlin 2014; Sundance 2015 CinemaScope/R16 graphic violence, offensive language

“Bomb-torn Belfast in 1971 must have himself cut adrift from his companions. been like nowhere else on Earth – more As night closes in, he has no idea how like a rubble-strewn circle of hell. This to get back to his barracks, and must is the apocalyptic vision laid out in throw himself on the mercy of loyalist Yann Demange’s stunningly well- allies who are no certain guarantees of crafted survival thriller, ’71. The film’s sanctuary… He’s green, terrified, out of stark realism and bruising impact are his depth. O’Connell’s performance in enough in themselves, but the risk, this near-wordless role hardly strikes a and the real artistic payoff, is its bold false note: he’s excellent as usual.” sensory plunge into this Hadean inferno. — Tim Robey, The Telegraph Jack O’Connell [Starred Up] stars as Gary Hook, a young squaddie fresh out of training school, whose unit is dispatched to help with peacekeeping in the Northern Irish capital, amid the rising tensions of that fatefully violent A RX Friday 24 July, 6.15 pm year. These unprepared rookies have A LHP Sunday 26 July, 8.30 pm barely taken to the streets before A PAR Wednesday 5 August, 8.30 pm Friday 7 August, 4.15 pm rioting breaks out, and Gary finds B PAR

600 Miles 600 millas

Director: Gabriel Ripstein Mexico/USA 2015 85 mins With: Tim Roth, Kristyan Ferrer, Harrison Thomas We line up the films that grabbed our attention Festivals: Berlin 2015 Best First Feature Award, Berlin and held it with their sustained energy International Film Festival 2015 In English and Spanish, with and originality – in subject, technique and English subtitles sensibility. R16 violence, offensive language

Placing us in the passenger seat of a eruptions of jarring violence, first-timer southbound SUV opposite a nervy Gabriel Ripstein reveals a budding young Mexican weapons smuggler, this talent of supreme assurance – fully tightly coiled hostage thriller leaves a endorsed by the jury at Berlin, where slow burn of palpable suspense and Ripstein received the award for Best tacit political observation. First Film earlier this year. — JF Tim Roth excels as an American ATF “An understated, astutely gauged agent who finds the tables turned look at the way weapons flow south to on him when he’s abducted by the arm Latin American infighting, as seen adolescent gun-runner after a botched through the eyes of two characters on attempt to arrest him. What results opposing sides of the law.” — Peter is a terse, sparingly scripted road Debruge, Variety movie that’s geared in shifting power dynamics and acute characterisation, all the while channelling an authenticity that slyly demythologises crime film A ED Saturday 25 July, 8.15 pm traditions. A ED Sunday 2 August, 4.15 pm Mounting dread at a deliberate A ED Sunday 2 August, 6.15 pm B TP Friday 7 August, 4.15 pm pace, only to punctuate it with sudden FRESH 43

The Diary of a Teenage Girl

Exhilarating in its candour and ironic verve, The Diary of a Teenage Girl recounts the visceral thrills and spills Director: Marielle Heller of 15-year-old Minnie (Bel Powley) as USA 2015 | 102 mins she throws herself into her first affair. Producers: Anne Carey, Bert Hamelinck, Madeline Samit, Miranda Bailey Her secret lover: the ridiculously easy- Screenplay: Marielle Heller. Based on the novel going boyfriend (Alexander Skarsgård) by Phoebe Gloeckner of her blithely hedonistic mother Photography: Brandon Trost Editors: Marie-Hélène Dozo, Koen Timmerman (Kristen Wiig). Music: Nate Heller “Marielle Heller’s tough, irreverent, With: Bel Powley, Alexander Skarsgård, Kristen Wiig, Christopher Meloni, Abby Wait, furiously felt debut feature is faithfully Madeleine Waters, Margarita Levieva adapted from Phoebe Gloeckner’s Festivals: Sundance, Berlin, New Directors/New 2002 novel of the same name, written Films 2015 Cinematography Award (US Dramatic), in the age of grrl power but set in Sundance Film Festival 2015 the mid-70s, when underage girls CinemaScope/R16 drug use, sex scenes, offensive language explored their sexual desires more or less on their own. The narrative takes the form of a diary recorded on audiocassette by Minnie, a 15-year- old aspiring graphic novelist (Aline SAM EMERSON Kominsky is her idol) who is having an who carries the weight of the movie on affair with her mother’s 32-year-old her slight shoulders as Minnie discovers “Remarkably vibrant and boyfriend. Minnie is the aggressor in her sexuality can be a means to both frank… a film with the this affair, and her hunger for sex and self-worth and self-destruction. Kristen love, her wildly swinging emotions, and Wiig delivers as Minnie’s substance- stuff of life coursing the fact that she comes through the dependent bohemian mother, through its veins and sex experience wiser but undaunted are particularly in the film’s darker second very much on its brain.” truly liberating.” — Amy Taubin, Film half, and Alexander Skarsgård infuses Comment the conflicted Monroe with a great — Todd McCarthy, Hollywood B EMB Friday 24 July, 4.45 pm “Drawing on her acting background, deal of sympathy and subtle comedy.” Reporter A LHP Tuesday 4 August, 6.15 pm Heller elicits a truly staggering — Emma Myers, Film Comment A EMB Thursday 6 August, 9.00 pm performance from newcomer Bel Powley,

PRESENTED IN PROUDLY SPONSORED BY Dope ASSOCIATION WITH A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

Director/Screenplay: Ana Lily Amirpour Director/Screenplay: USA 2014 | 100 mins Rick Famuyiwa Photography: Lyle Vincent USA 2015 | 115 mins With: Sheila Vand, Arash Marandi, Mozhan Marnò Music: Pharrell Williams Festivals: Sundance 2014 With: Shameik Moore, Tony In Farsi with English subtitles Revolori, Kiersey Clemons CinemaScope/B&W Festivals: Sundance, Cannes 2015 R16 violence, drug use, sexual Editing Award (US Dramatic), material Sundance Film Festival 2105 CinemaScope/R16 violence, offensive language, drug use, sexual material youaredope.com DAVID MOIR “Looking for a comedy that’s just gun-wielding gangstas… The film If you like female characters to be Amirpour’s pointed and humorous energetic and goofy and flat-out fun? does have a message, involving the givers rather than receivers of vampiric gender politic is present throughout Keep an eye out for Dope, which desire not to be categorized and violence, then Ana Lily Amirpour’s this masterpiece of image, story and manages to put a lighthearted spin dismissed due to one’s background or debut feature is for you. The title experiential filmmaking – you will feel on the adventures of Inglewood kids interests, but nothing so breezy could character, mesmerising in her stillness, you are watching Lynch, Tarantino, who are trying to avoid being shot possibly come off as preachy.” — Mike slides the empty night streets of Bad Hitchcock, Buñuel and Maya Deren. and killed by drug dealers. A hip- D’Angelo, The Dissolve City, a mythical Iranian ghost town Shot stunningly in black and white by hop update of Risky Business for the “An infectiously entertaining, that looks suspiciously like California. Lyle Vincent, this is not to be missed era of Bitcoin and viral memes, Rick twisty-turny punk-comedy-thriller… it Wearing a chador and hipster loafers, on the big screen, with its glorious Famuyiwa’s fourth feature focuses somehow manages to be all that while the Girl (Sheila Vand) watches politely soundtrack, outrageously languid on Malcolm (Shameik Moore), a high also offering a savvy look at race and while a variety of male/female scenes, blood, drugs, oil rigs... this school geek who’s intent on getting achievement in our hyperconnected interactions play out, and there is a movie’s got the lot. — JR into Harvard. His attempt to broker a age.” — Bilge Ebiri, New York retributive justice for those she attacks. liaison between a local dealer (A$AP Our hero, the streetwise but harmless Rocky) and a studious neighborhood A ED Tuesday 4 August, 6.30 pm Arash (Arash Marandi), meets the Girl girl (Zoë Kravitz) results in a series of A LHP Wednesday 5 August, 8.15 pm whilst drug-addled on the way home A PH Tuesday 28 July, 8.15 pm misadventures that find him and his A ED Thursday 6 August, 8.30 pm from a costume party: these two B ED Thursday 30 July, 4.15 pm dorky friends in possession of a large B ED Friday 7 August, 4.00 pm outsiders are drawn together through A ED Saturday 1 August, 6.45 pm A PAR Sunday 9 August, 6.45 pm quantity of MDMA and pursued by A PAR Saturday 8 August, 8.45 pm their isolation and their love of alt-rock. 44 FRESH

Ex Machina

Novelist and screenwriter Alex Garland Director/Screenplay: Alex Garland (The Beach) makes a decisive directorial UK 2015 | 108 mins debut with this smart, sleekly designed Producers: Andrew Macdonald, Allon Reich and flawlessly performed psy-fi drama. Photography: Rob Hardy Editor: Mark Day “Ava (Alicia Vikander) doesn’t mean Music: Ben Salisbury, Geoff Barrow to scare you. She only wants to get With: Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander, inside your head. The heroine of Alex Sonoya Mizuno, Oscar Isaac Festivals: SXSW 2015 Garland’s Ex Machina has sharp blue CinemaScope/R13 nudity, offensive language, eyes, an even, inquisitive voice and content may disturb exmachina-movie.com skin so clear it seems to soften the air around it. She’s also a robot, pieced PROUDLY SPONSORED BY together by a reclusive genius in a house shrouded by mountains, and her thought processes are sparked by the terms millions of humans are keying into Blue Book, the world’s most popular internet search engine… Ava’s creator, the alpha-male tech guru Nathan (Oscar Isaac), describes his eureka moment thusly: it was when he realised that Blue Book didn’t know her and decide whether or not simply tell him what people all over she can pass for a human being… This “Stylish, elegant, tense, the world were thinking, but how they is bewitchingly smart science fiction of cerebral, satirical and were thinking too… Caleb (Domhnall a type that’s all too rare. Its intelligence Gleeson) has won a staff lottery to visit is anything but artificial.” — Robbie creepy… Alicia Vikander’s Nathan at his isolated home-slash-HQ, Collin, The Telegraph bold performance will a helicopter ride away, to bear witness “Shrewdly imagined and persuasively short your circuits.” to the company’s top-secret new made, Ex Machina is a spooky piece product… The aim of the week-long of speculative fiction that’s completely — Dan Jolin, Empire A PH Friday 24 July, 8.00 pm visit is for Caleb to carry out a Turing plausible, capable of both thinking big B EMB Tuesday 28 July, 4.00 pm Test: over the course of seven daily thoughts and providing pulp thrills.” A RX Thursday 30 July, 6.15 pm A EMB Saturday 1 August, 9.00 pm encounters with Ava, he has to get to — Kenneth Turan, LA Times

Girlhood Bande de filles

“Bursting onto the screen in a blast Director/Screenplay: Céline Sciamma of buzzing power pop, Girlhood France 2014 | 113 mins from Céline Sciamma (Water Lilies, Producer: Bénédicte Couvreur Tomboy) is marked from the outset by Photography: Crystel Fournier Editor: Julien Lacheray its energetic embrace of the complexity Production designer: Thomas Grézaud and contradictions of underprivileged, Music: Para One urban teenage life. An (American) With: Karidja Touré, Assa Sylla, Lindsay Karamoh, Marietou Touré, Idrissa Diabate, Simina Soumare, football game is in progress, but the Cyril Mendy, Djibril Gueye players beneath the pads are all female, Festivals: Cannes (Directors’ Fortnight), Toronto, San Sebastián, London 2014; Sundance 2015 mostly black, and speak a slangy In French with English subtitles colloquial French: they are, as the CinemaScope/M offensive language French title has it, a ‘Bande de filles’, a gang of girls from the same notorious Parisian suburbs that spawned La Haine. Choosing to locate her story in these drab, socio-economically depressed surroundings and to tell it through the eyes of a young black girl is not only a departure for Sciamma, whose previously equally well-observed coming-of-age tales have played out in New Zealand audience. In a stunning, mostly white middle class settings, but star-making debut performance, Karidja “Céline Sciamma really hits a risk, and yet it pays off in absolutely Touré plays Marieme, a troubled the mark with this tender, triumphant fashion. Girlhood is a teenager from the Paris projects whose fascinatingly layered, textured film sense of self transforms when she falls spirited story of a stifled that manages to be both a lament for in with three other girls her own age. teen rebelling in a tough sweetness lost and a celebration of I’m not in the best position to assess girl gang on a Parisian wisdom and identity gained, often at the authenticity of the film’s portrayal the very same moment.” — Jessica of these girls and where they come sink estate.” A EMB Monday 27 July, 6.15 pm Kiang, The Playlist from, but it felt more real than any — Kate Stables, Total Film A LHP Thursday 30 July, 6.15 pm “This wonderful coming-of-age other teenager-centric film I think I’ve B EMB Friday 31 July, 4.45 pm drama feels particularly relevant to a ever seen.” — Dominic Corry, NZ Herald A PH Monday 3 August, 8.15 pm FRESH 45

Mustang

While it begins in a burst of lyrical exuberance with schoolchildren frolicking in surf, this knockout first Director: Deniz Gamze Ergüven feature from Deniz Gamze Ergüven Turkey/France/Germany 2015 builds increasing tension culminating in 94 mins an edge-of-seat finale. It’s the tale of Producer: Charles Gillibert Screenplay: Deniz Gamze Ergüven, five orphaned sisters growing in sexual Alice Winocour consciousness, and their guardian Photography: David Chizallet, Ersin Gök uncle and grandmother’s increasing Editor: Mathilde Van de Moortel Music: Warren Ellis attempts to lock down this adolescent With: Güneş Nezihe Şensoy, Doğa Zeynep force. In their coastal Turkish town, Doğuşlu, Elit Işcan, Tuğba Sunguroğlu, Ilayda Akdoğan, Nihal Koldaş, Ayberk Pekcan watchful neighbours defame the Festivals: Cannes (Directors’ Fortnight) 2015 spirited girls’ purity: it’s a world where In Turkish with English subtitles parents still bang on newly-weds’ CinemaScope/Censors rating tbc doors demanding blood on the sheets. So the girls are imprisoned in their sun- filled, several-storeyed house until one by one they are married off – as long as their virginity can be guaranteed. Masterfully under-told, the story rarely leaves the house, unfolding through emotional climax as the possibility of the eyes of the youngest girl, Lale, who freedom diminishes. Mustang depicts “A playful look at five reaches her own brave conclusion that a modern patriarchal Turkey with a young women’s rebellion escape is the only option. deeply enculturated repression: the Likened to The Virgin Suicides in its apparent normality of the restrictions against their strict dreamy style and narrative, Mustang belies their shocking violence. Ergüven upbringing soon becomes has a more urgent political drive, as operates with a light touch, however, something far more we see several different versions of expertly drawing the viewer into a total severely compromised female life. empathy with Lale, her diminishing life stirring and emotional.” A EMB Monday 3 August, 6.15 pm Pared-back storytelling and a bold, options, and one clear principle she — Tim Grierson, Screendaily B EMB Wednesday 5 August, 4.15 pm very present musical score (by Warren surmises: that if you don’t fight, you B PH Thursday 6 August, 1.30 pm Ellis) culminate in a phenomenally die. — JR A PH Friday 7 August, 8.30 pm

James White Mommy

Director/Screenplay/ Return (p77) Editor: Xavier Dolan Director/Screenplay: Canada 2014 | 139 mins Josh Mond With: Anne Dorval, Antoine USA 2015 | 86 mins Olivier Pilon, Suzanne Clément Festivals: Cannes 2014 Photography: Mátyás Erdély Jury Prize, Cannes Film Festival Editor: Matthew Hannam 2014 With: Christopher Abbott, In French and English, Cynthia Nixon, Scott Mescudi with English subtitles Festivals: Sundance 2015 R16 violence, sexual references, Audience Award (NEXT), offensive language, drug use Sundance Film Festival 2015 CinemaScope/Censors rating tbc

SHAYNE LAVERDIÄRE Best known by mainstream audiences Mond keeps us immersed in White’s French-Canadian wunderkind Xavier with the violent, wild Steve, Dolan for his recurring role in the HBO psyche, hugging every expression in Dolan was 25 when he delivered discovers joy and energy in unusual sitcom Girls, gifted newcomer tight close-ups, often to the point of his fifth feature to Cannes in 2014. places. Dolan throws everything but Christopher Abbott obliterates any expressive abstraction. It’s a striking, What’s truly precocious is the power the kitchen sink at Mommy – he uses and all associations in James White, a deeply personal work, dealing almost of the exuberant young filmmaker’s a cameraphone-style, almost-square jagged, painfully intimate portrayal exclusively in raw and unwavering imaginative identification with the screen ratio that he widens for the of a young man perpetually perched intimacy. The profoundly moving effect eponymous mother, brilliantly played film’s happier moments, even getting on the brink of emotional freefall. won’t soon be forgotten. — JF by Anne Dorval. his main character to do the widening Reeling from the recent loss of his “No film at Sundance this year hit “It’s the tale of a wild, gurning with his own hands. Mommy may feel father, while his mother (played with me with more force emotionally than teen, Steve (Antoine Olivier Pilon), crass and bombastic at times… but you bracing commitment by Cynthia Nixon) Josh Mond’s James White… Abbott is an angel face hiding devilish deeds. can’t ignore its heartfelt emotion and battles cancer, Abbott externalises simply phenomenal.” — Brian Tallerico, Steve has severe ADHD, which he winning belief that there’s no single the title character’s psychological RogerEbert.com heavily medicates, and a love-hate definition of what makes a family.” tumult with remarkable sensitivity, relationship with his mother, Die — Dave Calhoun, Time Out oscillating between volatile resentment (Anne Dorval), and another maternal and genuine tenderness as his A ED Saturday 25 July, 4.15 pm figure, their new neighbour, the meek, A ED Sunday 26 July, 5.30 pm mother’s condition worsens. With a A ED Monday 27 July, 6.30 pm stuttering Kyla (Suzanne Clément). B ED Tuesday 28 July, 3.30 pm palpable grasp on his lead character’s B TP Monday 3 August, 2.15 pm Where others would find only misery A ED Tuesday 28 July, 8.30 pm Friday 7 August, 8.45 pm Saturday 1 August, 4.00 pm interiority, first-time filmmaker Josh A TP and pain as Die and Kyla struggle A ED 46 FRESH

Tangerine

It’s Christmas Eve in West Hollywood. Director/Editor: Sean Baker Two transgender prostitute BFFs talk USA 2015 | 88 mins trash and storm the LA streets in this Producers: Marcus Cox, Karrie Cox, Darren Dean, R-rated comedy of infidelity, retribution Shih-ching Tsou, Sean Baker Screenplay: Sean Baker, Chris Bergoch and sorely stretched friendship. Their Photography: Radium Cheung, Sean Baker taxi-driving biggest admirer is having Costume designer: Shih-ching Tsou Starlet With: Kitana Kiki Rodriguez, Mya Taylor, a bad night too. Sean Baker ( ) Karren Karagulian, Mickey O’Hagan, shot the entire movie on a souped-up Alla Tumanian, James Ransome, Luiza Nersisyan, iPhone5S, and the blazing HD hyper- Arsen Grigoryan Festivals: Sundance, San Francisco 2015 reality of the imagery is a perfect In English and Armenian, with English subtitles match for the awesome, OTT emotions Censors rating tbc on display. “It’s trashy, lurid, and hilariously profane – exploitation in the best, most cinematic sense – but without ever losing the thread of human ache that connects the handful of characters (including two transgender prostitutes, an Armenian cab driver, and his family) to each other. Alexandra (Mya Taylor) MAGNOLIA PICTURES accidentally tells Sin-Dee (Kiki Kitana regular), is making his rounds on the Rodriguez) that her man (and pimp) same streets. Obviously, he and the “Juicy and delicious… has been seeing someone else. She hookers converge for a confrontation, fierce energy courses goes ballistic, stalking the streets of along with some other characters, Los Angeles looking first for him, then including the pimp… through every frame of the actual woman (a ‘fish’) he’s been This is what you came here for: this scrappy mosaic of seeing. Even among the least-regulated something that feels real – and not Los Angeles street life.” sex workers there’s a code of honor, because the filmmakers are telling you and ‘this bitch,’ whoever she is, has it is, but because the filmmaking has — David Rooney, Hollywood A PAR Friday 24 July, 9.15 pm violated it. brought pavement and doughnuts and Reporter B PAR Wednesday 29 July, 4.15 pm Meanwhile, the cabbie, Razmik wigs and the smell of crystal meth to (Karren Karagulian, a wonderful Baker life.” — Wesley Morris, Grantland

Partisan Princess

A Million Miles Away (p77) Director: Ariel Kleiman Director/Screenplay: Australia 2015 | 98 mins Tali Shalom Ezer Screenplay: Ariel Kleiman, Israel 2014 | 92 mins Sarah Cyngler Photography: Radek Ładczuk With: Vincent Cassel, Jeremy Editor: Neta Dvorkis Chabriel, Florence Mezzara With: Keren Mor, Shira Haas, Festivals: Sundance 2015 Ori Pfeffer, Adar Zohar Hanetz Cinematography Award Festivals: Sundance 2015 (World Cinema), In Hebrew with English subtitles Sundance Film Festival 2015 R18 sexual violence, sex scenes CinemaScope/Censors rating tbc partisanfilm.com.au

