New Zealand International Film Festival - Cannes list revealed

New Zealand International Film Festival - Cannes list revealed

The Cannes List

Once again NZIFF audiences are amongst the first in the world to reap the harvest of May’s Festival de Cannes.

In 2013, we bring Auckland audiences a whopping 18 films from this year’s official Cannes selections.

In Competition

From the Competition, you’ll be able to see Heli, the controversial winner of this year’s Best Director award; Jia Zhangke’s A Touch of Sin, winner of the Best Screenplay prize for China’s most insistently contemporary filmmaker; Asghar Farhadi’s The Past, the eagerly awaited follow-up to his A Separation, and winner of the Best Actress award for Bérénice Bejo (The Artist). Stand by too for Kore-eda Hirokazu’s Jury Award winner, Like Father, Like Son, Paolo Sorrentino’s ravishing 21^st century response to La dolce vita, The Great Beauty; and Steven Soderberg’s brilliant foray into Liberace’s closet, Behind the Candelabra. No Palme d’Or for us or the rest of the world quite yet: word is that the version rewarded at Cannes requires further work. 

Un Certain Regard Section

From Un Certain Regard, the section that supplements the competition (and gives the cognoscenti  a chance to cry “That should have been in competition!”), we have The Missing Picture from Cambodia; the Kurdish western, My Sweet Pepperland; Omar, a riveting thriller from the West Bank; Norte, the year’s slow cinema masterpiece; Stranger by the Lake, our most hardcore offering of the year, but also a seductive and tense mystery (which should definitely have been in competition); and Sofia Coppola’s eagerly awaited foray into Paris Hilton’s closet, The Bling Ring.

Directors' Fortnight Section

The prestigious Director’s Fortnight gave the year’s most striking British film, The Selfish Giant from Clio Barnard, director of The Arbor; Jodorowsky’s surreal and long-gestating memoir The Dance of Reality and the Singaporean kid-vs-nanny tale Ilo Ilo, awarded the Caméra d’Or for best first film in all of Cannes.

Cannes Classic

From the sidebars, we have two refurbished greats, direct from their Cannes Classics premieres, Satyajit Ray’sCharulata (The Lonely Wife) looking better than new; and Weekend of a Champion the long lost documentary made with young Roman Polanski and his Formula one hero Jackie Stewart at Monte Carlo in 1971. 

Cannes has its Midnight Madness too, and that’s how we found out about Monsoon Shootout, a Mumbai police thriller with a what-if, triple Sliding Doors scenario.

On the Wire

Two more New Zealand films announced

He Toki Huna: New Zealand in Afghanistan

New Zealand 2013/80 mins/Censors rating tbc

Annie Goldson and Kay Ellmers’ doco, expanded from the film they made for Māori Television, takes a timely look at New Zealand’s military and media, notably journalist Jon Stephenson, in Afghanistan. 

Fantail

New Zealand 2013/83 mins/Censors rating tbc

Playing Tania, a feisty young petrol station attendant figuring out her place in the world with no real help from anyone else, Auckland writer-actress Sophie Henderson is mesmerising. Directed by Curtis Vowell.