T H U R S D A Y 1 4 M A YL -
W E D N E S D A Y 2 0 M A Y 2 0 2 6
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The Wellington Film Society, Embassy, Monday 18 May at 6.00pm and 8.30pm:
MONSTER Kore-eda Hirokazu, Japan, 2023
The best of Hirokazu Kore-eda's films achieve a rare quality: a sublime everydayness, in which simple matters of life take on breathtaking, poetic shape ... this new film initially seems to be a simple, issue-driven movie designed to yank at heartstrings. Sakura Ando, so memorable in Kore-eda;s Palme d'Or-winning Shoplifters, plays Saori, a dry cleaner in a small Japanese city whose son, tweenage Minato (Soya Kurokawa), is having some mental health difficulties. He's quiet and moody at home, he's acting out at school, and in one frightening instance he seems to have a propensity for self-harm. Kore-eda sets this all up in such a way that we, the perhaps slightly jaded audience, assume we know what's coming. The film will chronicle Saori's struggle to reach her son, and his journey toward betterment. Saor's husband has died at some indefinite point in the past, so it seems that grief will come to bear on this process of understanding and healing. But then Sakamoto Yuji's script leads us in unexpected directions ... The film is essentially concerned with how a secret, closely held by private fear and societal demand, can affect far more people than just the one keeping it.
- Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair.
Members only.
Film Society Memberships are available at any time on line.
Film Festivals to note:
To mark it's 80th birthday, the Wellington Film Society presents a bonus weekend-long mini-festival of eight films, one from each decade of its history. Embassy Friday 5 - Sunday 7 June: Details here: Playing the Part.. If you are a member, save a seat here.
The 2016 French Film Festival will play 3 to 28 June in Wellington at the Embassy, all Light House cinemas and the Penthouse. Brochures available now.
The annual NZIFF will play in Wellington this year 12 - 23 August (encores 24 - 29 August). Mark the dates in your calendar now. More details as they become avaliable.
If you have a festival due to run in Wellington and it's not listed here, contact the Cinemaster.
This site relies on the various cinemas having their own websites up to date to access their screening times.
The paragraphs describing the films starting this week are in most cases adapted from the linked reviews.
For comments and movie news, contact the Cinemaster at
filmster@gmail.com.
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s t a r t s t h i s w e e k!
ARCHECTURE AND DESIGN FILM FESTIVAL -
The organisers are thrilled to invite you to their most ambitius programme yet, bringing together 23 feature films and five shorts, from nine countries. Runs in Wellington till 1 June.
Also Lighthouse Cuba, whose 'Reviews' tab goes to that cinema's festival schedule.
CATERPILLER -
Set in the 2000s in New Zealand's capital Wellington, director Chelsie Preston Crayford's first full-length feature is clearly a personal passion project. It follows three generations of the same family. There's a quiet dignity, and even if the drama comes crashing in at around the one-hour mark, the work done by the quartet of women involved does much to make it powerfully evocative and its considerations universal, no matter how occasionally insular and singular it feels.
Also Lighthouse and Shoreline.
IN THE GREY -
Written and directed by Guy Ritchie, this is a stylish but derivative action thriller, starring Ritchie-regulars Jake Gyllenhaal, Henry Cavill and Eiza Gonzalez. Early on the move suffers from too much planning and preparation, but it benefits from a stronger second half and quite fortunately leaves the best until last.
Also Queensgate, Monterey, Reading and Coastlands.
OBSESSION -
YouTuber Curry Barker directs one of the best horror films of 2025. Seen at the Toronto International Film Festival, it's described as having a simple "be careful what you wish for" premise thet exceeds the sum of its parts by making us more afraid to be the perpetrator than the victim.
Also Queensgate and Monterey.
CHRISTY -
Christy Martin overcame meager beginnings, disapproving parents, an abusive marriage, and the self-loathing of the closet to emerge as a trailblazing figure in women's boxing. But the movie about her life, takes no such risks. Sydney Sweeney gives her all in what is ultimately a formulaic, underdog sports movie.
Also Queensgate and Monterey.
MOTHER MARY -
Visually stunning and narratively opaque, David Lowery's atmospheric film is never less than beguiling - even when it threatens to tie itself up in melodramatic knots. Starring Anne Hathaway as a troubled singing superstar and Michaela Coel as her estranged costume designer friend, it's a bold, gothic, compelling study of the cult of fame, the creative impulse, the fragile threads that bind.
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