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NZFF again

So what else will I go to in the New Zealand International Film Festival, for sure (along with the Animation For Kids programme and the twelve animated films in Animation Now 2009, selected from a gob-smacking 2,300 entries)? Some years I get too many tickets and the rush to the next film gets in the way of absorbing the last one. Amazing that the festival starts in Auckland 9 July and travels round. Then ends in Whangarei 25 November. Do tourists come here for it, I wonder.

I'll be there for The Strength of Water written by Briar Grace-Smith—until now best known as as a playwright—and directed by Armagan Ballantyne. I've been waiting for a film written by a Maori woman since Once Were Warriors (1994) written by Riwia Brown. I think we need lots of them. There's a group of Barry Barclay films in the festival, and I'm remembering what he wrote, ages ago: “We shall get to know what a Maori film is when we get a chance to make more films”. Just as we'll know more about what women's films are, and Maori women's films are, when women and Maori women get the chance to make more films.

Agnes Varda's The Beaches of Agnes, and Cleo From 5 to 7 (1962) which I've never seen.

Nandita Das' Firaaq, because I have this thing about actors who write and direct, and because New Zealander Shuchi Kothari co-wrote it.

Sarah Watt's My Year Without Sex (always a sucker for a 'mother' story).

Before Tomorrow made by the Arnait Video Collective, dedicated to honouring 'the unique knowledge and perspectives of Inuit women' (always a sucker for a women's collective).

Flame & Citron, a thriller with Mads Mikkelsen, one of my favorite actors, is my 'boy' choice.

Wendy and Lucy, directed and co-written by Kelly Reichardt, been waiting for this for a long time.

So Yong Kim's Treeless Mountain. Here's an interview with So Yong Kim:



BUT, where is Sally Potter's RAGE? I was looking forward to it. From the stills I've seen I thought it would teach me lots I want to know about cinema for a small screen—as well as for a large one. And there's other films about fashion in the fest, so it would have fitted from that perspective, too. I'm SO disappointed.

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