Get on board this timely movie full of hope - a balm for difficult days. Damon Gameau (2040, That Sugar Film) takes eight kids on the ultimate school excursion: a road trip across Europe to challenge powerful leaders and find solutions to our greatest ecological challenges. This is a coming-of-age journey that dares to imagine a brighter future.

From the director of `Boy` and `What We Do In the Shadows`, Taika Waititi’s new film is a hilarious and heartfelt adventure based on Barry Crump`s novel, ‘Wild Pork & Watercress`. Ricky (Julian Dennison) is a defiant young city kid who finds himself on the run with his grumpy foster uncle (Sam Neill). A national manhunt ensues and the two are forced to work together to survive.

I Swear follows the true story of Tourette Syndrome campaigner John Davidson's journey with Tourette's through his troubled teens and early adulthood, having been diagnosed at 15 years old in 1980s Britain - a time when the condition was little known and entirely misunderstood. Initially alienated from his peers and his family, Davidson perseveres in his attempt to live a 'normal' life against the odds, finding some unlikely champions along the way.

Opening Night Event - Drinks and Canapes from 6.30pm - followed by screening at 7.00 pm After the global success of 2016’s Perfect Strangers, writer/director Paolo Genovese has struck gold again with his record-breaking hit Somebody to Love, an hilarious, all-star romantic comedy that reveals the innermost thoughts and uncertainties of an Italian couple on their awkward first date.

After being forgotten at a highway service station during a family vacation, a housewife decides to start a new, independent life in Venice. She finds a new job, friends, and romance, forcing her to choose between her old life and her newfound freedom.

Set in the 1970s, this film follows the lives of the Canova sisters and their employees in a prestigious Roman dressmaker's shop. It explores their personal and professional struggles within a world of high fashion and glamour.

Against the racy backdrop of Italy in the 1980s and ‘90s, Riccardo Schicchi and his agency translate free love into the phenomenon of porn. This raunchy comedy follows antics at porn studio Diva Futura as fresh-faced ‘girls next door’ such as Ilona Staller, Moana Pozzi, Eva Henger and others become stars thanks to the video tape boom. Staller – better known as ‘Cicciolina’ – gets elected to Parliament and Pozzi runs for Mayor of Rome, with the film offering a fascinating insight into Italian society.

Giuseppe Tornatore (Cinema Paradiso NZIFF 1990) pays tribute to legendary composer Ennio Morricone and his prolific career that spanned over seven decades and included the scores to more than 70 award-winning films.

Rome, 1980. Unable to get her novel The Art of Joy published, author Goliarda Sapienza finds herself briefly imprisoned after she steals some jewellery from a wealthy friend. The experience turns out to be life-changing, as Goliarda discovers a world without class barriers, and forms a deep bond with some of the younger inmates.

Set in the late 19th century, this surreal Italian-American anti-Western follows Rosa and her lover, the outlaw-turned-folk-hero Santino, as they flee across the Italian wilderness after a deadly confrontation, pursued by an American showman (John C. Reilly). As their tale grows into a legend, it transforms into a whimsical, and sometimes ghostly journey that merges local folklore with the myth of the American Wild West.

As the 1930’s African Campaign casts its shadow, the tranquil life of a small Italian village is upendedby Ras Abraham, a captive Ethiopian leader. Young Emilio, the daydreaming son of the fascist mayor,finds an unexpected friend in the prisoner. Their deepening bond exposes Emilio to Italy's harshreality, challenging his worldview and igniting a quest for freedom. This story poignantly captures ajourney of friendship, awakening, and defiance against oppression.

Set during a surreal January heatwave in Rome, various characters struggle to maintain control as temperatures reach an unprecedented 50 degrees Celsius. The intense heat causes people and animals to lose their inhibitions, resulting in a chaotic examination of human anxiety.

Antonio (Alessandro Siani) and Pieraldo (Leonardo Pieraccioni) are two police officers with a "not-so-brilliant" career and a slightly bruised friendship. Their lives are quiet until they find themselves facing a real, intricate, and risky crime. This brings unexpected twists and forces the duo to change their lives forever.

Outgoing Italian President Mariano De Santis navigates his final term while grappling with moral dilemmas, including a bill on euthanasia and personal petitions for presidential pardons. Amidst the political pressure, he faces intense personal grief and nostalgia for his late wife, bringing to light questions about love and memory.

