The Rencontres Internationales du Cinema des Antipodes – aka the Saint-Tropez Antipodes Film Festival – opens today. Although it’s largely unknown to most New Zealanders, this festival has been showcasing Kiwi and Aussie cinema to European film fans from its luxurious French location for 14 years now. Not only that, the films selected ‘in competition’ are then featured by the fest at the Cannes Film Festival in their Cinema des Antipodes selection of Cannes Cinephiles showcase.

14 Kiwi films have been chosen this year – both features and shorts. The feature films ‘in competition’ include: Wellingtonian Alex Galvin‘s highly anticipated sci-fi mystery Eternity (making its World Premiere at the festival), Florian Habicht‘s brilliant Love Story (still on its worldwide festival tour), the beloved and critically acclaimed Kiwi-Samoan film The Orator, and the touching drama Hook, Line and Sinker.

Kiwi acting icon Geraldine Brophy features in two of the Kiwi films on show (Eternity and Hook, Line and Sinker) and the legendary Sam Neil also appears, in the Aussie drama The Hunter.

The festival runs from October 15 – 21, and we’ll bring you all the winners once they’re announced. To check out all the films or for more information about the festival, visit their website – here.

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Here are the Kiwi films on show at the fest:

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ETERNITY

83 mins | Sci-fi Mystery | Director: Alex Galvin

“Eternity” is a sci-fi mystery, set in the near future. A police detective, Richard Manning, is taking part in a futuristic computer game investigating the most difficult case of his career: a seemingly impossible locked room murder mystery of a wealthy property investor. The more he investigates the more complex the case seems to become. Richard begins to realize that there is far more going on than just one mystery and his own future is at stake. His only chance to escape the game depends on him solving everything – and quickly.

Eternity has its New Zealand premiere in the Hawke’s Bay on November 9, before a general release in early 2013. We’re really looking forward to seeing this. For tickets to the New Zealand premiere, visit Ticketek.

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LOVE STORY

92 minutes | Comedy Romance | Director: Florian Habicht

New York in the summer is a wonderful place to fall in love. So when transient artist Florian Habicht spots on the subway a beautiful woman carrying a piece of cake on a plate, he begins to film her and to fall in love. Unsure how to court this mysterious siren, Florian takes to the streets: he asks a wild collection of passerby literally ‘what should happen next?’ in his love story. Real New Yorkers respond with pleasure, surprise and distaste, but they’ve always got an opinion: what to do on a first date, how to treat her after a taxi accident, how to lure her into bed…He even enquires (while on a late-night condom run, wearing nothing more than her striped tights) how to handle the inevitable failures and sexual twists. Overseeing the entire endeavor, like a Brechtian director on stage, is Florian’s father, Skyping in his blockbuster movie advice.

http://youtu.be/E8M_m9ym_uo

Love Story screened at NZIFF 2011 and is one of the best Kiwi films in years. For our review from the festival, click here.

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THE ORATOR

111 minutes | Comedy Drama | Director: Tusi Tamasese

Saili (Fiaula Sanote), an unassuming villager and taro farmer, lives happily with his beautiful wife Vaaiga and her teenage daughter Litia. Their existence, whilst happy and peaceful; is unconventional. Vaaiga has been banished from her ancestral village for many years. Saili faces serious threats to his plantation as well as his family & has been denied his fathers chiefly title that would offer some protection. Life is further complicated by Litia’s blossoming beauty that is attracting the attention of the young men in the village. Matters ultimately come to a head, requiring Saili to speak up, speak out & to defend all that he holds precious.

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HOOK, LINE AND SINKER

110 minutes | Comedy Drama | Directors: Andrea Bosshard & Shane Loader

PJ (Rangimoana Taylor) is a truck driver with a working man’s pride in his job. His partner Ronnie (Carmel McGlone), her two kids bordering on adulthood, singing at the local pub and fishing with his best mate Jono (KC Kelly), form the backbone of his modest existence. But when he fails a mandatory eye test and loses his driving license, PJ’s life unravels. In the face of his imminent future as a blind man, the ever pragmatic Ronnie upscales her wedding dress business with the help of her ambitious older sister Bernadette (Geraldine Brophy) to become the breadwinner of the family. But PJ, refusing to accept the loss of his sight and unable to cope with the rapidly altering family dynamics, takes everyone on a tumultuous emotional journey to the very edge until, with Ronnie’s help, he finds himself a new place in the world.

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POUNAMU

52 mins | Documentary | Director: Colette Culbert

To the rhythm of ancestral recitals and the majestic landscapes of New Zealand, a ‘story’ about Jade is revealed.

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TE WAI POUNAMU

32 minutes | Documentary | Director: Colette Culbert

“Te Wai Pounamu” (The waters of pounamu), the South island of New Zealand, is shown here as a journey across the land, following the pounamu the sources, the rivers and the coastlines. The pounamu is in constant motion, born from the faultline, the main divide, carried by the glaciers, the rivers and the lakes to the sea over hundreds and thousands of years. Each ancestral recital and waiata are an integral part of Maori history. This history carries Maori identity, solidarity and the continuity between generations and it documents the journeys and events that shape the environment of Te Wai Pounamu. A direct magic relationship is evoked between this and the force of the land, the sea, the rivers and the precious pounamu.

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ABIOGENESIS

Short Film | 5 minutes | Director: Richard Mans

A strange mechanical device lands on a desolate world and uses the planet to undergo a startling transformation, that has profound implications for an entire galaxy.

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LIE TO ME

Short Film | 6 minutes | Director: Kathleen Hrayssi

In 1958 in an interrogation room, the mysterious Mrs Hephren is questioned by a detective following the murder of her husband.

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DAY TRIP

Short Film | 11 minutes | Director: Zoe McIntosh

A gang member wakes up one morning and decides he needs a day off. A short voyage between islands changes his outlook on life.

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HITCH HIKE

Short Film | 12 minutes | Director: Matthew Saville

On a trip to find his birth mother, 18-year-old Aaron is forced to hitch a ride with a rough-looking Maori bushman, Maka.

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LAMBS

Short Film | 14 minutes | Director: Sam Kelly

A boy from a dysfunctional home wants to escape but doesn’t want to desert his younger siblings. Winner of the ‘Best Short Film’ at the 2012 New Zealand International Film Festival.

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SNOW IN PARADISE

Short Film | 9 minutes | Directors: Justine Simei-Barton, Nikki Si’ulepa

Filmed in Aitutaki, in the Cook Islands, this film is set in the 1970s and explores a day in the life of a young island girl as her paradise is shattered by the nuclear testing that changed the Pacific forever.

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DAS TUB

Short Film | 4 minutes | Director: James Cunningham

Lost in the frozen depths of the Atlantic a German U-Boat crew find themselves on a collision course with objects stranger than they can fathom.

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TIME FOR CHANGE

Short Film | 3 minutes | Director: James Cunningham

A little girl is the witness to a long-simmering spousal feud between two wooden figurines on the town clock.

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If you haven’t seen these films yet, keep an eye out for them at the cinema, your local video store or online.