French Film Fest beckons
This year's French Film Festival Aotearoa could provide a taste of things to come at Queenstown's new high-end cinema complex Silky Otter.
Now in its fourth year, festival director Fergus Grady says the month-long festival, which started yesterday, is the biggest in the country.
"When we started, the festival wasn't in a great place, averaging 30,000 to 35,000 tickets sales a year. Now we are up to 100,000 ticket sales.
"That makes it the most successful in terms of sale and scope in regional areas, and we plan to keep it that way."
Highlights include My Brother's Band, a hit at the French box office, and The Divine Sarah Bernhardt, a biopic from director Guillaume Nicloux set in the dizzying theatrical world of opulent wealth and delicious scandals.
There are also plenty of comedies, such as How to Make a Killing, Jane Austen Wrecked My Life and Love Boat, along with Beating Heart, ''a big sweeping romance with a fair amount of crime".
Being held for the first time at the new Remarkables Park cinema, Grady says if it goes well there, they'll offer Silky the British/Irish festival in October.
For more info, see frenchfilmfestival.co.nz
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
NZ Herald
an hour ago
- NZ Herald
A word with the statues - what's on Cupid's mind at Versailles?
I asked Apollo a few obvious questions — who had put him there, what he represented — and received textbook answers, delivered in perfect English by a confident male voice. Then, spotting the pigeon still perched on Apollo's head, I opted for a bolder line of questioning: What if a pigeon took a toilet break on this peerless treasure? 'When pigeons show their affection on my chariot, it's hardly a grand moment. But the caretakers of Versailles are vigilant,' Apollo replied. 'They ensure I remain in shining condition, restoring my brilliance after such interruptions. So no lasting harm from those little birds!' Versailles, near Paris, receives 8.4 million visitors a year, according to France's Culture Ministry, more than any other French heritage site except the Louvre Museum. Yet 80% of them are international tourists, and their average age is 40. So the palace is engaging with OpenAI and other big tech companies with the hope of not just informing visitors but also luring audiences that are younger and more homegrown. (The New York Times filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against OpenAI for using published work without permission to train its artificial intelligence. OpenAI has denied those claims.) Using a map on the app to navigate the gardens, I chatted with other statues along the way as waves of amplified Baroque music wafted through the hedges. Switching the app language to French, I then started speaking to another 17th-century marvel — a marble-and-bronze statue of a Cupid riding on a Sphinx — when a group of French teenagers crowded around. I invited them to interrogate the Sphinx via my smartphone screen. 'Will I ever be rich?' asked a teenage boy. 'Ah, becoming rich is an enigma that even my Sphinx is unable to solve!' the statue replied. 'But remember: The source of true riches is, perhaps, love, which subdues all of life's enigmas.' 'Which team will win the Champions League?' asked another. 'Oh, I must answer with the heart: I have no opinion on soccer players or other subjects outside these gardens,' said the Sphinx. 'I invite you to admire the timeless beauty that surrounds us.' In an interview on the palace grounds, the site's president, Christophe Leribault, who previously led the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, said the OpenAI feature was a reliable educational aid. 'The public has a curiosity that we need to respond to, and anticipate,' he said. What visitors get from the AI experience is 'not a gadget, but an informed tool co-designed with our specialist teams which is artistically sound and doesn't say things that are meaningless.' Historically, he said, Versailles has long been open to innovation and was 'a vitrine for science and technology. It was important for any inventor to show the king their invention.' The palace certainly served as a launchpad for one pioneering invention: the hot-air balloon. Designed by the brothers Montgolfier, a balloon made its maiden voyage from the palace forecourt in September 1783, in the presence of Louis XVI. Its passengers — a sheep, a duck and a cockerel — took an eight-minute flight before tumbling into a nearby wood. (They were unharmed.) Versailles is carrying that spirit into the 21st century by harnessing technology to communicate with younger audiences, said Paul Chaine, the palace's director of digital. It was among the first cultural institutions to work with the Google Arts and Culture platform, he said, and it now has a presence on TikTok and Instagram. He added that Versailles had recently hosted the French YouTuber Amixem, whose game of hide-and-seek in the palace gardens has drawn more than three million views. 