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Literary films at the New Zealand International Film Festival 2010
The New Zealand International Film Festival in Christchurch is showing some wonderful films with a literary pedigree.
Here is a listing of movies based on books, or on the subject of writers. It has been kindly supplied by the film festival organisers:
- Farewell — L’affaire farewell
- Based on the book Bonjour Farewell by Sergei Kostine, this tensely atmospheric, true Cold War spy movie centres on a disillusioned KGB colonel who risked everything in the early 80s to let the West know just how thoroughly Soviet spies had infiltrated American security.
- “It's puzzling that the story is not better known … but it is to the advantage of Farewell … that it has remained unfamiliar and therefore all the more astonishing as it plays out.” — Todd McCarthy, Variety
- Read full Farewell reviews from Ebscohost
- Use at a library or enter your library card & PIN
The Ghost Writer- Based on the novel The Ghost by Robert Harris.
- “A gripping conspiracy thriller and scabrous political satire… as addictive and outrageous as the Robert Harris bestseller [The Ghost,] on which it’s based. Roman Polanski keeps the narrative engine ticking over with a downbeat but compelling throb.” — Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
- “Deliciously unsettling… a dark pearl of a movie whose great flair and precision make it Polanski’s best work in quite a while.” — Kenneth Turan, LA Times
- Read full reviews of The ghost writer from Ebscohost
- Use at a library or enter your library card & PIN
- HOWL
About Allen Ginsberg and his poem Howl.- “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked…”
- In San Francisco in 1957 Allen Ginsberg’s epochal (and enduring) poem“Howl” was put on trial for obscenity. Ron Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman (The Life and Times of Harvey Milk) have made an intelligent, impassioned, multi-layered film about the trial, the poem and the poet as harbingers of social revolution in America.
- “[The filmmakers’] passion for Ginsberg’s genius and their excitement over trying to deconstruct a literary master work is contagious.” — Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter
- Read full reviews of Howl from Ebscohost
- Use at a library or enter your library card & PIN
- The Killer Inside Me
- Based on the novel The Killer inside me by Jim Thompson.
- This stylish 50s backwoods noir is interlaced with grisly realism by mainstream cinema’s most restless genre-hopper and provocateur, British director Michael Winterbottom.
“Winterbottom is no stranger to challenging and heady subject matter (9 Songs, 24 Hour Party People). Nevertheless, for his first American film, he chose to adapt one of the more delectably vicious, landmark novels in the annals of American noir, Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me. Excuse the pun, ma’m, but Winterbottom killed it. That is to say, he has crafted an entertaining and brilliant psychological portrait of a charming sociopath that is every bit the 2010 answer to Mary Harron’s American Psycho.” — Hunter Stephenson, Interview 
My Dog Tulip- Based on the novel by J.R. Ackerley.
- Beautifully animated film based on J.R. Ackerley’s classic tale of man and dog.
“In 1947, Ackerley rescued an 18-month-old Alsatian bitch from a life of poverty and squalor, and in so doing changed his life forever… My Dog Tulip is as much a portrait of the human animal as the canine variety. Its characters are an eccentric cross-section of British dog-owning society – and their bow wows – dryly and earthily observed.” — Vancouver International Film Festival 
Predicament- Based on the novel Predicament by R.H. Morrieson.
- World Premiere
A new generation of Kiwi comic talent has a ball with a cult classic of Kiwi Gothic lit. Director Jason Stutter has fastened on to Ronald Hugh Morrieson’s Predicament, and made a gleefully macabre comedy of grave adolescent misadventure.
Stutter matches the narrative exuberance of the original with comic-book visual flourishes. Predicament is an enjoyably gothic imagining of a time when the expression ‘moral turpitude’ actually meant something. Starring Jemaine Clement as ‘Spook’. 
The Red Shoes- Based on the fairy tale The Red Shoes by Hans Christian Andersen.
- Michael Powell’s classic tale of a lovely young ballerina caught between love and her burning passion for dance has been restored to a dazzling Technicolor splendour not seen since its original release.“It’s always been essential viewing; thanks to this hallucinogenically gorgeous restoration, the expressionistic landmark now feels genuinely life-altering.” — David Fear, Time Out NY
- Sam Hunt: Purple Balloon and Other Stories
Documentary on poet Sam Hunt.- World Premiere
“Sam Hunt is important to us because he is that extraordinary, rare, person; someone who is prepared to illustrate with his life the value of poetry and the making of poems.” — Peter Smart
An inspiring teacher himself, and clearly respected by decades of teachers who’ve taken him into their classrooms, he mocks teachers for analysing poetry, then himself spells out the metaphor of the de-winged butterfly. It’s a startlingly honest portrait of a man in a state of constant agitation with himself, but who’s long since known that he was a poet. He owns up to the booze and the bullshit, no worries, while plying his mordant commentaries on the body politic and his lyrical gift for brushing up against the mysteries of existence. - The Tree
Based on the novel Our Father Who Art in the Tree by Judy Pascoe.- French director Julie Bertuccelli brings a startled outsider eye to this poetic Australian/French movie about a young widow (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and her little daughter’s solemn obsession with a giant tree.
“Julie Bertuccelli’s lucid, deeply poetic Australian/French co-production translates a bold concept into a thoroughly believable realm.” — Clare Stewart, Sydney Film Festival - Winter’s Bone
- Based on the novel Winter's bone by Daniel Woodrell.
- “This time, the young warrior is a girl.” — Sundance Film Festival
In the harsh backwoods of Missouri, 17-year-old Ree, smart beyond her years, takes care of her incapacitated mother and her younger brother and sister. When her crystal-meth-cooking father puts up the house for bail, she sets out to find him to ensure that he shows up in court. This dramatic ode to tough, persistent goodness was the big winner at Sundance this year and it is not at all hard to understand why. 
Women without Men — Zanan bedoone mardan- Based on the novel by Shahrnush Parsipur.
- In images of arresting purity and composure, expatriate Iranian photographer and video artist Shirin Neshat elaborates a haunting sense of women’s lives and options in Iran in 1953. Adapted from a novel by Iranian author Shahrnush Parsipur that is banned in Iran, the film weaves together the stories of several women from different levels of society whose fates have been variously shaped by their faith.“Filmed in haunting muted hues, the women's individual journeys are compelling, and the broader themes of the tensions between religion and secularism and between tradition and modernity have never felt more relevant.” — Sandra Hebron, London Film Festival
We recommend
- Read the Book - then see the film — a list of upcoming movies that are based on books so that you can read the book before seeing the movie.
- Books into film - a list based on movies showing in Christchurch, and screening on free-to-air television.
- Our film page gives you all the best links to film resources and information.
