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.
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.