Starring Ludovica Martino (SKAM Italia) and Marco Leonardi (Cinema Paradiso) My Place Is Here is a compelling tale of a woman’s pursuit of happiness. Written and co-directed by Daniela Porto and Cristiano Bortone, based on the eponymous novel by Daniela Porto, this thoughtful drama is set in 1940s Southern Italy, at the time of the first feminist movement.

In the aftermath of World War II, two Neapolitan children, Carmine and Celestina, escape the poverty of their hometown by sneaking onto a ship bound for the United States. Relying on each other and a kindly ship’s officer, they journey to New York City to find a better life, navigating misadventures and a new world together.

A mysterious, harmonica-playing stranger and a notorious bandit form an uneasy alliance to protect a widowed settler from a ruthless hired gun working for the railroad. Set against the backdrop of the dying American frontier, this epic Western revolves around a bloody land battle and a quest for vengeance.

A fun dramedy, Siblings is inspired by the true story of Margherita and Damiano Tercon. Irene (Matilda De Angelis) is trying to build a regular life in Rome when she is forced to return to her hometown Rimini, to take care of Omar (newcomer Yuri Tuci), her 40-year-old autistic brother.

From Fabio Grassadoni and Antonio Piazza (Sicilian Ghost Story), this fictionalised mafia story features standout performances from Elio Germano and Toni Servillo. A dangerous liaisons crime drama with blackly comic elements, Sicilian Letters is loosely inspired by true events and real ‘pizzini’ messages by fugitive Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro.

After the global success of 2016’s Perfect Strangers, writer/director Paolo Genovese has struck gold again with his record-breaking hit Somebody to Love, an hilarious, all-star romantic comedy that reveals the innermost thoughts and uncertainties of an Italian couple on their awkward first date.

A cultural phenomenon and box office sensation in Italy, this emotional drama set in a Rome high school explores the real story behind Italy’s first publicised case of online bullying.

Elio Germano delivers a standout performance as Enrico Berlinguer in this meticulous, intelligent biopic of a man for whom life and politics, private and collective, were inextricably linked. Italy, 1970s. Enrico Berlinguer is the Secretary of the most important Communist party in the western world, with over one million seven hundred thousand card-holding members and more than twelve million voters, united by the great ambition of achieving socialism within a democracy.

Starring popular comic duo Salvatore Ficarra & Valentino Picone (Strangeness IFF23) and festival favourite Toni Servillo (also in La Grazia and Sicilian Letters), The Illusion is a fun re-imagining of Giuseppe Garibaldi’s 1860 campaign that unified Italy.

Two blustery 50-somethings, have an obsession: going for their last drink. One night, they run into Giulio, a shy architecture student, whose way of seeing the world and love will be transformed as the trio wander from bar to bar of Veneto

The Sleeper. El Caravaggio perdido (2025) is a documentary-thriller tracking the frantic, high-stakes hunt for a lost Caravaggio masterpiece, Ecce Homo, discovered in 2021 in a Madrid home, valued at over €300 million. Directed by Álvaro Longoria, the film documents the intense, three-year process of authentication, restoration, and auction.

Adapted from Rosella Postorino’s bestselling novel At The Wolf’s Table, the new film from multi award-winning writer/director Silvio Soldini (Bread and Tulips, Days and Clouds) is a gripping historical drama inspired by the incredible true story of Margot Wölk, a woman who was conscripted to be one of Hitler’s food tasters.

Trifole (2025) is a drama about Dalia, a young woman who travels to Italy's Piedmont region to care for her aging grandfather, Igor, a reclusive expert forager. Together with his loyal dog Birba, they search for a legendary truffle to save their family home, exploring themes of tradition, dementia, and the changing landscape of rural life.

The documentary serves as a loving portrait of a brilliant mind and a testament to the enduring power of literature and knowledge, often featuring scenes of the author navigating his labyrinthine, book-lined shelves.

Jasmine (Marilena Amato) is a hairdresser in her 40s and appears to have everything she ever wanted: a devoted husband, three loving sons, and a thriving salon just south of Naples. But after her father’s passing, she is haunted by a recurring dream in which a young girl runs into her arms, offering Jasmine a new sense of fulfilment and completeness she cannot ignore.

Fabio De Luigi and Valentina Lodovini return as Carlo and Giulia Rovelli and this time, the family is heading to sunny Puglia, where their eldest daughter, eighteen-year-old Camilla, is moving to attend university with her boyfriend, Antonio Paradiso. However, Carlo is not ready to let go of his firstborn—especially if it means having her live with a young man he does not trust at all.

