Wonderful wāhine _{by Isabella Smith}

“To walk in someone else’s shoes is one of the great privileges of movie going,” says Andrew Armitage of Aro Video – the beloved cornerstone of movie rentals for Pōneke cinephiles – and the curator of the Paekākāriki Film Festival this year. When making the selection, Armitage tells me he considers the voices that need to be heard and develops a theme around that.

Across three Sundays in June – the 14^th, 21^st, and 28^th – St Peter’s Village Hall will host three films under the theme of Wonderful Wāhine.

With Iran being at the centre of the world’s concerns, My Favourite Cake (Iran, 2024) offers insight into Iranian culture before and after the revolution, following 70-year-old Mahin as she seeks to revive her love life. Preceding the screening will be the short film Women Rising (2023) by Pōneke-based filmmaker Sahar Fanian, about female emancipation. Next is Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk (Palestine, 2025), a documentary displaying the horrors of Gaza through a series of videocalls made between filmmaker Sepideh Farsi and the heroic young Palestinian photojournalist Fatima Hassouna. Finally, Thelma and Louise (USA, 1991), which Armitage says is “not only a landmark feminist film” but “one of the best films of the 90s”.

Audiences can “look forward to seeing something they might not otherwise choose to see, and that will stay with them as an experience”, he says. “To share the experience with an audience of other curious humans is also a privilege.”