These are our eight recommended Asian films from the Whānau Mārama: New Zealand International Film Festival, which will take place from July 31 until September 4, 2024 in multiple cities across New Zealand.

Festival Schedule:
Ahuriri Napier | August 21 – September 1, 2024
Kirikiriroa Hamilton | August 21 – September 4, 2024
Ngāmotu New Plymouth | August 21 –September 7, 2024
Ōtautahi Christchurch | August 15 – September 1, 2024
Ōtepoti Dunedin | August 14 – 25, 2024
Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland | August 7 – 18, 2024
Tauranga-Moana Tauranga | August 15 – 28, 2024
Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington | July 31 – August 12, 2024
Whakaoriori Masterton | August 21 – September 4, 2024
Whakatū Nelson | August 14 – 25, 2024

All We Imagine as Light by Payal Kapadia – France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg | 2024 – 114 minutes

In Mumbai, Nurse Prabha’s routine is troubled when she receives an unexpected gift from her estranged husband. Her younger roommate, Anu, tries in vain to find a spot in the city to be intimate with her boyfriend. A trip to a beach town allows them to find a space for their desires to manifest.

Trailer:

Black Box Diaries by Shiori Ito – Japan | 2024 – 103 minutes

Journalist Shiori Ito embarks on a courageous investigation of her own sexual assault in an improbable attempt to prosecute her high-profile offender. Her quest becomes a landmark case in Japan, exposing the country’s outdated judicial and societal systems.

Black Dog by Guan Hu – China | 2024 – 110 minutes

On the edge of the Gobi Desert in Northwest China, Lang returns to his hometown after being released from jail. While working for the local dog patrol team to clear the town of stray dogs before the 2008 Olympic Games, he strikes up an unlikely connection with a black dog. These two lonely souls now

Trailer:

Brief History of a Family by Lin Jianjie – China, France, Denmark, Qatar | 2024 – 99 minutes

In post one-child policy China, a middle-class family takes in their only son’s mysterious new friend. This triggers buried family tensions as secrets and feelings surface, testing the bonds and expectations holding the family together.

Trailer:

Dìdi by Sean Wang – USA | 2024 – 93 minutes

In 2008, during the last month of summer before high school begins, an impressionable 13-year-old Taiwanese American boy learns what his family can’t teach him: how to skate, how to flirt, and how to love your mom.

Trailer:

The Monk and the Gun by Pawo Choyning Dorji – Bhutan, Taiwan, France, USA, Hong Kong | 2023 – 107 minutes

The Kingdom of Bhutan is to become a democracy and holds a mock election as a training exercise. In the town of Ura, an old lama orders a monk to get a gun to face the imminent change in the kingdom. Meanwhile, an American collector is in search of a valuable gun that falls in the lama’s hands.

Trailer:

Shambhala by Min Bahadur Bham – Nepal | 2024 – 150 minutes

In a Himalayan polyandrous village, pregnant Pema faces scrutiny as her husband vanishes. With her monk brother-in-law, her de facto spouse, she seeks him in the wild, unraveling her own self-discovery along the journey

Trailer:

Viet and Nam by Minh Quy Truong – Vietnam, Philippines, Switzerland, Singapore, France, Netherlands, Italy, Germany | 2024 – 129 minutes

Nam and Việt are coal miners. Nam wants a different future and hires someone to smuggle him to the western world. Before leaving, Nam goes on a journey with Việt and his mother, who claims that Nam’s father, a northern Vietnamese soldier, calls out in her dreams to find his missing body.

More information: https://www.nziff.co.nz/