Beyond Borders Patagonia is an exploration of Chile’s wild frontiers. A journey rooted in Chilean culture, perfect waves, snow-capped peaks and barren deserts. The film follows surfer and filmmaker Jed Fasso alongside a close-knit crew of cinematographers, surfers and snowboarders as they push deep into Patagonia. All chasing a shared dream: to discover a new wave and a hidden mountain in the Andes. With no blueprint and no guarantee of outcome, the journey is a testament to wild adventure, and a reminder that stepping into the unknown can unlock an incredible world of stories, challenges, and a deeper sense of who we are.

DRINKS & NIBBLES FROM 6.30PM It’s the summer school holidays of 2006 and stormy 14-year-old Sid (Ani Palmer) is desperate to reinvent herself. She lives with her dad (Noah Taylor) and older sister (Tara Canton) in a rural town near Ōmaha, the usually-sleepy beach destination that, during the summer, brings an influx of holidaymakers — a fresh audience for Sid’s performance of her ideal self. Not a girl, not yet a woman, she’s aching to be recognised as a grown up by her family, by boys, by the bewitching older girls who seem so impossibly at ease in themselves and their bodies, namely her older sister’s friend Freya (Rain Spencer). Playing out during the era of dial-up internet, dubstep and MSN, Big Girls Don’t Cry is a raw, lingering reflection on the clumsy bravado that is growing up, exploring queer adolescence, female shame and burgeoning sexuality. From the casual cruelty of teenagers to the indignity of being caught in a white lie told to seem cool, Sid’s search for approval is excruciatingly recognisable for anyone who has ever felt confused, isolated, desperate to fit in or terrified to be found out. The film premiered at Sundance Film Festival, where it was a finalist for the World Cinema Dramatic Award. With echoes ofRain (dir. Christine Jeffs, NZIFF 2001) in its sensual, intimate rendering of girlhood, the film belongs to a rare lineage of New Zealand cinema; emotionally raw, psychologically observant works unafraid of vulnerability, longing, awkwardness, and the heightened emotional world of youth. Having had numerous short films programmed at NZIFF (Gate Crash NZIFF 2023, Memory Foam NZIFF 2019, Mine NZIFF 2014), we are honoured to present Paloma Schneideman’s debut feature as our 2026 Opening Night film in its Aotearoa premiere.

Paris, 1835. Renowned composer Frédéric Chopin navigates high society, performing concerts, teaching for income while battling illness. He composes masterpieces, attends parties, pursues romance amid aristocratic and royal circles.

When Lou, a gentle purple creature with an embarrassingly stretchy trunk, rescues Kiri, an ungrateful little dinosaur, from a flood, they’re swept into the greatest adventure in prehistory!

Oscar Restrepo’s obsession with poetry has brought him no glory. Aging and erratic, he has succumbed to the cliché of the poet in the shadows. Meeting Yurlady, a teenage girl from humble roots, and helping her cultivate her talent brings some light to his days. But dragging her into the world of poets may not be the way.

Julius, an upper-class boy in 1950s and 1960s Lima, gradually loses his innocence as he encounters, but never fully understands, an adult world marked by inequality and injustice.

In the small rural community of Linha Cristal, residents come together to build a septic system along the stream and put an end to the foul smell. Marina, the leader of the initiative, discovers that the local council only has enough funding this year to produce a fiction film. She and her husband Joaquim then decide to make a movie about a monster that emerges in the midst of the sanitation works. Marina writes the screenplay, Joaquim creates the monster costume, Silene agrees to act, and Fabrício has a camera. Little by little, the filmmaking process draws in all the local residents.

The film tells the story of Salvador, a man of few words who lives isolated in the middle of Patagonia.. His silence is a consequence of a tragic event which occurred during his youth and pushed him away from his family. However, the past finds him through the figure of his brother Marcos who, after their father´s death, arrives at the cottage with his wife, Laura, to discuss the sale of the lands they share by inheritance. Such meeting in the middle of that deserted and inaccessible location revives a secret kept asleep for years.

During the filming of a movie, a Spanish actor goes missing. Although his body is never found, the police conclude that he had an accident on the edge of a cliff. Many years later, the case returns to the spotlight.

Corina is a young woman with agoraphobia who rarely leaves home except to work at her local publishing house. After making a grave mistake with her company’s most famous book series, Corina must overcome her fears and embark on a journey to save her job and that of her colleagues.

After the injustice of being robbed of the prize for the best longaniza sausage in Chile, a spontaneous social movement surfaces in the small town of San Carlos, looking to obtain the precious “Denomination of Origin» and recover the pride and dignity.

Fresh from Mexico, where he solidified his career in the late 1940s, Benny Moré was the artist who, through music and dance, drove crowds wild. A wealthy politician hired him to perform at a dance with an electoral undertone. The bitterness of betrayal caused him to fail in his attempt to assemble the long-awaited jazz band, and he broke the contract. Frustrated and under the influence of alcohol and sex, his life spiraled out of control. With considerable effort, he reassembled his band and achieved success. An old vendetta embroiled him in a police conflict in Venezuela, from which he emerged acquitted. Famous and wealthy, he rebuilt the old family mansion, ignoring his grandfather’s warning that anyone who tried to prevent its collapse would meet their end. The excesses of his past led to a severe liver crisis that brought him to the brink of death, and his doctor permanently forbade him from drinking alcohol. Against all odds, he recovered and reappeared in Cuba’s leading cabarets and dance halls. One night, in the middle of a dance, confident because of his apparent good health, he violates the prohibition and his life ends as he had dreamed: He falls on the stage, in front of his audience, who go from delirium to dismay.

When a messy millennial underachiever accidentally gets alien-pregnant she must overcome sceptical doctors, a useless baby-daddy, and her oversharing mum in order to survive and reclaim her life.

The Taranaki Media Archive a vital resource preserving the history of the Taranaki region presents a fresh journey through time.

The cinema of Jane Schoenbrun is full of director surrogates, but few have felt closer to home than Kris (Hannah Einbender), an emerging filmmaker whose sexual frustration is reflected in her rigourously academic approach to her work, a worldview which is upended when she is hired to ‘reinvigorate’ the musty carcass of ‘70s slasher franchise Camp Miasma, whose influence has waned in the wake of endless shoddy sequels and cash-ins. Hoping to glean insights on how to tell a new story in this universe, Kris seeks out the original film’s final girl, Billy Preston (Gillian Anderson), a seductive recluse who lives in the hollowed-out set where she once found cinema stardom. Snowed in, Kris and Billy find their attraction spiralling into psychosexual mania as the line between reality and Miasma blurs. Schoenbrun’s attempt at the ‘sleepover classic’, Camp Miasma is at once hugely transgressive and invitingly cosy. As Kris finds freedom from over-intellectualising in the sublimity of sexual liberation, Schoenbrun takes their place as one of America’s most important young filmmakers, succeeding I Saw the TV Glow’s devastating lament for the life unlived for a mesmeric ode to horniness and matching your own freak.