Get ready to party like it's 1999 with Dave Chappelle's Block Party, this festival's most affirmative, rambunctious, infectiously entertaining film. SIMON SWEETMAN revelled in the phat beats and comedy gold.

At the age of seven CATHERINE BISLEY wanted to be a goat farmer. Two years later, after tasting goat’s milk and being chased around a paddock by a billy goat with rather large horns, she decided it wasn’t for her and fixed her sights on being a ballerina. Fickle at heart she also tired of that idea, but many years later, watching the documentary Ballets Russes, she has once again been drawn to tutus, Tchaikovsky and pas de chats.

James Longley's beautiful, affecting, and urgent document of a war-torn country – conveyed intimately through a trio of personal stories – observes quite literally Iraq in Fragments. BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM picks up the pieces.

Charles Bukowski's lethargic alter-ego meanders through the streets, bars and jobs of contemporary Los Angeles in Bent Hamer's Factotum, the Norwegian director's follow-up to his scandinavian gem Kitchen Stories. JACOB POWELL reviews.

The editors list their most wanted in batches of ten.

Sri Lanka barely registers on the international film stage. Having seen my share of sub-Bollywood films (and trust me that’s not a good thing) from the country, it’s a good sign to see an artistic statement coming from my land of birth (and the first Sri Lankan film to play at the festival). The film was also successful at Cannes, winning the Best First Film Prize (Un Certain Regard) in 2005.

With programmes already browsed, checked, underlined and dotted since their release to the public earlier this week, our own personal must-sees from the 160+ strong lineup have invariable made their way into a handful of curated top ten lists. We consider the following essential viewing – or at the very least, films we hope will inspire, invigorate, surprise or provoke debate.

TIM WONG knows all too well that the road to adulthood is fraught with uncertainty – an insecurity of age no better portrayed than in Andrew Bujalski's amusing, perfectly observed post-grad film Mutual Appreciation.

Media Release | June 20th, 2006
After one year’s absence, orchestral Live Cinema will again be part of the Telecom 2006 Wellington Film Festival and be performed in its new venue The Opera House.

“Thanks to the support of the Wellington City Council and The Opera House, the Film Festival and the Vector Wellington Orchestra are able to collaborate once again” says Bill Gosden.

Children are again at the core of Lodge Kerrigan's troubled new world. His latest film, Keane, revisits mental illness in a milieu of urban dread. TIM WONG probes further.

Eager festival fans take note: hardcopy programmes for this year's Telecom New Zealand International Film Festivals hit the pavement this week (although much of it can already be sampled online). The programme launches officially in Auckland tonight; Wellington on Thursday. This also coincides with the commencement of our annual TNZIFF coverage: two months where we dedicate comprehensively to the review of the festivals' vast and compelling catalogue. Curated reviews and occasional features will present themselves here over the next three weeks to get you in the mood. Then from July 13, our festival column kicks off, with daily reports dispatched from both Auckland (July 13-30) and Wellington (July 21-August 6). This year, we've added to the mix a semi-rating system, with "Recommended" and "Festival Favourite" tags to indicate our good and great picks, plus a forthcoming Festival Form Guide, which will endeavor to collate all festival films seen by Lumière staffers, with footnote reviews, into an at-a-glance overview of the programme at large.

Media Release | June 12th, 2006
Ken Loach’s The Wind That Shakes the Barley, winner of cinema’s most prestigious award, the Cannes Palme d’Or, will open this year’s Telecom New Zealand International Film Festivals and screen in the country’s four main centres. It is just one of many Cannes winners to play at the Festivals.