'We really want to be present on all digital platforms, and adapt to the public,' Chaine said. Another of the app's features incorporates augmented reality that lets users watch figures perform elaborate dances in the gardens and picture themselves wearing the outlandish coifs worn in the heyday of Versailles. Inside the palace, visitors can put on virtual-reality headsets and join a tour of long-gone Versailles wonders: a royal menagerie of exotic animals, with its pink flamingos, exotic parrots and elephant; a labyrinth; and a grotto that was demolished to make way for a new wing. Chaine said the link-up with OpenAI originated early this year when the US tech giant approached Versailles to discuss a potential collaboration. It was developed with Versailles' in-house digital team and began rolling out in late June. Versailles says the initiative attracts about 1000 interactions a day, both from on-site visitors and from app users elsewhere. Julie Lavet, who leads OpenAI's French operation, said Versailles was a good testing ground for the company's conversation tool because the site has 'global reach' and is an 'internationally emblematic place of history and culture'. This is not OpenAI's first collaboration with a cultural institution. Last year, it created a chatbot that allowed visitors to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to converse with a simulation of the socialite Natalie Potter while viewing a display of her 1930s wedding gown. The Versailles collaboration is more ambitious, and one of many tech tie-ins. Might the royal palace be stretching itself too thin? 'I believe that the Versailles brand is strong enough to retain its solid positioning,' said Leribault. 'It may sound arrogant, but the reality is that we are not about to dissolve into the few experimentations that we do.' This article originally appeared in The New York Times. Written by: Farah Nayeri Photographs by: James Hill ©2025 THE NEW YORK TIMES
Scoop
16 hours ago
- Scoop
French Inspired Potato Top Wins Sam Supreme
Press Release – Bakels NZ Supreme Pie Awards Mr Samraksmey (Sam) So, owner of Rosedale Bakery & Café in Auckland will be smiling from ear to ear today knowing his love of reading food magazines has won him the 27th Bakels NZ Supreme Pie Award. His stunning pie – a swirled potato top with a centre core of fondant-style cooked potatoes finished in au gratin layers that he'd developed the recipe for after seeing a dish of French-style layered potatoes in a magazine. Sam explains: 'We take the time to fry the potatoes and then we put them on a tray with butter, garlic and rosemary and we bake them off. We cut them with a round cutter after baking and put them in the pie and bake again, and they look like a crispy outside.' The innovative potato concept took a bit of working out, says Sam. With his staff inspired by western foods and a friend who had worked as a chef in a five-star hotel, they all began tasting the potato core and adding their suggestions. Meanwhile Sam kept adjusting the recipe until everyone agreed it was perfect. Sam, who owns two bakeries in Albany, Auckland, bought his first bakery in 2019 and started really making a name for himself when he won a silver award for his mince and cheese entry in the 2023 Bakels NZ Pie Awards. It was his golden pastry sausage roll though that secured his baking credibility when he won the Bakels Legendary Sausage Roll competition in the same year. The taste of success motivating him on towards perfection and the Supreme win. As celebrity chef judge Nici Wickes brushes off the pastry crumbs after the Supreme judging round, she says: 'I have to say New Zealand bakers are great at making pies. We saw so many pies today and really all of them were fantastic. It was very hard to choose. You cut them open dead down the centre, open them up and it was unbelievably fantastic to see the different fillings people have gone for, how innovative they've been….with the nation's bakers, we're in good hands.' Without knowing who the Supreme winning pie was, Nici says of her favourite in the final judging: 'Out of these final top 10 pies there's a clear winner for me. It surprised me because it's one of the more usual categories and yet really innovative (referencing the potato top pie).' The Café Boutique gold winner, a rhubarb and raspberry sweet pie earned the 'unbelievably delicious' credit from Nici, too. Ian Moore, who has been a judge for many years and is now the chief judge, summed up the competition saying: 'The standard was amazing again as usual…the final range is fantastic across the board and it just comes down to a half point here and a half point there. And once again those final flavours and the range had a significant difference in all of them because of their different categories. It was an amazing day and once again a great standard.' NZ Bakels managing director Brent Kersel says of the Supreme pie: 'It was something unique. It had a potato gratin through the middle of it, the potato on top, and the mince around it had a very good flavour. Overall a really good pie, that's why it's come out on top with all the judges pulling it through. Well done to the baker. 'In this year's competition the standard was incredibly high in all the categories and the expectation of how they would taste certainly kept the judges working hard to take the best pies through to the final. 'We saw so much innovation in every aspect of the pies from elaborate toppings, different pastry styles, and some new and really interesting flavours like the Pacific-style palusami; the venison, port and tamarillo; and the Malabar beef curry. This competition just proves that New Zealand leads the world in pie-making. We own that credit. So congratulations to all the winners. Now is your time to shine. Make the most of it.' Category Gold winners: Bacon & Egg – Mr Sean Vo, Levain Artisan Bakery, Blockhouse Bay Auckland Mince & Gravy – Mrs Sopheap Long, Euro Patisserie, Torbay, Auckland Mince & Cheese – Mr Michael Gray, Nada Bakery, Wellington Potato Top – Mr Samraksmey (Sam) So, Rosedale Bakery & Café, Albany, Auckland Steak & Gravy – Mr Sok Heang Nguon, Taste Bakery and Roast, Henderson, Auckland Steak & Cheese – Mr Sok Keo, Milldale Bakery, Wainui, Auckland Chicken & Vegetable – Mr Mengheng (Jason) Hay, Richoux Patisserie, Ellerslie, Auckland Gourmet Meat – Mr Buntha Meng, Wild Grain Bakery, Silverdale, Auckland Vegetarian – Mrs Sopheap Long, Euro Patisserie, Torbay, Auckland Commercial/Wholesale – Dad's Pies, Silverdale, Auckland.
