The Devil Wears Prada 2
(TBC)
Almost twenty years after making their iconic turns as Miranda, Andy, Emily and Nigel - Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci return to the fashionable streets of New York City and the sleek offices of Runway Magazine in the eagerly awaited sequel to the 2006 phenomenon that defined a generation.
RADFF26 The Great Arch
(PG)
In 1982, President François Mitterrand launched an international competition to design the flagship project of his term: a building to match and complement the Louvre and the Arc de Triomphe. To the surprise of everyone, the commission is won by an unknown 53-year-old from Copenhagen, Johan Otto von Spreckelsen. Inspired by remarkable true events, Claes Bang leads a superb ensemble cast in this historical drama, as an idealistic architect whose quest to build an ambitious landmark in Paris triggers unforeseen consequences.
Met Opera 2025-26: Andrea Chenier
(M)
Giordano's passionate tragedy stars tenor Piotr Beczała as the virtuous poet who falls victim to the intrigue and violence of the French Revolution. Following their celebrated recent partnership in Giordano's Fedora in the 2022-23 Live in HD season, Beczała reunites with soprano Sonya Yoncheva as Chénier's aristocratic lover, Maddalena di Coigny, with baritone Igor Golovatenko as Carlo Gérard, the agent of the Reign of Terror who seals their fates. Met Principal Guest Conductor Daniele Rustioni takes the podium to lead Nicolas Joël's gripping staging.
RADFF26 Parallel Universe: The Art and Design of Roy Good
(E)
Roy Good is a rare figure in New Zealand art: a painter, designer and spatial thinker who never separated disciplines. Influenced by Bauhaus and De Stijl, he embedded abstraction into popular television shows, national logos and shaped canvases alike. Working from his small studio in the wilderness of West Auckland, he quietly pioneered one of the country's most consistent and original modernist practices. This insightful documentary reveals an artist of global significance, working from the edge of the world.
RADFF26 Peter Hujar's Day
(M)
The photographer Peter Hujar, whose images exist in an important lineage and dialogue with the work of groundbreaking gay artists such as Robert Mapplethorpe and David Wojnarowicz, forms the centre of this dramatic feature film. Based on rediscovered transcripts from an unused interview by Linda Rosenkrantz, in which she asked Hujar to narrate the events of the previous day in minute detail, the film is an illustration of the life of the creative mind, the quotidian and the imaginative at once, fully and lovingly inhabited by its two brilliant actors (Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall).
RADFF26 The Harvard 5: A Story of Love, Architecture, and a Design Revolution + The Temple of Kinetic Resonance
(E)
This documentary tells the story of five architects—Philip Johnson, John Johansen, Landis Gores, Eliot Noyes, and Marcel Breuer—visionaries who ignited a modern design revolution with Bauhaus inspired designs. Preceded by THE TEMPLE OF KINETIC RESONANCE (10 mins), a short film exploring the creation of a joint vision combining the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery and Len Lye Foundation in a single building in New Plymouth.
RADFF26 The House Of Cini Boeri
(E)
The House of Cini Boeri tells the story of the intense life and brilliant work of architect and designer Cini Boeri, through the places she lived, the testimonies of those who knew her well, and the works she created. The house of Cini Boeri is the home of a courageous protagonist of the 20th century—a pioneer, both in her choices and her designs, of a new way of living that helped revolutionise the role of women in the family, in work, and in society. It's the home of a strong-willed, charismatic matriarch of a large family that lovingly and devotedly preserves her memory.
RADFF26 Prickly Mountain and My Design/Build Life
(E)
In the late '60s and '70s, a group of architects landed in Vermont with big ideas and a simple plan: to stop just designing buildings and start making them. Drawing from Bauhaus ideals but rejecting the rigidity of academia, they built by hand, embraced mistakes, and turned architecture into a wild, creative experiment. Director Allie Rood grew up in the middle of it all, playing in half-finished houses. Years later, she picks up a camera to trace the movement's history, only to find herself building a house of her own.
