love Christmas. It’s about more than just one gluttonous, expensive day of eating, giving and receiving. It’s about family, holidays and summer - three of my favourite things. It’s also about forgetting routines, watching the kids go feral, reading the pile of books that’s been stacked up on your bedside table since March, and not feeling guilty about having a beer mid-afternoon.

I love Christmas. It’s about more than just one gluttonous, expensive day of eating, giving and receiving. It’s about family, holidays and summer - three of my favourite things. It’s also about forgetting routines, watching the kids go feral, reading the pile of books that’s been stacked up on your bedside table since March, and not feeling guilty about having a beer mid-afternoon.

It’s also when I catch up on films I’ve missed throughout the year. There’s nothing better than a day at the beach, dinner around the outside table, a game of family cricket, and then ending the day with a good movie.

And on Rialto Channel there’s plenty to choose from:

The First Grader (Saturday 29^th December, 8.30pm)

A heartwarming and well performed film based on the true life story of Maruge, an 84-year-old Kenyan man who wants to attend primary school to learn to read and write. The value of education and the importance of history are the focus of this drama, told simply and sympathetically by British director Justin Chadwick (The Other Boleyn Girl). Kenya’s complex history is examined through one man’s quest for a free education, and flashbacks to his experiences as a member of the Mau Mau, an anti-British organisation who fought for Kenya’s independence. Charming, uplifting and harrowing, The First Grader overcomes its slightly schmaltzy tone thanks to moving performances by Oliver Litondo as the delightful Maruge, and Naomie Harris as his passionate and spirited teacher.

Happy, Happy (Tuesday 25^th December, 8.30pm)

This Norwegian black comedy premiered at the NZIFF earlier in the year after winning the 2011 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize for World Cinema. Wonderfully acted, it’s a fun, pacey comedy about relationships, with a random racist slant thrown in to keep you on your toes.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (Friday 28^th December, 8.30pm)

From Wayne Wang, director of The Joy Luck Club, comes another story based on female friendships across the generations. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is partially based on the book by Lisa See, which was set in 19^th Century China and explored the Chinese tradition of ‘laotong’, the arranged life-long friendship between two young girls. Wang has given this story a contemporary edge with the addition of a modern day parallel story based around a descendant of Snow Flower. It makes for a rather long winded story, and one that gets a little confusing as we dart back and forward between stories, time periods and shooting styles, but as you’d expect from Wang it’s a beautifully shot and visually stunning film.

During January, Rialto Channel is going green by screening a selection of documentaries that explore environmental issues. If you enjoyed, or perhaps were horrified, by the thought-provoking documentary Food Inc, then our first film in this series is well worth catching, Think Global, Act Rural. Directed by French filmmaker Coline Serreau, Think Global, Act Rural examines the effects of industralised agricultural practices on a planet-wide scale. There’s no doubt it’s a one-sided perspective, but it should renew your enthusiasm for a backyard vegie patch.

Other documentaries following Think Global, Act Rural are Bhopali, a documentary on the world’s worst industrial disaster that happened in Bhopali, India in the mid-eighties, Queen of the Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us? which examines the global bee crisis, The Last Mountain, about mining in American’s Appalachian mountains, and, finally, Cool It, where a Danish author and scholar refutes four of the scariest facts presented in Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth.

As always when a new month rolls round, so too does another director in our Director’s Showcase, and throughout January we’re celebrating the work of acclaimed British director Peter Greenaway.   

The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (1989) was the first Greenaway film I ever saw, and at 17 it was quite an experience. After watching this with my friend’s parents there is little that has made me squeamish or fazed me since! I’m thrilled to say this extravagant, visually sensual film - filled with food, sex, murder, torture, and, just to top it off, cannibalism - is one of Peter Greenaway’s films screening in the series. You’ll also be able to catch Drowning by Numbers (Sunday 6^th January, 8.30pm), The Baby of Macon and The Pillow Book. It’s going to be quite a month.

Have a wonderful Christmas, and all the best wishes for the New Year.