Writing With Fire, A Night of Knowing Nothing, Godavari to be screened at the New Zealand International Film Festival

The New Zealand International Film Festival (NZIFF) — which will begin on 29 October in Christchurch and 4 November in Wellington — will see the screening of four films and one series from India. NZIFF had cancelled the scheduled festival in Auckland.

The line-up includes Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh’s documentary Writing With Fire, which won the Audience Award and Special Jury Award (World Cinema Documentary) at the Sundance Film Festival; Payal Kapadia’s A Night of Knowing Nothing, winner of the Golden Eye, Cannes Film Festival; Nikhil Mahajan’s Godavari, Aditya Vikram Sengupta Once Upon a Time in Calcutta; and Pooja Shetty and Neil Pagedar’s sci-fi comedy series OK Computer. The show will be screened once as a full series, and episodes one, two and three will be showcased as OK Computer (Part One) while episodes four, five and six will comprise OK Computer (Part Two).

The festival's organizers have been working with partner venues and cinemas around the country to be able to present the festival under the new Alert Level 2 requirements in 12 towns and cities. Festival director Marten Rabarts said, "We are delighted that even at level 2 we can screen our outstanding 2021 programme to Cantabrians and Wellingtonians in a safe environment this November. Cancelling Auckland was a big blow — one that we share with fellow arts and culture organizations around the country who’ve been hugely impacted by this latest Delta outbreak."

“We hope that Kiwis will now rally behind the film festival and show their support by coming out to see the stunning line-up of films that we’ll be presenting. As well as having a fantastic collection of New Zealand films, our international selection is jam-packed with award-winning, critically acclaimed films from around the globe that we can’t wait to share with audiences," he said.

Some of the highlights of the programme include Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch; Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter, Master Zhang Yimou’s One Second, Jasmila Zbanic’s Quo Vadis, Aida?, Maria Schrader’s I’m Your Man and Asghar Farhadi’s A Hero.

Dame Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog is the opening film, which will have its Kiwi premiere at Christchurch’s Isaac Theatre Royal. It will also kick off the 50th Jubilee edition of the Wellington festival at The Embassy Theatre the following week.

Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or winner Titane will be the closing film in both centres and Paulo Sorrentino’s Venice Grand Jury Prize-winning masterpiece The Hand Of God will be screened in the festivals’ middle weekend, as the centrepiece film.