A comedy about a couple who are desperately looking to conceive a child and move to Spain to get the help of a renowned doctor. Their plans change after they meet an apparently perfect girl that volunteers to carry on the pregnancy in their place.

Never-before-seen footage, exclusive voice messages, and accounts from Jeff Buckley's inner circle paint a captivating portrait of the gifted musician who died tragically in 1997, having only released one album.

How can AI driven sound shape environments? This work recalls stories of a post-natural world that has been computationally updated, where nature itself has been reprogrammed. It takes the form of an LP record and a multi-channel playback experience in the Len Lye Cinema and was devised by Machine Listening, an artist collective known for exploring the politics of AI, data sets, and networked technology through sound. Environments 12 is an artistic intervention into the histories of ambient soundscape recordings—the sampling of the natural world popularised by the wellness industry. It takes after Irv Teibel, an ambient new age music pioneer and field recordist who founded the ‘Environments Series’, 11 records produced across 1969-79 with titles such as ‘Psychologically Ultimate Seashore,’ ‘Gentle Rain in a Pine Forest,’ and ‘Ultimate Heartbeat’ —marketed as “a stethoscope recording which could be used to calm infants, aid meditation or enhance lovemaking.” Released around the time of the 1979 oil crisis, the series was a response to early signs of climate emergency and yet, each recording was smoothed and edited to auditory perfection so it could be even better than nature. As a speculative 12th edition to the Environments Series, this record could be thought of as an inverted environmental recording. Rather than presenting the ‘sounds of nature’ on their own, it is about these sounds, how they came into being, and how they are being used to reprogram nature itself. Through a chorus of AI clones trained on human voices that embody the unhinged anxiety of climate grief, the narrative recounts tales of an environment-to-come that is all too close. Artificial voices recall artificial environments shaped by sound, a strange future of acoustically enriched ecosystems where the dying Great Barrier Reef is kept on life-support by broadcasting the soundscapes of healthy coral reefs, and cross-species communication between animals and AI is possible, but only without cognition by humans. Responding to past acoustic histories, Environments 12 augurs the ruins of a future history, a post-natural world where nature itself has been upgraded.

Wallflower Colin (Harry Melling) leads a humdrum existence until he meets the impossibly handsome Ray (Alexander Skarsgård), a mysterious biker he is soon desperately devoted to. As Colin submits to Ray and enters an exciting new world of desire, he must decide the limits of his devotion. Hilarious, subversive and sexy, PILLION is the acclaimed and surprisingly tender love story from writer-director Harry Lighton, starring Melling and Skarsgård in fearless performances as a mild young man and his leather-clad lover.

Pitchblack Playback: Massive Attack 'Blue Lines' (35th Anniversary) Please arrive by event start time as latecomers will not be admitted and refunds will not be offered! Immerse yourself in Massive Attack's incredible 1991 debut at Pitchblack Playback's listening session in the dark, celebrating 35 years of 'Blue Lines'. Hear this immense record played loud in uncompressed audio on our powerful cinema sound system. No distractions; just you and the music. "This sounds great” — Rick Rubin "A fabulous idea" — Jay Kay, Jamiroquai "The optimal way to listen to an album" — Max Richter "This might just be my favourite new thing to do" — Nihal, BBC Radio 5 Live Ticket includes Pitchblack Playback eye mask for extra darkness. As recommended by The Guardian, GQ, Time Out and BBC 6 Music. Album duration: 45 minutes

Wallflower Colin (Harry Melling) leads a humdrum existence until he meets the impossibly handsome Ray (Alexander Skarsgård), a mysterious biker he is soon desperately devoted to. As Colin submits to Ray and enters an exciting new world of desire, he must decide the limits of his devotion. Hilarious, subversive and sexy, PILLION is the acclaimed and surprisingly tender love story from writer-director Harry Lighton, starring Melling and Skarsgård in fearless performances as a mild young man and his leather-clad lover.

Georgina Beyer was the first transgender person in the world to be elected to national office. Co-directed by Annie Goldson and Peter Wells, this internationally lauded documentary, tells the story of Beyer's extraordinary, inspiring journey from sex worker to member of Parliament for rural Wairarapa, and handshakes with the Queen. Born George Bertrand, Beyer grew up on a Taranaki farm, before spreading her wings on Auckland's cabaret circuit. Subsequent events led her to the town of Carterton, where she became involved in local body, and then national politics.

