More NZ Film Festival titles revealed

More NZ Film Festival titles revealed

A further clutch of new film titles have been released for the upcoming New Zealand International Film Festival - and this year's new look too!

More films have been unveiled for the upcoming New Zealand International Film Festival which begins its roll out from July this year.
It follows on from the news of Cabin in the Woods' release as well as other titles in the New Zealand International Film festival.

And a new look as well...

First up, the much anticipated, potentially social changing doco Bully.
"A potent and provocative look at a problem that’s out of control, what with 13 million American kids a year being bullied, and some of them even taking their own lives. Lee Hirsch goes beyond statistics to focus on a handful of bullied students alongside the families of two suicides trying to organize on a national level, to pull the issue out of dark corners and take a stand for the silent. As one parent says to a school official who tries to brush the topic away: ‘You politicianed me.’ Bully isn’t politics. It’s a heartfelt cry for help.” — Peter Travers, Rolling Stone"





Secondly, Peter Jackson's much vaunted, West of Memphis.
"In 1994 three Arkansas teenagers were convicted for murdering three eight year old boys – on the strength of an implausible confession and ‘expert’ testimony that characterised them as Satanists. A film about the case made by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, alerted the world (including NZIFF audiences in 1996), proved the founding document of an international movement to free the ‘West Memphis Three’, and led to the participation from Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh in producing this film. For 18 years the West Memphis judge who oversaw the initial trial denied successive retrial bids. Then suddenly last August, facing formidable legal expertise funded by supporters, the court caved, sort of: the three were released without retrial but had to admit culpability whilst proclaiming their innocence."



Thirdly, the story of six ballet dancers in First Position
"Never putting a foot wrong, the touching, enormously satisfying First Position follows six gifted ballet students from disparate social, regional, economic and ethinc backgrounds as they prepare for the Youth America Grand Prix, a prestigious competition at which the world's top dance companies and schools prospect for new talent... The film [facilitated by the competition organisers] combines the built-in drama, tension and suspense of documentaries such as Spellbound, with exciting, beautifully lensed variations performed by the virtuosos of the future..." — Alissa Simon, Variety



And last but by no means, least, Jack Black's latest - Bernie
"Reunited with his School of Rock director Richard Linklater, Jack Black has his best ever role and meets it with inspiration and amazing restraint. Playing a real-life, world-famous-in-Texas character (whom you can see Black meet if you stay for the credits) he provides a wonderfully full portrait of a closeted small-town guy who has sunk his enormous personality into round-the-clock, upbeat, apple-pie niceness.

Blessed with a golden singing voice, attentive to anniversaries, generous with gifts, Bernie Tiede was an assistant undertaker so popular with the old ladies of Carthage, Texas, that when he confessed to murdering one of their number, nobody in town was prepared to listen. And if he did it, they say, victim Marjorie Nugent (a sour, purse-clutching Shirley MacLaine) had it coming."



I'll bring you more information when I have it.