Wao Film
Festival 2024
Wānaka Community Hub & Online
9 May - 12 May
A Wonderful World.
Award winning films set to inspire deep connection with the natural world.
Showcasing a carefully curated selection of films and short documentaries that are set to inspire positive transformations.
This year’s lineup of films ranges from a deep dive into the micro beauty of life on this planet to addressing some of the biggest issues we’re facing.
Tickets $15 per session.
3 sessions for $30.
Full festival pass $149 (includes online films).
Kids go free (under 18).
Students only $10.
Films suitable for the whole family.
Enjoy our local cafe & bar at each session.
Online films available for 6 weeks, launching after 12th May.
Thursday Sessions
Our Place - Wānaka Panel Discussion - Thinking Outside The Box
Our Place.
Join us for the opening session “Our Place”. These films celebrate our region with three locally directed and produced films which showcase what makes our place so special.
Themes: Indigenous People / Natural World / Wānaka
Duration: 1:45:00 (three film session and panel)
Session Time: Thursday 9th 5:30pm - 6:45pm
Something Beautiful for the World.
Themes: Natural World
Duration: 1:00:00 (three films session and intermission)
Alone - Find Belonging
Being the Change at 85
Rewilding A Forest
These films explore how small acts of love and kindness have the potential to ripple out and change the world, touching hearts and minds in ways that we could never begin to imagine.
Session Time: Thursday 9th 7:30pm - 9:00pm
Friday Sessions
School Sessions - Living the Change - Better Building Action - Kai for Thought
Living The Change.
Themes: Food /Kai
Duration: 1:27:00
Session Time: Friday 10th 2:30pm - 4:15pm
Inspiring Stories for a Sustainable Future. Living the Change is a feature-length documentary that explores solutions to the global crises we face today – solutions any one of us can be part of – through the inspiring stories of people pioneering change in their own lives and in their communities in order to live in a sustainable and regenerative way.
Directors Jordan Osmond and Antoinette Wilson have brought together stories from their travels, along with interviews with experts able to explain how we come to be where we are today. From forest gardens to composting toilets, community supported agriculture to timebanking, Living the Change offers ways we can rethink our approach to how we live. Rated PG.
Better Building.
Join us for our dedicated “Better Building” session. This session is ideal if you are planning on building a home, work in the building industry or have an interest in sustainable building.
Themes: Building / Zero Waste
Duration: 1:30:00 (two film session and panel)
Session Time: Friday May 10th 5pm - 6:30pm
Straw Bale Dream Home
This is How we Build
Straw Bale Dream Home follows the building of a beautiful eco home by wonderful owner builders Adam and Sian in Victoria, Australia. It’s a stunning traditional timber frame home combining timber joinery, straw bale, and cob. And it radiates with the wholehearted love they poured into designing a sustainable home of their dreams, and then building it.
This is How we Build was filmed in Wanaka and produced by Wao Aotearoa. Made with the support of the Queenstown Lakes District Council, the film is part of the work being done by the Better Building Working Group (BBWG). Made up of suppliers, builders, community members and Council with Wao as the project coordinator, the BBWG is a collective focusing on educating the building industry on best practice, advocate for change to reduce waste and emissions and up the standards on how we build in the District.
Common Ground.
Themes: Kai For Thought Session / Climate Change / Kai / Biodiversity
Duration: 1:45:00 (two film session and intermission)
Session Time: Friday May 10th 7pm - 9:30pm
This screening is part of a two film “Kai for Thought” session that also includes The City Food Commons by Happen Films.
Common Ground is the highly anticipated sequel to the juggernaut success documentary, Kiss the Ground, which touched over 1 billion people globally and inspired the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to put $20 billion toward soil health. By fusing journalistic expose’ with deeply personal stories from those on the front lines of the food movement, Common Ground unveils a dark web of money, power, and politics behind our broken food system.
The film reveals how unjust practices forged our current farm system in which farmers of all colours are literally dying to feed us. The film profiles a hopeful and uplifting movement of white, black, and indigenous farmers who are using alternative “regenerative” models of agriculture that could balance the climate, save our health, and stabilise America’s economy – before it’s too late. Rated PG.
The City Food Commons.
Themes: Kai For Thought Session / Climate Change / Kai / Biodiversity
Duration: 25:20 (two film session)
Session Time: Friday May 10th 7pm - 9:30pm (includes intermission)
This screening is part of a two film session “Kai for Thought” sessions, that also includes The City Food Commons by Happen Films.
The City Food Commons shares the story of Roimata Food Commons, an urban food forest initiative driven by Ōtautahi Christchurch local Michael Reynolds. The aim of the project is to empower the community to co-create space in a public park, reviving the notion of the Commons, which was once so common in societies around the world.
Planting began in 2017 – “we got permission [from Council] to plant 30 trees, so we planted 65” – and the food forest systems of the park now contain over 100 fruit and nut trees, many of them heritage trees, as well as over 1000 native plants, herbs, berries, vegetables, flowers, and perennial plants.
Michael calls the Commons “a step away from the transactional relationship that dominates the way that we act in the world”.
Saturday Sessions
Oceans - Climate - International - Biodiversity - Wonder
Ocean Seen From the Heart.
