By Kate Rodger
The full line-up for this year's New Zealand International Film Festival has been announced and includes a raft of award winners from the recent Cannes Film Festival.
The recent festival is always a big feeding frenzy for kiwi festival programmers and this year was no exception.
The opening night film at this years New Zealand Festival is the much-lauded Beasts of the Southern Wild, winner of four awards at Cannes and the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.
Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom opened Cannes and will be a gala screening here too.
New Zealand Film Festival director Bill Gosden says lots of people want to see it.
“[It’s] probably the film we've had the most people asking us ‘is it in the fest, is it in the fest’. And I'm not the world's biggest Wes Anderson fan but I really thought this film had some heart.”
The Incredibly Strange section of the festival is always a winner.
Among the gory, the scary, and the freaky will be the long-awaited Joss Whedon produced horror The Cabin the Woods.
Incredibly Strange director Ant Timpson hopes it will be popular.
“A lot of the fans in Australia and New Zealand made enough racket that Roadshow kindly decided to pull it away from the home video strategy and give it some theatrical screenings. It’s really good, they listened to the audience. Now it’s up to the audience not to just be Facebook warriors and turn up en mass.”
One thing kiwi film freaks get treated to at the festival is the chance to hear from the filmmakers themselves.
This year’s hottest ticket, will almost certainly be the Peter Jackson documentary West of Memphis.
Jackson's film is the story of the West Memphis three, a film he made alongside one of the convicted men - former death row inmate Damian Echols.
“We're very excited Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh have entrusted us with screenings in advance of their big international rollout of their film,” Mr Gosden says. “Not only will Peter Jackson be in Auckland and Wellington for his screenings, but Damian Echols will be too.”
The festival will tour the country from July. Tickets going on sale from 8.30am this Friday.
3 News