Kate Rodger has spent her career celebrating and critiquing stories from the big screen on the small screen as 3News/Newshub entertainment editor and film critic. From Hollywood blockbusters to Aotearoa’s stunning archive of kiwi cinema, Kate is an all-consuming passionate and trusted champion of local storytelling.
KATE’S TOP 5
VAI: Vai is just so striking and so stunningly shot, the unique journeys of these eight pasifika women told as a collection of short stories by pasifika filmmakers are rich with their history, their connection to their islands, their families and themselves.
RAIN: This film broke me and this was way before I became a mother. Pulsating with the kind of pain and grief that can only be found in the darkest corners of a woman’s heart, this Kirsty Gunn novel is rendered so potently for the big screen by Christine Jeffs.
THE DARK HORSE: Well hey there Cliff Curtis, WHAT a powerhouse you are! Every single time I watch this brilliant film from James Napier Robertson I feel in awe of the way Curtis infuses Potini with such a perilous vulnerability. Check Mate.
NO 2: My first encounter with the storytelling genius of Toa Fraser, this film and these characters were a bloody delight, full of life and love and the language of family. No 2 left me sobbing, my heart full of happiness.
COUSINS: Ainsley Gardiner and Briar Grace SmithIdentity, loss, connection, these are powerful themes fueling the mighty heart of this story and the three wāhine who live it. Their stories are Aotearoa’s stories, and regardless of our bloodlines we are left feeling like we lived them too.