RADFF26 Sep Ruf - Architect of Modernism
(E)
Through his architecture, this documentary tells the story of Sep Ruf, both as a person and as an architect—a remarkable personality who continues to have an impact today. Ruf's buildings are not only of outstanding quality but also remain relevant and contemporary. His stylish, elegant, open, and transparent architecture is, in the best sense, a continuation of Bauhaus modernism, which he interpreted in his own way, always with a deep respect for tradition.
RADFF26 Stardust: The Story of Love and Architecture
(E)
This documentary tells the story of visionary architects Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown. It is a journey across continents and decades, into the uncompromising world of architecture and into a love story and creative partnership. For 50 years, Venturi and Scott Brown shared a life marked by deep tenderness, sharp wit, and intellectual joy. Together, they also ignited a quiet revolution in architecture, challenging the rigid dogmas of modernism by embracing complexity, symbolism, and the lessons of the everyday landscape.
Sgt Haane
(M)
The never-been-told true story of SGT. HAANE from award-winning writer and director Tearepa Kahi (Muru, Poi E: The Story of Our Song, Mt. Zion). This documentary-drama film follows Lance Sgt. Haane Manahi DCM (Te Arawa, Ngāti Raukawa) of B Company, 28th Māori Battalion, a soldier of extraordinary courage, whose actions proved pivotal in the 1943 battle for the fortified summit of Takrouna, Tunisia.
RADFF26 Living in a Piece of Furniture + Curating Modernism
(E)
Truus Schröder's love for Gerrit Rietveld led to the design of the iconic Rietveld Schröderhuis in 1924. After her death, the house was thoroughly restored, even though Rietveld was of the opinion that his houses should be torn down after 50 years. Screens with CURATING MODERNISM (30 mins), Curating Modernism looks at 20th century modern architecture in the United States and how it offers powerful opportunities for restoration, sensitive updates, and adaptive reuse so modernist structures can remain active participants in everyday life rather than static artefacts.
RADFF26 The Space Architect + Rimurapa by Neil Pardington + Paparahi: 50th Anniversary Victoria University School of Architecture & Innovative Design
(E)
Space architect Constance Adams was a renegade in her field, solving complex problems in new ways, driven by the question: What do humans need? Preceded by RIMURAPA BY NEIL PARDINGTON (12 mins), a short film about local artist, Neil Pardington who is creating graphic works from bull kelp. Preceded by PAPARAHI: 50TH ANNIVERSARY VICTORIA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE & INNOVATIVE DESIGN (15 mins), a short film profiling key female architects; alumni of Victoria University of Wellington.
RADFF26 Googie
(E)
Emerging in mid-20th century Los Angeles, Googie transformed coffee shops, bowling alleys, banks, churches and car washes into futuristic icons, influenced by visionary architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright and John Lautner, and propelled into the commercial mainstream by firms like Armet & Davis. Though many landmarks have been lost, a growing preservation movement now recognises Googie as a vital and distinctly American expression of modern design, a legacy this film celebrates through the voices of leading historians and cultural commentators.
RADFF26 Adnan being and time
(E)
This expressionistic portrait of the great Etel Adnan (b. Beirut, 1925) documents the artist and poet over the last five years of her life. Adnan is working without ego, asking, what does it mean to be alive, to live through catastrophe, to experience time? Close to Adnan in her daily life, in her studio, in her works, and in the natural world essential to her aesthetic and philosophic understanding, the film's form creates an experience of Adnan's radical quality of attention.
RADFF26 Ugo La Pietra - Disequilibrating System
(E)
This documentary explores the radical vision of Ugo La Pietra, a key figure in art, design and architecture over the last 60 years. The documentary reconstructs the journey of an author who used every available medium to develop his "disequilibrating system": a way of creating against the system and stereotypes, aimed at evolving the individual through new forms of perception. Architect, artist and designer, La Pietra is a unique case.
