Issue No44 — At The Movies

Whānau Mārama (NZIFF) is quickly approaching, and it is one of only a few things that makes the winter months in Tāmaki actually pleasurable, so you might want to get a-booking if the SADs have got you down. This week, festival programmer Amanda Jane Robinson suggests five on her personal must-watch list.

One of my favourite things about the festival is seeing a new cohort of filmmakers’ debuts each year. In this risk-averse climate of remakes, sequels and franchises, it’s genuinely exciting when new directors arrive on the scene with vision and heart. Of course this year the festival opens with local debut, Paloma Schneideman’s exquisite Big Girls Don’t Cry, a raw, lingering reflection on the clumsy bravado that is growing up. Alongside this, here are five other debuts screening at this year’s festival worth seeking out.

First Light — Celebrated Australian-Filipino photographer James J. Robinson here brings his distinctive eye to themes of faith and corruption at a convent in the leafy mountains of the Philippines. When an elderly nun witnesses a construction site accident and ensuing cover-up by those in power, she begins to question the institution she has spent her life serving. A poetic, mysterious drama gracefully told.  

La Gradiva — Winning Cannes Critics’ Week Grand Prize, cinematographer turned director Marine Atlan follows a group of French high school students on a school trip to the ruins of Pompeii. This atmospheric portrait of unrequited love, teenage desire and youthful turmoil under the shadow of Mount Vesuvius is one for the ages. 

Blue Heron — Drawing comparisons to 2022 hit Aftersun, Sophy Romvari’s debut turn is similar in its profoundly personal exploration of family, grief and the fallibility of memory. A revelatory, formally daring portrait of a family in crisis told through the perspective of a young child as she struggles to understand her older brother’s increasingly unsettling behaviour. 

Yesterday the Eye Didn’t Sleep — Set in a fog-shrouded valley along the Lebanon-Syria border, Palestinian filmmaker Rakan Mayasi follows two sisters into the night as they seek to make amends for their brother’s crime against a neighbouring Bedouin tribe. That Mayasi studied under renowned Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami is clear in the film’s lyricism, yet that signature existential tone here takes a darker turn towards blood, silence, and sacrifice. 

Chronovisor — New York filmmakers Kevin Walker and Jack Auen’s stylish, spectral noir follows a reclusive academic as she is lured into the mystery of a long-lost camera-like “time-viewing” device that is said to have captured the collective memory of all mankind throughout history. Rumoured to have been invented, then destroyed, by clandestine Benedictine monks, this mystifying tale of late-night library research shot on textural 16mm is all the more chilling in that it was inspired by a real 1970s scandal.

Best,
Amanda

Amanda Jane Robinson is a filmmaker and the founder of Vetiver Pictures. Alongside her productions, she works in programming at WHĀNAU MARAMA: NEW ZEALAND INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL and in partnerships at Letterboxd.

By Jean

NEW OPENINGS

Tāmaki has gone into hibernation as far as new openings go, it seems. It’s winter after all! If you have any intel, email us any time at [email protected].

NEWS + EVENTS

Ragtag is making a GUEST APPEARANCE at Depot next week 21 and 22 July, giving Depot classics a little “Ragtag twist” (e.g. oysters with Ragtag’s hot sauce…) No bookings, just turn up.

Plant-based dessert studio Liobôn will be selling their goods at Dear Deer Ellerslie on Sunday 19 July, from 9am till sold out. They have the CUTEST LITTLE CREATIONS. 

There’s a new matcha pop-up called THE MATCHA PROJECT at 56 Parnell Rd, on the weekends only (inside Riders Hutch Cafe). They serve all the usual suspects plus flavours like “tiramisu matcha” and “honey toffee matcha”. God, it’s getting out of control.

Onslow is CELEBRATING MATARIKI this weekend with a $95pp four-course menu, in partnership with Raukura Huata and Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei.

If you’re looking for something to do this Monday night, the 2026 NEGOCIANTS FINE WINE TOUR is on, which is essentially a big tasting of Australia and New Zealand's finest.

Ano-ne is having a GARAGE SALE to get rid of all their stuff on Saturday. I remember thinking their furniture was quite nice.

If you are a hungry boy racer, Lucky G’s has a DRIVE AND DINE EVENT for you, also on Saturday. No excessive revving, skids or burnouts PLEASE. 

It looks like Omusubi Cafe Plat on Vulcan Lane has closed/is closing – their space just showed up on TRADEME.

PSA

Moana Fresh has a final ART SALE live today before they shut up shop. Buy something!

By Mike

The luxury retail nexus that is Queen St below Wyndham continues to intensify, with Faradays, Cartier and the reboot of Queens Arcade all well underway. Further up the street, Midtown’s offerings have for some time seemed largely in stasis when not retrenching – pedestrians could peer into the denuded former Smith & Caughey’s this week while debris was being removed. Streetscape improvements aside, there’s little to suggest that the area is primed to capitalise on the thousands of additional people who will ostensibly emerge daily once Te Waihorotiu station opens at the end of next month. Midtown continues to feel more like somewhere to pass through rather than arrive in.

There’s potential in the medium term, however. A 32-story, 638-bed student accommodation tower has broken ground behind the Victorian facade of 256 Queen St, appositely rising from that former site of uni pilgrimage, Auckland's first McDonald’s. And the SYMPHONY CENTRE, a half-billion dollar, 21-story retail and residential complex planned around and above the station, would bring a further 78 high-end apartments into the neighbourhood. Hundreds of new residents in a few years’ time would certainly help boost local business confidence, but unfortunately things aren’t off to the best start, with confirmation this week that fully 0% of Symphony’s apartments had been sold a year after sales launched in March 2025. Few will be shocked that the $11.6m penthouse hasn’t been snapped up, but the complete absence of interest is troubling, certainly for the developers, and perhaps too as an omen on the eve of the CRL’s unveiling.