BEN KING In a secluded compound on the Ariel Kleiman. He says he and A controversial national award winner like her, if more seasoned in his outskirts of a dusty war-torn town, the screenwriting partner Sarah Cyngler in Israel, writer/director Tali Shalom alienation. The two invent their own adored Gregori (Vincent Cassel) holds (who also worked on production Ezer’s distinct and original debut is funhouse of sexualised identity play, sway over a bustling refuge for women design and costumes) took inspiration a troubling film in any context. Adar, but Alan can be elusive, less available and children. The children only venture from learning about child assassins in an androgynous 12-year-old girl than the imaginary friend the film beyond the walls when assigned by Colombia. (played by 16-year-old Shira Haas), hints he might be. Their enigmatic the patriarch to visit given addresses. “In French newcomer Jeremy Chabriel lives in a small apartment in intimate closeness only racks up the interest of There they must confirm the identity of as 11-year-old Alexander, with his proximity with her mother, Alma, and the appalling Michael, while Adar’s whoever answers their knock, before feline blue-green eyes and piercing, her young stepfather, Michael. She besotted mother proves disastrously shooting him or her point blank. emotionless gaze, the film has a young is acutely aware of their vigorous negligent. One child, the steely cool Alexander, protagonist who is every inch a match sexual relationship. While Alma is Shocking, for sure, Princess is crafted bridles at the violence and mounts a for Cassel’s perfidiously charismatic at work, Adar’s joshing relationship with disarming sophistication, and passive-aggressive revolt. Channelling Gregori.” — David Rooney, Hollywood with the unemployed Michael portrays the girl’s evolving psychological recognisable contemporary scenarios Reporter becomes increasingly weird, involving defences with admiration and dismay. and sociopathic behaviours into a knockabout games in which he casts richly detailed fictional universe that’s A ED Sunday 26 July, 8.15 pm her in a male role. She begins to A NT Saturday 1 August, 8.00 pm bracingly specific, and yet nowhere B ED Wednesday 29 July, 4.15 pm search for help outside, and finds B NT Thursday 6 August, 3.45 pm specific at all, Partisan marks a A ED Friday 31 July, 8.15 pm it in a new friendship with Alan, a A NT Friday 7 August, 8.30 pm strikingly assured debut for Australian waifish boy who seems startlingly FRESH 47

Victoria

A hot romantic thriller filmed in a single Director: Sebastian Schipper mobile shot, Sebastian Schipper’s Germany 2015 | 140 mins Victoria aces a dazzling experiment Producers: Jan Dressler, Sebastian Schipper, in narrative filmmaking. Catalan Anatol Nitschke, Catherine Baikousis, David Keitsch star Laia Costa plays the eponymous Screenplay: Sebastian Schipper, heroine, a young Spanish exile looking Olivia Neergaard-Holm, Eike Schulz Photography: Sturla Brandth Grøvlen for excitement in Berlin. Amused by Music: Nils Frahm a band of dodgy buddies she sees With: Laia Costa, Frederick Lau, Franz Rogowski, being turned away from the club she’s Burak Yigit, Max Mauff, André M. Hennicke Festivals: Berlin 2015 leaving, she’s persuaded to tag along In German and English, with English subtitles by the flirtatious Sonne (Frederick CinemaScope/R16 violence, offensive language, drug use Lau), a handsome lunk with a soulful gaze. Intimacy beckons, but Sonne’s posse are determined to haul the action out of the Before Sunrise zone and into something more like Pulp Fiction. Encompassing over two hours of seamless real time, Victoria’s single shot presses hard on its increasingly outlaw protagonists, while taking in ©MONKEYBOY a tantalising array of Berlin funk. “On April 27th, 2014, we started “If you’re going to pull a stunt like the camera a little after 4.30 am in a “Sebastian Schipper takes this, you’d damn well better dream up, club we’d built ourselves (in order to us on an exciting journey construct and hone a project that keep locations close to each other), warrants the gimmick. And Schipper, and after two hours and 14 minutes through 140 minutes with his co-writers Olivia Neergaard- – after we’d run, walked, strolled and filmed in one breathtaking Holm and Eike Schulz, most certainly climbed through 22 locations, had sequence. It is as poignant have. Victoria is an exhilarating more than 150 extras handled by six experience, its tension setting in early assistant directors and seven actors as it is astounding.” A LHP Friday 24 July, 8.15 pm before mounting to a nearly unbearable followed in succession by three sound — Bénédicte Prot, Cineuropa B EMB Wednesday 29 July, 3.15 pm pitch, then subsiding and cranking up all crews – we were done – at 6.54 am.” A EMB Thursday 30 July, 8.30 pm over again.” — David Hudson, Fandor — Sebastian Schipper A PH Tuesday 4 August, 8.30 pm

Spring The Tribe Plemya

Directors: Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead USA 2014 | 109 mins Director/Screenplay: Producers: Justin Benson, Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy David Clarke Lawson Jr, Ukraine/The Netherlands Luca Legnani, Aaron Moorhead 2014 | 132 mins Screenplay: Justin Benson Photography: Aaron Moorhead Festivals: Cannes 2014 With: Lou Taylor Pucci, Critics’ Week Grand Prize, Nadia Hilker Cannes Film Festival 2014 Festivals: Toronto, London 2014 In Ukrainian Sign Language Censors rating tbc without subtitles CinemaScope/R18 violence, sexual violence, sex scenes, content may disturb

Writer-directors Justin Benson and in rolling out the usual horror set-ups, Here’s a boarding school gang explosions of retribution and pain. Aaron Moorhead deliver one of the preferring to spend time with our movie like nothing you’ve seen This is filmmaking of amazing formal most refreshing genre discoveries in likeable lovebirds; they slowly turn before. Turning tricks or terrorising confidence and power. years following their indie breakout up the heat on their romance before the streets of Kiev by night, the “Slaboshpytskiy’s feature debut Resolution. Like mad cine-scientists, spooking the audience with the first teenage desperadoes in The Tribe immediately bypasses any suggestion the duo have concocted a heady hint of Lovecraftian creepiness. Swipe are all residents of a school for the of gimmickry and goes straight for the hybrid which seamlessly weaves the right on anyone who looks alluring deaf, communicating entirely in jugular, presenting a Lord of the Flies- creeping unease of Cronenberg’s body- and set up a date for this pic – your sign language. As we watch the like world of social Darwinism that’s horrors with the European lyricism of Tinder match will be swept away by protagonist’s progress from wary as brutal as it is strangely beautiful. Linklater’s Sunrise trilogy. the romance before hiding in your lap outsider to brutal top dog, filmmaker It’s proof that you don’t need the Evan (Lou Taylor Pucci), a drifter, has once the film gets its freak on. — AT Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy relies entirely sound of characters speaking to make to leave town in haste after a bit of on his deaf-mute cast’s gestural a masterpiece – you simply need biffo lands him in hot water. Fleeing language to convey visceral emotions. vision.” — David Fear, San Francisco to Europe, he eventually holes up in There are no subtitles. Everything International Film Festival Bologna, where he falls under the spell is shot with a steely, fluid elegance. of the mysterious Louise, a bewitching B ED Monday 3 August, 4.15 pm Fastidiously elaborated Steadicam set- B PB Monday 27 July, 1.00 pm beauty who’s in town studying as a A ED Monday 3 August, 8.15 pm ups keep us transfixed by every scene, B PB Tuesday 28 July, 3.45 pm geneticist. A ED Tuesday 4 August, 8.45 pm from an awkward first tryst to garish A PAR Tuesday 4 August, 8.30 pm Wednesday 5 August, 9.00 pm The filmmaking duo aren’t interested A ED 48

Cemetery of Splendour Rak ti Khon Kaen VISION

Director/Screenplay: Apichatpong Weerasethakul Thailand/UK/France/ Germany 2015 122 mins With: Jenjira Pongpas Widner, Banlop Lomnoi Festivals: Cannes (Un Certain Regard) 2015 In Thai with English subtitles M adult themes

No one weaves past and present, the “I was spellbound. Its sleep motif spiritual and the animal, the mundane will undoubtedly strike many as apt, and the divine, with the serene because this is a slow, strange film, dream logic of Thai filmmaker and and if you have an immunity to its artist Apichatpong Weerasethakul. trancelike effects (it invades a little His first feature-length film since like a benign virus), you may well drift Uncle Boonmee (which won Cannes away. But if you are susceptible and in 2010) unfolds its enigmas in a trusting enough to let the film gently hospital where soldiers succumbing occupy you, you will have something to a sleeping sickness are tended glorious and quiet to keep for yourself. by a benevolent volunteer. Her Just please, for the love of all things strong sense of spiritual affinity holy, of which this film may very well with one soldier is explored amidst be one, see it in a cinema.” — Jessica manifestations of the location’s Kiang, The Playlist past as a cemetery of kings. But in Apichatpong’s world no one is A PAR Sunday 2 August, 3.30 pm surprised by the uncanny: goddesses A ED Friday 7 August, 6.15 pm may desert their shrine to head off A ED Saturday 8 August, 5.45 pm Sunday 9 August, 8.00 pm for a spot of shopping. A ED

The Duke of Burgundy

Director/Screenplay: Peter Strickland UK 2014 | 106 mins Producer: Andy Starke Photography: Nic Knowland Editor: Mátyás Fekete Music: Cat’s Eyes Here are filmmakers who bend cinema – fiction With: Sidse Babett Knudsen, Chiara D’Anna, Eugenia Caruso, Zita Kraszkó, Monica Swinn, and documentary both – to show us art and Eszter Tompa, Fatma Mohamed Festivals: Toronto, London 2014; life in ways that are completely their own. Rotterdam 2015 CinemaScope/R18 sex scenes

In the opulently fetishistic Duke of ran in pairs. More consummately Burgundy, two beautiful women enact coutured (by Andrea Flesch) than elaborate rituals of domination and its tattered prototypes, The Duke of submission in a dark mansion deep in a Burgundy draws impressively nuanced European forest. A weekly meeting of performances from Sidse Babett lepidopterists, bristling with repressed Knudsen, the Danish PM in Borgen, flirtations, is their one respite from and Chiara D’Anna. domestic role play. There are no men “Strickland has made something in this surreal world: that eponymous uniquely sexy and strange, built on Duke is a rare butterfly. two tremendous central performances British filmmaker Peter Strickland and a bone-deep understanding of (Berberian Sound Studio) is a cinema’s magic and mechanisms.” connoisseur of 70s Euro sexploitation. — Robbie Collin, The Telegraph With only the slyest hints of irony, he divines enduring erotic allure in the absurdly high-toned soft-core A PAR Saturday 25 July, 10.00 pm porn that once played New Zealand A ED Wednesday 29 July, 8.30 pm cinemas in copies so heavily truncated A ED Thursday 30 July, 6.30 pm Friday 31 July, 4.15 pm by censorship that they always B ED VISION 49

Arabian Nights As mil e uma noites

The most ambitious, most dazzlingly alive film at Cannes this year takes its name, storytelling impulse and wry embrace of Director: Miguel Gomes the fantastic from the classic 1001 Nights Portugal/France/Germany/ – in order to tell ten stories of life in Switzerland 2015 straitened, contemporary Portugal. Screenplay: Miguel Gomes, Mariana Ricardo, Telmo Churro Miguel Gomes, whose playful self- With: Crista Alfaiate, Adriano Luz, consciousness brought very particular life Américo Silva, Rogério Samora, Carloto Cotta, Fernanda Loureiro, Jing Jing Guo, Chico Chapas to his docu-drama Our Beloved Month Festivals: Cannes (Directors’ Fortnight) 2015 of August and to the loaded historical Best Film, Sydney Film Festival 2015 romance of Tabu, sent out a team of In Portuguese with English subtitles CinemaScope journalists around Portugal to gather the as1001noites.com real-life tales that feed this marvellous compendium of stories and styles. The three volumes are very much of Please note these screening times are outside the a piece, but each perfectly viewable regular NZIFF dates. in isolation. To avoid schedule clashes for those who will want to see all three Volume 1: The Restless One films, we have programmed them on Volume 1, o inquieto | 125 mins successive nights immediately following Censors rating tbc the official end of the festival. birdsong competitions, or the A PAR Monday 10 August, 8.30 pm “Gomes and his collaborators have neighborhood arguments caused by the “It’s dizzying stuff, and invented an entirely new approach for disruptive crowing of a pet cockerel), all virtually everything that Volume 2: The Desolate One looking at the real world through an this becomes as fabulous and entrancing Volume 2, o desolado | 131 mins optic that distorts it, defamiliarizes it, as any tale of princes and genies. Gomes tries his hand to Censors rating tbc and restores to it a rich, poetic form of But there are genies here too, and works: it’s a film that’s A PAR Tuesday 11 August, 8.30 pm truth. Just as the film’s fantasy Arabia exploding whales, and politicians with moving, sad, exciting, takes on the colors of the everyday, the erectile issues. It’s all in the nature of a Volume 3: The Enchanted One concrete realities of contemporary good story, and Gomes’s stories, even fiery, and funny.” Volume 3, o encantado | 125 mins Portuguese working-class life (whether if we only get six hours’ worth, could — Oliver Lyttelton, The Playlist Censors rating tbc it’s the struggles of firefighters, the go on forever.” — Jonathan Romney, A PAR Wednesday 12 August, 8.30 pm subculture of chaffinch hunting and Film Comment

Balikbayan #1 Memories of Overdevelopment Redux III

This playful picaresque following the Kidlat Tahimik 16th-century adventures of a Filipino slave and a hunt for his modern-day Director: Kidlat Tahimik counterpart marks a welcome return Philippines 2015 | 140 mins for one of the great unsung heroes of Photography: Boy Yniguez, Lee Briones, Abi Lara, Santos Bayucca, Kidlat de Guia, Kawayan de world cinema and a true pioneer of Guia, Kidlat Tahimik indigenous filmmaking. Kidlat Tahimik’s Editors: Charlie Fugunt, Abi Lara, Chuck Gutierrez, decades-in-the-making new film has all Clang Sison, Malaya Camporedondo Music: Los Indios de España, Shanto the wit and vibrancy of his postcolonial With: Kidlat Tahimik, George Steinberg, classic Perfumed Nightmare (1977) and Kawayan de Guia, Wigs Tysman, Katrin de Guia, Kabunyan de Guia, Danny Orquico, makes a perfect (re)introduction to this Marlies v. Brevern, Mitos Benitez one-of-a-kind artist. Festivals: Berlin 2015 In English, Tagalog and Spanish, with English Portrayed by Tahimik himself, subtitles Enrique of Malacca was an indigenous Censors rating tbc slave who was taken to Europe in the 16th century. After spending time at the Spanish court, he travelled back to the Philippines around Cape Horn on Magellan’s ill-fated expedition. This made Enrique, arguably, the first person to circumnavigate the globe, incorporating a contemporary, and the first-ever balikbayan (the documentary-like narrative which finds a The globe spanning Tagalog term for Filipinos who come modern Magellan searching for a modern adventures of Magellan’s home after having lived overseas). Enrique, now a shamanic woodcarver Tahimik began shooting Enrique’s (played by Tahimik again). — MM indigenous servant shifts story in 1980 and continued off and on “A sui generis historical epic, the film the glory from the master for the best part of a decade, before freely mixes genres, integrates a variety to the slave. family commitments took priority. Two of formats and features a carousel of years ago he decided it was time to actors spanning three generations – it A PAR Sunday 26 July, 11.30 am return to the story. Instead of being may very well be Tahimik’s magnum B TP Tuesday 28 July, 11.00 am constrained by the early footage, he opus.” — Giovanni Marchini Camia, has radically reimagined his vision by Filmmaker 50 VISION

The Forbidden Room Inherent Vice

Directors: Guy Maddin, Director: Evan Johnson Paul Thomas Anderson Canada 2015 | 130 mins USA 2014 | 149 mins Screenplay: Guy Maddin, Screenplay: Paul Thomas Evan Johnson, Robert Kotyk, Anderson. Based on the novel John Ashbery by Thomas Pynchon With: Roy Dupuis, Clara Furey, With: Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Louis Negin, Mathieu Amalric, Brolin, Owen Wilson, Katherine Udo Kier, Charlotte Rampling, Waterston, Reese Witherspoon, Geraldine Chaplin Benicio Del Toro, Jena Malone Festivals: Sundance, Berlin 2015 R16 sex scenes, nudity, drug use, Colour and B&W/Censors rating offensive language tbc inherentvicemovie.com theforbiddenroom-film.com

Since Careful in 1992, NZIFF audiences own inner child at gunpoint; a man has NZIFF puts Paul Thomas Anderson’s as its core, plus Katherine Waterston, have reeled in amazement as Canadian a lobotomy in order to cure himself of inspired adaptation of Thomas actor Sam’s daughter, as the pivotal Guy Maddin constructed psychic a paralyzing obsession with bottoms; Pynchon’s novel onto New Zealand femme fatale… Trying to pare back delirium from a welter of narrative and a mustache induces melancholic cinema screens at last. Joaquin Phoenix Pynchon without killing the joke was scraps from bygone films – that is, memories… is woozily perfect as stoned LA beach the challenge. Anderson has done ‘films’ that he’s fabricated himself, As is the case with most of Maddin’s bum and private investigator Doc a remarkable job of replicating the with a fetishist’s attention to vanished work, lust, shame, and fetishism Sportello, lured by his ex into a missing crazy kaleidoscope of crime, dope technologies and archaic film styles. abound as the film navigates the nether person enquiry that’s richly evocative and raunch the novelist conjured. It This time he’s working with co-director regions of the human body and psyche in every detail, and evocatively is a densely detailed cultural polyglot Evan Johnson to yield a magnum opus with playfully archaic euphemism. The incomprehensible in toto. of real estate machinations, Aryan of melodramatic scenarios, dizzying 58-year-old filmmaker has assembled “Phoenix and the terrific acting Brotherhood bikers, dental scams, sex, in its nutty grandeur. his best cast in years to bring these ensemble that joins him in this pot- drugs, dope smoking, detectives and “The new feature spits out serial-style ludicrous narrative nuggets to life.” infused 70s-era beach noir create dames.” — Betsy Sharkey, LA Times adventures in spasmodic fragments: a — Emma Myers, Film Comment such a good buzz you can almost stranded submarine crew must rely on get a contact high from watching. A air bubbles in their breakfast flapjacks A PB Saturday 25 July, 7.15 pm sprawling cast is required for the many A RX Saturday 25 July, 8.30 pm for oxygen; a lumberjack goes on a A PB Friday 31 July, 8.00 pm vices and various intrigues, with Josh B EMB Friday 31 July, 1.45 pm quest to rescue a maiden from a pack A PB Saturday 1 August, 7.30 pm Brolin, Reese Witherspoon, Owen A EMB Sunday 2 August, 8.30 pm A PB Thursday 6 August, 8.15 pm A LHP Saturday 8 August, 5.15 pm of wild wolf men; a woman holds her Wilson, Jena Malone and Martin Short

Jauja Tchoupitoulas

Turner Ross

Director: Lisandro Alonso Directors/Producers/ Argentina 2014 Photography/Editors: 108 mins Bill Ross IV, Turner Ross With: Viggo Mortensen, USA 2012 | 80 mins Viilbjørk Mallin Agger Music: Casey Wayne McAllister Festivals: Cannes With: William Zanders, Bryan (Un Certain Regard) 2014 Zanders, Kentrell Zanders FIPRESCI Prize (Un Certain Regard), Festivals: SXSW, CPH:DOX 2012 Cannes Film Festival 2014 Blu-ray In Spanish and Danish, with English subtitles M violence

COURTESY OF OSCILLOSCOPE LABORATORIES In Spanish the word jauja (pronounced one of the best films of the year, I The seductive Tchoupitoulas, Bill and the make-joy-from-thin-air musicians; ‘how-ha’) means a land of milk and never once doubted that I was in the Turner Ross’ predecessor to Western the spooky, shadowed parks; the tour honey. The final act of Argentine hands of a master filmmaker. For all its (p51), immerses us in the nightlife of guide in Jackson Square who insists director Lisandro Alonso’s enigmatic seeming austerity, the film pulls you New Orleans. A wealth of observation, ‘Andrew Jackson, the hero of the film may leave you wondering whether along with incredible force – not unlike filmed over nine months in and around Battle of New Orleans, was the great-, you’ve reached that destination or not. the way it pulls its lonely protagonist the French Quarter, is presented as great-, great-, great- grandfather of Set largely in Patagonia in the late 19th along on his quixotic, dreamlike occurring over a single night and Michael Jackson.’ Here’s the way, as century, the film opens with a group journey… Jauja is a rapturously bizarre witnessed by three young African you pass tin-ceilinged bars and the of Argentine officers, accompanied by movie. That’s its secret, intoxicating American brothers. They’ve missed the stalls of tchotchke-sellers, competing a Danish engineer (Viggo Mortensen) power; the less you understand, the ferry home and wander the streets, musics muscle in, get pushed out, and and his teenage daughter, as they plot more mesmerized you are.” — Bilge agog at the crazy, glittering adult sometimes tangle up into something to take over the region. But when the Ebiri, New York world they behold. The tough-naïve new.” — Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice girl elopes with an Argentine soldier, narration may remind you of Beasts of he abandons camp to track them the Southern Wild, which hailed from down. His solitary trek through the the same Louisiana creative enclave. wilderness and rare encounters with its A ED Sunday 26 July, 3.15 pm “The Rosses have captured on film A NT Sunday 26 July, 6.15 pm denizens take on increasingly surreal A ED Thursday 30 July, 8.45 pm something rare: what a night spent B NT Monday 27 July, 2.00 pm overtones. stumbling about New Orleans actually “Watching Jauja, which is certainly feels like. Here are the street characters; VISION 51

A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence En duva satt på en gren och funderade på tillvaron

Frequently imitated but only ever Born to Be Mild (p77) equalled by himself, Roy Andersson, cinema’s deadpan poet of drabness, Director/Screenplay: Roy Andersson takes years to craft and string Sweden 2014 | 100 mins together his exquisite, absurdist Producer: Pernilla Sandström scenarios concerning ‘what it means Photography: István Borbás, Gergely Pálos Editor: Alexandra Strauss to be a human being’. Featuring the With: Holger Andersson, Nils Westblom, ‘whitest white people in cinema’ (Nick Charlotta Larsson, Viktor Gyllenberg, Lotti Törnros, Jonas Gerholm, Ola Stensson, Pinkerton, Sight & Sound), and the Oscar Salomonsson, Roger Olsen Likvern least healthy looking, his films unfold Festivals: Venice, Toronto 2014 towards their pokerfaced punchlines Golden Lion (Best Film), Venice Film Festival 2014 In Swedish with English subtitles in elaborate studio-built dioramas that M content may disturb constitute miracles of banality in their own right. The sketches in Pigeon are connected by the wanderings of a pair of weary salesmen with three ‘fun’ items to offer: a set of vampire teeth, a laughing bag, and a rubber fright mask called ‘Uncle One-Tooth’. Needless to say, no one’s buying. If you’ve seen his Songs from the Second Floor or “Pigeon, like its predecessors, You, The Living, you’ll already know manages the uniquely Anderssonian “Unspooling in 37 comic whether you have to see his latest. If trick of not just making you notice the vignettes, these are you haven’t, there’s really just one way absurdity of existence, but reminding to find out. you to love that absurdity as well. Life is Monty Python sketches “What a bold, beguiling and utterly unlikely, humans are ridiculous, and the as written by an unclassifiable director Andersson is. He world is cruel: isn’t it great?” — Jessica existentialist philosopher.” thinks life is a comedy and feels it’s a Kiang, The Playlist tragedy, and is able to wrestle these — Cath Clarke, Time Out B PB Monday 27 July, 3.45 pm conflicting impulses into a gorgeous, B PB Tuesday 28 July, 1.15 pm deadpan deadlock.” — Xan Brooks, A PAR Monday 3 August, 8.30 pm The Guardian

