Form-changing documentaries, Cannes Film Festival winners, and a large number of local films show the New Zealand Film Festival programme has not been affected by the lack of a major sponsor.
Returning director Bill Gosden was determined not to let the lack of a major sponsor hold back the New Zealand Film Festival series this winter.
The 16-city festival, which starts in Auckland on July 10, is without a major sponsor for the first time in some years after Telecom withdrew its support last year.
But when deciding where the cutbacks would be, Gosden and the festival board resolved the programme would not suffer. As a result, a programme of about 200 titles nationwide is before viewers, about the same as last year.
"The board decided we needed to maintain all the services that people expect us to provide," Gosden, who is back directing the festival after a year's sabbatical, told NZPA.
"The only area we have cut back on is the souvenir programme, which won't be printed this year. We may also end up under budget compared to recent years in the number of visiting filmmakers, but we have been given permission to bring some extra people out if they become available."
It certainly doesn't appear the festival has scrimped on quality titles judging by the number of high-profile films secured from this year's Cannes Film Festival in May, films many festivals compete to screen.
They include the Jury Prize winner Gomorrah (an Italian mafia drama), Three Monkeys from Turkey (winner of best director for Nuri Bilge Ceylan), and the best screenplay winner Lorna's Silence from long-time festival heroes Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne of Belgium.
Just as notable an acquisition is Waltz With Bashir, which will close the festival in Auckland. Based on an Israeli soldier's recollection of the Israel-Lebanon war of the 1980s, it is primarily a documentary, but 90 percent of the film is animated.
Waltz With Bashir is one of several films bending the documentary genre in new ways. They include a film by maverick Canadian Guy Maddin called My Winnipeg, for which Gosden says the fact it was commissioned by the Documentary Channel "is where any resemblance to documentary as we know it ends".
"We weren't sure what part of the programme to put some of these films in," Gosden said.
New Zealanders also make contributions to bending documentary conventions in this year's festival.
Veteran Vincent Ward revisits the subject of his 1978 film In Spring One Plants Alone with his new work Rain Of The Children, described as a fusion of documentary, myth and personal history.
Meanwhile, Florian Habicht, who entertained many audiences with Kaikohe Demolition, is back with Rubbings From A Live Man, which looks at veteran performer Warwick Broadhead.
Just as fascinating is likely to be New Zealand director Pietra Brettkelly's portrait of artist Vanessa Beecroft, best-known for her controversial portrait of herself as the Madonna breast-feeding two baby Sudanese twins.
The film, which tracks her attempts to adopt the twins, played at the Sundance Festival this year and leaves judgments of Beecroft up to the viewer.
New Zealand films also feature strongly this year. The festival is opening with Apron Strings, the first feature from acclaimed short film maker Sima Urale, and there are a total of 14 New Zealand features playing this year.
Gosden also said it was a good year for comedies, and for low-key observational comedies in particular.
"Films like O'Horten and The Band's Visit tend more towards the droll than the uproariously funny, and they are very good," Gosden said.
"Even Welcome To The Sticks, a comedy which became the most popular French film of all time, has a certain restraint to it."
Restraint is not a major part of the section curated by cult movie fan Ant Timpson. It is once again named the Incredibly Strange Film Festival, the name it had when first run as an independent event in the early 1990s.
Timpson's selection became part of the New Zealand Film Festival under the name That's Incredible Cinema in 2004 following years of battles with censorship activists, but it has assumed its old name following a slight rebranding.
"We were finding that Ant's programme and the main programme were kind of drifting into each other. A couple of his films could easily have gone into the main programme and vice versa," Gosden said.
"He and I sat down and decided we needed to move back to more defined, distinct programmes. But having said that, the films that open and close the Melbourne Film Festival this year are both in Ant's programme."
One other change which should help film festival junkies is that the festival website is giving a much more comprehensive list of which films hit regional venues, which run smaller programmes than the main cities, at a much earlier stage.
"You get some people in Hamilton and Palmerston North who will travel to Auckland or Wellington if they know the film won't be coming to their city, so this year they'll know much earlier," Gosden said.
Film chat is also better catered for -- the festival's Myspace page enables greater fan networking, and the festival is for the second year holding filmmaker forums in Auckland and Wellington.
"We are just as interested in ideas and discussion so for us, these discussions are an important part of the festival."
* The New Zealand Film Festival begins in Auckland (July 10-27). From there it heads to Wellington (July 18-August 3), Dunedin (July 25-August 10) and Christchurch (July 31-August 17).
Afterwards it plays in Palmerston North (August 7-24), Hamilton (August 14-31), Napier (August 20-September 7), Tauranga (August 28-September 10), New Plymouth (September 4-17), Nelson (September 11-24), Masterton (October 15-29), Queenstown (October 23-November 5), Levin (October 28-November 12), Gisborne (November 6-19), Whangarei (November 13-26) and Greymouth (October 2-8).
For details visit www.nzff.co.nz.
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