The second edition of the Arohanui Film Festival will run late next month and has now announced its line-up.
11 international titles, mostly European, will play the programme. Among those is Bitch, a film about a stray dog from New Delhi transported to Sweden and shot from the dog’s POV. Writer and director Csaba Bene Perlenberg will present the film and do a Q&A session.
A number of lower-budget NZ features get a run-out, including Peter Young’s doco The Art Of Recovery, which premiered in last year’s NZIFF; Andrea Bosshard & Shane Loader’s The Great Maiden’s Blush (pictured, top), which also screens in competition in France next month; and Christian Nicolson’s This Giant Papier Mache Boulder Is Actually Really Heavy, which is currently on tour.
Omnibus web series K Road Stories, which also plays the UK’s Raindance Webfest this week, is selected for Arohanui alongside several shorts which will play ahead of features.
Roseanne Liang’s Sugar Hit, from K Road Stories
Having their world premieres at Arohanui are two local shorts: Adam Harvey’s Only Humane and Claire Ashton’s Digit. Shorts having NZ premieres are Jane Sherning Warren’s Unit 6 and Stick To Your Gun by Joe Hitchcock, whose indie feature Penny Black played the inaugural AFF. Ella Becroft & Ilai Amir’s Bitter Sweet, Karyn Childs’ Ride and the world’s most-travelled dead cat, Ivan Barge’s Madam Black, are also confirmed. Warren and Childs also have shorts in K Road Stories.
The festival closes with a screening of local classic Goodbye Pork Pie. The Arohanui Film Festival runs 28 – 30 October. Tickets go on sale 1 October.