Under Electric Clouds Western Pod elektricheskimi oblakami

Director/Screenplay: Turner Ross Alexey German Jr Russia/Ukraine/Poland Directors/Photography: 2015 | 138 mins Bill Ross IV, Turner Ross Photography: Evgeniy Privin, USA 2015 | 93 mins Sergey Mikhal’chuk Producers: Bill Ross IV, Editor: Sergey Ivanov Turner Ross, Michael Gottwald With: Louis Franck, Meran Festivals: Sundance 2015 Ninidze, Chulpan Khamatova Special Jury Prize Festivals: Berlin 2015 (US Documentary), In Russian with English subtitles Sundance Film Festival 2015 CinemaScope/M adult themes In English and Spanish, with English subtitles

BILL ROSS IV AND TURNER ROSS On a desolate Russian plain in the near is always slightly disappointing – and After the lyrical Tchoupitoulas (p50), might harbour that theirs is primarily a future, an unfinished skyscraper lurks subtle exploration of the theme of sibling filmmakers Turner Ross and man’s world. like a ghost in the mist. The developer human connectivity. Bill Ross IV turn their vérité lens to “The film reveals a border where has died, the architect has killed German’s father’s final film, the a richly textured, elegiac portrait of Texans and Mexicans are united, rather himself, and a disparate collection of psychedelically grotesque Hard to Be cordial relations across the Tex–Mex than divided, by their languages and characters – immigrant workers, heirs, a God, was one of the talking points border, painfully disrupted by the their enterprises…. Both mariachi academics, gangsters, drug addicts – of last year’s NZIFF, and now is your ‘war on drugs’ and its federally tunes and Methodist hymns are have to deal with the fallout. chance to discover the much more imposed border restrictions. We fall heard, and fully felt, in Western, and Alexey German Jr’s brilliantly classical virtues of German Jr, a rare in with contemporary exemplars of the movie itself has the feel of a high novelistic, austerely beautiful film hops director who still makes art films two classic Western archetypes, a lonesome country song crossed with a discreetly backwards and forwards in on a grand scale, in the tradition of lawman and a cowboy. Chad Foster, narcocorrido – a piercing ballad about time (as does, at one point, one of its Tarkovsky, Angelopoulos or Kurosawa. the outgoing mayor of Eagle Pass in hard work, the business of living, and characters), unfolding as a series of — AL Maverick County, Texas, is equally at how not to get caught in the crossfire.” short stories with their own casts of home in English and Spanish. Cattle — Sheri Linden, Hollywood Reporter characters. These are finally brought broker Martín Wall’s century-old together to provide a rich, complex, A ED Saturday 8 August, 3.00 pm family ranching business depends on A PAR Monday 27 July, 6.15 pm hesitant conclusion. Along the way A ED Sunday 9 August, 3.15 pm transactions across the Rio Grande. B PAR Tuesday 28 July, 3.30 pm there’s a marvellously throwaway use And his forthright six-year-old daughter of science-fiction tropes – the future will quickly correct any suspicion you 52

Abandoned Goods REALITY FRAMING

Directors: Pia Borg, Edward Lawrenson UK 2014 | 38 mins Producers: Kate Ogborn, Lisa Marie Russo Photography: Nick Gordon Smith Music: Henning Christiansen, Philippe Ciompi Voices: Iain Sinclair, Nick James Festivals: Locarno, London 2014 In English and French, with English subtitles Blu-ray

“Abandoned Goods is a film all about Goods [is] a deceptively concentrated art-making as a human instinct as well film – and one that’s as much about as a form of therapy, of reparation and renewing and re-contextualizing the of socialization. Between 1946 and creations therein as it is about art’s 1981… long-stay patients of Netherne psychological, emotional and finally Hospital – a psychiatric and mental social consequence.” — Michael health facility in Surrey, England – Pattison, Fandor created artworks under the guidance “The incredible discovery of these of pioneering art therapist Edward pieces could sustain even the most Adamson. Some of the paintings and boring, fact-driven film, but sculptures are remarkable. Abandoned Goods dares to do Borg and Lawrenson assemble something more exciting.” — Robert what they can of the 5,500 works Greene, Sight & Sound that survived the hospital’s closure in 1993, and do so to eerie and enlightening effect. Layering Iain C CG Tuesday 4 August, 12.15 pm Sinclair’s narration and old audio C CG Tuesday 4 August, 1.15 pm recordings atop a mix of archival C CG Thursday 6 August, 12.15 pm footage and new stills, Abandoned

Alice Cares Ik ben Alice

Director: Sander Burger The Netherlands 2015 | 79 mins Photography: Sal Kroonenberg Editor: Manuel Rombley Music: Jeroen Arts Festivals: Rotterdam 2015 In Dutch with English subtitles The profusion of excellent documentaries submitted to us is staggering. We try to steer a course that favours formal sophistication and complexity, while allowing ourselves on occasion to fall for the most forthright Alice is here to help, or at least she researchers inspect the robot-eye will be soon. A 60-centimetre tall evidence and fall upon every pause advocacy and appeals to the heartstrings. robot, with a doll-like face, a camera or glitch in robot response as a Documentaries have always shared the behind her eyes, and the body of, programming challenge. Experienced well, a robot, Alice, made by the health-care workers called in for spotlight with dramatic features at NZIFF. American firm Hanson Robotic, is being advice about elderly needs are both You will find more fine examples filling the programmed by a research group at apprehensive and sceptical about the Amsterdam’s Free University to provide likelihood they will be replaced by Aotearoa section of the programme and in the companionship and assistance to the caredroids. Barely editorialising sections that follow. Also in our Big Nights, elderly people living alone. This doco for a moment, this simple account of accompanies three Alices separately android life in the real world turns out Vision, For All Ages and Incredibly Strange placed on a pilot scheme with three to be the most profound, heartrending sections. In other words, documentaries are women in their 80s, and observes the and morally challenging film about markedly different relationships that artificial intelligence yet. everywhere at NZIFF. develop. ‘I’d prefer a real person’, says one as Alice is settled in. ‘Oh, that’s A PAR Saturday 25 July, 11.00 am a shame’, Alice replies, and gradually A NT Monday 3 August, 6.15 pm curiosity overcomes resistance and a B NT Wednesday 5 August, 2.30 pm Saturday 8 August, 5.00 pm conversation is underway. Meanwhile, A NT FRAMING REALITY 53

Cartel Land

Matthew Heineman’s unnervingly action-based documentary captures the impact of Mexican drug cartels Director: Matthew Heineman on both sides of the border with you- USA/Mexico 2015 | 98 mins are-there immediacy. With staggering Producers: Matthew Heineman, Tom Yellin frontline access, Heineman observes Photography: Matthew Heineman, Matt Porwoll Editors: Matthew Hamachek, Matthew the retaliatory forces that have formed Heineman, Bradley J. Ross, Pax Wassermann in the wake of oppressive cartel Music: H. Scott Salinas, Jackson Greenberg With: José Manuel Mireles, Tim ‘Nailer’ Foley, violence: the Autodefensas, a Mexican Paco Rangel Valencia vigilante group who fight to free their Festivals: Sundance, Tribeca 2015 townships from cartel dominion, and Directing and Cinematography Awards (US Documentary), Sundance Film Festival 2015 the Arizona Border Recon, a makeshift In English and Spanish, with English subtitles American militia hellbent on defending CinemaScope/R13 violence, offensive language, content may disturb their border from traffickers. It’s a www.cartellandmovie.com portrait that refuses to shy away from complication; while the cartels are depicted as unequivocally horrific (with their crimes often recounted to us in harrowing detail), Heineman is equally as interested in the troubling patterns forming amidst the resistance. of live fire, a gunpoint interrogation in His film emerges a dangerous, fiercely the back of a moving car and even a “A gripping, nuanced look gripping drug-war saga that examines scene of torture. Several instances make at two different responses the cyclical nature of corruption and you fear for the filmmakers’ safety.” the ways in which noble intentions — Ben Kenigsberg, Variety to the ongoing violence can become distorted by violence and “While there’s no minimizing and death strewn by power. — JF the valor and skill of the filmmaker, the vicious drug cartels “There’s no lack of immediacy in the credit also goes to his talented co- footage south of the border, where cinematographer, Matt Porwoll, for plaguing both sides of A LHP Wednesday 29 July, 8.30 pm Heineman, who filmed with a small capturing the mayhem and malice the Mexican/American B TP Tuesday 4 August, 4.00 pm crew and served as one of his own in the lands ravaged by the cartels.” A PAR Sunday 9 August, 4.30 pm border.” — Tim Grierson, Paste cinematographers, captures the eruption — Duane Byrge, Hollywood Reporter

Awake: The Life of Yogananda Censored Voices

Directors/Screenplay: Director: Mor Loushy Paola di Florio, Israel/Germany 2015 Lisa Leeman 87 mins USA 2014 | 87 mins Producers: Daniel Sivan, Hilla Producers: Peter Rader, Medalia, Neta Zwebner Paola di Florio, Lisa Leeman Screenplay: Mor Loushy, Music: Anoushka Shankar, Daniel Sivan Krishna Das, Philip Glass, Alanis With: Amos Oz, Avraham Morissette, George Harrison Shapira, Elisha Shelem, Amitai Narrator: Anupam Kher Shelem, Ilan Lotan With: Deepak Chopra, Russell Festivals: Sundance, Berlin 2015 Simmons, George Harrison In Hebrew and English, awaketheyoganandamovie.com with English subtitles Colour and B&W censoredvoices.com

AVNER SHAHAF “Fittingly enlightening, Awake: The spiritual awakening upon discovering This potent Israeli documentary from battle. Many were shattered by Life of Yogananda is a vivid, elegantly orange robe-wearing, long-haired, encourages us to consider whose the sudden shift from defensive role assembled portrait of the savvy guru brown-skinned men weren’t exactly interests are served when the traumatic to a mercilessly offensive one. They with the cherubic face and penetrating warmly embraced. It wasn’t long before experience of returning soldiers is openly speculated about the ongoing gaze who brought meditation to the he was smeared as the leader of a love deleted from the record. How different impact of their brutality on the civilian West. cult preying on married women. might the world be today if the horror Arab population. The Israeli army Although the name Paramahansa Funded by the Self-Realization stories told by young veterans of the censored the recordings and they are Yogananda (1893–1952) may not ring a Fellowship but co-directed by Paola 1967 Six-Day War had been heard at heard here for the first time. Filmmaker bell, his teachings had a lifelong di Florio and Lisa Leeman with an the time? Mor Loushy invites the surviving influence on the likes of George open, inquisitive mind, the film The war, which began with Israel interview subjects to respond to their Harrison and Steve Jobs… Heeding a offers an absorbing glimpse into facing seemingly impossible odds, original testimony, and contrasts metaphysical calling to leave India for the life and times of the world’s ended with it conquering Jerusalem, their recollected distress with official materialistic America, Yogananda first superstar swami.” — Michael Gaza, Sinai and the West Bank. It is newsreel accounts of their heroism. initially landed at Boston Harbor at the Rechtshaffen, LA Times a war portrayed ever since in Israel dawn of the Roaring 20s but eventually as righteous defence. While the realized that Los Angeles would offer a A NT Saturday 25 July, 12.15 pm whole country was in the flush of A PB Sunday 26 July, 4.15 pm greater wellspring of disciples… But B NT Tuesday 28 July, 12.00 pm victory, a group of young kibbutzniks A PB Sunday 26 July, 7.45 pm when Yogananda took his teachings to A NT Saturday 1 August, 12.00 pm led by author Amos Oz recorded A PH Thursday 30 July, 8.15 pm Monday 3 August, 2.15 pm Monday 3 August, 6.15 pm the South, he experienced a rude B NT conversations with soldiers returning A RX 54 FRAMING REALITY

The Chinese Mayor Democrats

Director: Camilla Nielsson Director: Zhou Hao Denmark 2014 China 2015 | 89 mins 99 mins Producer: Zhao Qi Producer: Henrik Veileborg Festivals: Sundance 2015 Photography: Henrik Bohn Ipsen Special Jury Prize (World With: Paul Mangwana, Documentary), Sundance Film Douglas Mwonzora Festival 2015 Festivals: CPH:DOX, Amsterdam In Mandarin with English subtitles Documentary 2014 Blu-ray In Shona with English subtitles zhaoqifilms.com CinemaScope

QI The city of Datong is China’s most Chinese state media network China Over the course of more than three aspire to replace. polluted, crippled by decrepit Central Television, and directed by years director Camilla Nielsson has been “Zimbabwe’s constitutional-reform infrastructure and even shakier Zhou Hao, a veteran of investigative up close in the inner circles of Robert meetings may not sound like the economic prospects. But Mayor Geng documentary, The Chinese Mayor Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. With the process substance of a riveting documentary, Yanbo plans to transform it utterly. He combines the best of both worlds – of creating Zimbabwe’s new democratic but they build plenty of nervous tension will return Datong to its former glory, access to power, and critical acumen – framework providing the film’s in Democrats… Nielsson and her team the cultural capital it was a mere 1,600 to show the staggeringly high stakes at narrative backbone, Democrats shows capture fraud, intimidation, tampering, years earlier. Thousands of homes are play as China seeks to remake itself. us a political elite staring devolution in and violence at a series of public being bulldozed, and a half-million “Remarkable… Lurking just beneath the face – and laughing with derision. hearings, and dangerous manoeuvring residents relocated. Zhou’s coolly observational style is a Meanwhile, two political opponents and tantrums in committee, with We’re at his side as he’s besieged meta-freakout at the sheer insanity are tasked with public consultation co-chairs Paul Mangwana and Douglas by petitioning citizens, as he bawls of the access and its potential and the framing of the country’s first Mwonzora squaring off in highly public out recalcitrant contractors and consequences.” — Robert Greene, constitution. One is a jovial cynic from confrontations.” — Tasha Robinson, bureaucrats, or second-guesses the Sight & Sound the ruling party, ZANU-PF; the other The Dissolve ruling elite who can overturn his an urbane human rights lawyer from election at any moment; and as he A NT Saturday 25 July, 8.15 pm the growing Movement for Democratic B NT Wednesday 29 July, 2.00 pm takes calls from his exasperated wife. B NT Monday 27 July, 4.15 pm Change. Each determined to outfox A NT Thursday 30 July, 8.15 pm She’d like to see him once in a while. A NT Tuesday 28 July, 6.15 pm the other, they are equally susceptible A NT Sunday 2 August, 12.45 pm Produced by Zhao Qi, a veteran of the to the non-democratic authority they

Going Clear: Scientology Iraqi Odyssey 3D and the Prison of Belief

Director: Alex Gibney Director: Samir USA 2015 | 120 mins Switzerland/Germany/ Screenplay: Alex Gibney. Based Iraq/UAE 2014 on the book by Lawrence Wright 162 mins Photography: Sam Painter Producer: Werner Schweizer Editor: Andy Grieve Festivals: Toronto 2014; With: Lawrence Wright, Mark Berlin 2015 Rathbun, Mike Rinder, Jason In Arabic, English, German and Beghe, Paul Haggis Russian, with English subtitles Festivals: Sundance 2015 Colour and B&W/3D

SAM PAINTER The Church of Scientology hates this a Scientology rally, is at once riveting The modern history of Iraq, from the Iraqis’ dreams of building a modern film. When it was released in the US in and discomfiting. struggle against British colonialism and just society after their nation March, the organisation immediately Beyond the fascination and kookiness to the chaotic aftermath of the achieved independence in the 1950s launched a media counter-offensive, of the self-help parables, e-meters and US invasion, is traced through the were brutally dashed over the course inveighing against director Alex Gibney alien emperor foundation myth, Going dispersal of one family in this moving of half a century. Weaving together the and the apostates who appear in it. Of Clear paints a chilling picture – all of it documentary. Enlivened by vivid ironic, wistful, and witty testimonies of course they did: as is laid bare in this denied by Scientology – of a paranoid personal testimonies, Iraqi Odyssey Samir’s relatives with rare documents affecting, gobsmacking documentary, and brutal ‘church’. It also confirms the will surely enrich any audience’s from private and state archives, Scientology’s retaliations know few status of Gibney (Enron: The Smartest understanding of the world today. Ottoman era film footage and 3D bounds. Guys in the Room, Mea Maxima Culpa, “Filmmaker Samir was born in technology, Iraqi Odyssey is a riveting Lucid testimonies from former We Steal Secrets: The WikiLeaks Story) Baghdad and has lived in Switzerland epic that creates a genuine people’s executives and adherents stand in as America’s pre-eminent contemporary since he was a child, while the members history of Iraq, at once humble and contrast to the glossy and sinister documentary filmmaker. — TM of his extended family are scattered all majestic.” — Rasha Salti, Toronto exhortations of David Miscavige, over the world – Abu Dhabi, Auckland, International Film Festival who rose to succeed the charismatic A EMB Sunday 26 July, 11.00 am Sydney, Los Angeles, Buffalo, London, fantasist L. Ron Hubbard. New footage A LHP Sunday 26 July, 6.00 pm Paris, Zurich, and Moscow – with only 3D ED Saturday 1 August, 1.00 pm of celebrity disciples John Travolta and A RX Monday 27 July, 6.30 pm a handful remaining in Iraq. Recounting 3D ED Sunday 2 August, 1.15 pm Tom Cruise, who is shown preaching B EMB Thursday 30 July, 1.00 pm his family’s stories of departures and 3D ED Wednesday 5 August, 1.45 pm the legacy of LRH before thousands at A PH Wednesday 5 August, 8.30 pm uprootings, Samir also chronicles how FRAMING REALITY 55

The Look of Silence Senyap

“Joshua Oppenheimer’s ground- Joshua Oppenheimer breaking documentary The Act of Killing confronted viewers with a moral Director: Joshua Oppenheimer vacuum in which the perpetrators of Denmark/Indonesia, 2014 | 99 mins the politically motivated massacres Co-director: Anonymous that roiled Indonesia in 1965 were Producer: Signe Byrge Sørensen Executive producers: Werner Herzog, only too happy to reenact their crimes. Errol Morris, André Singer In the director’s own words, ‘I felt I’d Photography: Lars Skree Editor: Niels Pagh Andersen wandered into Germany 40 years after Music: Seri Banang, Mana Tahan the Holocaust, only to find the Nazis Festivals: Venice, Toronto, New York, The Look of Silence Busan, CPH:DOX 2014; Berlin, SXSW, still in power.’ San Francisco 2015 widens the frame to include the FIPRESCI Prize, victims’ perspective. Less a sequel than Venice International Film Festival 2014 CPH:DOX Award, CPH:DOX 2014 a companion piece, the film follows Audience Award, SXSW Film Festival 2015 gentle optometrist Adi as he asks the In Indonesian and Javanese, killers about their crimes – among them, with English subtitles R13 content may disturb the vicious murder of his elder brother. thelookofsilence.com The interviewees insist that ‘the past is past’, and yet it’s only too clear that the lack of accountability leaves the threat intact: one former killer darkly the intolerable absence of truth and intimates that Adi’s actions could be reconciliation.” — Max Goldberg, San “Both a direct sequel to understood as communist activity, Francisco International Film Festival The Act of Killing and a while another – a legislator no less – is “When the end credits roll, and even more explicit in promising that you notice most of the crew’s names complete stand-alone further questioning will prompt more are listed as ‘anonymous’, the threat work. Either way, it’s one killing. Oppenheimer continues to test seems fresh and immediate… This of the most powerful docos the limits of observational documentary is an essential companion piece to in his aesthetic interpretation of Oppenheimer’s earlier film; another I have ever experienced.” A PAR Thursday 6 August, 8.45 pm trauma. A startling and grave work astonishing heart-of-darkness voyage — Jesse Hawthorne Ficks, San B PAR Friday 7 August, 1.30 pm sure to be discussed for years to come, into the jungle of human nature.” Francisco Bay Guardian The Look of Silence bears witness to — Robbie Collin, The Telegraph

Merchants of Doubt Pervert Park

Director: Robert Kenner USA 2014 | 96 mins Producers: Robert Kenner, Directors/Screenplay: Melissa Robledo Frida Barkfors, Lasse Screenplay: Robert Kenner, Kim Barkfors Roberts. Based on the book by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Denmark/Sweden/USA Conway 2014 | 77 mins With: Jamy Ian Swiss, Stanton Festivals: CPH:DOX 2014; Glantz, Sam Roe, Patricia Sundance, Hot Docs 2015 Callahan, James Hansen, John Passacantando, William O’Keefe Special Jury Prize (World Documentary), Sundance Film Festivals: Toronto, New York Festival 2015 2014 R16 sexual themes, content may merchantsofdoubtmovie.com disturb

