The NZ International Film Festival has started to reveal some of the films that will feature in the 2012 Festival, which starts in Auckland on July 19th.
The NZ International Film Festival has started to reveal some of the films that will feature in the 2012 Festival, which starts in Auckland on July 19th.
Two documentaries have been announced, the long awaited Marley, and Crazy Horse. Marley is the “authorised” biography of Jamaican musician Bob Marley and directed by Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland). The film features interviews from those who knew him best throughout periods of his life, and the project was given the blessing of Marley’s family.
According to Macdonald, his approach to Marley was to make the film as straightforward as possible. As he told The Independent, "I thought, 'I am going to make a very, very simple film'. I guess it's the most conventional film I've ever made in terms of style. It's about Bob and it's about people talking. It's oral history, I suppose. That was the concept: to let the complicated story be presented in the simplest way."
Crazy Horse is the final in legendary documentary maker Frederick Wiseman’s trilogy on iconic French institutions. Following on from 1996’s La Comédie-Française, and 2009’s La Danse - Le Ballet de L’Opera de Paris, Wiseman now takes us behind the scenes inside the famous Parisian Cabaret club Crazy Horse in what is being described as his most entertaining film yet.
Also announced this week was the comedy Your Sister’s Sister from writer/director Lynn Shelton (Humpday). Staring Emily Blunt and Rosemaire De Witt, as straight and gay siblings respectively, they both set their sights on, for quite different reasons, a grieving young man played by Mark Duplass.
The Festival brochure will hit the streets on June 26th, giving you plenty of time to wade through what will no doubt be another extensive list of films from here and around the world. To find out when the NZIFF is passing through your town, head to www.nzff.co.nz - although if you’re in the provinces the festival may take a while to get to you.
Hitting Auckland this week though is the first ever Resene Architecture and Design Film Festival at Rialto Cinemas Newmarket, from the 10th – 20th May. As the title suggests this festival is dedicated to architecture and design and features both films premiering in New Zealand and some returning favourites.
I’m a fan of architecture films - they are often the first films I look for in the NZIFF catalogue each year as the subject matter benefits immensely from the big screen experience. I almost always come away reminded of the importance of architecture to how we live and our sense of ourselves and our place, and intrigued by where the architect’s inspiration comes from. Perhaps more importantly though, I simply love the incredible houses they produce - particularly of the mid-century kind - and dream of living in one myself.
I will most likely be drooling my way through Modern Tide: Midcentury Architecture on Long Island (which includes the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, Marcel Breuer, Andrew Geller and Philip Johnson), Desert Utopia: Midcentury Architecture in Palm Springs (speaks for itself) and Coast Modern (an exploration of modernist architecture on the West Coast of North American).
There are also films that focus on the architects Philip Johnson, Rem Koolhaas, William Krisel, John Lautner, John Portman, Donald Wexler, as well as films that celebrate the textile and furniture design of Lucienne and Robin Day, the architecture of the Antwerp’s Central Station, and the work of the great architectural photographer Julius Shulman.
Bring on the house envy! For more information head to the cinema’s website: www.rialto.co.nz.