New Zealand

In a desperate bid to prevent his older sister from leaving home, Cyrus attempts to recover her stolen dirt bike.Read More »

Synopsis:
Vai is a portmanteau feature film made by nine female Pacific filmmakers, filmed in seven different Pacific countries: Fiji, Tonga, Solomon Islands, Kuki Airani (Cook Islands), Samoa, Niue and Aotearoa (New Zealand). It is about the journey of Vai, played by a different indigenous actress in each of the Pacific countries. In each of these Pacific nations ‘vai’ means water.Read More »

A thriller loosely based on Ian Wishart’s book The Paradise Conspiracy, about the mysterious death of a New Zealander who happened upon international banking records after purchasing a used computer.Read More »

A woman finds something quaint in her kitchen sink and feels strangely captivated towards it.Read More »

The population of a small town disappears and is replaced by aliens that chase human flesh for their intergalactic fast-food chain.Read More »

Teen Nick is estranged from his family, and blaming himself for his Maori mate’s climbing death. He runs away to his straight talking grandfather – who takes him bush – and loses his virginity to Sally.Read More »

Quote:
Propaganda is presented as a North Korean “educational video” about the evils of western capitalist societies. Crude-looking and blunt in its narration, it contains no winks to the audience hinting that it’s a forgery. Since reviewing it, in fact, I’ve learned that when director Slavko Martinov first presented the movie on YouTube, millions of viewers were convinced that it was real.Read More »

Vincent Ward weaves drama with documentary to unravel the extraordinary story of Puhi, the Tuhoe woman who welcomed the young filmmaker into her home in 1978. Ward made the observational film In Spring One Plants Alone about Puhi’s day-to-day life in the remote Urewera Ranges. By then almost 80, she was obsessively caring for her schizophrenic adult son Niki, whose violent fits terrified her. In this new cinema feature Ward sets out to unravel the mystery that has haunted him for 30 years: Who was Puhi?

And why was she so obsessed with this last remaining son?Read More »

Official Selection, 2019 Venice Film Festival

RESTORED IN 2019 BY THE NEW ZEALAND FILM COMMISSION

There’s a lot of watching in Merata Mita’s landmark MAURI. It’s the 1950s and there’s a storm coming to a once-thriving Maori settlement. Rewi, holding on to an unsettled past, watches the woman he loves (and who loves him back) slip into the arms of a white man. Kara, the town’s elder matriarch, is stirred by the change in the air, of birthrights trembling and a land falling captive. And then there’s Awatea, a young girl standing watch from the circumference of this simmering circle, staring not out of tragedy but of awe, at a Maori life-force re-shuffling off the rippling coasts of the North Island.Read More »