LASSE BARKFORS Merchants of Doubt, based on the decades that science was inconclusive The idea that an adult found guilty of sex from an undercover cop takes his book of the same name, shines its light about smoking when their own sexually assaulting a child is capable of therapy alongside a guilt-wracked on corporate public relations strategies researchers had told them the opposite. rehabilitation is hard for many people woman who has repeatedly abused her for undermining inconvenient scientific It seems clear that those documents to accept. The mother of one offender own child. Her tormented admission research. Should you embark on a have now served as the blueprint for saw the challenges faced by her son, of the harm she has inflicted – and has career in science in the 21st century, the orchestrated denial of human- and established a haven in a Florida had inflicted upon her – is surely worth this film suggests you may need a thick generated climate change. trailer park. There, those emerging attending to. It’s a searing rejoinder to hide if your research places human Utilising card-sharp con artistry as from a prison system famously rough an entrenched mindset that’s strong welfare ahead of corporate profit. Your its ruling metaphor, Robert Kenner’s on their kind might live cheaply and on condemnation, but rarely harkens every conclusion may be countered richly storied film draws its most help one another re-enter the world. to copious evidence that the abused by a pseudo-expert granted equal vivid testimony from two reformed To date, we are told, not one of them often become abusers – and might media time to provide ‘balance’. Don’t skeptics – and one extremely voluble, has reoffended. Swedish-Danish benefit from some attention before be surprised if you are called an elitist, unrepentant spinner. filmmaking couple Frida and Lasse they offend. seeking to deprive ordinary citizens of Barkfors’ documentary gives voice to a the right to choose. These tactics and handful of the residents. The disparity more, as revealed in the thousands B NT Monday 3 August, 4.15 pm in offence among those who’ve been A PB Monday 27 July, 6.30 pm of documents leaked to anti-tobacco A NT Monday 3 August, 8.00 pm deemed akin by the justice system B PB Friday 31 July, 4.30 pm crusader Stanton Glantz, enabled B NT Tuesday 4 August, 2.30 pm is startling. A student entrapped by A PB Friday 31 July, 6.15 pm Wednesday 5 August, 8.30 pm Saturday 1 August, 2.15 pm the tobacco industry to maintain for A NT an internet invitation to underage A PB 56 FRAMING REALITY

The Silences

This powerful story by Margot Nash is a Margot Nash* ‘personal essay compilation documentary’ in which Nash investigates her confusing Director/Producer/Screenplay/ and destructive relationship with her Photography/Editor: Margot Nash mother. With a father who suffered Australia 2015 | 73 mins from extreme mental instability, and a Music: Elizabeth Drake With: Lynette Curran, Pamela Rabe, John Stanton, home full of secrets, Nash scours her Toni Scanlan, Melissa Ippolito, Shelley McShane, family history through oral recollections, Robin Laurie, Elizabeth Cooke, Sandra Cooke, Michela Noonan, Kathy Bain photos and letters from her parents, and conversations with older sister, Diana, asking: what really happened? Escaping this discomfort into the 70s feminist art-making scene, Nash finds her voice. Her freedom particularly antagonises mother, Eve, who above all wanted to be an actor: Eve finds her daughter’s artistic enlightenment disappointing and futureless. Interspersed with the archival footage are excerpts from Nash’s early film works, Vacant Possession and fearlessly and conscientiously to make Call Me Mum, which already echo the peace with her parents, and the world In this lucid, heartfelt events of her childhood. of their generation, through art. The doco of an unstable family Nash’s father never recovered from simple and repetitive inspection of the trauma of WWII, and his return to personal and family images and the life, feminist filmmaker the family makes for a tense household. compelling authorial voice make for an Margot Nash tries to make Rife with repressed ambitions and painful intimate and gripping experience. — JR peace with her parents’ secrets, this is no idealised family life, “I have worked to show the but Nash looks her history in the eyes complexities of their lives, understand destructive behaviour. B PAR Friday 24 July, 2.00 pm* without flinching. Her voice carries you the choices they made and find A PAR Saturday 25 July, 12.45 pm* through the film with tenderness and compassion in my heart for both of B PH Wednesday 5 August, 1.15 pm clarity: we see a filmmaker trying them.” — Margot Nash

Prophet’s Prey The Russian Woodpecker

Director: Amy Berg The Face of USA 2015 | 93 mins Ukraine (p77) Based on the book by Director: Chad Gracia Sam Brower USA/UK 2015 | 82 mins Music: Warren Ellis, Nick Cave Narrator: Nick Cave Photography: Artem Ryzhykov With: Jon Krakauer, Sam Brower, With: Fedor Alexandrovich Thomas Jeffs, Ron Rohbock Festivals: Sundance 2015 Festivals: Sundance 2015 Grand Jury Prize (World Blu-ray/M sexual abuse themes Documentary), Sundance Film Festival 2015 In Russian and English, with English subtitles

NZIFF audiences last saw acclaimed approximately 90 wives). Ukrainian artist and provocateur onto something deeply disturbing. documentarian Amy Berg present a Employing first-hand testimonies Fedor Alexandrovich, our impassioned “Alexandrovich has the hypnotic scathing indictment of the American from journalists, private investigators guide in this engrossing, non-fiction power to become a generation’s justice system in the Peter Jackson- and ex-members of the church, Berg conspiracy thriller, was a boy when counter-culture icon while the history produced West of Memphis. This gives a troubling portrait of unchecked the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant lessons of the many interviews in year Berg returns, with her attention influence and a gripping account of the exploded in 1986. Adjacent to the this vibrant piece should leave most fixed upon another institution of exhaustive manhunt to capture their reactor was a massive billion-dollar audiences completely stunned. profound injustice and maddening tyrannical leader. — JF antenna array, which transmitted a Passionate, audacious and revolutionary, impenetrability: the Fundamentalist “The long, twisty process by which curious clicking noise (aka ‘the Russian both the film and its inhabitants are Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day the authorities finally caught up with Woodpecker’) across the airwaves, uninterested in just standing around Saints. Headed by pastor Warren Jeffs is related here with the breathless, baffling Western intelligence services as our current world spins.” — Jesse Jeffs – a creepily effective indoctrinator, blow-by-blow tension of a thriller.” for years. Convinced the sinister Hawthorne Ficks, Fandor prolific polygamist and self-proclaimed — Justin Chang, Variety structure’s purpose was connected prophet – the FLDS church currently to the disaster, Alexandrovich tracks has thousands of devoted followers, down and interviews former Soviet millions of dollars worth of secluded B TP Tuesday 28 July, 4.15 pm officials and scientists. The more A PB Saturday 25 July, 3.00 pm real estate and a deeply unsettling A TP Tuesday 4 August, 8.45 pm contemptuous they appear of his line A PB Sunday 26 July, 2.15 pm history of underage marriage and A PH Saturday 8 August, 7.45 pm of questioning, the more convinced B TP Tuesday 28 July, 2.15 pm Monday 3 August, 6.15 pm sexual abuse (Jeffs himself has you are that, whatever the facts, he’s A PAR FRAMING REALITY 57

Tell Spring Not to Come This Year Welcome to Leith

Directors: Michael Beach Nichols, Directors: Christopher K. Walker Saeed Taji Farouky, USA 2015 | 86 mins Michael McEvoy Producers: Jenner Furst, UK/Afghanistan 2015 Joey Carey, Joshua Woltermann 83 mins Photography: Michael Beach Nichols Festivals: Berlin 2015 Music: T. Griffin Panorama Audience Award, Festivals: Sundance, SXSW, Berlin International Film Festival Hot Docs 2015 2015 welcometoleithfilm.com In Dari with English subtitles tellspringfilm.com

GREGORY BRUCE NATO troops have evacuated and the abandoned NATO base for supplies When a stranger arrived in the tiny Leith is as compelling and terrifying last remaining American forces are soon but even the wiring has been stripped community of Leith, North Dakota as any fictional thriller, but also a to follow, but the war in Afghanistan away, while another routine operation (population 24) in summer 2012 and cautionary tale of the true limits of continues unabated. Filmmakers Saeed suddenly erupts into a deadly firefight started buying up the dirt-cheap real freedom. — MM Taji Farouky and Michael McEvoy sending soldiers (and cameraman) estate, the welcoming locals had no “This chronicle of a rural community’s embedded themselves in an Afghan scurrying for their lives. — MM idea of his chilling motive. The stranger struggle for sovereignty amidst National Army battalion dealing with “This is an intimate film about the was Craig Cobb, a notorious white extremism quite cleverly maneuvers us the chaos left behind, and came human side of combat, told from supremacist, and his plan was to deed into an uncomfortable confrontation back with this intense and moving a previously unseen perspective, the land to like-minded individuals with our own values… The unsettling documentary portrait of soldiers fighting that represents the deep personal and create a voting bloc which would underpinning of Welcome to Leith is a forgotten war. The film accompanies motivations, desires and struggles of a allow them to take control of the how we wrestle with our democratic the soldiers over the course of a year band of fighting men on the frontline town, turning it into a haven for hate. principles when they’re pushed to the battling insurgents in the province of the ‘War on Terror’.” — Sheffield Although they are alerted to Cobb’s limit.” — John Nein, Sundance Film of Helmand. The battalion is a mix of Doc/Fest intentions by anti-racist watchdog the Festival hardened veterans and new recruits Southern Poverty Law Center, there desperate for a steady income. They A PB Thursday 30 July, 6.15 pm seems to be little the townfolk can A NT Friday 31 July, 8.30 pm venture from their base to track down A PB Thursday 30 July, 8.15 pm do to stop this malignant, but entirely A NT Saturday 1 August, 6.00 pm suspected Taliban and stake out opium A PB Saturday 1 August, 4.00 pm legal, takeover. As a portrait of a B NT Tuesday 4 August, 4.30 pm Saturday 1 August, 5.45 pm crops. At one point they scavenge an A PB community under siege, Welcome to

William Yang: Blood Links The Wolfpack

William Yang Crystal Moselle*  Weekley Review 269 Director/Photography: – Chinese Picnic (p77) Crystal Moselle Director/Editor: USA 2015 | 84 mins Martin Fox With: Bhagavan Angulo, Govinda Australia 2014 | 59 mins Angulo, Narayana Angulo, Producer: Donna Chang Mukunda Angulo, Krisna Angulo, Jagadesh Angulo, Visnu Angulo, Screenplay/Presenter: Susanne Angulo, Oscar Angulo William Yang Festivals: Sundance, Tribeca 2015 Sound: Liam Egan Grand Jury Prize (US Documentary), Music: James Peter Brown Sundance Film Festival 2015 thewolfpackfilm.com

In a NZIFF rich in genealogical he’s discovered is as infectious as his The winner of the Documentary Grand faltering and they are making tentative explorations, renowned Australian tracing the connections is meticulous. Jury Prize at Sundance this year, Crystal forays into the world outside. photographer William Yang traces the His international exploration of his Moselle’s film delves into the bizarrely “The Wolfpack indeed has much to labyrinthine web of his family history genealogy unites him with scores of sheltered lives of six brothers whose say about fandom, the reciprocal bonds in this adaptation of his often-staged relatives from all walks of life, some father has confined them (and their between consumption and production, live performance piece. William was rich, but most ordinary folk with menial sister) since birth to the tiny rooms of the nightmarish consequences of born and raised in North Queensland, jobs. Most cannot speak a word of their Lower East Side apartment. What unchecked patriarchy, and, especially, his grandparents having migrated Chinese. A visual feast, Blood Links these boys know about social interaction the pathological evils of insularity from China to the Top End during examines how the Chinese diaspora they’ve learned from watching movies (it may be one of the greatest films the 1880s gold rush. He grew up on established roots around the world, – thousands of them – and filming ever made on this theme).” — Blake a tobacco farm in Dimbulah and was and how over the generations, blood is ingenious, homemade re-creations of Williams, Cinema Scope brought up as an assimilated Australian mixed, yet the intricate bonds of family their favourites. (Reservoir Dogs looms with his Chinese heritage denied and remain. large: it offers each of them a major role.) unacknowledged. It was not until Moselle draws on a vast video mid-life that he claimed his Chinese archive of their housebound lives to blood links at a time Australia itself B NT Thursday 30 July, 6.15 pm delight and disturb us in equal measure, A RX Sunday 26 July, 5.15 pm* was shaking free of its mono-cultural B NT Friday 31 July, 12.45 pm but her portrait is a gently hopeful one, A PAR Tuesday 28 July, 8.45 pm* rigidity. The storytelling zeal he brings capturing them at a moment when B PAR Thursday 6 August, 4.15 pm to sharing the family photo albums the tyrannical grip of their father is 58

PRESENTED IN Being Evel ASSOCIATION WITH SPORT Director: Daniel Junge USA 2015 | 100 mins Photography: Robert Muratore Editor: Davis Coombe Music: John Jennings Boyd With: Evel Knievel, Johnny Knoxville, Robbie Knievel, Frank Gifford, Tony Hawk, George Hamilton Festivals: Sundance 2015

K&K PROMOTIONS “You may be aware that Evel Knievel job of articulating just how influential is the pre-eminent daredevil of our Knievel was on today’s extreme sports time, but you might not fuly grasp the daredevils.” — Ray Bort, Esquire magnitude of the stuntman’s celebrity “While he certainly could have been and what his fearless spirit represented a better human being, there’s no way to so many unless you were alive on earth, even with all the fighting during his thrilling run throughout the and drinking and womanizing, that 1970s. Being Evel is a new documentary he could have been a better showman. that aims to educate younger The documentary, like its subject, is audiences about Knievel’s influence, unapologetically dazzling.” — Drew and it contains plenty of unbelievable Taylor, The Playlist revelations that only bolster the legendary mythology surrounding the man in red, white, and blue… Being Evel was produced by Johnny Knoxville – who is also one of the film’s primary A PH Sunday 26 July, 8.15 pm interviewees – along with fellow A PAR Monday 27 July, 8.45 pm Jackass creator Jeff Tremaine and BMX A RX Tuesday 4 August, 6.15 pm A LHP Sunday 9 August, 8.15 pm legend Mat Hoffman. They do a great

Red Army

Director/Producer/ Screenplay: Gabe Polsky USA/Russia 2014 85 mins With: Slava Fetisov, Vladislav Tretiak, Scotty Bowman, Vladimir Pozner Festivals: Cannes (Out of Competition) 2014 Not tiddly-winks. In English and Russian, with English subtitles CinemaScope redarmymovie.com

The hazardous relationship between eventually lead the Russian exodus sports and national identity to the US before returning to his underscores every moment of this homeland as a close ally of Putin – highly entertaining documentary about makes a compelling and mordantly the careers of Soviet ice hockey stars funny guide. He’s blunt, ironic, not a before and after perestroika. Home little nostalgic for the rigours of Soviet to some of the greatest – and most sports training programmes – and not mercilessly drilled – players the sport a little contemptuous of the American has ever seen, the Soviet Union’s Red system that prizes individual prowess Army team became a key combatant over the team spirit that made the in the Cold War’s propaganda battle. Soviets great. ‘They’re a microcosm of their society,’ Reagan insisted of the Soviet team, sparing the Soviets the trouble of saying it themselves. When they A ED Saturday 25 July, 12.00 pm triumphed, as they usually did, so it B ED Monday 27 July, 2.00 pm seemed did communism. A RX Friday 31 July, 6.15 pm Long-time captain and legendary A PAR Sunday 2 August, 6.15 pm defenseman Viacheslav Fetisov – who’d A LHP Monday 3 August, 8.30 pm SPORT 59

Meru

“With jaw-dropping cinematography… and direct access to the trials, drive and anxieties of its renowned mountain Directors: Jimmy Chin, climbing subjects, Meru is a hybrid Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi of gorgeous nature photography USA 2015 | 89 mins and riveting nonfictional storytelling. Producers: Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin, Shannon Ethridge Titled after Mount Meru, a 21,000 ft. Photography: Renan Ozturk, Jimmy Chin Himalayan peak that looms over the Editor: Bob Einsenhardt Ganges River and features the iconic Music: J. Ralph With: Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin, Renan Ozturk, ‘Shark’s Fin’, a massive sheer granite Jon Krakauer, Jenni Lowe-Anker, Amee Hinkley, spine jutting out of the mountain’s face Grace Chin, Jeremy Jones Festivals: Sundance, San Francisco 2015 into sub-zero degreed thin-aired space, Audience Award (US Documentary), the film focuses on three mountaineers Sundance Film Festival 2015 as they take on the challenge to merufilm.com become the first to ascend its peak. Conrad Anker, famous for his ascents in Patagonia, Antarctica and the Himalayas; Meru co-director Jimmy Chin, an athlete distinguished equally for his skills in photography, climbing © RENAN OZTURK and extreme sports; and Renan Ozturk, “The film’s incredible imagery shows a relative newcomer in this group, but daily life in the vertical realm – captured “It beggars belief already internationally respected as a by the three climbers themselves and that pro-sports free climber and visual artist, teamed one base camp manager… Propelled up in 2008 to reach the summit, but by an excellent score and unflinching cinematographers dishearteningly and dangerously failed commentary from [writer Jon] Krakauer, Chin and Ozturk actually with a mere 100 meters to go. Amidst this film goes deep into a world of shot most of the film personal and professional risks… the alpinism that is austere and alien climbers make the daring decision to to most people and breaks it down while in the midst of A EMB Tuesday 4 August, 9.00 pm make one more attempt.” — Sean to celebrate the struggles and triumphs this ‘impossible climb’.” A RX Wednesday 5 August, 8.30 pm Uyehara, San Francisco International of the human spirit.” — Mary Anne A PH Sunday 9 August, 8.30 pm — Dennis Harvey, Variety Film Festival Potts, NationalGeographic.com

Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans Sunshine Superman

Pelorus (p77)

Directors: Gabriel Clarke, Director: Marah Strauch John McKenna USA/Norway 2014 UK/USA 2015 | 112 mins 100 mins Producer: John McKenna Producers: Eric Bruggemann, Screenplay: Gabriel Clarke Marah Strauch Photography: Matt Smith Photography: Vasco Nunes, Editor: Matt Wyllie Nicolay Poulsen With: Steve McQueen, Editors: Marah Strauch, Eric Chad McQueen, Neile Adams Bruggemann, Kevin Mcguinness McQueen Festivals: Toronto, New York Festivals: Cannes (Cannes 2014 Classics) 2015 themanlemans.com MAGNOLIA PICTURES By the end of the 60s Steve McQueen which he wanted to be the ultimate Marah Strauch’s spectacular moment, he was also light-years ahead was amongst Hollywood’s highest paid racing movie, turned out to be the documentary celebrates the reckless of it, anticipating the explosion in the and most powerful stars – and the toughest he had ever made – and free spirit – or insanity, if you prefer – kinds of authority-defying extreme coolest dude behind the wheel of any his career was never quite the same of Carl Boenish, the pioneering hero sports that are now firmly embedded vehicle anywhere. after its commercial and critical failure. and cheerleader of BASE jumping. in the mainstream… He was like Evel Motor racing was his passion and But the racing fans who relish the The name is an acronym for building, Knievel with a blissed-out smile and he staked all his power and status on record Le Mans provides of a bygone antenna, span, earth (think mountains) a rip cord… until he pushed too far. Le Mans, a film that would take that era are going to be fascinated by the – the things that its practitioners, Interviews with Boenish’s wife, Jean, passion to the world. He began by trove of long-lost big-screen footage equipped with parachutes, like to leap give his life story perspective and heart, embedding his crew in and around the British directors Gabriel Clarke and off. Boenish made free fall photography especially in the film’s tragic finale.” actual race, capturing priceless footage John McKenna have unearthed for an integral part of the sport, providing — Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment of a quality no documentary team of this assiduously researched, lavishly Strauch with an exhaustive visual Weekly the day had the equipment or access illustrated behind-the-scenes exploration archive of his exploits – and affording to achieve. of McQueen’s driving obsession. us the vicarious giant-screen thrill of Keeping financiers happy and leaping off mountains too. organising a dramatic narrative around A PH Sunday 2 August, 8.15 pm “Skydiver Carl Boenish brought an A EMB Tuesday 28 July, 9.00 pm the racing action turned out to be A EMB Monday 3 August, 8.30 pm almost evangelical fervor to the limit- A LHP Thursday 30 July, 8.30 pm less his thing. The production became A LHP Tuesday 4 August, 8.30 pm pushing allure of outdoor adventure. A PH Friday 31 July, 8.30 pm troubled and protracted. The film, Not only was Boenish a man of his 60

The 50 Year Argument STORIES INSIDE Directors: Martin Scorsese, David Tedeschi USA/UK/Japan 2014 97 mins With: Robert Silvers, Joan Didion, Noam Chomsky, Derek Walcott, Colm Tóibín, Michael Chabon, Mary Beard, Norman Mailer Festivals: Berlin, Toronto, New York 2014

Book reviews have always been just words – ‘well, versus the whole world’. part of The New York Review of Books. At the centre of it all sits the venerated, Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi’s workaholic, octogenarian Robert rich, affectionate film explores the Silvers, his desk piled with books, a pug range and impact of a paper that dog sniffing at his feet. ‘The Review has provided a singular political, is based on the idea that highly skilful, cultural and intellectual lens across intelligent, interested people,’ he says, five decades, publishing erudite and ‘can write fascinatingly and revealingly iconoclastic first-hand reporting on about nearly any subject.’ — TM civil rights and women’s liberation; on everything from the Velvet Revolution and the Vietnam War to Tahrir Square. Assembled from new interviews and archival footage, the stars are all here: Lowell, Havel, McCarthy, Auden, Chomsky, Didion and many more. The B NT Friday 31 July, 2.45 pm arguments spill from page to screen. A PAR Saturday 1 August, 1.30 pm Sontag versus Mailer, Mailer versus A NT Friday 7 August, 6.15 pm Saturday 8 August, 11.15 am Vidal, Vidal versus – in the filmmakers’ A NT

City of Gold

Director: Laura Gabbert USA 2015 | 89 mins Producers: Laura Gabbert, Holly Becker Photography: Jerry Henry, Goro Toshima Music: Bobby Johnston With: Jonathan Gold Festivals: Sundance, San Francisco 2015 Five documentaries delve into the media. cityofgolddoc.com See also Merchants of Doubt (p55).

