Just about every month sees a film festival in Wellington — and in Otaki there is the annual Mäori and Ingenious People’s Film Festival — but the WIFF is the biggie.
This year there are 157 movies (or in a few cases collections of short films) and, needless to say, cover a big range of subjects, settings (including of course, Aotearoa) and treatments: pretty much something for everyone. They include re-released and recut films: classics such as Apocalypse Now and Koyaanisqatsi. and ones which few will have heard of like Dagerréotypes and Jacquot de Nantes. This year has the longest movie the festival has ever played: La Flor which clocks up 813 minutes! Unsurprisingly, it screens in 3 parts beginning on Saturday.
For Waikanae people, getting to the cinemas involves about 1 hr 20 min of travelling via train and bus for the downtown venues, and longer than that to the suburban venues (Brooklyn and Miramar); but you get to see the movie on a big screen and quite likely one you won’t get to see that way again.