Cinema’s best a feast for the eys
James Croot sat down to view eight of the best drama and documentary offerings at this year’s International Film Festival.
Our country’s annual feast of global cinema is almost upon us. New Zealand International Film Festival director Bill Gosden and his cohorts have scoured the world to find some of the freshest and most-compelling pieces of movie-making from the past 12 or so months.
We have sampled some of the features on show in the 2018 festival and have come up with this octet of dramatic tales well worth seeking out.
The Guilty
Fans of single-setting thrillers like Buried and Locke should definitely head along to see this compelling Danish story focused on a disgraced police officer’s supposedly final shift on dispatch duty.
Receiving a panicked phone call from a woman who has apparently been abducted, Asger Holm (Jakob Cedergren) calls on all his field knowledge to try to help rescue her. But as he ruffles his colleagues’ feathers with his tactics, he also discovers things aren’t exactly as they seem.
The Heiresses
From the home of All Whites’ 2010 nemeses Paraguay, comes this poignant, understated drama about two women whose ordered lives are thrown into chaos when one of them is imprisoned for fraud.
With Chiquita (Margarita Irun) incarcerated, Chela (Ana Brun) is forced to sell off their possessions and take a job as a driver just to try to make ends meet. That’s when she encounters the much-younger Angy (Ana Ivanova).
The Insult
Deservedly nominated for an Oscar, this Lebanese courtroom drama demonstrates just how difficult it is to keep politics out of everyday life in that country.
Eventually becoming a high-profile case, the ‘‘war’’ between Tony Hanna (Adel Karam) and Yasser Salameh (Kamel El Basha) is sparked by two ‘‘stupid words’’ after a disagreement over the guttering at Tony’s apartment. The fact that he is a Christian and Yasser a Palestinian just adds fuel to the media fire.
Jirga
Australian director Benjamin Gilmour’s tale about a soldier on a mission in Afghanistan is a slowburning thriller that draws the viewer in and surprises with its poignancy.
At first, Mike Wheeler (Sam Smith) seems like he’s going looking for trouble but, in fact, his motives are far less obvious.
Remarkably, Gilmour managed to film his story without obtaining any permits from Afghan or Pakistani authorities.
A Kid Like Jake
Homeland’s Claire Danes and The Big Bang Theory’s Jim Parsons team up for this searing family drama about a couple struggling to deal with their young son’s desire to dress up like a princess.
Trying to find a suitable New York elementary school for Jake is tough enough without the added complication of educators trying to highlight his ‘‘gender-variant play’’.
As the stress begins to mount, the debate as to whether they should celebrate this diversity to enhance their academic options starts to take its toll on their own relationship.
Lean on Pete
Debuting at last year’s New Zealand International Film Festival, Andrew Haigh’s follow-up to the haunting 45 Years is a heart-wrenching and warming Into the Wild-style coming-of-age road movie.
The impressive cast includes Chloe Sevigny, Steve Buscemi, Travis Fimmel, but the real standout is newcomer Charlie Plummer, who delivers a pitch-perfect performance of a boy looking for an identity who finds a soulmate in a horse.