New Zealand Film Month continues on Rialto Channel this week with the incredibly beautiful and fascinating documentary, Antarctica:A Year On Ice. This award winning documentary was filmed over 15 years and gives you a close-up and personal look at what it’s like for those who chose to spend 12 months on the ice. It also presents us with some stunning scenery and wildlife. This is a film the whole family can enjoy and is my first pick of the week.

Here are my picks for the week;

New Zealand Film Month continues on Rialto Channel this week with the incredibly beautiful and fascinating documentary, Antarctica: A Year On Ice. This award winning documentary was filmed over 15 years and gives you a close-up and personal look at what it’s like for those who chose to spend 12 months on the ice. It also presents us with some stunning scenery and wildlife. This is a film the whole family can enjoy and is my first pick of the week.

 

Here are my picks for the week;

Antarctica: A Year On Ice (2013)
Directed by: Anthony Powell
Screening: Rialto New Wave, Wednesday 11th December, 8.30pm 

See Antarctica like never before in Anthony Powell’s debut feature film Antarctica: A Year On Ice. Powell’s cinematography, much of which was shot with time lapse cameras engineered specifically by Powell to work in the extreme Antarctic conditions, will enchant both parents and kids. It took Powell, a telecommunications engineer and photographer, many years, including nine winters on the ice, to create this intimate portrayal of what life’s like for both the wildlife and people who live and work at the United States facility McMurdo station and New Zealand’s Scott Base. It captures the 24-hour darkness of winter, freezing ice storms, a New Year countdown in broad daylight, and incredible polar landscapes. It’s no wonder this film won the Best Documentary Cinematography award at last year’s Rialto Channel New Zealand Film Awards.

Hinterland (2013)
Starring: Richard Harrington, Mali Harries and Hannah Daniel
Directed by: Gareth Bryn
Screening: Rialto British, Sunday 14^th December, 8.30pm

Over the past year of so we’ve been lucky enough to enjoy some excellent crime dramas from the English (Southcliffe) and the Irish (Love/Hate) and now it’s time for the Welsh to give the genre a nudge with Hinterland. A feature length, four part television series, Hinterland is the first BBC television drama with dialogue both in English and Welsh. Rialto Channel is playing the English version. Obviously. As you’d expect, the scenery is bleak and beautiful, it rains a lot, and the tone is dark and dry. But what’s a little different about this series compared to Southcliffe or Broadchurch is it’s also scary. An excellent score amps up the suspense and will have you on the edge of your seat as we watch yet another intuitive detective with personal issues, solve some grisly crimes. It’s week two of this series, but it doesn’t matter, get into Hinterland.

Disconnect (2012)
Starring: Jason Bateman, Alexander Skarsgård, Hope Davis & Michael Nyqvist
Directed by: Henry Alex Rubin
Screening: Rialto Selection, Saturday 13^th December, 8.30pm 

This is director Henry Alex Rubin’s first film since his Oscar nominated documentary Murderball about quadriplegic rugby players. It’s also Rubin’s first dramatic feature film featuring an ensemble cast that weave together three horror stories from living our lives on line, from cyber bullying, to online sex and theft. Sounds like you’re going to get a lecture about the dangers of technology, right? However, rather than preaching against technology, Disconnect is about relationships, the importance of communication and the role technology plays within them. Other themes are explored amongst the three different stories that intertwine here. Father and son relationships, dealing with grief and guilt, and conforming to society’s norms are all explored. It’s a character driven film and for the most part, these characters are portrayed well. Jason Bateman deserves special mention as the absent father of a cyber bullied son. Nice to see him pull of a more serious and meaningful role than say, Horrible Bosses 2.