Whānau Mārama: NZIFF - five of the best productions

The web series, Rūrangi, part of Whānau Mārama: New Zealand International Film Festival.

Francesca Rudkin on that happiest time of the year - Whānau Mārama: New Zealand International Film Festival.

Each year it feels like the arrival of Whānau Mārama: New Zealand International Film Festival couldn't come at a better time - but never more than this year. Few films have been released over the last four months and, as the winter weather really sets in, I will be one of many people in their happy place when the festival starts.

With 79 feature films and seven collections of short films from 41 countries on offer, it's an impossible task to pick five films to highlight the 2020 programme. The selection of films is so thrilling and diverse I could have drawn names out of a hat.

This year's festival is mostly an online experience - you can find your happy place without even leaving the house. Films will be screened as Online Premieres or Online Rentals, with a handful of screenings taking place at cinemas.

While there's more flexibility in how you watch films this year, you're still going to need to beorganised. Here are some suggestions to get you going.

The County
(Dir: Grimur Hakonarson)

At first glance, the festival programme is always a daunting read but one film immediately caught my eye. This is partly due to my fascination with Iceland and partly due to comparisons with another Icelandic film, Women at War (NZIFF18). From the director of Rams, Grimur Hakonarson, The County promises windswept, isolated locations and the same perfect mix of comedy, drama and righteous determination, but with a little less quirk. Arndis Hronn Egilsdottir stars as Inga, a recently widowed farmer's wife who takes on the powerful farming co-op slowly strangling the life out her farm with their mafia-like control of local markets. Facing a pile of debt, Inga fuels her grief into anger and goes into battle to break free of the co-op's grasp and live life on her own terms. She's a hero worth getting behind.

Fritzi: A Revolutionary Tale
(Dir: Ralf Kukula and Matthias Bruhn)

The festival offers films for a range of ages and this year's programme plenty of features plenty to keep pint-sized cinephiles happy. There are collections of short animated films aimed at 4+ and 8+ and a couple of delightful-looking international animated features the whole family will enjoy, including Fritzi: A Revolutionary Tale. A story of politics, friendship and courage, Fritzi is a combination of 2D hand-drawn and 3D computer-generated animation. With an eye for historical detail, it tells the story of a 12-year-old girl living in East Germany in 1989. After her best friend fails to return home from her summer holiday, Fritzi goes in search of her and finds herself part of the demonstrations that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Just 6.5
(Dir: Saeed Roustayi)
Plenty of well-known names feature during the festival. You can catch the latest films from Alejandro Amenabar (While at War), Palme D'Or winning director Kore-eada Hirokazu (The Truth), Benh Zeitlin (Wendy), Chilean maestro Pablo Larrain (Ema) and Saudi superstar director Haifaa Al-Mansour (The Perfect Candidate). But it's also an opportunity to meet new directors and I can't wait to watch Iranian film-maker Saeed Roustayi's Just 6.5, which has been whipping up a storm at international festivals. A police thriller about police trying to contain Iran's exploding drug use, reviewers agree Just 6.5 is an action-packed, sobering, relentlessly intense thriller.

Rūrangi
(Dir: Max Currie)

Aotearoa is well represented at the festival, with a stunning collection of documentaries and short films to enlighten and entertain. While there's no dramatic feature films premiering, the festival is screening Rūrangi, a web series thathas been turned into a 96-minute "special festival presentation". Available to watch online and in cinema, Rūrangi tells the story of Caz (Elz Carrad), a burnt-out trans activist who returns to his small hometown, hoping to reconnect with his father (Kirk Torrance). A celebration of gender diversity and inclusion both on and behind the screen, every trans role is played by a trans actor and a few other characters besides. Rūrangi has been described as "unapologetically frank and unapologetically queer".

Hong Kong Moments
(Dir. Zhou Bing)

Who doesn't love a good doco? The festival is packed with some beauties, from Chinese artist and film-maker Ai Weiwei's Vivos about grieving families in Mexico seeking justice for their abducted sons, to Lauren Greenfield's stunning portrait of an unrepentant Imelda Marcos in The Kingmaker. Documentaries also provide a contemporary snapshot, as seen in Hong Kong Moments. Director Zhou Bing has lived and worked in Hong Kong for more than five years and his film follows seven Hong Kong citizens during the 2019 protests against a controversial extradition bill. It allows us an insight into the day-to-day reality and anxieties felt by Hong Kong citizens on both sides of the divide and helps puts the continuing protests into context.

Whānau Mārama: NZIFF runs from July 24 – August 2nd. Session times and how to buy tickets can be found on nziff.co.nz