Lew Pryme's life was a wild ride that took in everything from rock and roll to rugby before it was cut short by AIDS in 1990 (he was 51). This moving documentary interviews an ailing Pryme reflecting on his journey and (still secret) sexuality; it follows him from Waitara to becoming one of the most popular hip-swinging music stars of the 60s. He went on to manage singers Mark Williams, Rob Guest and Tina Cross; and in the early 80s he became the first executive director of Auckland Rugby Union, introducing cheerleaders and 'pizazz' to Eden Park.

Kiwi entertainment's most irrepressible double act comes to the big screen in Leanne Pooley's documentary - offering a revealing look into the lives of the world's only yodelling lesbian twin country-and-western singers. Doco uses the Twins' archive of home movies and performance footage, talks in depth to the girls themselves and also their alter egos: Ken and Ken, Camp Mother and Camp Leader, and Prue and Dilly. But this a bigger story, not just charting the career of the two sisters but also the 25 years of seismic social change that accompanied it, as the country struggled to find its national identity.

In 2024, acclaimed Iranian director Sepideh Farsi tried to enter Gaza to document the living conditions amidst Israel's war on Palestine. Unable to secure a passage to the city via Cairo, a Palestinian refugee in Cairo introduced Farsi to Fatma Hosanna, a young photojournalist and poet, who spent her days documenting the conditions in which Palestinians are forced to exist. Told through a series of video calls between Fatma and Sepideh, Hosanna paints an urgent visual diary of life in Gaza. Under the constant barrage of Israeli missile fire, Fatma embodies the resilience, strength and hope of her people. On 16 April 2025, the day after it was announced the film was to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, an Israeli missile killed Hassona and her family in what was alleged to have been a targeted assassination. Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk is both a celebration of an inspirational life and an urgent first-hand account of the invasion of Palestine.

Haane Manahi of the 28th Māori Battalion is told that taking the German desert fortress of Takrouna will be a 'cakewalk'. But when the chain of command collapses under enemy fire, Haane leads a small group of Māori Battalion soldiers – all related, all cousins – up a precipitous cliff face and into the pages of history – where his Victoria Cross recommendation and its downgrade continue to echo throughout his descendants today. WWII. True story.

From Maggie Gyllenhaal (Academy Award-nominated writer/director of The Lost Daughter) and starring Academy Award nominee Jessie Buckley and Academy Award winner Christian Bale comes THE BRIDE! A bold, iconoclastic take on one of the world’s most compelling stories. A lonely Frankenstein travels to 1930s Chicago to ask groundbreaking scientist Dr. Euphronious to create a companion for him. The two revive a murdered young woman and The Bride is born. What ensues is beyond what either of them imagined: Murder! Possession! A wild and radical cultural movement! And outlaw lovers in a wild and combustible romance!

After the theft of the century, the madness begins... On the night of May 19th, 2010, five paintings were stolen from the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris. The five artworks, from artists including Matisse, Modigliani and Picasso, were estimated to be worth more than 100 million euros. While the paintings have never been recovered, this outrageous comedy tells a frenetic and madcap tale of what could have happened to these famous works. Melvil Poupaud (Jeanne du Barry) plays Yonathan, whose monotonous life is turned upside down when he encounters Eric (Sofiane Zermani), a brash, smooth-talking con artist/fence. When Eric hires Jo (Steve TIentcheu, Neneh Superstar), a skilled thief known as “The Spider Man of Paris”, to steal the paintings from the Museum of Modern Art, the three men’s lives are intertwined in an uncontrollable spiral. Anchored by a star turn from Melvil Poupaud as the perpetually anxious watch expert turned in circles by a fast talking criminal, this wonderfully told story takes audiences on an entertaining ride through one of the most famous art heists of recent times.

Two old friends are walking 600 kilometers through the Scottish highlands, to reconnect with each other, with nature and with parts of themselves they have lost.

A young girl scrambles to prepare a high-stakes birthday cake for a dictator amidst the dangers and deprivations of the Gulf War in this irresistibly scrappy Caméra d'Or-winner from Iraq.

Winner Best Actor and Best Non-English Language film at the 2026 Golden Globes. 1977. In a Brazil tormented by the military dictatorship, Marcelo, a man in his forties fleeing a troubled past, arrives in the city of Recife where he hopes to build a new life and reconnect with his family. That's without taking into account the death threats that lurk and hover over his head.