Choice items from the liquidation sales of Auckland’s two-speed recovery.
By Simon

GARMENT STEAMER
Current bid $105, Closes tonight
Ungainly looking but will not only instantly de-wrinkle your clothes but also de-bacterialise them and you’ll never need an iron again.

HEAPS OF PLAYSTATION GAMES
Current bids from $0, Closes Monday
The JB-HiFi mega insurance claim sale continues to work its way through the store – tons of PS5 and PS4 games in this one, for sale in lots of ten and perfectly timed for the stinkest part of winter. Scroll down on the linked page to find them.

INSTAX FILM 50 PACKS
Current bids from $15, Closes Monday
A great opportunity to bring the discarded Instax camera you once loved but ceased to care for as soon as you had to buy more film back to its rightful place in your heart. There’s a few of these 50 packs in the auction, so click around a bit if this one gets spensey.

STILL MORE FLYING OUT STUFF
Current bids from $10, Closes Tuesday week
They’re up to the fourth load of stuff from the Flying Out store - bulk lots of vinyl and CDs and some pretty good looking record bins are in this one.

By Simon

THURSDAY 16TH

MENDELSSOHN’S VIOLIN
Town Hall, From $57
Youngish American violinist Benjamin Beilman is here to play one of his specialty romantic pieces, Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, with APO musical director Giordano Bellincampi conducting. They’re going to be warming up with Schubert’s Overture in the Italian Style in D and Beethoven’s Symphony No.2 is the second half.

SWEET TREATS PUNK NIGHT
Whammy, Free
This month at the monthly free punk show: Boxer Priest (with former CCTV members), Fork from Dunedin and Bunchy’s Big Score, who are celebrating the release of their second album, Wanda’s Bicycle and who you can catch at Mt Eden Scout Hall tomorrow night for an all ages show if you are blessed with both youth and a love of Dunedin pop punk art rock.

FRIDAY 17TH

TONY GUO
Season, Free
Second show for Tony Guo at Season - there’s a killer painting in here of a kid going through an airport x-ray machine with a watermelon hidden in his tummy. The rest of the stuff looks like he’s tending more towards abstraction but not in a bad way. Runs till August 15.

CRIT: ART LEARNING IN AOTEAROA SINCE 1987
Artspace, Free
Opening for Artspace’s big, intellectually dense winter show about art education with many, many contributors including Cringe faves Fiona Connor and Lana Lopesi. Runs till September 28.

MAGIC SHOW WITH DUCKS
Movespace, $15 
We will always put magic shows in these listings no matter how poorly conceived they are. This one is R18 so I can only assume not all the ducks get out alive. Limited space so book ahead.

SPEED
Double Whammy, $60
Five-piece hardcore band from Sydney. Local supports TBA — answer your emails, local hardcore bands! 

VAMPIRE DISKO
Whammy, $20
DJ Pennie Raven Black and guests are playing 80s and modern goth, though if you want anything in between you can pre-request it on their Facebook page. Vampire dress encouraged, and they promise to have you back home before the sun comes up.

MINISTRY OF SOUND
Shed 10, From $99 
90s dance party headlined by the great Danny Tenaglia with Brandon Block and Darren Emerson (Underworld) supported by John Course from Oz and Sam Hill and DJ Ange. Afterparty at Mothership with Altern 8, Greg Churchill and Jenna Doodes ($45).

SATURDAY 18TH

AUCKLAND BULB AND PERENNIAL SOCIETY
Auckland Horticultural Society, Free
Should be pansies, some camellias, maybe some tulips still and perhaps some early daffodils on display. 

ALL BLACKS v IRELAND
Eden Park, From $220
I’m so happy that last weekend everyone associated with the All Blacks didn’t keep saying ‘Optimistic Rugby’ every 5 minutes like they did in week one. Probably the most second-hand embarrassment I’ve ever experienced from the ABs (please note: this is really saying something) and I hope they are ashamed of themselves.

YNWH NAILGUN
Tuning Fork, $50
Feels like it's going to be one of those shows you might not entirely enjoy in the moment but you’ll take a deep pleasure in telling everyone you saw them at a small venue in five years time. “The last good band in New York,” according to Vice. 

BILLY WOODS
Tuning Fork, $65
Somewhat jazzy and experimental Afropessimist horrorcore rapper, who I’m pretty sure is touring his 2025 album GOLLIWOG. A massive bummer but it works!

DAFFODILS
Double Whammy, $10/$20
One of Lucy MacRae’s Top 5 local bands in the Cringe Index. They will be playing their unreleased debut album A Good Year in full! Support from Buzz and greyhound.

TUESDAY 21ST

MARTA COSTA REIS
Objectspace, Free
Portuguese jewellery artist, curator and educator with a talk on jewellery art, curation and education. 

SHARP TEETH
Q Theatre, $46
Surreal dance theatre show about love’s bite from Lara Fischel-Chisholm and Tom Sainsbury (Dynamotion). Also features Batanai Mashingaidze, Nomuna Amarbat, Sean Rivera and Harrison Keefe.

WEDNESDAY 22ND

IMOGEN TAYLOR
Michael Lett, Free
Back from overseas. She must have been painting a lot, since she has another solo show with new stuff up at Dunedin Public Art Gallery called From Behind on at the same time.