Dame Gaylene Preston’s GRACE: A Prayer for Peace selected for Hiroshima International Film Festival 2025
Dame Gaylene Preston’s latest feature, GRACE: A Prayer for Peace, has been officially selected for the Hiroshima International Film Festival (HIFF) 2025.
The screening will take place in late November 2025, with Dame Gaylene travelling to Hiroshima, Japan, to personally present the film.
Festival programmer Tomoko Nishikazi expressed admiration for the work, saying:
“I watched your film GRACE: A Prayer for Peace and was really touched. Such a wonderful film! We are honoured to inform you that your film has been selected for screening at the Hiroshima International Film Festival 2025.”
This marks a historic milestone — GRACE: A Prayer for Peace is the first film from Aotearoa New Zealand ever selected for this prestigious festival. The 2025 edition carries special significance, coinciding with the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
HIFF stands as a symbol of recovery and hope. Grounded in the resilience and strength of its people, it celebrates films that speak to the heart and honours artists past and present — a uniquely Hiroshima experience shaped by the city’s enduring spirit.
Artist and film subject Dame Robin White reflected on this moment:
“There are three things that have paved my pathway to Hiroshima and each of those are within the world of art.
First, a film that I saw when I was about ten years old, a feature made in Japan with a re-enactment of the bombing of Hiroshima.
The second are the paintings of Iri and Toshi Maruki, exhibited in Auckland in 1959 when I was thirteen.
The third is a poem by Hone Tuwhare, No Ordinary Son, which he wrote after seeing the aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima.
All of these art forms I encountered within New Zealand. Those three art forms have all been brought together in GRACE: A Prayer for Peace. It’s a film with a powerful message to convey, and I think it’s highly significant that my pathway to Hiroshima began with art — and now GRACE will have its first official international outing there also.”
An audiovisual poem that transforms the visual language of Dame Robin White’s art and collaborative process into cinema, GRACE: A Prayer for Peace has received glowing critical reviews and audience reactions.
“It’s a rare thing to have two official Dames work together. Rarer still for those two Dames to be two of Aotearoa’s greatest artists… truly something to cherish — not just a fascinating study of life and art but a beacon of steadfast hope and light in our troubled time.”
— Flicks
“A masterclass in how to make a documentary that aptly reflects its subject… This is quiet filmmaking, but its power to provoke reflection and questioning should not be underestimated.”
— New Zealand Listener
“A beautiful tribute that reminds us how art and creation can highlight the harsh reminders and realities of humanity… shed tears, shared chuckles, reflective warmth — and a more invigorated movement to create a world better than we left.”
— Craccum
“More than a portrait — a luminous exploration of art, connection, and the urgent need to protect what matters. Quietly transformative.”
— The Denizen
Following sold-out screenings at Whānau Mārama: New Zealand International Film Festival 2025, GRACE: A Prayer for Peace continues its limited theatrical run across the motu — inviting audiences to experience it on the big screen as it journeys to Hiroshima to share its story with the wider world.
Click HERE to watch the trailer.