NZ International Film festival preview - even more films to see

With the Whanau Marama New Zealand International Film Festival opening in Wellington on 31st July before shifting around the country, last minute choices are being made to spend time in the dark of the matinee.

Lucy Lawless' powerful documentary Never Look Away is one of those that should be on people's lists.

Her directorial debut turns the lens on someone who spent their life squarely behind the camera, choosing to tell other stories rather than her own. Margaret Moth may be a name unfamiliar to some - but with her jet-black spiky hair and her penchant for heading to warzones to film, the former CNN camerawoman will probably be on the tongues of many a festival-goer.

Heading to places like Iraq, Georgia, Palestine, and Rwanda, Moth's desire to capture the zeitgeist and the unfolding terrors falls second place to tales of the impact she had on the lives of those who knew her - both intimately and professionally. Lawless' tale is one steeped in tragedy, but not once does the story become mawkish. From frank footage from the zones to a few poignant on-camera moments from Moth herself later in life, the film allows others to tell her story without crucially robbing her of her voice.  

Christchurch-set festival opener Head South is a fairly conventional crowdpleaser story of Angus a kid discovering punk music in the Garden City's heady and hedonistic 70s and 80s. Brilliantly mining both the snobbery of music and the joy felt when stumbling across a new act, Ed Oxenbould is the right mix of naive and on the cusp needed for this comical floundering tale of a boy who talks himself into forming a band.

Solid support comes from Márton Csókás as his father and singer Benee as the shopgirl who can actually play music; but Head South is more about capturing what makes music and fandom tick as director Jonathan Oglivie crafts a good-natured tale as old as time.

True crime continues to be popular as a genre, and Aussie film The Speedway Murders mines a rich vein as first-time filmmakers Luke Rynderman and Adam Kamien examine the 1978 murder of four fast food workers in the US.

But rather than concentrate on gory details and OTT reconstructions, the pair recreate the scenes and the theories with their four principal cast, the workers themselves to tell the tale. Stylistically different from a genre that's saturated much of our cultural obsession, the unsolved case is presented in a way that's engaging and humanising, rather than gauche and garish. Sadly, you won't come away knowing whodunnit in a last-minute twist reveal, but the journey remains a poignant one to take and shows there's still life in true crime - if it's done with compassion and integrity.

Closing out this round of previews, two films that share a common thread - beauty.
More specifically, the horror of the pursuit of beauty.

New Zealand film Grafted dips its toes into the horror of acclimatising to a new life for Wei whose scientist father dies in the name of research.

With both father and daughter affected by a birth mark on their faces, he tries to find a skin grafting cure to help. Drawing a parallel between transplanting skin and being transplanted into a new life, director Sasha Rainbow ploughs a path toward social horror, with elements of Mean Girls early on before shifting viciously and quickly into full-on horror territory via Face/Off.

It's not entirely successful in parts, thanks to both budgetary restraints and a seeming reticence to embrace the horror edges early on.

But when it goes full tilt into its premise and doesn't hold back, Grafted tells an enjoyably relatable story with characters so rarely seen in the genre in a New Zealand-setting and with a New Zealand cast.
It's gloriously nuts in parts and is all the better for it.

Talking of gloriously nuts, closing night film The Substance is, in its final act, as deranged as they come - but on reflection, its final shot is something close to thematic perfection.

Demi Moore plays fading starlet Elizabeth Sparkles who is replaced by unctuous Hollywood exec Harvey (played with gleeful OTT by Dennis Quaid), who's after a younger model for better ratings.

Angry and bitter at being rejected by Hollywood standards she previously soared from, Elizabeth is offered the chance to become a younger model of herself - if she plays by the rules of a backstreet treatment. As Sue (Margaret Qualley) becomes the hottest thing, the lines are blurred and Elizabeth finds herself in a quandary.

From leering camera work to extreme close ups of body parts, via some Cronenberg-esque body horror, The Substance is a takedown of Hollywood's double standards over beauty.

Anchored by both a stoic and committed Moore and Qualley, Coralie Fargeat's film could stand to maybe lose 20 minutes (and its extended finale may test some and prompt walkouts) but those who remain with this visceral and potentially seminal festival experience will find the perfect allegory for the current times we live in.

For the full film festival programme, visit nziff.co.nz.