DIRECTOR: Albert Serra
PRODUCERS: Pierre-Olivier Bardet, Dirk Decker, Joaquim Sapinho, Andrea Schütte, Albert Serra
PRODUCTION CO: Idéale Audience Group, Andergraun Films, Tamtam Film, Rosa Filmes
​SCREENPLAY: Baptiste Pinteaux, Albert Serra
PHOTOGRAPHY: Artur Tort
EDITORS: Albert Serra, Artur Tort, Ariadna Ribas
​MUSIC: Marc Verdaguer, Joe Robinson
WITH: Benoît Magimel (High Commissioner De Roller), Pahoa Mahagafanau (Shannah), Marc Susini (the Admiral), Matahi Pambrun (Matahi), Alexandre Mello (the Portuguese), Sergi López (Morton)
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FESTIVALS: Cannes

REVIEWS

“Pushing against the grain of grand, exotic storytelling in strangely hypnotic ways, Catalan director Albert Serra has enhanced his singular cinematic résumé with a contemporary thriller echoing Graham Greene and John le Carré — but in a sensual and structural form all of his own unconventional making.

Insidious in a tailored white suit and floral dress shirt, Benoît Magimel stars as De Roller, a shady high commissioner whose role is to rub shoulders with Tahitian citizens and maintain relations, all the while serving his own dubious agenda. As De Roller saunters around the island, flexing his bureaucratic muscle and leering at the locals like a modern-day Gauguin, there are even more sinister machinations afoot: comings and goings at a seamy nightclub, and in the nearby waters, a submarine and rumours of nuclear testing.

New Zealand’s anti-nuclear protests need no elaboration regarding France and the Pacific, except to say Serra’s fictional film is disturbingly close to home. The slow creep of Pacifiction’s commentary on imperial corruption and colonisation is deeply unnerving, while its mixing of prosaic documentary realism with vibrant widescreen visuals and deliberately opaque narrative — alongside occasional flourishes of chilling humour — is nothing short of uncanny.”

​– Tim Wong, New Zealand International Film Festival 2023

FILM SOCIETY SCREENINGS

Wellington     
Monday, 07 April, 6.15pm

Wellington     
Tuesday, 08 April, 6.15pm

Timaru     
Tuesday, 29 April, 6.30pm

​Palmerston North
​Wednesday, 28 May, 6.00pm

Nelson     
Wednesday, 02 July, 6.00pm

​New Plymouth     
Wednesday, 06 August, 6.00pm

Auckland  
Monday, 01 September, 6.00pm 

Canterbury
Monday, 29 September, 7.00pm

​Dunedin  
Wednesday, 15 October, 7.30pm​
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French Connections is presented in
co-operation with the Institut Français and the Embassy of France