RADFF26 Tracing Light
(E)
Tracing Light explores the most fascinating of natural phenomena—light. The film brings together leading physicists and artists from Scotland, England and Germany on a quest to understand and animate light. Light is difficult to describe. Tracing Light does not seek to explain, but to evoke. Through its visuals and encounters between artists and scientists, the film opens a contemplative space—one where wonder and sensuality quietly unfold.
RADFF26 Artacho Jurado, Symphony of an Architect
(E)
This bold and courageous architect, Artacho Jurado, responsible for several iconic buildings in São Paulo, had three main passions: the city, architecture and classical music. This documentary investigates the man who freely mixed colours, shapes and textures, challenging the modernism that prevailed at the time, all set alongside the sounds of an expressive symphony.
RADFF26 Nuvola, An Open Project for the City + Nga Mokopuna: The Living Pa at Victoria University
(E)
This documentary tells the story of a major urban renewal and transformation project, starting from the Lavazza headquarters in Turin and engaging with the people who live there, the Aurora district and the city of Turin. Preceded by NGĀ MOKOPUNA: THE LIVING PĀ AT VICTORIA UNIVERSITY (15 mins), a short film showcasing Ngā Mokopuna and interviews with architects, a sustainability expert, the head of Māori Studies at the Victoria University of Wellington and sustainable building suppliers.
RADFF26 The New Museum
(E)
For over six years, filmmaker Birgitte Sigmundstad followed the creation of Norway's New National Museum, a monumental project that merged four institutions under one vast, temple-like roof designed by Kleihues + Schuwerk. This rich, observational documentary offers an unvarnished look at the tensions that define an undertaking like this: curatorial debates, the logistical challenges of moving and storing vast collections, aesthetic and technical decisions, time and budget pressures, political backlash and evolving public expectations.
RADFF26 Bruno Morassutti, Theme and Variation
(E)
Bruno Morassutti was a cultured and intellectually rigorous, yet understated figure in post-war Italian architecture. A former student of Giuseppe Samonà and Carlo Scarpa, Morassutti brought a deeply cosmopolitan sensibility to his work. His early travels across the USA, documenting the works of Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard Neutra and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, shaped his lifelong interest in structural experimentation and prefabrication. Back in Italy, he worked with Angelo Mangiarotti, before starting his own studio.
RADFF26 Anna Mariani Photographic Notes
(E)
The uniqueness of the architecture of the Brazilian northeastern hinterland is at the heart of the work of the photographer Anna Mariani (1935-2022). Anna Mariani Photographic Notes retraces the dirt roads the artist followed between the '70s and the '90s, when she published her most famous works and helped an entire country rediscover the richness of the façades of popular houses as a phenomenon of visual perception and cultural identity.
RADFF26 At the Garden's Pace
(E)
Construction of the long-awaited new pavilion inside the Hilversum botanical gardens in the Netherlands begins. With the occasional help of the gardener and under the watchful eyes of the local residents, the architects—acting as builders—donned overalls and work shoes and navigated the year-long process. Join them for a walk through the garden, observing the construction in harmony with the unhurried rhythms of nature.
RADFF26 Building on the Edge
(E)
Over the course of two years, a group of graduate students and their professor embarked on a journey to design and construct a new cutting-edge research station for a group of scientists studying penguins and seals in one of the harshest environments on the planet, Antarctica. Transporting the material to the remote island also proves to be a daunting task as they must cross one of the most dangerous bodies of water, the Drake Passage. The extreme environments and abundance of wildlife set up the conditions for the adventure of a lifetime for the group.
RADFF26 Leonora in the Morning Light
(M)
This dramatic feature film centres on the early 1930s and painter Leonora Carrington, who was a rebel against social expectations, joining the surrealist movement and its iconic figures like André Breton and Salvador Dalí in Paris. A whirlwind love affair with artist Max Ernst confronts her with her inner demons. During the war, Leonora flees to Mexico and finally empowers herself. Today Leonora Carrington is one of the highest-selling female painters worldwide, alongside Frida Kahlo and Georgia O'Keeffe.
