NZ film The Dark Horse to open NZIFF

New Zealand film The Dark Horse will have its world premiere at the opening night of the The New Zealand International Film Festival (NZIFF).

The opening will be on 17 July at the Civic Theatre in Auckland and 25 July in Wellington at the Embassy Theatre. The film is directed by James Napier Robertson, produced by Tom Hern, and stars Cliff Curtis (Once Were Warriors, Whale Rider) and James Rolleston (Boy). The Dark Horse is an inspiring true story based on the life of a charismatic, brilliant but little-known New Zealand Hero and Chess champion – Genesis Potini (Gen).

A further 12 New Zealand films are also part of the 2014 programme, ten of which will have their world premieres at NZIFF. All feature-length films screening at NZIFF are New Zealand premieres.

The films are:

The Dark Horse (Opening Night Auckland and Wellington, World Premiere)

Dir James Napier Robertson  – Be the first in the world to acclaim a moving new New Zealand film. Cliff Curtis is superb as the late Genesis Potini, the speed chess champion who passed on his gift to countless East Coast children.

Aunty and the Star People (World Premiere)

Dir Gerard Smyth – In New Zealand, writer Jean Watson is an anonymous elderly woman living in a modest Wellington flat. In southern India she is revered as the famous ‘Jean Aunty’. Gerard Smyth’s documentary explores her fascinating double life.

Cap Bocage (World Premiere)

Dir Jim Marbrook – Jim Marbrook, director of Mental Notes and the original Dark Horse documentary, takes us inside the long environmental campaign that followed the pollution of traditional Kanak fishing grounds in New Caledonia in 2008.

Erewhon (World Premiere)

Dir Gavin Hipkins – For his first feature-length film the widely exhibited New Zealand photographer Gavin Hipkins invests a richly pictorial essay with the 21st-century resonance of Samuel Butler’s lively utopian satire Erewhon, written in 1872.

Everything We Loved

Dir Max Currie – A man, a woman and a four-year-old boy retreat to a house outside town. What are they hiding from? Debut writer/director Max Currie staggers the revelations to dramatic effect in this suspenseful psychological drama.

Hot Air (World Premiere)

Dir Alister Barry, Abi King-Jones – In the years since New Zealand politicians began to grapple with climate change our carbon emissions have burgeoned. Alister Barry’s doco draws on TV archives and interviews with key participants to find out why.

Housebound

Dir Gerard Johnstone – Welcome home to the Kiwi horror house comedy that took SXSW by storm. Gerard Johnstone’s brilliant genre mash-up stars Rima Te Wiata, Morgana O’Reilly, Glen-Paul Waru and Cameron Rhodes.

Voices of the Land Nga Reo o te Whenua (World Premiere)

Dir Paul Wolffram – Paul Wolffram’s fascinating and eloquent doco about M?ori instrumental traditions accompanies Richard Nunns and Horomona Horo as they perform in a series of remarkable South Island wilderness settings.

Notes to eternity (World Premiere)

Dir Sarah Cordery – Renowned critics of Israeli policies – Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, Sara Roy and Robert Fisk – provide personal substance and historical perspective to their arguments in this impressive film by New Zealander Sarah Cordery.

Orphans and Kingdoms (World Premiere)

Dir Paolo Rotondo – In writer/director Paolo Rotondo’s debut feature, three homeless teenagers break into a deluxe Waiheke Island home and find themselves caught in a tense psychodrama with the conflicted owner.

REALITi (World Premiere)

Dir Jonathan King – An up-and-coming media executive has good reason to question the very facts of his existence in this micro-budget sci-fi chiller from director Jonathan King (Black Sheep, Under the Mountain) and novelist Chad Taylor.

Te Awa Tupua: Voices from the River (World Premiere)

Dir Paora Joseph – This beautiful new film from the director of Tatarakihi honours the power and poetry in the stories of Whanganui iwi, past and present, and their longstanding struggle to reclaim guardianship over their ancestral river.

Tumanako/Hope (World Premiere)

Dir Susy Pointon – Many roads lead to the Hokianga in this engaging documentary portrait of several generations of inhabitants: local iwi, long-established farming families, and the alternative lifestylers of the 60s and 70s who put down roots and stayed.

For more information on the festival visit the NZIFF website.

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