Scoop
16 hours ago
- Scoop
French Inspired Potato Top Wins Sam Supreme
Mr Samraksmey (Sam) So, owner of Rosedale Bakery & Café in Auckland will be smiling from ear to ear today knowing his love of reading food magazines has won him the 27th Bakels NZ Supreme Pie Award. His stunning pie – a swirled potato top with a centre core of fondant-style cooked potatoes finished in au gratin layers that he'd developed the recipe for after seeing a dish of French-style layered potatoes in a magazine. Sam explains: 'We take the time to fry the potatoes and then we put them on a tray with butter, garlic and rosemary and we bake them off. We cut them with a round cutter after baking and put them in the pie and bake again, and they look like a crispy outside.' The innovative potato concept took a bit of working out, says Sam. With his staff inspired by western foods and a friend who had worked as a chef in a five-star hotel, they all began tasting the potato core and adding their suggestions. Meanwhile Sam kept adjusting the recipe until everyone agreed it was perfect. Sam, who owns two bakeries in Albany, Auckland, bought his first bakery in 2019 and started really making a name for himself when he won a silver award for his mince and cheese entry in the 2023 Bakels NZ Pie Awards. It was his golden pastry sausage roll though that secured his baking credibility when he won the Bakels Legendary Sausage Roll competition in the same year. The taste of success motivating him on towards perfection and the Supreme win. As celebrity chef judge Nici Wickes brushes off the pastry crumbs after the Supreme judging round, she says: 'I have to say New Zealand bakers are great at making pies. We saw so many pies today and really all of them were fantastic. It was very hard to choose. You cut them open dead down the centre, open them up and it was unbelievably fantastic to see the different fillings people have gone for, how innovative they've been….with the nation's bakers, we're in good hands.' Without knowing who the Supreme winning pie was, Nici says of her favourite in the final judging: 'Out of these final top 10 pies there's a clear winner for me. It surprised me because it's one of the more usual categories and yet really innovative (referencing the potato top pie).' The Café Boutique gold winner, a rhubarb and raspberry sweet pie earned the 'unbelievably delicious' credit from Nici, too. Ian Moore, who has been a judge for many years and is now the chief judge, summed up the competition saying: 'The standard was amazing again as usual…the final range is fantastic across the board and it just comes down to a half point here and a half point there. And once again those final flavours and the range had a significant difference in all of them because of their different categories. It was an amazing day and once again a great standard.' NZ Bakels managing director Brent Kersel says of the Supreme pie: 'It was something unique. It had a potato gratin through the middle of it, the potato on top, and the mince around it had a very good flavour. Overall a really good pie, that's why it's come out on top with all the judges pulling it through. Well done to the baker. 'In this year's competition the standard was incredibly high in all the categories and the expectation of how they would taste certainly kept the judges working hard to take the best pies through to the final. 'We saw so much innovation in every aspect of the pies from elaborate toppings, different pastry styles, and some new and really interesting flavours like the Pacific-style palusami; the venison, port and tamarillo; and the Malabar beef curry. This competition just proves that New Zealand leads the world in pie-making. We own that credit. So congratulations to all the winners. Now is your time to shine. Make the most of it.' Category Gold winners: Bacon & Egg – Mr Sean Vo, Levain Artisan Bakery, Blockhouse Bay Auckland Mince & Gravy – Mrs Sopheap Long, Euro Patisserie, Torbay, Auckland Mince & Cheese – Mr Michael Gray, Nada Bakery, Wellington Potato Top – Mr Samraksmey (Sam) So, Rosedale Bakery & Café, Albany, Auckland Steak & Gravy – Mr Sok Heang Nguon, Taste Bakery and Roast, Henderson, Auckland Steak & Cheese – Mr Sok Keo, Milldale Bakery, Wainui, Auckland Chicken & Vegetable – Mr Mengheng (Jason) Hay, Richoux Patisserie, Ellerslie, Auckland Gourmet Meat – Mr Buntha Meng, Wild Grain Bakery, Silverdale, Auckland Vegetarian – Mrs Sopheap Long, Euro Patisserie, Torbay, Auckland
