The Rehearsal will have its World Premiere at NZIFF 2016

 The Rehearsal will have its World Premiere at NZIFF 2016

The Rehearsal will have its World Premiere at NZIFF 2016 We are thrilled to announce the World Premiere of Alison Maclean’s hotly anticipated adaptation of Eleanor Catton’s debut novel The Rehearsal as our Centrepiece Presentation. Unpacking the dramas that energise a class of budding young actors, The Rehearsal mounts an enticing inquisition of performance, identity and moral anxiety with resonance far beyond its hothouse setting. Starring James Rolleston, Alice Englert, Ella Edward, Kieran Charnock, Michelle Nyand and Marlon Williams, the film carries a potent extra-textual charge: there’s enough talent in this fictional drama school to constitute a real-world new wave. Kerry Fox plays the key role as a formidable drama coach. Like the novel, the film (co-scripted with Emily Perkins) is as attentive to the misleading effect youthful nerve can have on the ‘mature’ as it is to the crises the teachers so blithely incite in the taught. It’s also its own sharp, original thing, a film by Alison Maclean, alive with ambiguity and cinematic verve. The full NZIFF programme will be available online from Monday 20 June 7pm, and on the streets from Tuesday 21 June for Auckland with tickets going on sale from Friday 24 June.