Themes: Ocean / Water
Duration: 1:36:00 (includes intermission)
Session Time: Saturday 10th May 9:30am - 11:20am
For a long time, the Ocean seemed unalterable and inexhaustible, but the impact of our actions on its biodiversity and its temperature is alarming. In The Ocean Seen from the Heart, sequel to The Earth Seen from the Heart, Hubert Reeves, surrounded by passionate scientists and explorers, invites us to rediscover what threatens the ocean, and above all to explore its capacity for phenomenal regeneration. A hymn to the Living, in what is richest, most precious and necessary to preserve if we want to survive, among other species, on our blue planet. Rated PG. Subtitled
Mongolia, Valley of the Bears.
Theme: Climate Change
Duration: 1:30:00
Session Time: Saturday May 11th 12:00pm - 1:45pm
A coexistence way of life is being adopted in the Bella Coola Valley, however, human-bear conflict is on the rise. This film explores the rising challenges around conservation efforts of humans and the realities of what coexistence means. Must watch. Rated PG. Subtitled.
Legends.
Join us for a session dedicated to legends of climate science. This will be a fascinating session of discovery not to be missed, and will conclude with a discussion with New Zealander of the Year 2024 Dr Jim Salinger
Feature Film
Back to Camp 41
Theme: Climate
Duration: 25:00 (plus expert discussion)
Session Time: Saturday 11th May 2:30pm - 4:00pm
On December 25, 2021, the world lost one of its greatest scientists and the "godfather of biodiversity," Dr. Thomas Lovejoy. Join his family and several of his closest friends and colleagues on an educational journey and heartfelt mission of love and hope as they travel together to return Dr. Lovejoy's ashes to the magical place where he devoted his life to understanding and protecting the Amazon rainforest. Rated PG.
The Night Visitors.
Theme: Micro Beauty Session / Natural World
Duration: 1:12:22 (two film session)
Session Time: Saturday 11th May 5:00pm - 6:30pm
This screening is part of a two film “Micro Beauty” session that also includes Biopixels.
Film and video artist Michael Gitlin emphasises the surreal beauty and ecological relevance of moths, examining a significant aspect of our planet's biodiversity that many of us may never investigate. Rated PG.
Biopixels.
Theme: Micro Beauty Session / Natural World / Biodiversity
Duration: 3:29 (two film session)
Session Time: Saturday 11th May 5:00pm - 6:30pm
This screening is part of a two film “Micro Beauty” session that also includes The Night Visitors.
Biopixels explores the world of evolutionary biology on the microscopic scale. Using the latest light microscope technology, butterfly wings become micro-mosaics.
Butterflies and moths comprise 12% of all species known to man (180,000 species!), and their seemingly endless biodiversity is visually translated on their wings through colour and pattern variation. Rated PG.
Imprint.
Themes: Climate / People
Duration: 1:15:00 (includes intermission)
Session Time: Saturday May 11th 7:00pm - 8:30pm
What can one person do? What can a group of people do? What do we want to leave behind? We visit 13 projects in 13 different places where committed groups work for a vibrant future. A personal and poetic depiction of what it means to be fully human in the age of the Anthropocene. A co-production between Campfire Stories and the Swedish Transition Network.
The film seeks to challenge the notion that what individuals and small groups of people do about the climate (and other societal crises) doesn’t really matter. It follows two storylines; one inward, where the filmmaker tries to make changes in his personal life – and one outward, where he travels around Sweden, visiting different change-making projects.
Sunday Sessions
Climate
Exposure.
Theme: Climate Change
Duration: 1:29:00
Session Time: Sunday 12th May 9:30am - 11am
As the arctic polar ice cap melts, reaching the North Pole has become increasingly dangerous. Yet an expedition of ordinary women from the Arab world and the West strap on skis and haul heaving sledges toward true north, against all odds and polar advice.
Award-winning filmmaker, Holly Morris, captures it all, from frostbite and polar bear threats, to sexism and self-doubt in this intimate story of resilience, survival and global citizenry — on what may be the last-ever expedition to the top of the world. Rated PG.
Between the Rains.
Themes: Climate Change
Duration: 1:22:00 (includes intermission)
Session Time: Sunday 12th May 11:30am - 1:10pm
Filmed over the course of four consecutive years during record low annual precipitation in northern Kenya, Between the Rains is a feature collaboration with the Turkana-Ngaremara community that seeks to understand the experiences of a childhood caught within a traditional culture that is a casualty of climate change. Rated PG. Subtitled.
“A RAW, ELEGANT COMING-OF-AGE PORTRAIT… UNANIMOUSLY BLEW US AWAY”
“A RAVISHING AND CLEAR-EYED LOOK AT THE DIRECT EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE”
Climate Future Film Festival.
Themes: Climate Change
Duration: 2:00:00 (10 short films plus discussion and intermission)
Session Time: Sunday 12th May 1:30pm - 3:45pm
Drama, documentary, dark comedy, and award-winning animation address our many possible climate futures, exposing a range of interior responses---optimism and cynicism, climate denial and climate grief, rage and heartbreak, resilience and resolve. Rated PG. Some films use subtitles.A half-day Climate Feeling & Action Workshop is offered online as follow-up.