At this year’s Cannes Film Festival, I had a funny conversation towards the end. Recounting the films I’d seen, I was struck that so many were dark, misanthropic studies of how humans get stuck in violent cycles. My conversation partner remarked that they’d found the opposite and had been impressed
Whānau Mārama: New Zealand International Film Festival 2025 - Top picks from this year’s programme
By George Fenwick
NZ Herald·
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A hit at the Sundance Film Festival, Prime Minister takes a behind-the-scenes look at Dame Jacinda Ardern’s swift rise to power, and her time at the helm during some of New Zealand’s most turbulent years. From her early popularity to when Covid began to change everything, the documentary by Michelle Walshe and Lindsay Utz reckons with how the rise of conspiracy theories and the anti-vax movement led up to Ardern’s surprise resignation in 2023. Through intimate footage and a holistic view of Ardern’s tenure, Prime Minister is not just a portrait of a fascinating politician — it’s an essential record of New Zealand history.
Eddington
It may feel too soon for a feature film about the Covid era, but Ari Aster’s Eddington looks at the events of 2020 with the right level of wit and absurdity to understand what it was: a nightmarish turning point for the internet and its impact on our social lives. With a stacked cast including Pedro Pascal, Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone and Austin Butler, the film opens in April 2020 in a small new Mexico town; what begins as a petty rivalry between the mayor (Pascal) and the conspiracy-touting sheriff (Phoenix) gradually comes to a head, and Aster soon steers the film in increasingly violent, surreal directions. Midsommar fans know Aster is a master of discomfort, and Eddington is his breathtaking, unsparing deconstruction of the divided chaos of our era.
TOITŪ Visual Sovereignty
This documentary from Aotearoa cinematic royalty Chelsea Winstanley charts the curation of Toi Tū Toi Ora: Contemporary Māori Art, the largest Māori exhibition in the history of Auckland Art Gallery. Curator Nigel Borrell and a number of the featured Māori artists reckoned with institutional prejudice as the exhibition grew in scale and international recognition, and the exhibition became a flashpoint example of the need for Māori self-determination and artistic control. Winstanley’s feature promises to be an incisive behind-the-scenes portrait of Borrell’s unflinching advocacy for Māori art and Māori sovereignty.
Went Up the Hill
Aotearoa filmmaker Samuel van Grinsven’s second feature, Went Up the Hill, is a modern ghost story set in rural Canterbury. Jack (Dacre Montgomery, of Stranger Things fame) returns home to New Zealand after the death of his estranged mother, where he begins spending time with her widowed wife Jill (the great Phantom Thread star Vicky Krieps). It soon becomes clear his mother’s soul is not yet at rest, and she begins to possess both Jack and Jill, with chilling consequences. Earning raves since its premiere at TIFF last year, Went Up the Hill is an atmospheric, emotionally rich exploration of complicated grief, and ghosts both literal and metaphorical.
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It Was Just an Accident
Palme d’Or winner It Was Just an Accident is a razor-sharp study of political violence, trauma, and the moral minefields of anger and revenge. Iranian director Jafar Panahi - who has been imprisoned several times, and made the film without official permission from Iranian authorities - opens the film with Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri), a mechanic, kidnapping the man he believes was the prison officer who tortured him years before. Over the course of one day, Vahid enlists his friends and fellow victims to confirm the man’s identity and contemplate the right course of action. Rich with thorny, furious and surprisingly funny dialogue, Panahi wades through the wreckage of political violence in Iran, and ends with one of the most haunting final scenes I’ve seen.
Sentimental Value
Winner of Cannes’ Grand Prix, Sentimental Value is Norwegian director Joachim Trier’s warm, naturalistic, heart-wrenching follow-up to The Worst Person in the World. Set again in Oslo, the film follows Nora (Renate Reinsve), an actress who resents her father Gustav (Stellan Skarsgard), a successful director but neglectful parent; Agnes (Ibsdotter Lilleaas), Nora’s peacekeeping sister, is often caught in the crossfire. As the family love and hurt each other in equal measure, Trier guides his characters towards several striking, heart-wrenching confrontations - and Elle Fanning, as the American actress in Gustav’s next film, adds a charming grace note.
Sorry, Baby
An excavation of the lingering impact of sexual harassment that’s equal parts painful and funny, Sorry, Baby wowed Sundance this year with its intelligent script and irreverent humour. Writer, director and lead actress Eva Victor beautifully captures a woman learning to regain her sense of self in the wake of such a violation, and Naomie Ackie is wonderful as Agnes’ dependable, tender-hearted best friend. Take tissues, and prepare to be blown away by how Victor rewrites the rulebook for exploring trauma in film.
Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk
This documentary from Iranian director Sepideh Farsi captures life in Gaza during the Israeli military bombardment, largely through Farsi’s video calls with Palestinian photojournalist Fatima Hassouna. Tragically, just one day after Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk was announced for Cannes Film Festival 2025, Hassouna - and nine members of her family - were killed in an Israeli airstrike. It’s an on-the-ground confrontation with the impact of war, and now exists as a heartbreaking time-capsule of one journalist’s bravery in the face of mass violence.
The Weed Eaters
Aotearoa does horror-comedy so well, and The Weed Eaters is a fresh entry to the canon. From local creative duo Sports Team, the moniker of Callum Devlin and Annabel Kean, The Weed Eaters follows a group of stoners on holiday in rural Canterbury; they blaze up, someone is accidentally killed, and the marijuana turns them into cannibals. (Yep.) With a bracing lead performance from Alice May Connolly, The Weed Eaters scratches at the nightmarish paranoia that arises when isolation and drugs collide, and looks destined to become essential horror-movie-night viewing for Kiwi generations to come.
The Secret Agent
Kleber Mendonça Filho, director of the brilliantly surreal Bacurau, helms this political thriller about an academic trying to flee the military dictatorship in 1970s Brazil. Wagner Moura (Civil War) won Best Actor at Cannes for his multifaceted performance as Marcelo, a drifter on the run with scores to settle and secrets to keep. At nearly three hours, The Secret Agent is sprawling and novelistic, with several surprising and strange tangents, making this a spy thriller that looks at real-life history with a unique and exacting eye.
Sirat
Another critical favourite at Cannes, Sirat follows Luis (Sergi Lopez) as he searches for his missing daughter among a community of ravers in the Moroccan desert. But a regular missing-person mystery this is not; when Luis’ search takes a shockingly tragic turn, director Oliver Laxe propels the story in an exhilarating, existential and deeply tender direction. Ranked the best film at Cannes this year by The New Yorker, Sirat is not for the faint of heart, but definitely for those looking for a nerve-shredding, earth-shaking cinematic experience.
Others to watch out for:
Ngā Whanaunga: Aotearoa New Zealand’s Best - groundbreaking shorts from the next generation of filmmakers
The Wolves Always Come at Night - docudrama about climate change and rural displacement in Mongolia
Bati - the first Fijian feature to be selected for NZIFF
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Happy Holidays - a window into the lives of middle-class Palestinians in Israel
Bring Them Down - rivalry between Irish sheep farmers takes a violent turn
Resurrection - epic Chinese sci-fi about a future without dreams
Notes from a Fish - an Auckland novelist loses his beloved fish, and chaos ensues
Happyend - dystopian Japanese story of surveillance and authoritarianism
Workmates - romantic drama at the heart of Auckland’s culturally rich theatre scene
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My Father’s Shadow - Nigerian coming-of-age drama of two brothers and their absentee father
The full lineup for Whānau Mārama: NZIFF 2025 is available at nziff.co.nz.