New Zealand International Film Festival 2026 preview

With the Auckland leg of the 2026 New Zealand International Film Festival beginning on Wednesday, it's almost time for cinephiles to dive into the dark of the matinee (and evening screenings too) for a range of international and national cinema.

From big winners at Cannes such as Fjord to a secret screening, there's more than enough to satiate audiences, but there are also films which may not see the light of day on a big screen again.

Opening the festival this year is a film that's come from Dame Jane Campion's filmmaking course Wave in the Ocean and which offers a New Zealand spin on the tried and true coming of age tale.

Big Girls Don't Cry by director Paloma Schneideman follows the life of 14-year-old Sid (Ani Palmer) who tackles six long weeks of summer during 2006. Set in the northern edges of Auckland, it's a sensitive, if familiar tale of a girl trying to find her way in life - and negotiating her growing feelings towards other girls.

Blessed with a sensitivity and pace, the tropes are familiar ones as Sid deals with immature boys and girls whose viciousness comes from their own desire to seem experienced. But it's in the quieter moments the film triumphs as its universally relatable themes come carefully to the fore.

In 2023, a film about a donkey proved to be popular at the NZIFF. 2026's spiritual successor to Eo is the Hungarian director György Pálfi's film Hen, a story of an errant black hen.

From literal birth (a close-up at the start unleashes an egg) to life on a battery farm before accidental escape at a service station, Hen follows the plucky chick as she literally crosses the road at the petrol stop to a new life in a rundown taverna in Greece.

Pushed into the hen house, beaten by others within and stopped from trying to break free, Pálfi's film is an at times humorous look at the follies of life as it presents a sympathetic and almost simplistic way of animal life, looking to humans for salvation, empathy and company. And much like Eo, there's a distinct danger in every interaction - add in a story of human trafficking and the film springs vibrantly and surprisingly to life, thanks to some incredible performances from a string of hens strutting their stuff.

As light as a song on the breeze, director Christopher Nelius' Whistle (not to be confused with the recent horror movie of the same name) is as genial and pleasant as they come - and content to let its subjects do the talking.

Or in this case, the competitive whistling as it follows the competitors at the Masters of Musical Whistling event. From a Spanish ingenue to a Japanese artist who never manages first place, the film's packed with quirky characters and genuine heart.

Chief to all of this is the ever-so slightly out of control self-appointed director of the event Carol Anne Kaufman, whose aspirations mix with a kind of danger as she doesn't suffer fools gladly. The documentary has the kind of feel of an almost mocking tone, but it never crosses that boundary, preferring instead to salute the genuine sweetness of the performers and their performances.

Finally, perhaps the most important film on the programme is the Oscar-nominated The Voice of Hind Rajab.

There's a degree of provocation in Four Daughters' director Kaouther Ben Hania's distressing docu-drama that meshes The Guilty's call centre setting with a 24-style story set in the war in Gaza.

But the biggest shock of all is that it's based on true events - and is incredibly harrowing, thanks to Hania's one single choice: to use the emergency audio of a 5-year-old girl caught in the middle of a horrific conflict in Gaza.

When a call comes into the Palestinian Red Crescent from a little girl trapped in her car as the tanks and guns fire all around her, the volunteers race to save her from afar. But what should be an 8-minute rescue run for a local ambulance turns into a bureaucratic nightmare where nobody can win and the victim is the little girl.

It's stirring, horrific and urgent fare - and grippingly unmissable.

For more on this year's programme, head to nziff.co.nz