Arthouse greats, Kiwis and Cannes on 2023 New Zealand International Film Festival roll
Alice Englert's directing debut dark comedy Bad Behaviour. Photo / Loop Track Production; Master Mind Ltd; Goalpost Pictures
It’s a question to ponder, perhaps, as you finish your ice-cream, wait for the lights to go down and the curtain to come up: in the 50-year-plus history of the New Zealand International Film Festival and its forerunners, which directors – foreign and domestic – have had the most films?
It springs to mind when looking through the programme for this year’s festival, which spreads across the country in July. It’s full of works by arthouse perennials such as Wim Wenders (who has two this year: Japan-set drama Perfect Days and artist documentary Anselm 3D), the king of Finnish deadpan Aki Kaurismäki (Fallen Leaves, this year’s closing-night film) and American stylist Todd Haynes (May December, starring Julianne Moore as the survivor of a tabloid scandal, and Natalie Portman as the actor about to play her in a movie).
Wenders’ films have been playing at New Zealand festivals since at least 1988 with Wings of Desire. That’s according to The Gosden Years, the festival memoir of the event’s late director Bill Gosden.
It’s possible Wenders’ 1970s works turned up earlier than that. Haynes goes back to his 1989 debut Karen Carpenter documentary Superstar, while only a dive into the festival’s programme archive would say which Kaurismäki film first brought his Scandinavian drollery here. Best guess? Leningrad Cowboys Go America from 1989.
Locally, this year’s screening of a digital restoration of Bread and Roses possibly answers the question about the most appearances by a New Zealand director.
The 1993 biopic of Sonja Davies is by Gaylene Preston, who surely must be in contention as the Kiwi film-maker with the most features in the festival since arriving with 1985′s Mr Wrong.
Gosden notes in his book that there were technical problems when Bread and Roses screened in 1993 – “a late adventure in 16mm projection all involved might prefer to regret” – so this year’s digital screenings should belatedly restore some lustre to the best political biopic this country has ever produced.
Preston’s main competition for director with most NZ festival feature appearances would probably be Jane Campion. There’s no Campion film this year, though there is one by her daughter, Alice Englert. The 29-year-old seasoned actor makes her directing debut with dark comedy Bad Behaviour. She also stars in it as the stuntwoman offspring of a former child star (Jennifer Connelly) attending a retreat overseen by a spiritual guide (Ben Whishaw). It was shot here and Englert will be among the festival’s guests at screenings, having already followed the film to Sundance and Sydney.
It’s possibly the biggest local feature debut in this year’s programme and among its supporting cast is Tom Sainsbury. The writer-director-comedian also stars in his own feature, Loop Track, his latest attempt to appear on every screen possible. He plays a guy who goes on a solo tramp to calm his nerves and winds up very paranoid.
Other local notables include Rebecca Tansley’s The Strangest of Angels, her take on the NZ Opera production about Janet Frame’s time in a mental institution; Annie Goldson’s look back at a pioneering Wellington theatre troupe, Red Mole: A Romance; and co-directors Cushla Dillon and Andrew Moore’s King Loser, about the 1990s band of the same name forever destined for cultdom.