Archived: New Zealand Documentaries to Premier at NZIFF 2017

20 July - 6 August 2017

The New Zealand International Film Festival celebrates local stories and story-tellers with an impressive line-up of New Zealand documentary films.

Peer into the lives of New Zealand artists, artisans, extreme sportspeople, energetic adventurers and more with our selection of the festival's must-see documentaries. 

Bill Direen: a Memory of Others

Filmmaker Simon Ogston hits the road with NZ writer, poet, indie-rocker Bill Direen as he explores the cultural landscape and presents a series of strikingly diverse live performances.​

Free Theatre

Shirley Horrocks’ documentary relates the storied 37-year history of Christchurch’s often provocative, always daring Free Theatre, creators of countless extraordinary productions and performance events.​

Kobi

This warm and humorous doco about Kobi Bosshard, widely regarded as the grandfather of contemporary New Zealand jewellery, explores his philosophy of life and work, as captured by his daughter Andrea Bosshard.​

No Ordinary Sheila

In Hugh Macdonald’s fascinating and inspiring doco, his cousin, writer and illustrator Sheila Natusch, retraces a long life dedicated to sharing her understanding and love of New Zealand’s nature and history.

Swagger of Thieves

Julian Boshier’s all-access portrait of Head Like a Hole’s Nigel ‘Booga’ Beazley and Nigel Regan at home, on the road and in full roar on stage tells it like no other NZ music doco ever dared.​

Team Tibet: Home Away From Home

Thuten Kesang, New Zealand’s first Tibetan refugee in 1967, recounts his fascinating and inspiring story and the environmental and political issues that have made him a tireless advocate of the Tibetan cause.​

The Free Man

World-champion freestyle skier Jossi Wells is the subject of Kiwi filmmaker Toa Fraser’s absorbing examination of extreme sportspeople and the relationship between fear and true freedom.

What Lies That Way

Filmmaker Paul Wolffram immerses himself in the spiritual world of the Lak people in the rainforests of southern New Ireland, Papua New Guinea in this heady combination of ethnography and lyrical expressionism.​

100 Men

100 Men reflects on 40 years of gay history via a countdown of Kiwi filmmaker Paul Oremland’s most memorable shags, featuring candid and moving interviews with past lovers.

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Last updated: 08 August 2017

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