There’s no more loving, curious or Greater Los Angeles, from mini-malls infectious guide to the city of Los in the San Gabriel Valley to downtown Angeles and its eateries than food critic street vendors, providing a delicious Jonathan Gold. The first writer to win a portrait of a thriving city of immigrants. Pulitzer Prize for reviewing restaurants, One comes away with a sense of a he’s less likely to point you to the hot place with such a breadth of cultural and the hip than to the authentic, diversity that the city’s reputation the unusual and the flavoursome. for vapidity is quickly buried… It’s Reviewing street food and the tiny a pleasure to ride shotgun on this ethnic hybrids he discovers in strip journey.” — Vicki Robinson, Film malls and suburban neighbourhoods, Comment he illuminates a wealth of cultural experience and culinary adventure. In a city teeming with options, he opens up new worlds for diners and owners alike. “Here is a gentle, unassuming film, A ED Friday 24 July, 7.00 pm five years in the making: the filmmakers A ED Saturday 25 July, 6.15 pm drove with LA Times food critic A EMB Sunday 2 August, 10.45 am B PAR Monday 3 August, 11.30 am Jonathan Gold around the streets of INSIDE STORIES 61

Best of Enemies

Over ten nights in August 1968, Directors/Producers: Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley Jr Robert Gordon, Morgan Neville let rip. The clash of the commentators USA 2015 | 88 mins – the liberal iconoclast versus the public Photography: David Leonard, Graham Willoughby, Mark Schwartzbard face of conservatism – would quickly Editors: Eileen Meyer, Aaron Wickenden become essential viewing. It was a Music: Jonathan Kirkscey masterstroke from ABC, the minnow With: William F. Buckley Jr, Gore Vidal, Kelsey Grammer, John Lithgow, Dick Cavett, of American network television. Andrew Sullivan, Christopher Hitchens, The urbane, imperious Vidal and the Brooke Gladstone, Todd Gitlin Festivals: Sundance, SXSW, San Francisco 2015 indignant, seething Buckley exchange Colour and B&W philosophical salvo and sarcastic insult bestofenemiesfilm.com in a contest replete with dazzling eloquence, acerbic wit and visceral PRESENTED IN ASSOCIATION WITH loathing. ‘It’s as if’, reflects Buckley’s former assistant, ‘they were matter and anti-matter, parallel lives’. The rivalry – cultural, ideological, skin-crawlingly personal – encapsulates the unease of a nation becoming mired in an unwinnable war in Vietnam and beset ABC PHOTO ARCHIVES VIA GETTY IMAGES by profound social unrest at home. directors Morgan Neville and Robert These mesmerising debates, which Gordon achieve something more: “Enticing, scintillating and spiralled out into a protracted legal an adroit, rambunctious melding of downright fascinating… battle, climax in an astonishing outburst archival footage and new interviews from Buckley, a moment which he later illustrates the way the arguments of A sort of brainy equivalent said had tormented him for years. For 1968 wrenched open political and of the Ali–Frazier boxing his part, Vidal is said to have revelled, cultural fissures that persist today; and matches of the same four decades on, at news of Buckley’s how the Vidal–Buckley scraps created a death. ‘Rest in hell’, he wrote. template – a high-point probably, too general era.” A PH Wednesday 29 July, 8.30 pm Best of Enemies thrills as an – for a now familiar TV format, in — Todd McCarthy, Hollywood B PH Thursday 30 July, 1.15 pm entertainment alone: two intellectual which political punditry takes the shape B PAR Wednesday 5 August, 2.00 pm Reporter Sunday 9 August, 11.00 am prize-fighters slugging it out. But of a boxing match. — TM A EMB

Only the Dead Very Semi-Serious

Joseph Gets Dressed (p77) Directors: Bill Guttentag, Director: Leah Wolchok Michael Ware USA 2015 | 83 mins Australia 2015 | 78 mins Producers: Leah Wolchok, Producers: Patrick McDonald, Davina Pardo Michael Ware Photography: Kirsten Johnson Screenplay: Michael Ware Editors: Nels Bangerter, Editor: Jane Moran Scott Stevenson Festivals: Sydney 2015 With: Bob Mankoff, Best Australian Documentary, Andy Friedman, Gahan Wilson Sydney Film Festival 2015 Festivals: Tribeca 2015 In Arabic and English, with verysemiserious.com English subtitles Censors rating tbc

Australian journalist Michael 2006, but his methods and ideas persist This behind-the-scenes look at The New with their work – in the hope that he’ll Ware spent almost seven years in in the now notorious extremist group Yorker’s cartoons and cartoonists is just laugh, in a good way. Featuring lively Iraq, reporting for CNN and Time ISIS – the same group that, in May as smart and funny and filled with great interviews with cartoonists, published throughout the invasion of 2003 and 2015, seized Ramadi again, sending cartoons as you’d hope. Bob Mankoff, and yet to be, the film delves into their the sectarian bloodbath the US-led Iraqi soldiers fleeing. Over confronting, the magazine’s cartoon editor, is the processes, their creative habitats and attack unleashed. Along the way he unsettling and at times appalling ideal insider guide. (Filmmaker Leah the mythos of the magazine they line kept a video diary – a dazed, chilling images, Ware speaks of a war ‘that Wolchok, an obsessive participant in the up to be published in. and close-up chronicle of war. While shaved away at our souls’. Only the magazine’s caption contests, waited for “A warm and frequently hilarious covering the mushrooming insurgency, Dead presents the unvarnished, daily years to secure his participation.) A self- portrait of the unique men and women Ware makes contact with militant brutality meted out on all sides, the described ‘humorologist’ and creator of who live for that rare moment when fighters from al-Qaeda in Iraq, and journalist’s creeping fear of complicity one of The New Yorker’s most popular their drawings are printed in their finds himself hauled in by the group’s and Ware’s realisation he had ‘become cartoons of all time (‘Thursday’s out. business’ holiest book.” — David infamous, ruthless leader, Abu Musab a man I never thought I’d be’. — TM How about never – is never good for Ehrlich, Time Out NY al-Zarqawi, to be the chosen recipient you?’), Mankoff provides insight into of videotaped propaganda. Later the centrality of single-panel humour in he embeds with American troops A TP Tuesday 28 July, 9.00 pm the magazine’s past and present. We B NT Wednesday 29 July, 11.45 am in Fallujah, and then Ramadi, site B TP Monday 3 August, 4.15 pm see his weekly pitch meetings with A NT Sunday 2 August, 4.45 pm of a fierce and bloody battle with cartoonists where established names A NT Tuesday 4 August, 6.15 pm Thursday 6 August, 6.15 pm insurgents. Al-Zarqawi was killed in and aspiring young artists alike front up A PH 62

The Enemy Within CHAMPIONS Director: Owen Gower UK 2014 | 116 mins Producers: Sinead Kirwan, Mark Lacey, Owen Gower Photography: Malcolm Hadley Editor: Paul Edmunds Music: Rael Jones the-enemy-within.org.uk

©JOHN STURROCK Margaret Thatcher’s strategic sacrifice obfuscation and excuse-making (all of Britain’s coal mines now stands of which was definitively swept away clearly as a historic turning point in earlier this year when newly released the free marketeer war on organised documents revealed just how far labour. (‘The enemy within’ is what the Tories were prepared to go to she called the unions.) In this realise their dream of an unrestrained illuminating record of their struggle, corporate free-for-all). Lovingly made, strike veterans rake over their losses beautifully shot and wonderfully with alacrity and insight. soundtracked by the likes of The “It exposes how the Thatcher Specials and The Mekons, this is timely, government colluded with big business, important and truthful cinema, at once the police and the media to break the bitter, nostalgic and unexpectedly back not just of the National Union of uplifting.” — Tom Huddleston, Time Miners, but of the entire trade union Out movement, and perhaps even any notion of working class solidarity. This A NT Sunday 26 July, 4.00 pm is an unashamedly one-sided viewpoint, A NT Monday 27 July, 8.15 pm but that in itself feels necessary to B NT Tuesday 28 July, 4.00 pm correct two decades of government

How to Change the World

Director/Screenplay: Jerry Rothwell Canada/UK 2015 109 mins With: Bill Darnell, David ‘Walrus’ Garrick, Bobbi Hunter Festivals: Sundance 2015 Editing Award (World Documentary), Sundance Film Festival 2015 howtochangetheworldmovie.com

champion 2 a. a person who fights or argues How to Change the World charts the dynamics of the founding group for a cause on behalf of another person. earliest days of Greenpeace as a group and the strategic rifts that eventually – Concise Oxford Dictionary of Vancouver-based ‘eco-freaks’ and divided them. peaceniks improvised their way into “Still adversarial today among many starting a global movement, filming reminiscing original participants are the revolution as they went. Drawing Hunter’s unofficial dueling second-in- on Greenpeace’s own vast archives of commands, Paul Watson (who would action footage, Deep Water director split to found the still-whaler-bedeviling Jerry Rothwell’s documentary spans Sea Shepherd Conservation Society) the period from the first expedition to and Patrick Moore (whose environmental enter the Amchitka nuclear test zone corporate consulting firm is considered in 1971, through the first whale and a betrayal of his Greenpeace past by fur seal campaigns, to 1979, when, many).” — Dennis Harvey, Variety overwhelmed by their own success, the founders gave away their central role to make way for Greenpeace International. A PB Saturday 25 July, 5.00 pm Drawing its themes from founder A PB Sunday 2 August, 3.45 pm leader Bob Hunter’s memoir, the film A PB Sunday 2 August, 6.00 pm A PB Sunday 9 August, 1.15 pm engages closely with the personal CHAMPIONS 63

Dreamcatcher

Documenting the unsung actions of heroic, down-to-earth women who work for social change, the films of Kim Director/Photography: Kim Longinotto Longinotto have in recent years taken UK/USA 2014 | 104 mins us to India (Pink Saris), Durban (Rough Producers: Teddy Leifer, Lisa Stevens Aunties) and south-west Cameroon Editor: Ollie Huddleston Music: Stuart Earl (Sisters in Law). In Dreamcatcher, we With: Brenda Myers-Powell hit the streets, prisons and high schools Festivals: Sundance, San Francisco 2015 Directing Award (World Documentary), of Chicago in the company of the Sundance Film Festival 2015 disarmingly fabulous Brenda Myers- R16 sexual references, drug references, offensive Powell, a former prostitute and abuse language survivor, who works, unpaid, to rescue young women from the cycles of abuse and exploitation that she knows all too well. “British filmmaker Kim Longinotto focuses on the work of Brenda Myers-Powell, an early contender for saint of the year… Like the film, she’s calm, non-judgmental and engaging and despite her undeniable star quality fantastic performer, making the high- (an award-worthy biopic feels like the school girls she works with laugh amid “A sex-worker turned next logical step), Longinotto doesn’t the narration of horrors, and finishing feminist-force-of-nature impose a conventional narrative on the film with a hip-swaying, full-voiced her story, or those of the women she performance of her favourite song. is Kim Longinotto’s helps, and gives them the chance to Longinotto’s documentaries often, guide to Chicago in her share their harrowing stories without subtly and brilliantly, create such a characteristically great any forced emotional beats. It’s grim, stage on which her subjects can be unfussy and deeply moving.” their best selves, for themselves.” documentary.” A LHP Wednesday 29 July, 6.15 pm — Benjamin Lee, The Guardian — Sophie Mayer, Sight & Sound — David Jenkins, Little White Lies B TP Tuesday 4 August, 1.45 pm “As well as having resilience and A PAR Saturday 8 August, 11.30 am determination, [Myers-Powell] is a

THE DIRECTORS' VISIT IS SUPPORTED BY Peace Officer Television and Screen Production She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry Masters Programme School of Communication Studies

Director: Mary Dore |  USA 2014 93 mins Brad Barber, Producers: Mary Dore, Scott Christopherson Nancy Kennedy Directors/Photography: Photography: Svetlana Cvetko, Scott Christopherson, Alicia Weber Editors: Nancy Kennedy, Brad Barber Kate Taverna USA 2015 | 109 mins With: Judith Arcana, Fran Beal, Rita Mae Brown With: William J. ‘Dub’ Lawrence shesbeautifulwhenshesangry.com Festivals: SXSW, Hot Docs 2015 Grand Jury & Audience Awards (Documentary), SXSW Film Festival 2015 peaceofficerfilm.com

Scott Christopherson and Brad Barber’s are detailed in the film. He identifies “Mary Dore’s She’s Beautiful When change the world – and how tough SXSW Grand Jury Prize winner is an the ‘war on drugs’ as just one of several She’s Angry is an urgent, illuminating it was to do so. Dore’s generous engrossing, cautionary account of the factors contributing to the escalation dive into the headwaters of second- with fiery archival footage – marches, increasing militarisation and use of in fatal confrontations, from which wave feminism, the movement that chants, meetings, gobsmackingly SWAT teams in civilian situations by police are invariably exonerated. Surely – no matter what its detractors insist – sexist news reports – as she traces local police forces in the US. the alienation of armoured police from has given us the world in which we live. the development of the National The filmmakers have been gifted the communities they are intended to ‘We live in a country that doesn’t like Organization for Women and its many with a charismatic protagonist and protect should be of mutual concern? to credit any of its radical movements’, sister groups… That defiant sisterhood perfectly equipped guide in former Christopherson and Barber review his Susan Brownmiller says in the film. changed the workplace, our sexual Utah lawman Dub Lawrence, who in analysis with an array of commentary ‘They don’t like to admit in the United politics, our language. She’s Beautiful 1975 founded the state’s first SWAT from academics, activists, those who’ve States that change happens because When She’s Angry is the best filmed team. Thirty-three years later, Lawrence been on the receiving end and the radicals force it.’ account of how that happened you watched that same team respond to a police themselves. A score of those who dared force it could ever expect to see.” — Alan domestic crisis in his own family, with turn up for fresh interviews in Dore’s Scherstuhl, Village Voice fatal consequences. Determined to wide-ranging film: here’s Rita Mae clarify responsibility for the police over- A PAR Wednesday 29 July, 8.45 pm Brown, Ellen Willis, Fran Beal, Judith A NT Wednesday 29 July, 6.15 pm reaction, Lawrence soon discovered B PAR Thursday 30 July, 11.00 am Arcana, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, and A PAR Sunday 2 August, 11.00 am numerous other instances of domestic many more, dishing truth and priceless B NT Wednesday 5 August, 12.30 pm Sunday 9 August, 4.00 pm crimes treated as acts of war. Several anecdotes about what it felt like to A NT 64

How to Smell a Rose: A Visit with Ricky Leacock in Normandy LES BLANK LES Les Blank on Photography (p77) Directors/Producers/ Photography: Les Blank, Gina Leibrecht USA 2014 | 65 mins Editor: Gina Leibrecht With: Ricky Leacock, Les Blank Festivals: New York, Amsterdam Documentary 2014 Colour and B&W lesblank.com

GINA LEIBRECHT Two giants of American documentary in Berlin (about aging silent film icon get together for one last friendly tussle Louise Brooks). The two of them also in this poignant, charming film. Ricky cook up a roast lamb dinner, and you Leacock started out in the 40s as an may want to take notes as Leacock assistant to documentary pioneer Robert shares his passion for French cooking. Flaherty, and revolutionised the genre in Most of the footage was shot in the 60s as an architect of Direct Cinema, 2000. Leacock died in 2011 and Blank the more free-form and observational in 2013, so this is effectively the final mode of filmmaking that gave us Grey film of both men, whose larger-than- Gardens and Monterey Pop. life personalities burn brightly in every Leacock’s disciples included scene. — AL the maker of this film portrait, Les Blank. His last feature, completed by collaborator Gina Leibrecht, finds Blank visiting Leacock at his Normandy home, where they chat about his work, A NT Sunday 2 August, 3.00 pm generously illustrated with extracts B NT Thursday 6 August, 2.00 pm from such films as Primary (about JFK’s A NT Saturday 8 August, 3.15 pm 1960 presidential campaign) and Lulu

A Poem Is a Naked Person

Director/Photography/ Editor: Les Blank USA 1974/2015 90 mins Producers: Leon Russell, Denny Cordell Sound: Maureen Gosling Music: Leon Russell With: Leon Russell, Best known for his unforgettable ‘making of George Jones, Willie Nelson Festivals: SXSW 2015 Fitzcarraldo’ Burden of Dreams, Les Blank was Blu-ray lesblank.com for decades America’s foremost chronicler of regional music and food culture, a delicious legacy recently celebrated in beautiful digital Pianist, producer, songwriter (‘Delta from George Jones, it’s as engagingly Lady’, ‘Song for You’) and singer Leon distracted by peripheral action and transfers by Criterion. We’re sharing the bounty Russell was a Wrecking Crew session personalities as any Blank film. Russell with mouth-watering lunchtime screenings of player (see p69) who shot to fame opted not to release it. Blank himself when he appeared in the Joe Cocker showed it often in closed screenings, four classic documentaries – along with premiere concert film Mad Dogs and Englishmen and the legend of its dyspeptic vision screenings of Blank’s utterly charming final film, in 1970. A blond, long-haired music of 70s rock ‘n’ roll decadence grew professional from Oklahoma, his piano accordingly. Blank’s son Harrod has at completed by Gina Leibrecht in 2014, and his style fused boogie, blues and country last cleared the rights and worked with long-suppressed ‘black album’: his Leon Russell to vamp up Cocker’s full-out rock the Criterion Collection to produce revue style. He was an unlikely subject this beautiful HD transfer, giving new film. (Festival veterans may remember the under- for folk-arts laureate Les Blank, but life to Russell’s place in the pantheon the-radar screenings Blank presented when he that’s who Russell chose to make this and introducing us to some snakes in film portrait. Les Blank’s Eden. visited us with Burden of Dreams in 1982.) Though the film Blank delivered in 1974 contains storming performances B ED Tuesday 4 August, 4.15 pm from Russell, along with appearances A ED Thursday 6 August, 6.30 pm from a young Willie Nelson and a A ED Friday 7 August, 8.45 pm Sunday 9 August, 6.00 pm drop-dead rendition of ‘Take Me’ A ED LES BLANK 65

Always for Pleasure Hot Pepper

Director/Producer/ Director/Producer/ Photography/Editor: Photography/Editor: Les Blank Les Blank USA 1978 | 58 mins USA 1973 | 54 mins Sound: Maureen Gosling Sound: Maureen Gosling Blu-ray/G cert With: Clifton Chenier lesblank.com In English and French, with English subtitles Blu-ray/PG cert lesblank.com

LES BLANK Les Blank’s exuberant Always for headdresses), the Neville Brothers and In 1972 folk arts documentarian “In addition to scenes of Chenier Pleasure is the ultimate Beginner’s the legendary Professor Longhair. Treat Les Blank turned his attention to belting it out at sweaty dance halls, Guide to New Orleans: one heady hour yourself, but be warned that you may backwoods Louisiana and made the film winds his music through the of music, dance, food and fun that come away from the screening with a series of memorable films about bayous and byways of the countryside somehow manages to convey a huge a powerful appetite for crawfish and Cajun and Creole culture, cuisine (some of Blank’s most stunning amount of basic cultural information in gumbo. — AL and music. photography!) and into the streets and a coherent manner despite its apparent “There’s nothing I crave more than In Hot Pepper music takes centre homes of his people. The off-hand folk free-form hedonism. to percolate down the boulevard, stage as Blank presents a wonderfully wisdom and random jive that Blank New Orleans is a party town, and followed by my entire residue.” laid-back portrait of Clifton Chenier, loves so much is here in bounteous this is a party film that’s as enjoyable to — John Metoyer, late President of the the King of Zydeco. There’s plenty profusion.” — Michael Goodwin, City watch as it looks to have been to shoot. Zulu Social Sid and Pleasure Club of furious accordion-based dance Magazine Filming around Mardi Gras and St music from the master to get your Patrick’s Day 1977, Blank and his team toes tapping, along with the expected captured, along with the expected colourful, off-the-cuff reminiscences, funerals and parades, brilliant and but the film is equally a portrait of valuable performance footage of The C CG Wednesday 29 July, 1.30 pm Chenier’s town of Lafayette, and Blank C CG Wednesday 29 July, 12.15 pm Wild Tchoupitoulas (African American C CG Wednesday 5 August, 12.15 pm is never too preoccupied with his C CG Monday 3 August, 12.15 pm troupes who labour for months C CG Friday 7 August, 12.15 pm illustrious subject to resist wandering C CG Friday 7 August, 1.30 pm creating gigantic Native American-style off to take in some local colour. — AL

Spend it All A Well Spent Life

Director/Photography/ Directors: Les Blank, Editor: Les Blank Skip Gerson USA 1971 | 41 mins USA 1971 | 44 mins Sound: Skip Gerson Photography/Editor: Les Blank In English and French, with With: Mance Lipscomb, English subtitles Elnora Lipscomb Blu-ray Blu-ray lesblank.com lesblank.com

LES BLANK Les Blank’s earliest celebration of the Nathan Abshire to the fore. Accordion This exquisite portrait of obscure gentle, bucolic and philosophical: food, music and history of Louisiana’s maker and player, Marc Savoy, makes blues genius Mance Lipscomb is associative rather than tendentious. Acadians, better known as Cajuns, was his first film appearance. one of the earliest films in which It’s the ideal portrait of a self-effacing shot in 1970, but it feels ageless. The Werner Herzog has named this documentarian Les Blank’s mature, artist like Lipscomb, and it’s also a self- world it captures probably looked, his favourite of Blank’s movies, not laconic observational style appeared portrait of the values and priorities of sounded and tasted just as good 50 least for its famous tooth extraction fully formed, and it’s one of the finest Blank himself. — AL years earlier. Early in the film, hand- scene which he lifted, with Blank’s films he ever made. “Blank makes excellent use of the written title cards explain the centuries- encouragement, for one of his own Blank realises that with a subject as materials at hand… and the result is a long diasporic history of Cajun peoples. features. ‘Got more room now’, charismatic and intrinsically fascinating rich, fully fleshed out life study of one The sense of finding ourselves grins the happily de-toothed partier. as Lipscomb (and his unforgettable of the Southwest’s finest ‘songsters’.” introduced to a newly discovered ‘Where’s my beer?’. wife Elnora), there’s no need for a — Hal Erickson, NY Times corner of the world remains amazingly conventional documentary structure: fresh as Blank’s subjects gaze into his you just want to hang out with these lens and extol the simple life. We join people for a while, soaking up their them fishing, shrimping, preparing music, listening to their tall tales and coffee, cooking up a feast of fish-head C CG Thursday 30 July, 1.30 pm getting to know their community. Thus, C CG Thursday 30 July, 12.15 pm stew or barbecue, eating with gusto C CG Friday 31 July, 12.15 pm explanatory narration drifts away, to be C CG Friday 31 July, 1.30 pm – and dancing. Musicians are never C CG Monday 3 August, 1.30 pm replaced by a gorgeous free-floating C CG Wednesday 5 August, 1.30 pm far away, with the Balfa Brothers and impressionism, resulting in a film that’s 66

PRESENTED IN 808 ASSOCIATION WITH MUSIC Director: Alexander Dunn UK/USA/Japan 2015 107 mins Producers: Alex Noyer, Alexander Dunn, Craig Kallman, Arthur Baker Narrator: Zane Lowe With: Afrika Bambaataa, Soulsonic Force, New Order, Diplo, Goldie, 808 State, Norman Cook Festivals: SXSW 2015 808themovie.com

From 80s pop and disco to old school with the distinctive rhythm of Marvin hip-hop and electro, from techno and Gaye’s ‘Sexual Healing’ (perhaps house to Miami bass and crunk, the programmed by the man himself?). Roland TR-808 drum machine has Dunn even tracks down octogenarian provided the boom-bastic low end Roland head honcho Kakehashi Ikutaro for countless pop and dancefloor who explains the secret behind the hits. Alexander Dunn’s stylish, genre- 808’s unique sound and why the hopping survey of this unassuming machine was never brought back machine’s epic influence on popular into production after 1983 despite music calls on an impressive array of the increasing demand. Deftly mixed talking heads including the Beastie with a procession of bass-booming Boys, New Order, Rick Rubin, Lil Jon tracks, this is a doco that demands to and lesser known bass pioneers like be heard on the loudest sound system Man Parrish, Strafe and Dynamix II. possible. — MM Afrika Bambaataa and Arthur Baker are on hand to discuss the creation A ED Friday 24 July, 9.00 pm of their electro classic ‘Planet Rock’, A ED Monday 27 July, 8.30 pm while Belgian DJs Soulwax show off A ED Wednesday 5 August, 6.45 pm their secondhand 808, still haunted B ED Thursday 6 August, 4.00 pm

PRESENTED IN Lambert & Stamp ASSOCIATION WITH

Director/Photography: James D. Cooper USA 2014 | 117 mins Music: The Who With: Chris Stamp, Kit Lambert, Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey, Terence Stamp Festivals: Sundance 2014 Colour and B&W See also Amy (p10), Crossing Rachmaninoff (p15) lambertstampmovie.com and Les Blank films (p64–65).

