If you can stomach yet another set of top ten lists – not to mention ones that appear terribly out-of-sync with the rest of the movie world (that’s New Zealand’s geographical isolation for you) – a handful of Lumière’s regular film contributors present their year in film.

As red carpets roll out, gold statuettes are buffed up, and potential Oscar nominations roll in, ‘tis the season for giving... awards. From Bae Doona to Babel’s Rinko Kikuchi, from Michael Haneke to Michael K. Williams, TIM WONG salutes the (alternative) faces behind the year’s best in film and television.

As you trawl the foyer of your local theatre, the posters that line its walls aren’t mere decoration, but invitations, while the great one-sheets aren’t just memorabilia, but monuments to the allure of cinema. Surveying the year that was, TIM WONG selects the ten best poster designs of 2006.

For those who still mourn the passing of cult movie institution The Incredible Film Festival, and remain indifferent to its festivalized reincarnate That’s Incredible Cinema, the V 24 Hour Movie Marathon stands as a last bastion for midnight movie disciples in New Zealand. In its sixth installment, it is effectively an entire week’s programme spooled together as one, reeled out continuously from dawn to dusk (to dawn again). This year’s marathon promised a return to the underground of the Incredibly Strange, a trawl through the wasteland of B-pictures, obscure Zombie movies, 80s memorabilia, and Jodorowsky shitting in a bowl. JACOB POWELL donned pajamas to file this report.