Discoveries from New Zealand World Cinema

Short-film about a Māori boy who has a secret desire to be a drag queen and his inability to talk to his father.

Evan rides the bus all day instead of going to school. But when he gets off to follow Romy, she teaches him a lesson about life.

Monica arrives back from her big overseas experience to find her boyfriend Nick unchanged. Although Nick styles himself an artist, he is really something of a cultural redneck, and when the couple head up north for a break, and they meet up with Riki, a poet, who is rather less shallow and charming.

Fifty years in the making, this extraordinary reconstruction of a never-completed 1940 documentary captures the construction of seven massive traditional war canoes by Maori tribespeople in anticipation of New Zealand's centenary celebrations.

Real-life TV funny men, Jeremy Corbett and Ben Hurley, embark on a pie-fuelled bro-mance adventure. Driving from Auckland to Invercargill, the comedians discover more about road trips, Simon Barnett's hair, John Clarke's monkey and each other, than they ever wished to know.

Stevo is an observational documentary about a charismatic Māori security guard who lives between two worlds. Rooted firmly in his culture, Stevo Winiata divides his time between a tiny mid-city apartment and his family home on the shores of Lake Waikaremoana in the remote rainforests of Te Urewera deep in the north island of New Zealand. The film follows Stevo as he prepares for his next trip to Te Urewera. As he collects discarded city junk and transforms it into valuable household essentials, and trades trout for cab rides and wild pork for coffee sacks, Stevo builds a web of community and engagement in a unique, utterly appealing way. Stevo’s alternative economy draws on tradition but is perfectly suited to a modern world rent with economic and environmental hardships. This is an uplifting portrait of an inspiring, irresistible and finely adapted 21st century man.

A dress rehearsal turns in to every performer's worst nightmare. But somehow, even with forgotten lyrics, infidelities, concussion, laryngitis, unrequited love, requited love, and the departure of a major cast member, the show goes on.

In a quiet dream, a housewife lives a peaceful life in nature with her cat. She is jolted awake by the harsh drone of her husband mowing the lawn. The relentless chorus of lawn mowers operated by the husbands on her street grows increasingly unbearable.

A pregnant woman must fight for her life when she becomes the victim of a violent initiation.

Ralph Hotere (Te Aupōuri) is regarded as one of New Zealand's greatest artists. This documentary by Merata Mita provides a perspective on his world, largely by way of framing his extensive body of work. Hotere remains famously tight-lipped throughout, but there are interviews with artists, friends and commentators, alongside scenes of Hotere working and of his contemporary home context. Mita's impressionistic film is set to a Hirini Melbourne-directed score of jazz, Māori and pop songs, and poetry reading by Hotere's first wife Cilla McQueen.

Spiraling into the abyss, two melancholic yet hopelessly infatuated lovers are imprisoned in a beetle-infested nightmare. Wallowing in sorrow, they attempt to maintain a grip on reality to escape torment. The void beckons, death answers.

A strange figure lurks through lost terrain questioning its new-found home.

Widely regarded as one of the greatest Rugby League players ever, kiwi hard-man Mark Graham was feared off and, on the field, though little knew the real man or the destruction behind his success. SHARKO, portrays an intimate look at the life of a father, a son and the cost of greatness.

The film explores spatial problems through character and camera choreography.

14-year old Steve is caught between creatures he does not fully understand: two parents with very different ideas about the suit he should wear to his first school dance. Meanwhile everywhere he seems to look, images of men are taking control of his imagination. In Stewart Main's comical coming of age story Steve escapes his parents' good wishes, to discover his true desires. They aren't quite what his no-nonsense father had in mind.

With unprecedented access to NZ Customs' Child Exploitation Operations Team, this documentary reveals the complex & lifesaving work of our investigators at the frontline of online child abuse crimes.

Over the course of one week in a shadowy Wellington flat, four flatmates gradually aggravate and menace each other as pressure builds over unpaid bills, a mysterious disappearance, infidelity, and unrequited sexual desire. The physical and psychological claustrophobia becomes increasingly unbearable as they begin to encroach on each other's spaces, culminating in a shocking scene of humiliation and despair.

A winning portrait of Italian-born Auckland concert pianist Flavio Villani as he returns like the prodigal son to Italy for his concert debut, scaling one of the summits of the Romantic repertoire.

This Kaleidoscope documentary timed in with the release of Nicholas Reid’s book A Decade of New Zealand Cinema. The book cherrypicked Reid's favourites from the renaissance in local movies that began with Sleeping Dogs in 1977. Reid and a who’s who of local filmmakers discuss many of the 50+ features from the previous decade (with Bruno Lawrence ever present). They ponder the uniqueness (or otherwise) of Kiwi film. A fondness for rural and small town settings, and forceful, often conflicted, male leads is explored. Neglected areas — Māori film and more of a voice for women — are traversed.