“More combustible than most bands of golden b&w footage (Lambert and (or most explosives), The Who had Stamp always planned to document a street fighter for a frontman, a their managerial brilliance), James thorny intellectual for a guitarist, a D. Cooper’s poundingly fun, scrappy lunatic whirlwind for a drummer and profile has an unusually satisfying nuts- John Entwistle on bass. As we learn and-bolts perspective on the 60s fame in the puckishly entertaining Lambert machine.” — Joshua Rothkopf, Time & Stamp, the guys needed a firm Out NY hand: Oxford-educated Kit Lambert “This isn’t myth-burnishing hokum… and East End schemer Chris Stamp Lambert & Stamp just happens to (brother of actor Terence) were both illuminate the glory and tumult of the frustrated filmmakers until they found band’s rise with unexpected candour.” a mission in polishing the rock quartet — Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice for stardom. Roger Daltrey’s punching problem had to be addressed, while A ED Sunday 26 July, 1.00 pm Pete Townshend required creative B ED Friday 31 July, 2.00 pm encouragement (and Lambert’s A PAR Saturday 1 August, 6.15 pm classical vinyl) if he was ever going to A RX Sunday 2 August, 3.00 pm finish Tommy. Blessed with a wealth A PH Sunday 9 August, 4.00 pm MUSIC 67

Around the World in 50 Concerts Om de wereld in 50 concerten

The enduring expressive power of Director: Heddy Honigmann the Western orchestral repertoire is The Netherlands 2014 | 94 mins keenly observed in this wonderfully Producers: Carmen Cobos, Kees Rijninks idiosyncratic documentary by Photography: Goert Giltay Editor: Danniel Danniel Peruvian-born Dutch filmmaker Heddy With: The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Honigmann (Underground Orchestra, Mariss Jansons, Marcelo Ponce, Alice Makgorane, Portia Makgorane, Michael Masote, Crazy). One of Europe’s longest- Sergej Bogdanov running and most esteemed orchestras, Festivals: Amsterdam Documentary 2014; Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Hot Docs 2015 In Dutch, English, Russian and Spanish, Orchestra celebrated its 125th with English subtitles anniversary in 2013 by playing 50 Blu-ray concerts over six continents. The film takes in three of the more daunting ports of call: Buenos Aires, Soweto and St Petersburg. It’s impossible to imagine a more appreciative observer of the venture than Honigmann. Her alertness to what drives musicians to dedicate their lives to performing is matched by a subtle understanding of the “Here Honigmann sensitively consolations that music can offer to any interpolates generous helpings of the “The mutually beneficial of us. And both are rendered all the orchestra’s recordings to envelopingly relationships between more potent by her abiding sensitivity persuasive effect. The most powerful to exile, whether it be felt by a young episode of all is, paradoxically, the one musicians and their flautist in his hotel room missing a son’s closest to ‘home’: a nocturnal al fresco audiences form the core birthday halfway across the world; rendition of a sentimental Amsterdam of [this] delightful doco or by an elderly Russian who finds in ditty using the city’s streets and canals Mahler’s Symphony No 8 a conduit as grand backdrop, capable of bringing from Dutch doyenne B PH Friday 31 July, 1.45 pm to the vanished world of his mother tears not only to Dutch eyes.” — Neil Heddy Honigmann.” A PH Sunday 2 August, 4.15 pm who once heard it conducted by the Young, Hollywood Reporter B TP Wednesday 5 August, 4.00 pm — Neil Young, Hollywood Reporter composer himself. A PAR Saturday 8 August, 1.45 pm

From Scotland with Love

Expat New Zealand director Virginia Virginia Heath, Grant Keir Heath collaborated with prolific Scottish indie folksinger King Creosote (Kenny Director: Virginia Heath Anderson) to pair archival footage with UK 2014 | 75 mins original songs and create this vibrant Producer: Grant Keir elegy for 20th-century Scotland. Their Photography: Julian Schwanitz Editor: Colin Monie film offers no interviews or voice-overs, Music: Kenny Anderson aka King Creosote relying instead on Anderson’s poetic Colour and B&W songs to tell stories and embellish a fromscotlandwithlovethefilm.com myriad of documentary clips: industry, education, protest, housing, war, rural life, and, most stirringly, parties, parades, celebrations, holidays in the Highlands or at the beach. The past we see may be almost as foreign a country now to those who live there as to anyone who’s never set foot: it’s impossible to watch the lively throngs in this film without considering how massively the social contract has changed in the meantime. Scotland with Love, Scots and those “The detail-rich vignettes (miners with Scottish blood in their families “It’s not the Scotland of smoking, couples skating on frozen may feel a certain pang of inherited Walker’s shortbread rivers, a self-conscious sandwich-board nostalgia well up inside them. Kenny boy advertising Auchtermuchty Flower ‘King Creosote’ Anderson sings with the and red-bearded pipers… Show) are almost too much for one blend of resoluteness and regret that but a moving portrait sitting. But it’s spellbinding… It’s like he musters like few others… Nostalgia, of strong-willed people a new kind of history programme: of course is the point… Yet something immersive, lyrical and, in its way, about the narrative intentions of the enduring in times of B PAR Tuesday 28 July, 1.00 pm beautiful.” — Mark Braxton, Radio film raises it above the status of a change.” A PAR Tuesday 28 July, 6.15 pm Times misty-eyed trip down memory lane.” — Timothy Monger, All Music “During the opening minutes of From — David Pollock, The Scotsman 68 MUSIC

Seymour: An Introduction

“Ethan Hawke directed this documentary, Director: Ethan Hawke about Seymour Bernstein, a pianist, USA 2014 | 81 mins now in his late eighties, who, in 1977, Producers: Ryan Hawke, Greg Loser, renounced the duties and the anxieties Heather Joan Smith Photography: Ramsey Fendall of a public performer and became a Editor: Anna Gustavi piano teacher… Even nonmusicians Music: Seymour Bernstein With: Seymour Bernstein, Michael Kimmelman, have been struck by the vigor of Andrew Harvey, Joseph Smith, Kimball Gallagher Bernstein’s wisdom, among them Festivals: Toronto, New York 2014 Hawke, who met him one evening seymouranintroduction.com and ‘felt kind of safe around him’. If anything, the sweetness of the subject’s nature and the gentle modulations of his speaking voice are so potent that it would seem not just uncivil but futile to contradict him; yet Hawke is too alert and too inquiring to let the movie subside into worship. The kindly surface is broken by brisker moments: clips of master classes, tryouts of different Steinways, memories of playing for front-line art and life from a man who sees no troops in Korea, and pedagogic advice dividing line between the one and “A greatly admired, deeply that cuts hard against the American the other… He speaks softly though nourishing New York City grain: ‘I’m not so sure that a major urgently in shapely paragraphs, never career is a healthy thing to embark mind mere sentences, and holds out piano teacher still active in upon,’ Bernstein says. Hawke is seeking the shining promise – a believable one, his 80s, Bernstein and his not to reclaim a forgotten figure or to coming from him – that with sufficient persistent faith in musical argue for his status but to follow his dedication, meaning the sort of hard challenging lead.” — Anthony Lane, work that great teachers always insist art are the subjects of a film A PH Saturday 25 July, 2.00 pm New Yorker on, ‘music and life will interact in a both beautiful and true.” B PH Monday 27 July, 11.15 am “It’s a study in boundless passion, never-ending cycle of fulfilment‘.” B EMB Thursday 30 July, 11.00 am — Stuart Klawans, The Nation Saturday 1 August, 11.30 am plus a wellspring of wisdom about — Joe Morgenstern, Wall St Journal A EMB HHM907 0615 HHM907 Movies.

This is Olivia and Verena. It’s all about They love to indulge in a glass of wine at the hotel the shared before heading to a film. experience. #MakingMondaysBetter

Wellington Film Society

Monday nights at 6.15 at the Paramount. Join us. Visit www.heritagehotels.co.nz for pre-show dinners www.filmsocietywellington.net.nz and accommodation packages or call us on 0800 368 888 MUSIC 69

Mavis!

“Gospel/soul music legend and civil Director: Jessica Edwards rights icon Mavis Staples shines in a USA 2015 | 80 mins film that’s rich with six decades of music Producers: Jessica Edwards, Rachel Mills and song. Lead singer of The Staple Photography: Keith Walker Editor: Amy Foote Singers – the acclaimed ‘first family Music: Mavis Staples of song’ founded by Mavis’s father With: Mavis Staples, Yvonne Staples, Roebuck ‘Pops’ Staples, Cleotha Staples, Roebuck ‘Pops’ Staples – she fused Pervis Staples, Bob Dylan, Prince, Jeff Tweedy, gospel, soul, folk and rock to transcend Bonnie Raitt, Levon Helm, Chuck D racism and unite people through music. Festivals: SXSW, Hot Docs 2015 mavisfilm.com Special appearances by Bonnie Raitt, Bob Dylan, Chuck D and Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, among others, testify to her profound influence on American music. But it is Staples herself who is the shining star of Mavis! A consummate storyteller, she reveals intimate tales of her life onstage and off – from shout- outs on the Southern gospel circuit in the 50s, freedom songs inspired by Martin Luther King Jr in the 60s, to chart-busting hits in the 70s and 80s adroitly entwines archival material, and her recent album One True Vine. newly filmed interviews and live “I’ll stop singing when I The film glows with the power and performances to create a cinematic have nothing left to say, spiritual grace of her unforgettable portrait quite capable of converting the voice.” — Lynne Fernie, Hot Docs uninitiated into acolytes, and elevating and that’s not gonna “All-around living legend Mavis casual interest to flood-tide levels of happen.” Staples is celebrated with the respect and affection.” — Joe Leydon, — Mavis Staples infectiously joyful enthusiasm of a Variety passionately devoted fan in Mavis!, a A LHP Sunday 2 August, 5.15 pm spirited and captivating bio-doc that B EMB Friday 7 August, 2.00 pm richly deserves the exclamation point A EMB Saturday 8 August, 4.15 pm in its title. Director Jessica Edwards

The Wrecking Crew Simone Young AM COnDuCTOR Baiba Skride VIOLIn Director: Denny Tedesco USA 2008 | 101 mins With: Lou Adler, Herb Alpert, Glen Campbell, Cher, Dick Clark, Micky Dolenz, Carol Kaye NEW ZEALAND Festivals: SXSW, Vancouver 2008 SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA presents Colour and B&W wreckingcrewfilm.com CATHEDR A L OF SOUND SIBELIUS AND BRUCKNER MAGNOLIA PICTURES Director Denny Tedesco is an Wilson, Cher, Nancy Sinatra, Glen enthusiastic guide to the legacy of his Campbell and Herb Alpert are on hand SIbELIuS father, LA session guitarist Tommy to testify that it’s all true. Shot over a Violin Concerto in D minor Tedesco, and the loose coterie of ace decade and completed in 2008, the musicians known as ‘The Wrecking film is so loaded with hit tracks that it bRuCKnER Crew’ who contributed to some of the took another six years and a Kickstarter Symphony No. 8 in C minor greatest pop tracks of the 50s and campaign to clear the music rights. (original version) 60s. As Tedesco – happily abetted by “A wonderful, touching and hilarious many of the surviving players – tells it, film about the unsung stars of so many the arrangements and riffs these guys records that you carry in your heart.” Fri 28 August 6.30pm (and one woman, bassist Carol Kaye) — Elvis Costello michael fowler centre wellington came up with defined the unique styles of many and varied pop greats. Phil Free pre-concert talk 45 minutes prior Spector’s vaunted ‘wall of sound’? The bass riff on ‘These Boots Are Made for Walking’? The Beach Boys classic B PAR Wednesday 29 July, 2.00 pm Thursday 30 July, 6.30 pm FOR TICKET DETAILS VISIT album Pet Sounds? ‘The Pink Panther A PAR Theme’? Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass? A LHP Wednesday 5 August, 6.15 pm nzso.co.nz Their versatility was staggering. Brian 70

Banksy Does New York AN ARTIST AN OF PORTRAIT Live Fast, Draw Yung (p77) Director: Chris Moukarbel USA 2014 | 80 mins Producers: Chris Moukarbel, Jack Turner Photography: Mai Iskander, Karim Raoul Editor: Jen Harrington

With his biodoc-hijack Exit Through the processes can distort, shift and re- Gift Shop (2010), anonymous street- contextualise meaning. Cataloguing art-provocateur Banksy turned the an eclectic milieu of obsessive fans, lens away from himself and onto the condescending art critics, opportunistic absurd intersections of art, commerce hustlers and affluent collectors, and hype, demystifying his own status this snapshot of a polarised public in the process. While created without might just be among Banksy’s most the involvement of the enigmatic artist, fascinating works. — JF this recent documentation of Banksy’s “Banksy and Moukarbel raise the month-long ‘residency’ in New York question of who these spontaneous City marks itself as a compelling acts of creativity belong to, and companion piece. Observing first whether they’re ever really ‘complete’… hand a multitude of reactions to a lively and engaging film.” — Noel Banksy’s ‘exhibition’, in which a wild Murray, AV Club array of new pieces was unveiled daily at random spots throughout the city, B NT Wednesday 29 July, 4.15 pm director Chris Moukarbel captures A NT Saturday 1 August, 4.00 pm the varying ways people respond to A NT Sunday 9 August, 6.00 pm and interact with art, and how these

Listen to Me Marlon

Becoming Anita Ekberg (p77) Director/Editor: Stevan Riley UK 2015 | 97 mins Producers: John Battsek, R.J. Cutler, George Chignell Screenplay: Stevan Riley, Peter Ettedgui Photography: Ole Bratt-Birkeland Festivals: Sundance, San Francisco 2015

There is no other actor who possesses McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter See also The Colour of Pomegranates (p13), the cinema screen with the authority “Listen to Me Marlon is an elegy, Philip Dadson: Sonics From Scratch, The Price of of Brando in his great roles. And with scenes of extraordinary beauty there’s not been a biography yet that throughout – not least the young Peace, Tom Who? The Enigma of Tom Kreisler cut to the quick of his life and art with Brando himself – but Riley has (all p19) and How to Smell a Rose (p64). the clarity of this documentary. not made a hagiography, nor is “Marlon Brando reveals himself this documentary just for Brando posthumously as he never publicly fans. Most actors are lucky, with a did in life in the remarkable ghostwriter’s help, to produce two documentary Listen to Me Marlon. hundred pages of gossip. Riley has Making marvellously creative use sifted through mountains of tapes and of a stash of audio recordings the found the emotions that made Brando actor privately made, plus a striking the actor of his generation.” — David amount of unfamiliar and never- D’Arcy, Screendaily before-seen photos and film footage, British documentarian Stevan Riley B NT Friday 24 July, 4.00 pm delivers an enthrallingly intimate look A NT Wednesday 29 July, 8.15 pm at the brilliant, troubled and always B NT Thursday 30 July, 4.00 pm Wednesday 5 August, 6.15 pm charismatic screen legend.” — Todd A NT PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST 71

Iris

New York fashion original Iris Apfel Director: Albert Maysles first came to prominence as an interior USA 2014 | 83 mins designer in the 1950s when she and Producers: Laura Coxson, Rebekah Maysles, her husband founded a company Jennifer Ash Rudick Photography: Albert Maysles, Nelson Walker III, specialising in hand-woven historic Sean Price Williams textiles. They furnished nine White Editor: Paul Lovelace Music: Steve Gunn, Justin Tripp Houses in a row and lived an enviable With: Iris Apfel, Carl Apfel, Billy Apfel, globetrotting lifestyle. Alexis Bittar, Mickey Boardman, Linda Fargo, Apfel began cultivating her Tavi Gevinson, David Hoey, Naeem Khan, Harold Koda, Jenny Lyons, Duro Olowu extraordinary sense of personal style Festivals: New York, Amsterdam Documentary early on, sporting an endless array of 2014; San Francisco 2015 gigantic round eyeglasses, wearing boldly mixed patterns, and adorning herself with cascades of costume jewellery. It took the world of fashion decades to catch up, but by the 21st century she had become an unlikely style icon, her striking look being celebrated in fashion magazines and an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum ©BRUCE WEBER of Art’s Costume Institute in 2005. There are the expected fashion shoots The late veteran documentarian and cocktail parties, and testimonials “I’m not pretty, and I’ll Albert Maysles (Gimme Shelter, Grey from the great and good (designer never be pretty, but it Gardens) follows the 93-year-old Iris on Dries van Noten, jeweller Alexis Bittar, her rounds with his usual impeccable photographer Bruce Weber), but we doesn’t matter. I have discretion, turning what others might also see Iris haggle over bangles at a something much better. have made a mere caricature into Harlem market and grapple with the I have style.” a moving study of a headstrong, deteriorating health of her doting hubby, A EMB Saturday 25 July, 2.00 pm irreverent, compulsively quotable Carl, who turned 100 during filming. — Iris Apfel A LHP Tuesday 28 July, 6.15 pm (‘colour can raise the dead’) woman Don’t miss the chance to meet one of B EMB Wednesday 29 July, 1.15 pm towards the end of her extraordinary the most unforgettable characters of A PH Saturday 1 August, 4.30 pm life. this festival. — Angela Lassig B PH Monday 3 August, 1.30 pm

The End of the Tour

“This love song to the art of Tama (p77) conversation is about a Rolling Stone journalist, David Lipsky (Jesse Director: James Ponsoldt Eisenberg) who is infatuated with USA 2015 | 106 mins the novelist David Foster Wallace’s Producers: David Kanter, Matt DeRoss, Infinite Jest James Dahl, Mark Manuel, Ted O’Neal gargantuan novel and Screenplay: Donald Margulies. Based on the book begs for the opportunity to profile Although of Course You End Up Becoming the author, who is about to leave his Yourself by David Lipsky Photography: Jakob Ihre snowbound rural home in Illinois for a Editor: Darrin Navarro five-day book tour to Minneapolis. Production designer: Gerald Sullivan Costume designer: Emma Potter Wallace, played as a shambling, Music: Danny Elfman reflective, moody, acutely self-aware With: Jesse Eisenberg, Jason Segel, and rigorously honest lost soul by Becky Ann Baker, Anna Chlumsky, Joan Cusack, Mamie Gummer, Ron Livingston, Mickey Sumner Jason Segel, immediately impresses Festivals: Sundance, San Francisco 2015 Lipsky with his utter lack of pretense, CinemaScope/Censors rating tbc his fondness for his dogs and his endofthetour-movie.com appreciation (very much shared by Lipsky) for junk food and Pepsi. Lipsky serves as an acolyte, a sounding board and a friend, and yet Wallace, himself JAKOB IHRE an experienced journalist, is suspicious college professor) is extremely alive, of his interlocutor’s motives.” — Kyle tapping into shared fears, worries and “It is as fine and rich a film Smith, NY Post philosophies with an authentic and about writing as a “Two writers bonding over work, familiar immediacy that feels like it their self-awareness and how their was transcribed as it happened in the vocation as I’ve ever seen.” efforts are perceived can only sustain moment… — Amy Taubin, Film Comment an audience of non-authors so far, The movie’s look at isolation, but The End of the Tour understands confidence and connection the necessity to communicate reverberates deeply… Intimate, soul- A PAR Sunday 2 August, 1.00 pm universal truths. Based on Lipsky’s baring, and winning, The End of the B PAR Tuesday 4 August, 1.45 pm memoir, this adaptation by Donald Tour is a special, lovely little gem.” Margulies (director James Pondsoldt’s — Rodrigo Perez, The Playlist 72

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Some Kind of Love

Yolanda Sonnabend has been a well- B. Sumner Burstyn known portrait painter and stellar designer for Britain’s Royal Ballet. Ballet Director/Photography: aside, the work of art most enticingly Thomas Burstyn | displayed in this documentary is Canada 2014 78 mins her home, the last un-renovated Producers: B. Sumner Burstyn, Trish Dolman Editor: Peter Roeck house in an ultra-expensive London Music: John Korsrud suburb, which she has arrayed like an With: Yolanda Sonnabend, Joseph Sonnabend enchanted gallery with a lifetime’s Festivals: Vancouver 2014 collection of paintings and found objects. As she’s in the early stages of dementia, her long estranged older brother, Dr Joseph Sonnabend, a hero of AIDS research, has moved in to take care of her. The man of science could not be less enchanted by Yolanda or her chaos, and there’s more than a hint of Grey Gardens about their bravura carping and Yolanda’s hauteur under siege. There’s a touch of fairy story too in both the portrait artists lurking under their extraordinary back story in which his roof, he is prompted to own up to “A riveting portrait of the a monstrous step mother looms large. his responsibilities as a filmmaker too. problematic connection Their step-nephew Thomas Burstyn, “Ghosts haunt the canopy of any director of a very different family family tree, and here they are so vivid, between two fascinating portrait in This Way of Life, filmed them everyone can still see them. In Some characters.” on several visits over a number of years. Kind of Love, you can feel Thomas — Susan G. Cole, Now He interweaves Yolanda and Joseph’s Burstyn’s need to capture them before past and present with qualms about they’re gone for good.” — Ken Eisner, A TP Monday 3 August, 6.15 pm his own current family responsibilities. Georgia Straight B PH Tuesday 4 August, 1.30 pm And thanks to Joseph’s point-blank A PH Tuesday 4 August, 6.15 pm denunciations of the ethical laxness of

Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict Women He’s Undressed

Director: The Vanity Tables Lisa Immordino Vreeland of Douglas Sirk (p77) USA/Italy/UK 2015 Director: 96 mins Gillian Armstrong Producers: Stanley Buchthal, Australia 2015 | 99 mins David Koh, Dan Braun Producers: Gillian Armstrong, Photography: Peter Trilling Damien Parer With: Jacqueline Bograd Weld, Photography: Anna Howard Francine Prose, John Richardson, Editor: Nicholas Beauman Nicky Haslam Music: Cezary Skubisz-ewski Festivals: Tribeca 2015 With: Darren Gilshenan, Deborah Kennedy, Louis Alexander Festivals: Sydney 2015

Without collector and patron cine-biographer of Diana Vreeland, Orry George Kelly (1897–1964), time the big pretender gets married. Peggy Guggenheim, art in the 20th and a comfortable inhabitant of the Hollywood costume designer But the ripest fruit here is to be century might have looked a little social eco-system in which her subject extraordinaire, grew up in Kiama, a found in the dazzling clips: 42nd Street, different today. She nurtured Pollock, rebelled and thrived. New South Wales town notable in his Casablanca, Some Like It Hot, Les Motherwell, Rothko and scores “Keeping Jackson Pollock afloat may estimation for its blowhole and view Girls, Gypsy, every great picture Bette of others and amassed a personal have been her proudest achievement, of the Pacific Ocean. He made his way Davis ever made. Hollywood insiders collection that surely rates among the but the list of artists who had their across it via art school and window who knew him (Jane Fonda) or who five top reasons to visit Venice. She first exhibitions with Guggenheim is dressing work in Sydney. After a spell know all about him (a who’s who of was wealthy, but by no means the staggering… Vreeland gives a good designing for the New York stage and contemporary costume designers) wealthiest of the Guggenheims. She sense of her impact, while telling clubs, he moved to Los Angeles in 1932 testify to his outness, his excesses and preferred the bohemian world to high stories of so many love affairs and ego with his English boyfriend, an aspiring his extraordinary talent for unifying society and had a good nose for where clashes Art Addict never feels a bit actor named Archie Leach. actor and character in costume. in the world the most exciting work like a history lesson.” — John DeFore, Taking her sassy tone from Kelly’s was to be found. She was personally Hollywood Reporter recently discovered tell-all memoir, awkward, but sexually adventurous, Armstrong provides a third-person something she flaunted to widespread B NT Friday 24 July, 12.00 pm narration delivered by a Kelly stand-in A PAR Thursday 6 August, 6.15 pm amazement and dismay in a scandalous A NT Friday 24 July, 6.15 pm (Darren Gilshenan) – and makes a meal B PH Friday 7 August, 1.00 pm memoir. Her life story is chronicled here A NT Sunday 26 July, 11.30 am of Archie’s transformation into Cary A PH Friday 7 August, 6.15 pm B TP Friday 7 August, 2.00 pm A RX Saturday 8 August, 4.15 pm by Lisa Immordino Vreeland, recent Grant, pausing to scoff anew every 74

Finders Keepers STRANGE INCREDIBLY

Bryan Carberry Directors: Bryan Carberry, Clay Tweel USA 2015 | 84 mins Photography: Adam Hobbs Editors: Clay Tweel, Bryan Carberry, Tchavdar Georgiev With: John Wood, Shannon Whisnant

LISLLC This tale of John Wood, a simple manages to showcase all the shades of man who fights fame monster grey in this rich mine. Shannon Whisnant to recover his own Filmmakers Bryan Carberry and mummified leg, is so deliciously bizarre Clay Tweel let the tale unfold expertly it could have been adapted from and with a deft touch, cleverly letting the tattered pages of an old horror all the principals tell their sides of the paperback. There’s a rare breed of story, allowing the picture to build to a doco that tells a tale so jaw-droppingly surprisingly emotional climax. See this unbelievable and funny that audiences one before everyone else spoils the fun instantly think the entire story is one for you. — AT giant prank. Those familiar with the earlier Incredibly Strange hit The King of Kong are going to appreciate this story of another two larger-than-life men, who at first glance represent good and evil. As the story unfolds B PAR Friday 31 July, 4.00 pm it reveals a much deeper and more A PAR Saturday 1 August, 8.45 pm complex symbiotic relationship between the two. Finders Keepers

Goodnight Mommy Ich seh Ich seh

Directors/Screenplay: Veronika Franz, Severin Fiala Austria 2014 | 99 mins Producer: Ulrich Seidl Photography: Martin Gschlacht With: Susanne Wuest, Lukas Schwarz, Elias Schwarz Festivals: Venice, Toronto 2014 In German with English subtitles CinemaScope/R16 violence, horror Films selected to keep NZIFF from becoming respectable by Ant Timpson, founder of the legendary Incredibly Strange Film Festival. One of the most talked about and completely hidden from them, except genuinely creepy debut films in for two penetrating eyeholes. Gone These days Ant has a big hand in producing decades. Not since Michael Haneke is the affectionate loving mother and exactly the kind of film he’s been programming unleashed Funny Games have we felt in her place is a chilly controller who the surgical precision of an Austrian barks out orders. As she recovers into the DNA of the national film culture for thriller at the top of its game. in the dark recesses of their stark more than 20 years. He submitted two of them Writer-directors Veronika Franz and ultramodern designer home, the twins Severin Fiala, respectively the partner start to question her authenticity, and to his NZIFF programming colleagues this year. and nephew of acclaimed filmmaker the audience’s grasp on reality and We had to agree, conflict of interest be damned, Ulrich Seidl, have devised a clever and paranoid fantasy begins to blur. One insidious mother-son-son psycho- final warning: the less you know about Incredibly Strange is where the blood-splattered drama. where this film is heading, the better Turbo Kid and Deathgasm must have their It all starts with a wholesome family the experience. — AT lullaby before becoming more and Embassy Theatre home-coming debuts. more off-kilter as the tale of twin boys and their mother takes a terrifying turn A PB Wednesday 29 July, 8.15 pm for the worse. When the boys’ mother A PAR Sunday 2 August, 8.15 pm returns from extensive surgery, her face, wrapped in bandages, is now INCREDIBLY STRANGE 75

Deathgasm

Growing up can be hell, especially for Jason Lei Howden* a teenage metal fan in conservative, small-town New Zealand. Brodie (Milo Director/Screenplay: Jason Lei Howden Hawthorne) is shipped off to live New Zealand 2015 | 86 mins with his Christian aunt and uncle in Executive producers: Ant Timpson, Greg Newman Producers: Andrew Beattie, Morgan Leigh Stewart, the middle of nowhere. They aren’t Sarah Howden, Ant Timpson impressed with his love for the likes of Photography: Simon Raby Trivium and Cannibal Corpse. Things Editors: Jeff Hurrell, Gareth van Niekerk Music: Dead Pirate look up when he meets a like mind With: Milo Cawthorne, James Blake, in bad boy Zakk (James Blake) and Kimberley Crossman, Sam Berkley, Daniel Cresswell, Delaney Tabron, Stephen Ure, Jodie Rimmer, together they form a heavy metal band Colin Moy with a couple of D&D geeks. Festivals: SXSW 2015 All hell, literally, breaks loose CinemaScope/R16 graphic violence, sexual references, offensive language when the pair get their hands on an @deathgasmfilm unrecorded song from their death metal idol. It soon becomes apparent why the song was never recorded, as everyone within earshot of their garage jam session is turned into demonic zombies. So it’s up to our head-banging heroes to, reluctantly, save the world high with a zombie-vs-sex toys battle, from a satanic apocalypse. — MM it’s a very metal tribute to the grand “Deathgasm is a bloody, “Director Jason Lei Howden drenches tradition of Kiwi splatter comedies.” head-banging ball of fun, it in enough spraying plasma to drown — Richard Whittaker, Austin Chronicle a demon and raise hysterical belly “Deathgasm is the real deal. Straight gore and soul-shaking laughs. A Weta CGI effects guy by from the bowels of hell comes a music.” training, Howden goes practical-heavy metalhead’s wet dream, scored by — Rob Hunter, Film School Rejects for gory, glorious, ridiculous, and some of the thrashiest New Zealand comedic effect. It also doesn’t hurt that and international metal icons around. A EMB Friday 31 July, 9.30 pm* he clearly knows his metal, mocking Fuck thumbs, this film gets two metal B PAR Tuesday 4 August, 4.15 pm only what he loves. Shamelessly low- horns way, WAY up.” — Matt Donato, A LHP Friday 7 August, 8.30 pm brow, reaching a beer-fueled gleeful We Got This Covered A RX Saturday 8 August, 6.30 pm

I Am Thor The Invitation

Director/Photography/ Director: Karyn Kusama Editor: Ryan Wise USA 2015 | 90 mins USA 2015 | 84 mins Screenplay: Phil Hay, Producers: Ryan Wise, Matt Manfredi Alan Higbee Photography: Bobby Shore Music: Christopher Ward With: Logan Marshall-Green, With: Jon Mikl Thor, Steve Price, Tammy Blanchard, Michiel Mike Favata Huisman, Emayatzy Corinealdi Festivals: Slamdance 2015 Festivals: SXSW 2015 iamthormovie.com CinemaScope/Censors rating tbc

Forget about that coiffed-up hammer and revealing footage that will leave An invitation to a dinner party in a is really about. Why does the host keep dude from the Marvel Universe. The real you crying with laughter. This truly secluded designer mansion is the locking the front door? Why is the cell Thor was a 70s Canadian competitive affectionate doco showcases the entrée to one of the most nail-biting phone reception so terrible? What the bodybuilder who moonlighted as a world’s most sincere, self-deprecating thrillers around – and Karyn Kusuma’s hell were Eden and David thinking naked lounge lizard with a Vegas- narcissistic underdog. Watching best film since Girlfight. The unease is when they invited a pair of strangers style cabaret show, singing standards, Thor’s undying fame-quest for world already evident as Will and Kira wind they met on holiday in Mexico to this blowing up hot water bottles, fronting domination is both heartbreaking and their car through the Hollywood Hills, supposedly intimate reunion? With an incredible heavy metal band and inspirational. — AT looking for their destination. Their one of them played by a terrifyingly starring in mesmerising, cheesy horror “Like another Canuck headbanger hosts, David and Eden, introduce them stone-faced John Carroll Lynch (Zodiac), movies (Rock & Roll Nightmare). portrait, 2008’s sleeper success Anvil! to everyone present, and we begin to you’ll be sweating too, long before you Filmmaker Ryan Wise knew he was The Story of Anvil, this mix of real-life piece together past relationships and figure out if it’s the guest or the host onto something pretty special as he Spinal Tap antics and underdog rooting potential conflicts. The salient issue is who should be reaching for the carving began recording the roller-coaster value should attract a cult following.” that Eden was once Will’s lover. The knife. life of perpetual dreamer Jon Mikl — Dennis Harvey, Variety remarkable house was formerly theirs Thor after he discovered him making and being back there is spooking him. pizzas in the early 2000s. Wise follows B NT Wednesday 5 August, 4.15 pm Clues about their split are gradually A PAR Thursday 30 July, 8.45 pm Thor’s comeback, documenting his A NT Thursday 6 August, 8.30 pm disclosed. As the wine flows, the A ED Saturday 1 August, 8.45 pm subject’s real-life Spinal Tap existence A NT Saturday 8 August, 6.45 pm questions begin to mount in Will’s B ED Wednesday 5 August, 4.45 pm with hundreds of hours of intimate mind as to just what this dinner party 76 INCREDIBLY STRANGE

Turbo Kid

A raucous retro action-comedy that delivers fun and gore by the bucket- load, this debut feature from Québécois Directors/Screenplay: François Simard, filmmaking collective RKSS (François Anouk Whissell, Yoann-Karl Whissell Simard and siblings Anouk and Canada/New Zealand 2015 | 95 mins Yoann-Karl Whissell) pays homage to Producers: Anne-Marie Gélinas, Ant Timpson, Benoit Beaulieu, Tim Riley such VHS-era favourites as BMX Bandits Photography: Jean-Philippe Bernier and Mad Max, as well as their cheeky Editor: Luke Haigh straight-to-video knock-offs. Music: Le Matos With: Munro Chambers, Laurence Leboeuf, Turbo Kid takes us back to the Aaron Jeffrey, Edwin Wright, Romano Orzari, future, 1997 to be exact, where Michael Ironside Festivals: Sundance, SXSW 2015 the evil overlord Zeus (played with Audience Award (Midnighters), SXSW Film malevolent relish by genre stalwart Festival 2015 Michael Ironside) controls the only CinemaScope/R16 graphic violence, offensive language remaining supply of water in a post- @turbokidfilm nuclear dystopian wasteland. The comic book-obsessed Kid scavenges in the ruins for goods to trade with other survivors for water, but instead ends up finding a new bestie, a preternaturally enthusiastic pink-haired girl named 80s and discovered when the world’s Apple. BMX-riding goons in the employ last VHS store emptied its storage “A magical can’t-miss of Zeus maraud around the landscape locker… Turbo Kid mixes innocent experience that’s like abducting vulnerable survivors. When kid-stuff action with the kind of Apple is kidnapped, the Kid must draw outlandish gore many of the era’s teens a Saturday morning on his superhero know-how and the covertly devoured on video. A pitch- cartoon turned into an power of an ancient artifact to rescue perfect pastiche that never mocks its apocalyptic 80s fever- her and dispense some turbocharged inspirations, the picture is silly fun to blood-spattered revenge on the bad warm the hearts of aging fanboys dream.” — Matt Donato, A EMB Saturday 25 July, 9.30 pm guys. — MM and delight hipsters who weren’t yet We Got This Covered B PAR Thursday 30 July, 4.15 pm “A post-apocalyptic adventure that born the first time.” — John DeFore, A LHP Saturday 1 August, 8.15 pm Sunday 2 August, 5.30 pm might well have been made in the early Hollywood Reporter A RX

Love 3D Yakuza Apocalypse: The Great War of the Underworld Gokudo daisenso

Director: Miike Takashi Japan 2015 | 115 mins Director/Screenplay: Screenplay: Yamaguchi Gaspar Noé Yoshitaka France/Belgium 2015 Photography: Kanda Hajime With: Ichihara Hayato, Lily Franky, 134 mins Ruhian Yayan, Denden Photography: Benoît Debie Festivals: Cannes (Directors’ Editors: Gaspar Noé, Denis Bedlow Fortnight) 2015 With: Karl Glusman, In Japanese and English, Aomi Muyock, Klara Kristin with English subtitles Festivals: Cannes CinemaScope/Censors rating tbc (Midnight Screenings) 2015 CinemaScope/3D/Censors rating tbc

“The last time we were caught in be difficult… It’s unique to see Noé Separating the Miike cultists from the down locals for protection money, and provocateur Gaspar Noé’s crosshairs presenting these petty squabbles with critics at its Cannes midnight screenings, spontaneously growing punch perms it was back in 2009 with Enter the such earnestness… It’s an artfully the latest from the prolific Japanese and tattoos. It gets much stranger from Void, which ended on an orgasmic made examination of sexual and genre extremist is one of his most wild there… Miike remains the foremost crescendo by literally [!] fucking the romantic experiences rarely committed and crazy. composer of the off-beat midnight audience. He’s back with more of that so bluntly to film. And in 3D, no less… “Cue screaming guitar riff and a movie. He builds out-there elements kind of sex stuff with Love, a memory Love feels very much like a film from dozen or so guys in bad suits getting one on top of the other, to the point poem as sexual odyssey/obsession Noé, utilizing DoP Benoît Debie once sliced open with a sword. Yakuza that the movie seems on the verge of told via the nostalgia of its tortured again to create some gorgeously shot Apocalypse is an exercise in inspired toppling once the climax – volcanoes, protagonist. Sexually explicit, but not sexual sequences, even if the artistic lunacy, built around one of Miike kaiju, a tricked-out big rig, a mysterious necessarily distasteful, Noé is simply choices may go unnoticed due to Takashi’s signature genre switcheroos: killer in a frog mascot costume – hits showing the general mechanics of our unfamiliarity with certain images it kicks off as a conventional gangster fever-pitch.” — Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, people having sex. The rest of the outside of pornography.” — Nicholas picture, right down to the Goodfellas AV Club narrative, seeking to explore the Bell, Ioncinema narration, before revealing that one undoing of a passionate, youthful of the characters is a yakuza vampire relationship… explores the mundane 3D ED Friday 7 August, 1.30 pm – not a vampire who happens to be A EMB Friday 24 July, 10.00 pm inevitability of monogamy and how 3D EMB Friday 7 August, 9.45 pm a Japanese gangster, but a vampire A ED Saturday 25 July, 10.00 pm solving such an issue in a union based 3D ED Saturday 8 August, 8.15 pm whose blood-drained victims rise as B ED Monday 27 July, 3.45 pm Friday 31 July, 10.15 pm mostly on sexual attraction proves to low-level yakuza, gambling, shaking A ED 77

Shorts with Features As we go to print, the following shorts have been scheduled to precede features.

JOSEPH GETS DRESSED OH LUCY!

Arid Edge Food for Thought Mine New Zealand 2014 | 8 mins | Director: Philip Dadson New Zealand 2015 | 14 mins | Director: Pat Robins New Zealand 2014 | 14 mins | Director: Paloma Schneideman A kinetic camera films a bicycle ride After the sudden death of her elderly through the bleak but beautiful father, a middle-aged daughter A young mother must come to terms Atacama Desert in Chile. Screening uncovers some incriminating evidence with the consequences of a difficult with Philip Dadson: Sonics from Scratch in her mother’s freezer. Screening with decision. Screening with The Second In association with Nga¯ Taonga (p19). Latin Lover (p29). Mother (p20). Sound & Vision we present four views of Wellington life Becoming Anita Ekberg Joseph Gets Dressed Oh Lucy! in celebration of the Capital’s | | France/USA 2014 | 18 mins | Director: Mark New Zealand/USA 2015 | 24 mins | Directors: Gemma Japan/USA 2014 22 mins Director: Hirayanagi 150th birthday. | Rappaport | Festivals: Rotterdam 2015 Gracewood, Corey Gegner Atsuko Festivals: Cannes (Cinéfondation), Toronto 2014; Sundance 2015 Follow the evolution of Swedish actress Kiwi kinetic artist Joseph Herscher A middle-aged office lady in Tokyo Anita Ekberg from 50s Hollywood gears up for his first US show where New Zealand News & is given a blonde wig and a new sex symbol to Euro sex goddess he transforms everyday objects into an identity by her unconventional English- Views – Construction immortalised in Fellini’s La Dolce Vita. intricate Rube Goldberg-style machine language teacher. Screening with Hill of the T & G Building, Screening with Listen to Me Marlon that will dress him from head to toe. of Freedom (p29). (p70). Screening with Very Semi-Serious (p61). Lambton Quay, Wellington New Zealand 1928 | NZ Government Publicity Office Pelorus 2 mins Born to Be Mild The Lawnmower Bandit New Zealand 2015 | 13 mins | Director: Alex UK 2014 | 15 mins | Director: Andy Oxley | Festivals: New Zealand/Australia 2014 | 11 mins | Director: Sutherland Builders work on the construction SXSW 2015 Jackie van Beek of the former T & G (now Harcourts) In 1979 a little-known pioneer makes Tired of life in the fast lane? Meet Paul used to steal lawnmowers for Building on Lambton Quay. Screening the first modern bungee jump off the the Dull Men’s Club, a group of men a living but when his father died, with A Most Violent Year (p33). Pelorus Bridge in Marlborough. A true quite content with life’s more sedate he promised himself a better life. story of Kiwi innovation and mateship. pleasures. Screening with A Pigeon Sat Screening with Rams (p27). Pacific Magazine 09 – Screening with Sunshine Superman on a Branch Reflecting on Existence Commerce Drive In Bank (p59). (p51). Les Blank on Photography New Zealand 1955 | Pacific Films| 3 mins USA 2015 | 10 mins | Director: Harrod Blank Return The Chicken Parking problems in Wellington have In an excerpt from a forthcoming New Zealand 2015 | 15 mins | Director: Ryan Heron prompted the establishment of New Germany/Croatia 2014 | 15 mins | Director: Una feature about his father, Harrod Blank Gujak | Festivals: Cannes (Critics’ Week) 2014; A young man returns home to Zealand’s first drive-in bank. Screening Sundance 2015 introduces us to the still photography Wanganui to discover the difficulty with Tehran Taxi (p26). of Les Blank. Screening with How to A six-year-old girl gets a chicken for her of juggling friends, parents, magic Smell a Rose (p64). Toehold on a Harbour birthday but isn’t too keen for it to end mushrooms and several thousand New Zealand 1966 | NZ National Film Unit | 10 mins up in the pot. Screening with Lamb (p23). Live Fast, Draw Yung chickens. Screening with James White (p45). A colourful impression of Wellington New Zealand/USA 2015 | 16 mins | Directors: Stacey Ernie Biscuit Lee, Anthony Mathile city: hills, winding streets, busy people Australia 2015 | 21 mins | Director: Adam Elliot Tama and strong winds. This stunning Hip-hop’s hottest young illustrator is New Zealand 2014 | 10 mins | Director: Ryan new digital restoration is a birthday The ‘clayography’ of a deaf Parisian a Seattle six-year-old. What starts as Alexander Lloyd present to the Capital from Archives taxidermist whose world is turned an after-school hobby for Yung Lenox An unconventional documentary New Zealand, Ngā Taonga Sound & upside down and back to front when and his dad becomes a lifestyle and a portrait of a father and his middle-aged Vision and Park Road Post Production. a dead pigeon arrives on his doorstep. business. Screening with Banksy Does son. Screening with The End of the Screening with The Mafia Kills Only in Screening with Wrinkles (p31). New York (p70). Tour (p71). Summer (p28). The Face of Ukraine: A Million Miles Away The Vanity Tables of Weekly Review 269 – Casting Oksana Baiul USA 2014 | 28 mins | Director: Jennifer Reeder Australia 2014 | 7 mins | Director: Kitty Green Douglas Sirk Chinese Picnic Festivals: Sundance 2015 A class of teenage girls coach their France/USA 2014 | 11 mins | Director: Mark New Zealand 1946 | NZ National Film Unit | 2 mins substitute choir teacher through Rappaport | Festivals: Rotterdam 2015 Girls from across war-torn Ukraine relationship trouble by transforming Wellington’s Chinese community Discover the importance of furnishings audition to play the role of the gold a heavy metal classic into a feminist celebrates China’s National Day with a in the 50s Hollywood films of Douglas medal-winning figure skater whose anthem. Screening with Princess (p46). picnic at Athletic Park. Screening with tears of joy once united their troubled Sirk, especially the pejoratively named, William Yang: Blood Links (p57). country. Screening with The Russian vanity table. Screening with Women Woodpecker (p56). He’s Undressed (p73). 78

Meet the Filmmakers As we go to print, the following international guests have confirmed their attendance at NZIFF in Wellington. These filmmakers will introduce their films and answer questions following the screening of the sessions indicated.

