Māori and gothic horror are major tick boxes for me, particularly when I see an image like the one above.
Continue readingMārama (2025)
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Big Girls Don’t Cry (2026)
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Seeing the Australian premiere of Paloma Schneideman’s first feature film meant the audience was keyed up for a good time, laughing at every joke.
Continue readingMarlon Williams: Nga Ao E Rua – Two Worlds (2025)
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I keep forgetting one of the joys of MIFF is seeing an Antipodean documentary about a person, having them there at the screening and finding out they’re a really decent person. The MIFF trifecta.
Continue readingTickled (2016)
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Okay this might seem obvious but this film is not really about competitive endurance tickling.
Continue readingHeavenly Creatures (1994)
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Bad Behaviour (2023)
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I was intrigued to see Alice Englert’s first feature, particularly as it’s stars Jennifer Connelly and Ben Whishaw and, hopefully, the New Zealand people and landscape.
Continue readingShut Eye (2022)
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A mental health crisis and ASMR collide to create a portrait of two lonely people in Auckland at night.
Continue readingMillie Lies Low (2021)
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A warm-hearted cautionary tale for all those feeling the need to flex about their lives.
Continue readingKāinga (2022)
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The third in a trilogy of films raising the voices of women (after Waru (2017) and Vai (2019)), Kāinga (or home) gives us eight short films each focusing on a girl or woman from an Asian country trying to find her place in Aotearoa New Zealand. The connection between them, as the stories span decades, is the same house on 11 Rua Road where they all live or visit.
Continue readingThe Justice of Bunny King (2021)
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Damn you, Gaysorn Thavat, you made me cry. I thought this might be a run-of-the-mill feel-good drama about a feisty woman fighting the system but it was so much more.
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