What to watch this June...
This month you could snuggle in and watch dramas, mysteries, or documentaries from the couch, or venture out and enjoy the thrill of the big screen. June is the perfect month to indulge in the diverse and carefully curated films that form this year’s Doc Edge Film Festival and French Film Festival Aotearoa.
Doc Edge 2021
The 16th Doc Edge Film Festival is an innovative and cleverly curated range of 83 documentary films from all around the globe. Between 3 June and 11 July Doc Edge 2021 features an impressive selection of world premieres and award winning films ensuring this year’s festival
truly has something for everyone. If you aren’t able to soak in the cinema atmosphere, Doc Edge 2021 will also be available on demand from 23 June to 11 July.
7 Years of Lukas Graham
Opening this year’s festival is a documentary that chronicles the rise of the Grammy nominated Danish band Lukas Graham as they sky- rocket to international success against the odds and contrary to the predictions of the industry experts.
Following the band over many years, the camera is able to reveal the real impact rock celebrity has on a group of ordinary young men in their twenties. In the end it is the ability to connect with the fans all over the world that makes their journey to fame possible.
Opening films rarely disappoint.
I am an Electric Lampshade
This award winning feature film is a coming of age story like no other. An eclectic dreamscape, it follows the personal journey of a retired accountant with a goal to be on stage performing to a throbbing crowd.
From a suburban accountancy firm in New York State to a training school for drag queens in the Philippines, this is one man’s journey to recreate himself in the way he has always imagined.
As the filmmaker describes it, it’s a psychedelic, one-of-a-kind journey that blurs the line between documentary, music, video, and concert film.
It is strangely compelling to watch a very ordinary married man put his retirement savings and his marriage on the line to realise his dream. It’s the kind of coming of ‘old’ age story that affirms you are NEVER too old to follow your dream.
4 stars
The Garden of Evil
This world premiere will have locals on the edge of their seats. There is nothing quite like a good murder mystery and the stakes are higher when it’s the murder of ‘one of our own’ while he was trying to help save our planet. Sir Peter Blake was not just one of the ‘good guys’ of New Zealand sporting history, he was a hero who brought sailing into the homes of a nation. Was it a robbery gone wrong, or was it something more orchestrated and sinister?
This documentary doesn’t just remind the audience how sad and needless the loss of Sir Peter Blake was, but it also reveals the bigger environmental tragedy that he felt was important enough to put his life on the line for.
4 stars
French Film Festival
Aotearoa 2021
Vive le cinema! is the catch cry inviting cinephiles everywhere to watch some of the best examples of French cinema from the last year. The festival visits Auckland’s most beloved cinemas from June 9 to June 23 at Rialto Newmarket, Lido Epsom and Bridgeway cinemas - visit
www.frenchfilmfestival.co.nz for individual film screening details.
Delicious
Named one of the top 5 French Films for 2021, Delicious is beautifully shot and leaves your mouth watering. On the eve of the French Revolution an unapologetic royal chef reframes the concept of fine dining bringing haute cuisine to the people.
The special Maison Vauron Centrepiece Gala screening of Delicious, is on Saturday 19 June at 4:30pm. Tickets to this one are limited so get in quick. One to look out for.
Skies of Lebanon
Knowing this story is inspired by the memories of the filmmaker’s grandmother makes the romance of Alice and Joseph all the more compelling and the feeling of loss all the more real. The story begins in a time of economic prosperity and peace in Lebanon, a place to fall-in-love and a place to fall-in-love with.
When civil war destroys their idyllic paradise nothing is ever the same again for the once optimistic and hopeful Alice and her husband Joseph who dreamed of sending the first Lebanese man to the moon.
This film is so beautifully crafted that even the bleakest moments seem tender and hopeful, reminding you that sometimes love is the real dream.
4 stars
Man in the Hat
This could be the French equivalent to the time honoured road movie genre and the closest we all might get to a French holiday for a while. Described by The Guardian film reviewer as “a picturesque odyssey across the French countryside, the best Provençal driving holiday you’ve never had”, let yourself be transported to a far-away-land by watching an adventure on the big screen and this great French film.