Brad Barber & Scott Christopherson Crystal Moselle other accolades, including nominations for editing A PAR Wednesday 29 July, 8.45 pm A RX Sunday 26 July, 5.15 pm and cinematography for their first feature 45365. B PAR Thursday 30 July, 11.00 am A PAR Tuesday 28 July, 8.45 pm Their second feature, Tchoupitoulas (p50), premiered Brad has worked in Los Crystal is a New York-based in 2012 at SXSW where it won Special Mention, a Angeles as an editor, director who has been working nd Emerging Artist at the HotDocs Festival. Their cinematographer and with short-form storytelling third documentary, Western (p51), is a glimpse of director/producer of for the past decade. Her series life in a Texas border town at a time of change. documentaries. Something Big, Something It premiered in Sundance, taking out the Special He was nominated for an Small featuring Pharrell Jury Prize. Emmy for his work as an Williams, Aurel Schmidt, and editor on the HBO Shepard Fairey was picked Kidlat Tahimik documentary Resolved. Scott has won multiple up by the NY Times. She also produced the feature A PAR Sunday 26 July, 11.30 am awards locally and internationally for his student documentary Excavating Taylor Mead, a portrait of B TP Tuesday 28 July, 11.00 am films, and his first film was broadcast internationally the downtown artist and Warhol Superstar, which Kidlat is a director, writer for over a year. They join forces for the first time was part of the 2006 Whitney Biennial. The Wolfpack and actor who has made with Peace Officer (p63), a feature documentary (p57) is her first feature-length documentary. great contributions to the about the increasingly militarised state of the global film culture as one of American police. Margot Nash the pioneering independent B PAR Friday 24 July, 2.00 pm filmmakers in Asia. He B. Sumner Burstyn A PAR Saturday 25 July, 12.45 pm is known for Perfumed A TP Monday 3 August, 6.15 pm Margot has produced, Nightmare (1997) and B PH Tuesday 4 August, 1.30 pm written and directed a Turumba (1981) and has won numerous awards A PH Tuesday 4 August, 6.15 pm number of award-winning locally and internationally. He was recently awarded Sumner is an award-winning, films. Her credits include the the Caligari Award at 2015 Berlinale for Balikbayan widely published journalist, experimental shorts Shadow #1 Memories of Overdevelopment Redux III (p49). researcher and writer. Panic and We Aim to Please, Producing and directing the feature documentary For William Yang socially relevant documentaries Love or Money and the feature B NT Thursday 30 July, 6.15 pm is her dream come true. dramas Vacant Possession and Call Me Mum. During a B NT Friday 31 July, 12.45 pm Her film This Way of Life Filmmaker in Residence at Zurich University of the Arts William was born in 1943 in MICHAEL CRAIG screened at NZIFF09, was in 2012, her desire to embark on a discovery-driven North Queensland. A prolific shortlisted for an Oscar and won 12 international process led to the development of The Silences (p56), photographer and performer awards. Her latest documentary, Some Kind of a personal essay compilation about family secrets. Love (p73), has been selected for many international of monologues, he has festivals. won numerous awards and Joshua Oppenheimer accolades and his works are A PAR Thursday 6 August, 8.45 pm held in the collections of the Bryan Carberry B PAR Friday 7 August, 1.30 pm Art Gallery of New South B PAR Friday 31 July, 4.00 pm Oscar-nominated film director Wales, Museum of Contemporary Art, National A PAR Saturday 1 August, 8.45 pm Joshua has worked for over a Gallery of Australia, National Portrait Gallery, Bryan studied film at the decade with militias, death Queensland Art Gallery, State Library of New South University of Southern squads and their victims to Wales and National Library of Australia. William California where he placed explore the relationship between Yang: Blood Links (p57) is the last of a trilogy of second in the Undergraduate political violence and public performances that have been adapted for screen. Writers Conference for imagination. His debut feature- fiction and was awarded the length film, The Act of Killing Yi Li James Bridges scholarship (2012), was named 2013 Film of the Year by The 3D EMB Wednesday 29 July, 9.00 pm for Excellence in Directing. Guardian and Sight & Sound and has won 72 Finders Keepers (p74) marks Bryan’s feature directorial international awards along with an Oscar nomination Yi Li is a well-known visual debut. Previously he directed videos for Adriano for Best Documentary. The Look of Silence (p55) has artist in China and has Goldschmied, JVC and Scott Weiland. screened in festivals around the globe since it premiered translated this talent to in competition at the 71st Venice Film Festival, where the big screen with his first it won five awards including the Grand Jury Prize and feature film, 10,000 Years Virginia Heath the international critics award (FIPRESCI Prize). Later 3D (p21), a wild visual B PAR Tuesday 28 July, 1.00 pm feat for the eyes. Based in A PAR Tuesday 28 July, 6.15 pm Shenzhen, Yi Li’s company Born in New Zealand, Turner Ross took seven years to complete the film, the first 3D acclaimed writer and director Tchoupitoulas CGI feature film produced in China. Virginia’s assured visual style A NT Sunday 26 July, 6.15 pm and expressive vision are B NT Monday 27 July, 2.00 pm strongly influenced by her Western origins. Virginia has had a A PAR Monday 27 July, 6.15 pm number of short films shown B PAR Tuesday 28 July, 3.30 pm at many international film Turner is one half of the Ross festivals. Relativity was nominated for the Golden brothers. Bill and Turner, Bear at the Berlinale and won the UIP/European who work in tandem as Film Academy Prix. Virginia has made many arts documentary filmmakers, won documentaries for Channel 4 which have screened the 2009 SXSW Grand Jury around the globe. From Scotland with Love (p67) was Award for Best Documentary, nominated for a BAFTA Scotland Award. 2010 Independent Spirit Truer Than Fiction Award along with 79

Tour Guide

ANIMATION Mustang 45 William Yang: Blood Links 57 Belief 14 10,000 Years Later 3D 21 My Golden Days 25 Women He’s Undressed 73 The Brand New Testament 21 Partisan 46 Cemetery of Splendour 48 Animation for Kids 38 LOVE STORIES Animation Now 35 Princess 46 The Club 21 45 Years 9 Dark Hearts 35 Going Clear 54 ENVIRONMENT The Duke of Burgundy 48 Marie’s Story 24 Song of the Sea 37 Embrace of the Serpent 10 El Cinco 20 Prophet’s Prey 56 Toons for Tots 38 Enchanted Kingdom 3D 36 A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night 43 When Marnie Was There 37 Ever the Land 15 Holding the Man 11 SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY Wrinkles 31 How to Change the World 62 Lonesome 13 Alice Cares 52 Landfill Harmonic 36 Love 3D 76 ARCHITECTURE SCIENCE-FICTION Merchants of Doubt 55 The Misfits 12 Ever the Land 15 10,000 Years Later 3D 21 Sherpa 11 My Golden Days 25 Ex Machina 44 Ex Machina 44 Queen and Country 31 BASED ON BOOKS FAMILY TREES Partisan 46 Spring 47 45 Years 9 Iraqi Odyssey 3D 54 Turbo Kid 76 ¯ The Assassin 7 The Silences 56 MAORI/PACIFIC Under Electric Clouds 51 William Yang: Blood Links 57 Belief 14 Black Souls 28 SPORTS & FITNESS Ever the Land 15 The Diary of a Teenage Girl 43 FASHION See also Sport 58–59 Nga¯ Whanaunga 17 The End of the Tour 71 Iris 71 Awake 53 The Price of Peace 19 Far from Men 24 Saint Laurent 25 El Cinco 20 Going Clear 54 Women He’s Undressed 73 MOUNTAINEERING I Am Thor 75 Holding the Man 11 FILMS ABOUT FILMS Meru 59 Results 34 How to Change the World 62 Sherpa 11 How to Smell a Rose 64 WOMEN MAKE Inherent Vice 50 Out of the Mist 18 MUSIC DOCUMENTARIES Merchants of Doubt 55 Women He’s Undressed 73 See also Music 66–69 Around the World in 50 Concerts 67 Our Little Sister 30 See also Les Blank 64–65 Awake 53 Phoenix 26 FOOD Amy 10 City of Gold 60 Prophet’s Prey 56 City of Gold 60 Crossing Rachmaninoff 15 Crossing Rachmaninoff 15 Tale of Tales 9 FOR KIDS I Am Thor 75 Democrats 54 When Marnie Was There 37 See For All Ages 36–38 Kiss Me Kate 3D 12 Dreamcatcher 63 Wrinkles 31 Ever the Land 15 HUMAN RIGHTS Landfill Harmonic 36 From Scotland with Love 67 COMEDY Court 27 Lonesome 13 Mavis! 69 The Brand New Testament 21 Dreamcatcher 63 Philip Dadson 19 Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict 73 Deathgasm 75 The Look of Silence 55 Tchoupitoulas 50 Dope 43 The Price of Peace 19 She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry 63 POLITICS Finders Keepers 74 Prophet’s Prey 56 Tehran Taxi 26 Arabian Nights 49 Grandma 34 Return of the Free China Junk 19 Umrika 27 Best of Enemies 61 Hill of Freedom 29 She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry 63 The Chinese Mayor 54 Inherent Vice 50 INDIGENOUS See also Ma¯ ori/Pacific Sherpa 11 Democrats 54 Kiss Me Kate 3D 12 Balikbayan #1 49 The Silences 56 The Enemy Within 62 Latin Lover 29 Embrace of the Serpent 10 Sunshine Superman 59 The Fool 31 The Lobster 7 Ixcanul Volcano 26 Tom Who? 19 Merchants of Doubt 55 The Mafia Kills Only in Summer 28 Sherpa 11 Very Semi-Serious 61 The Price of Peace 19 A Pigeon Sat on a Branch The Wolfpack 57 LGBT The Russian Woodpecker 56 Reflecting on Existence 51 54: The Director’s Cut 32 She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry 63 WOMEN MAKE FEATURES Queen and Country 31 Best of Enemies 61 The Diary of a Teenage Girl 43 Results 34 PSYCHOLOGY Crossing Rachmaninoff 15 A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night 43 Tangerine 46 Alice Cares 52 The Duke of Burgundy 48 Girlhood 44 Turbo Kid 76 Belief 14 The Forbidden Room 50 The Invitation 75 Very Semi-Serious 61 Experimenter 33 Grandma 34 Latin Lover 29 While We’re Young 34 Going Clear 54 Holding the Man 11 Mustang 45 Prophet’s Prey 56 COMING OF AGE Mommy 45 Princess 46 The Wolfpack 57 The Diary of a Teenage Girl 43 Saint Laurent 25 The Second Mother 20 Girlhood 44 She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry 63 RELIGION Women He’s Undressed 73 Ixcanul Volcano 26 Tangerine 46 Awake 53 80

World View

AFGHANISTAN Victoria 47 Philip Dadson: Sonics From Scratch 19 Being Evel 58 Place Unmaking 18 Tell Spring Not to Come This Year 57 GREECE Best of Enemies 61 The Price of Peace 19 ARGENTINA The Lobster 7 City of Gold 60 Return of the Free China Junk 19 GUATEMALA The Diary of a Teenage Girl 43 El Cinco 20 Tom Who? 19 Dope 43 Jauja 50 Ixcanul Volcano 26 Turbo Kid 76 The End of the Tour 71 ARMENIA ICELAND PHILIPPINES Experimenter 33 The Colour of Pomegranates 13 Rams 27 Balikbayan #1 49 Finders Keepers 74 AUSTRALIA INDIA PORTUGAL A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night 43 Holding the Man 11 Court 27 Arabian Nights 49 Going Clear 54 Only the Dead 61 Umrika 27 RUSSIA Grandma 34 Partisan 46 INDONESIA The Fool 31 Hot Pepper 65 Sherpa 11 The Look of Silence 55 The Postman’s White Nights 30 How to Smell a Rose 64 The Silences 56 IRAN Under Electric Clouds 51 I Am Thor 75 William Yang: Blood Links 57 Inherent Vice 50 Women He’s Undressed 73 Tehran Taxi 26 SPAIN The Invitation 75 AUSTRIA IRAQ Wrinkles 31 SWEDEN Iris 71 Goodnight Mommy 74 Iraqi Odyssey 3D 54 James White 45 BELGIUM Only the Dead 61 Pervert Park 55 Kiss Me Kate 3D 12 IRELAND A Pigeon Sat on a Branch The Brand New Testament 21 Reflecting on Existence 51 Lambert & Stamp 66 ’71 42 BRAZIL SWITZERLAND Landfill Harmonic 36 Song of the Sea 37 The Second Mother 20 Iraqi Odyssey 3D 54 Lonesome 13 ISRAEL CANADA TAIWAN Mavis! 69 Censored Voices 53 The Forbidden Room 50 Merchants of Doubt 55 Princess 46 The Assassin 7 How to Change the World 62 Meru 59 ITALY THAILAND Mommy 45 The Misfits 12 Cemetery of Splendour 48 Some Kind of Love 73 Black Souls 28 A Most Violent Year 33 TURKEY Turbo Kid 76 Crossing Rachmaninoff 15 Peace Officer 63 CHILE Latin Lover 29 Mustang 45 Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict 73 The Mafia Kills Only in Summer 28 UK The Club 21 A Poem Is a Naked Person 64 Mia madre 29 45 Years 9 Prophet’s Prey 56 CHINA Tale of Tales 9 ’71 42 Red Army 58 10,000 Years Later 3D 21 JAPAN 808 66 Results 34 The Chinese Mayor 54 Our Little Sister 30 Abandoned Goods 52 Coming Home 22 The Russian Woodpecker 56 When Marnie Was There 37 Amy 10 Red Amnesia 22 Seymour: An Introduction 68 Yakuza Apocalypse 76 Dreamcatcher 63 COLOMBIA She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry 63 KOREA The Duke of Burgundy 48 Spend It All 65 Embrace of the Serpent 10 Enchanted Kingdom 3D 36 Hill of Freedom 29 Spring 47 DENMARK The Enemy Within 62 MEXICO Ex Machina 44 Sunshine Superman 59 Democrats 54 600 Miles 42 From Scotland with Love 67 Tangerine 46 The Look of Silence 55 Cartel Land 53 Listen to Me Marlon 70 Tchoupitoulas 50 ETHIOPIA THE NETHERLANDS Queen and Country 31 Very Semi-Serious 61 Lamb 23 Alice Cares 52 Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans 59 Welcome to Leith 57 FRANCE Around the World in 50 Concerts 67 Tell Spring Not to Come This Year 57 A Well Spent Life 65 Clouds of Sils Maria 23 NEW ZEALAND UKRAINE Western 51 Far from Men 24 While We’re Young 34 Act of Kindness 14 The Russian Woodpecker 56 Girlhood 44 Belief 14 The Tribe 47 The Wolfpack 57 Love 3D 76 Crossing Rachmaninoff 15 USA The Wrecking Crew 69 Marie’s Story 24 Deathgasm 75 The 50 Year Argument 60 USSR The Measure of a Man 24 Ever the Land 15 54: The Director’s Cut 32 My Golden Days 25 Red Army 58 Michael Smither: Prints 15 99 Homes 33 Saint Laurent 25 ZIMBABWE New Zealand’s Best 2015 17 Always for Pleasure 65 GERMANY Nga¯ Whanaunga 2015 17 Awake 53 Democrats 54 Phoenix 26 Out of the Mist 18 Banksy Does New York 70 81

Features from A to Z

45 Years 9 E Listen to Me Marlon 70 Red Army 58 The 50 Year Argument 60 The Lobster 7 Results 34 El Cinco 20 54: The Director’s Cut 32 Return of the Free China Junk 19 Embrace of the Serpent 10 Lonesome 13 ’71 42 The Russian Woodpecker 56 Enchanted Kingdom 3D 36 The Look of Silence 55, 78 99 Homes 33 The End of the Tour 71 Love 3D 76 600 Miles 42 S The Enemy Within 62 808 66 M Ever the Land 15 Saint Laurent 25 10,000 Years Later 3D 21, 78 Ex Machina 44 The Mafia Kills Only in Summer 28 The Second Mother 20 Experimenter 33 Marie’s Story 24 Seymour: An Introduction 68 A Mavis! 69 Sherpa 11 Abandoned Goods 52 F The Measure of a Man 24 She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry 63 Act of Kindness 14 Far from Men 24 Merchants of Doubt 55 The Silences 56, 78 Alice Cares 52 Finders Keepers 74, 78 Meru 59 Some Kind of Love 73, 78 Always for Pleasure 65 The Fool 31 Mia madre 29 Song of the Sea 37 Amy 10 The Forbidden Room 50 Michael Smither: Prints 15 Spend It All 65 Animation for Kids 2015 38 From Scotland with Love 67, 78 The Misfits 12 Spring 47 Animation Now 2015 35 Mommy 45 Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans 59 Arabian Nights 49 G A Most Violent Year 33 Sunshine Superman 59 Around the World in 50 Concerts 67 A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night 43 Mustang 45 T The Assassin 7 Girlhood 44 My Golden Days 25 Awake: The Life of Yogananda 53 Going Clear: Tale of Tales 9 Scientology and the Prison of Belief 54 N Tangerine 46 B Goodnight Mommy 74 New Zealand’s Best 2015 17 Tchoupitoulas 50, 78 Balikbayan #1 Memories of Grandma 34 Nga¯ Whanaunga Ma¯ori Tehran Taxi 26 Overdevelopment Redux III 49, 78 Pasifika Shorts 2015 17 Tell Spring Not to Come This Year 57 Banksy Does New York 70 H Tom Who? The Enigma of Tom Kreisler 19 O Being Evel 58 Hill of Freedom 29 Toons for Tots 2015 38 Belief: The Possession of Janet Moses 14 Holding the Man 11 Only the Dead 61 The Tribe 47 Best of Enemies 61 Hot Pepper 65 Our Little Sister 30 Turbo Kid 76 Black Souls 28 How to Change the World 62 Out of the Mist 18 The Brand New Testament 21 How to Smell a Rose: A Visit U with Ricky Leacock in Normandy 64 P Umrika 27 C Partisan 46 Under Electric Clouds 51 I Cartel Land 53 Peace Officer 63, 78 Cemetery of Splendour 48 I Am Thor 75 Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict 73 V Censored Voices 53 Inherent Vice 50 Pervert Park 55 Very Semi-Serious 61 The Chinese Mayor 54 The Invitation 75 Philip Dadson: Sonics From Scratch 19 Victoria 47 City of Gold 60 Iraqi Odyssey 3D 54 Phoenix 26 Clouds of Sils Maria 23 Iris 71 A Pigeon Sat on a Branch W The Club 21 Ixcanul Volcano 26 Reflecting on Existence 51 Welcome to Leith 57 The Colour of Pomegranates 13 Place Unmaking 18 A Well Spent Life 65 J Coming Home 22 A Poem Is a Naked Person 64 Western 51, 78 Court 27 James White 45 The Postman’s White Nights 30 When Marnie Was There 37 Crossing Rachmaninoff 15 Jauja 50 The Price of Peace 19 While We’re Young 34 Princess 46 William Yang: Blood Links 57, 78 D K Prophet’s Prey 56 The Wolfpack 57, 78 Dark Hearts 35 Kiss Me Kate 3D 12 Women He’s Undressed 73 Q Deathgasm 75 The Wrecking Crew 69 L Democrats 54 Queen and Country 31 Wrinkles 31 The Diary of a Teenage Girl 43 Lamb 23 Dope 43 Lambert & Stamp 66 R Y Dreamcatcher 63 Landfill Harmonic 36 Rams 27 Yakuza Apocalypse: The Duke of Burgundy 48 Latin Lover 29 Red Amnesia 22 The Great War of the Underworld 76

Notes in this brochure are written and compiled by the programmers, Bill Gosden, Michael McDonnell, Ant Timpson and Malcolm Turner. Toby Manhire, Jo Randerson, Judah Finnigan, Andrew Langridge, Angela Lassig and Nic Marshall also contributed notes. The brochure was edited, drawing on a wide array of writers we like, by Bill Gosden, who also wrote the unsigned notes, cribbing the occasional perfect adjective from said writers. It was managed by Sibilla Paparatti with the assistance of a squadron of ace proofreaders who labour beyond the call of duty. Views expressed in the brochure do not necessarily represent the views of the staff or trustees of the New Zealand Film Festival Trust. 82

Wine and film.

Both start with a vision and then take years of skill and craft to become a reality. A director draws the best performance from actors and crew, and a winemaker extracts the potential from the land and the grape. Dedication and the pursuit for perfection define both crafts. It’s no wonder success for each is defined by raising a glass.

PARTNER NZ International Film Festival 2010 – 2015