Five new Aotearoa shorts examine the ways we connect with each other. From strangers uniting to stand up for what is right to fleeting moments of understanding between loved ones, these films deftly capture the bonds and binds between us.
Payback
When a welfare department’s insidious prejudice can no longer be tolerated, a group of unlikely heroes band together against a narrow-minded caseworker. Made in collaboration with Toi Whakaari, Mia Blake cleverly reflects the state of the nation in this punchy black comedy.
Director, Screenplay: Mia Blake
Producers: Miryam Jacobi, Jack Barry
Earthlings
A lonely teenager shares a moment of intimacy with a mysterious stranger in this surprising and sensitive film. Jamie Lawrence (Darryn Exists, NZIFF 2011) evokes a surreal world that tenderly explores identity, belonging and the desire for connection.
Producer: Desray Armstrong
Cinematography: Maria Ines Manchego
The Sea Inside Her
Award-winning filmmaker and choreographer Alyx Duncan (The Tide Keeper, NZIFF 2015) builds on her unique movement-led films, depicting an anxious grandmother desperate to protect her grandchild from the dangers of the world. Using performance, puppetry and visual effects, Alyx Duncan paints a fantastical picture of fear and frustration for these fragile times.
Director: Alyx Duncan
Producers: Lani-rain Feltham, Michele Powles, Alyx Duncan
Screenplay: Michele Powles
Cinematography: Gin Loane
Editor: Adam-Luka Turjak
Additionally, The Sea Insider Her, is having duel premiere as an exhibition with paintings and poetry with the Art House Trust at Pah Homestead in Hillsborough, Auckland. It is an immersive experience about the fragility of staying in control of oneself. The work is a playful contemplation of Western society's relationship with nature – how we are affected by nature and our influence on it, while holding onto the idea that we are somehow separate.
Each piece depicts an older woman’s response to a wild animal encroaching on her domestic space. The works lean into movement and the fantastical within the mundane to connect with people on a visceral body-brain level. The artist aims to create a lyricism within the space - utilising performers, puppets, household objects and paint.
Learn more about the exhibition here.
Lost at Sea
A young woman and her friends gather at a beach house one evening to honour the memory of a loved one. Made in collaboration with Toi Whakaari, Asuka Sylvie (Kainga, NZIFF 2022) conjures an evocative atmosphere in this poignant and lyrical portrait of grief.
Director, Screenplay: Asuka Sylvie
Producer: Emma Mortimer
The Lascar
At the end of the 18th century, hundreds of Indian sailors, known as lascars, worked in brutal conditions among European seal-hunting gangs in Aotearoa. In Adi Parige’s striking coastal epic, one such crew is shaken when a lascar is caught trading with two Māori siblings behind the back of the gang’s tyrannical British leader.
Producers: Adi Parige, Rao Parige, Jessica George, Matt Asunder
Cinematography: Jenna Eriksen