Winter is an exciting time on the New Zealand film calendar as it marks the launch of the year's New Zealand International Film Festival. The 2011 is full of some great titles, some of which we've had the absolute pleasure to review for you already. Check out some of our highlights below and keep checking View New Zealand for the latest reviews, trailers and session times for the New Zealand International Film Festival 2011.

For a full list of films playing at the 2011 Festival click here.

PICKS OF THE FESTIVAL



Bobby Fischer Against The World
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA
Director: Liz Garbus

'Bobby Fischer Against the World' is the first documentary feature to explore the tragic and bizarre life of the late chess master Bobby Fischer.

Read our Review





The Guard
Genre: Comedy Drama
Country: Ireland
Director: John Michael McDonagh

An unorthodox Irish policeman with a confrontational personality is teamed up with an uptight FBI agent to investigate an international drug-smuggling ring.

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Watch the Trailer





Heartbeats
Genre: Drama
Country: Canada
Director: Xavier Dolan

The story of three close friends who are involved in a love-triangle, directed by 21-year-old French-Canadian filmmaker Xavier Dolan.

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Watch the Trailer





Incendies
Genre: Drama
Country: Canada
Director: Denis Villeneuve

Twins journey to the Middle East to discover their family history, and fulfill their mother's last wishes.

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Watch the Trailer





I Saw The Devil
Genre: Horror
Country: South Korea
Director: Jee-woon Kim

When his pregnant fiancee becomes the latest victim of a serial killer, a secret agent blurs the line between good and evil in his pursuit of revenge.

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Le Quattro Volte
Genre: Drama
Country: Italy
Director: Michelangelo Frammartino

An old shepherd lives his last days in a quiet medieval village perched high on the hills of Calabria, at the southernmost tip of Italy.

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Love Like Poison
Genre: Drama
Country: France
Director: Katell Quillévéré

Anna a young teenager comes home from her Catholic boarding school for the holidays and discovers her father has left. Her mother is devastated and confined in the company of the local priest, who is also a childhood friend.

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Meek's Cutoff
Genre: Western
Country: USA
Director: Kelly Reichardt

Settlers traveling through the Oregon desert in 1845 find themselves stranded in harsh conditions.

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Project Nim
Genre: Documentary
Country: UK
Director: James Marsh

Tells the story of a chimpanzee taken from its mother at birth and raised like a human child by a family in a brownstone on the upper West Side in the 1970s.

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Senna
Genre: Documentary
Country: UK/France
Director: Asif Kapadia

A documentary on Brazilian Formula One racing driver Ayrton Senna, who won the F1 world championship three times before his death at age 34.

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Submarine
Genre: Comedy
Country: UK
Director: Richard Ayoade

15-year-old Oliver Tate has two objectives: To lose his virginity before his next birthday, and to extinguish the flame between his mother and an ex-lover who has resurfaced in her life.

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Watch the Trailer





Tabloid
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA
Director: Errol Morris

A documentary on a former Miss Wyoming who is charged with abducting and imprisoning a young Mormon Missionary.

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13 Assassins
Genre: Action
Country: Japan
Director: Takashi Miike

A group of assassins come together for a suicide mission to kill an evil lord.

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Watch the Trailer