First NZIFF Titles For 2015 Announced

First NZIFF Titles For 2015 Announced

First NZIFF Titles For 2015 Announced

Yay! The time has come to announce the first NZIFF screenings of the year. NZIFF Autumn Events gets our year underway with premiere screenings of two major big-screen documentaries in April and May. The Ground We Won is a funny, unsentimental and often astoundingly beautiful account of a season in the lives of a New Zealand provincial rugby-team. It’s the new film from Auckland husband-and-wife team Chris Pryor and Miriam Smith whose NZIFF 2012 hit How Far Is Heaven, saw them embedded with the Sisters of Compassion at Jerusalem on the Whanganui River. Confessed “rugby-outsiders”, they spent a year in Reporoa to capture a cliché-free and remarkably candid portrait of 21st-century rural Kiwi manhood. That Sugar Film, already creating headlines in its native Australia, follows the self-endangering model created by Morgan “Super Size Me” Spurlock to investigate the impact of sugar on our health. Actor/director Damon Gameau turned the camera on himself to explore the impact of a 40-teaspoon a day diet, which he racked up eating only food purveyed as healthy. We saw both of these films taking major spots at NZIFF this winter, but the filmmakers had compelling reasons to agitate for the earlier Autumn Events spots. Chris and Miriam are keen to have their film on screens as a prelude to Rugby World Cup fever. And, judging from the number of enquiries we’ve fielded, there’s an audience already chomping at the bit for their Sugar Film fix. We’re very happy to have the big screens at our disposal to give them the splendid premieres they deserve and we’re delighted that the filmmakers will be present at the Auckland and Wellington screenings to answer our questions and yours. NZIFF Autumn Events screen at The Civic in Auckland, Paramount and Embassy in Wellington, Regent, Dunedin and Hoyts Riccarton in Christchurch. Auckland screenings of both films are on sale now, as are Wellington screenings of That Sugar Film. Schedules and on-sale dates for the other sessions are to be announced. Stand by too for the long awaited revelation of spectacular 2015 NZIFF Autumn Event Classic titles next week.