A young Māori girl in the care of a conservative English couple savours her mother's weekly visitations, as a custody battle driven by racial bias will ultimately decide their fate.

Follow Elvis tribute artist Stan, as he prepares for the biggest Elvis competition in the Southern Hemisphere. A funny and moving tribute to a man who would be King.

Mystery by Nye Green

Facing the backlash on Transgender Day of Visibility, two transgender advocates, Josh and Riley, risk their safety to promote transgender visibility and welfare.

A girl named Ana (Jaime Passier-Armstrong) asks about a photo in a family album and gets an awkward brush off from her mum. When the family receives news of a tragic death, it's time for truth, and secrets from the past are revealed.

Iconic Wellington stand-up Trent Baumann shares anecdotes about his life in comedy.

After life and it's commitments seemingly seperate two friends from each other, they meet once again, with desires of rekindling their friendship.

Actor Rawiri Paratene was 16 years old when he joined Māori activist group Ngā Tamatoa (Young Warriors) in the early 1970s. "Those years helped shape the rest of my life," says Paratene in this 2012 Māori TV documentary, directed by Kim Webby. The programme is richly woven with news archive from the 1970s, showing protests about land rights and the Treaty of Waitangi, and a campaign for te reo to be taught in schools. Several ex Ngā Tamatoa members — including Hone Harawira, Tame Iti and Larry Parr— are interviewed by Paratene, who also presents the documentary.

Mele, a charismatic young Tongan comedian on the rise, takes to the stage for a sold-out performance. But as missed calls from home pile up and memories of family return, the cracks beneath her confident façade become impossible to ignore.

The incredible story of the Orthodox Pacific Mission details the miraculous events following Metropolitan Amfilochios Tsoukos’s arrival in the Pacific, his tireless efforts and remarkable achievements in bringing Orthodoxy to the islands of Fiji, Tonga and Samoa.

A wheelchair-bound couple enlist the help of a friend to physically aid them in their first night of passion.

In 1999, the largely conservative Wairarapa district in New Zealand elected a former cabaret performer/actress named Georgina Beyer to the country's House of Parliament -- a seemingly unremarkable event in that country's history except for the fact that Beyer is a transsexual and may very well be the first transsexual in the world to be elected to a national office. In their 2002 biographical documentary Georgie Girl, co-directors Peter Wells and Annie Goldson highlight the popular Member of Parliament's rapid rise through local government to prominence in the New Zealand national government.

The story of New Zealander Helen Todd's law suit against an Indonesian general that she pursued after her son, Kamal, was shot dead in the Dili massacre in East Timor.

Pepe is the son of a successful Samoan businessman, who rejects his father's world and his Christianity. Although he becomes rebellious, anti-social and engages in criminal activity, as well as being expelled from school, he manages to establish himself in business. However, when he gets his girlfriend pregnant, he takes on the responsibilities of a family. Through his close association with half-cast dwarf, Tagata, he enters the supernatural realm of his traditional ways and begins to find some peace and meaning to his life.

Documentation of live Expanded Cinema performance.

Two young men travelling the dark roads of New Zealand, have their friendship pushed to the limit when their car breaks down, stranding them in the middle of nowhere. A desolate rural road is the last place one would expect to find chaos, but this is no ordinary night. Trapped in increasingly hostile surroundings with no means of escape, the friends are forced to put their lives in each other's hands. As a haunting memory is slowly re-counted, each must come face to face with a chilling truth.

Two cousins, 10 & 11 years old, share an annual ritual: they meet at the end of summer to see who stayed the palest. We see a glimpse of their girlhood, and a shared joy that exists in the shadow of the stories they've internalised.

Mnemosyne utilises photogrammetry techniques to reconstruct and remap 3D spaces from existing locations in Te Wai Pounamu (Aotearoa) and the northern regions of Thailand. These locations are around Ōtepoti Dunedin where the artist resided in 2022, and Chiang Rai, a home where the artist's mother lives. These places, relevant to the artist and their mother, are rebuilt and merged in a series of 3D environments where memories are abstracted and re-personified.

A lone figure moves through a quiet, dark space as the victim resists.

A journalist follows a trickle of information upstream, leading to revelations about California's water and the couple accused of hoarding it to build their own agricultural empire.

