New Zealand Film Festival Plans Reduced-Size In-Person Edition

Not a great week so far for Cannes prognosticators. Or so it seems.

Lorde, Bleachers, Mitski and more have been announced for this year’s All Things Go music festival.The event will take place at Merriweather Post Pavillion on October 1, and is set to host 16 artists on multiple stages. King Princess, Bartees Strange, and Lucy Dacus are will also play the independent fest.

Sam Heughan gave fans an update on the second season of his hit travel show Men in Kilts.

Last month Oliver Sim of The xx dropped his first solo single "Romance With A Memory" (complete with a drag queen-filled video) and today he returns with its follow up. "Fruit" is described in a press release as "a joyful celebration of queer identity and self-acceptance penned to his younger self" and comes with a video in which Sim is interviewed on a chat show before performing the song while a childhood version of himself watches on. Check that out below.

Leena Tailor Walk into the unembellished black building tucked away in Morningside, Auckland, later this year and there’s no telling what musical superstars one might find. Niall Horan could be leading songwriting camps for aspiring musicians, Taylor Swift could be next door working on her next big hit and maybe Lorde will stop by downstairs to play an intimate show marking 10 years since she recorded “Royals” nearby.The possibilities are endless as Grammy-winning musician Joel Little unveils Big Fan, the multimillion-dollar, non-profit music facility that he and wife Gemma have spent two years pouring time, energy and savings into.With four recording studios and a 180-capacity music venue, the state-of-the-art project is the couple’s “gift” to the music industry, one they hope will help locals fulfill their musical ambitions, whether it’s through studio access, mentoring or simply having somewhere to play their first show or discover their passion for lighting, sound or event management.

Beabadoobee will tour both Australia and New Zealand for the first time this September.The tour, announced today (April 5), is in support of the singer-songwriter’s forthcoming second studio album, ‘Beatopia’. She shared news of the album last month, alongside the release of its lead single ‘Talk’. A tour of the UK was also announced at that time, with a world tour to follow.In a press statement, Beabadoobee said that she was “so excited” to be touring through Australasia.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans EditorWētā FX, has announced the opening of its Vancouver office as part of the next phase of the company’s growth following the $1.6 billion technology deal with Unity late last year.The company behind films such as “Eternals,” “Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” Canadian presence marks the company’s first dedicated visual effects office outside its home-base of New Zealand.“The global growth in entertainment content has allowed us the flexibility to really pursue the projects we want and to expand our business model to tap into talent in more locations around the world,” said Prem Akkaraju, CEO of Wētā FX. “Vancouver is an established market for VFX, Animation and Games talent and we look forward to welcoming them into the Wētā FX family.” The Vancouver office will work on a wide range of shows including the Avatar Sequels, the first of which will hit theatres in December 2022.The Palm Springs International Film Society announced dates for the 34th annual Palm Springs International Film Festival, returning in-person from Jan.

EXCLUSIVE: Producers Andrew Bendel and Alistair Maclean-Clark of Blue Horizon Productions have optioned the memoir Sea Dragons, Yvonne Foley’s story of how she believed she had been abandoned in Liverpool by her Chinese father as a child only to find out many years later that he and other sailors had been deported.

Pixies have announced their return to Australia and New Zealand, taking to stages this December for their long-paused ‘Come On Pilgrim… It’s Surfer Rosa’ tour – get tickets here.It’ll be the band’s second time taking the run Down Under, after an attempt in 2020 was cut short by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. They played four of the dates on that tour – two headliners in Melbourne, one in Auckland and a set at that year’s Golden Plains festival in regional Victoria – but were forced to cancel shows in Brisbane, Sydney and Perth.All three cities are featured on the new itinerary, which is set to kick off in Brisbane on December 2.

Sigur Rós have added four more shows to their sprawling list of impending tour dates, slating gigs in New Zealand and Australia for this August – get tickets here.The four-date stint will be sandwiched between their 27 shows in North America – the first of which will go down in just under a month – and their 29-date run in the UK and Europe this September. It’ll start in New Zealand, with a lone show at Auckland’s Spark Arena slotted in for Saturday August 6, before the band take to stages in the Australian cities of Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.Tickets for the Auckland and Brisbane dates can be found here, while Sydney and Melbourne fans can get their hands on tickets here.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefWhether or not “The Power of the Dog” wins the big prize at the Academy Awards on Sunday, David Strong, chief executive of the New Zealand Film Commission for the past eight months, is guaranteed to be an in-demand visitor to Los Angeles over the next week.With the Jane Campion-directed film handily showcasing New Zealand’s talent, locations and craft strengths, the country has now reopened its borders to international visitors. Also sweetening the deal are more studio spaces.Ahead of Strong’s flight to Los Angeles, where he has a week of meetings set up with Hollywood decision makers, he spoke to Variety about what New Zealand has to offer going forward.What has been the impact of “The Power of the Dog” and its Oscar nominations? It’s already been a big success story for us.

New Zealand-born Australian filmmaker Andrew Dominik might be on the precipice of a banner year. His long-awaited Marilyn Monroe film starring Ana de Armas, “Blonde,” just received an NC-17 rating from the Film Ratings board, something of a first for Netflix, and should make its world premiere later this year (likely Venice, since Netflix avoids Cannes).

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorNetflix, still in the early days of its video-game strategy, continues to expand the selection of games in its mobile apps — and later this month, the streamer will bow its first first-person shooter.Since launching games worldwide in November, Netflix has rolled out 14 titles, available for no additional charge (and no ads) in its mobile apps. Those have ranged from casual puzzle and card games to scrolling arcade-style titles.Now Netflix will soon introduce “Into the Dead 2: Unleashed,” a zombie-apocalypse shoot-’em-up described as the “ultimate runner/shooter hybrid.” It’s still too soon to tell whether Netflix games are moving the needle as execs hypothesize — in terms of attracting and retaining subscribers — but the addition of the first-person shooter title shows that the company wants to appeal to a broad segment of gaming enthusiasts.

Ed Sheeran has teased his next “curveball” project, confirming that it’s coming very soon.Speaking to The Project NZ about his upcoming Australia and New Zealand stadium tour, the singer-songwriter explained the reasoning behind naming his albums after mathematical symbols.“I was like, ‘I don’t really want to be a poster boy’,” Sheeran said. “So I had sort of figured out a way [to do] it with colours and symbols.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorCrunchyroll is inviting fans of the Dragon Ball anime franchise to hop on their Flying Nimbus cloud — and stream more than 500 episodes of the fan-favorite series that were previously available only on Funimation.For the first time, Toei Animation’s “Dragon Ball,” “Dragon Ball Z” and “Dragon Ball GT” are now available to watch on Sony’s Crunchyroll streaming service in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.The three series come to Crunchyroll as part of another wave of new content from Funimation, after Sony on March 1 announced that the two services would merge into a single unified Crunchyroll service. The trio of shows joins “Dragon Ball Super,” which has been available on Crunchyroll with English subtitles.

K.J. Yossman Film Mode Entertainment has inked a multi-project distribution deal with Australian director/producer Luke Sparke’s company Sparke Films.Among the titles Film Mode will represent worldwide are Sparke’s upcoming projects “Weapons of Choice,” a television adaptation of John Birmingham’s World War Two trilogy “Axis of Time” and “Primitive War,” a horror feature franchise based on Ethan Pettus’ book series.Film Mode will also handle worldwide sales rights for “Occupation: Rainfall 2” and “Occupation: Rainfall 3” – the third and fourth films in Sparke’s franchise – as well as a number of other projects still in development.