A team of archaeologists examines an ensemble of finely crafted gold and silver artifacts from a temple in Laos. The expedition takes the researchers from the vault where the treasure is now housed to ancient temples hidden deep in the jungle. The team makes spectacular discoveries at excavation sites scanned from the air...

A team of archaeologists examines an ensemble of finely crafted gold and silver artifacts from a temple in Laos. The expedition takes the researchers from the vault where the treasure is now housed to ancient temples hidden deep in the jungle. The team makes spectacular discoveries at excavation sites scanned from the air...

A film editor is driven around the bend by the domino effect of various intrusions, which prevent him from getting on with his work.

Brings to light the harrowing experiences of survivors who endured abuse while in state care in New Zealand. Through candid interviews and personal narratives, the film delves into the systematic failures that led to countless individuals suffering, predominantly from Māori communities.

Fifty-six-year-old Perianayaki contends with the difficulties of fitting into her new home, especially at the local supermarket where she works. Eye-opening and brimming with compassion, the latest film from director Bala Murali Shingade is a slice-of-life character study that provokes questions about multiculturalism and our assumptions about the people we encounter in daily life.

The listless love lives and insecure domestic arrangements of a group of Wellington 20-somethings are scrutinised with insight and irony in I Think I’m Going, which derives its telling title from the charmless words of the spent lover who’d suddenly prefer to be alone. (NZIFF)

When a Cook Island school cleaner answers an unusual message on the wall of a girls' toilet cubicle, his life, and the life of the mysterious author, will never be the same again. Based on the Australian short story The Graffiti of Mr Kynyatta by Michael Griffith.

The spirit of a person killed in a motorway accident runs through forest and beaches on its journey to Te Rerenga Wairua (Cape Rēinga). En route it meets tourist buses and other spirits, before reaching the gnarly pohutukawa and making the leap towards Hawaiki-Nui.

A curious deaf boy's life is changed when he meets a Living Statue.

A young deaf Maori boy defies isolation to grow from an undervalued youth into a proud young man.

Augustus just wants to live through life without responsibility. After a confrontation with his girlfriend, Breeze, he has an encounter with a strange mysterious character who challenges his view on life.

The discovery of dinosaurs by retired housewife turned scientist Joan Wiffen has cast a new light on the behaviour of dinosaurs during the late cretaceous period, and the puzzle of why dinosaurs, in general, became extinct. This programme tells the remarkable story of Joan Wiffen, who at age 68, went fossil hunting and found New Zealand's first dinosaur bones.

Repeat follows two young women as their friendship unravels. Told in four non-linear scenes, the film traces the emotional arc of their friendship through the lense of the romance genre: falling in love, being in love, falling out, and letting go.

This elegant new film from the director of Crossing Rachmaninoff takes us backstage at the Royal New Zealand Ballet as a brilliantly theatrical European interpretation of a New Zealand classic re-enters the culture that inspired it.

Recorded in Auckland's Town Hall, this live concert features Marlon Williams' most adored tracks from the award-winning 'Make Way For Love' and his debut self-titled album.

Sebastian has been driving these city streets since forever, but he knows he's going nowhere. For Kali, this was the night of her 'going-away' party, and moving on from the people she loves ignites a retrospection that might even change how Sebastian views himself. How do you see the beauty in the stars when they're all the way up there? "People come and go, it happens to everybody."

A documentary about the history of settler groups that came to New Zealand from Europe.

A teenagers fantasy and a solo mum's reality collide, leaving both to grapple a system that don't know how they fit in.

There are fewer than 20 tuskers left on earth, where ivory still sweeps the ground. Filmed throughout the Greater Amboseli ecosystem in Kenya, Kimana Tuskers is a short film of epic proportions. Follow the famous tusker known as Craig, and the younger elephant bulls who entrust their lives to him as they navigate a vanishing landscape through the Kimana Wildlife Corridor. This is the passage of experience, a brotherhood, built on respect, trust and loyalty, and what awaits them is the promised land, so that one day their sons will rise to be kings…

Alice Wonder, a young girl from New Zealand is haunted by the visions of her brother’s death, murdered by the impossible flash of a camera. But everyone is adamant her brother never existed. Alice travels the city of Christchurch for answers. She unravels the story of Plato; a supernatural photographer of the H.E.B. A photographer torn by guilt and yearning for enlightenment. And the story of renegade film students on the set of a cursed documentary, uncovering the power of a dreaded computer experiment. As imposing forces tighten their noose round Alice, she discovers her brother’s story is one that will break down reality itself.

MFC's first ski movie displays the beautiful New Zealand mountains that played a key role in developing some of the worlds top Freeride Skiers.