Curious director’s short film Amadi screens this weekend at the NZ international film festival

Curious director Zia Mandviwalla’s short film, Amadi, has been selected for this year’s New Zealand International Film Festival as part of its 14th ‘Homegrown: Works on Film’ screenings this weekend.  Amadi tells the story of a Rwandan refugee who’s trying to make sense of life in a new country when he strikes up an unlikely friendship with his neighbor, Jane.

It’s about dislocation, prejudice and displacement as seen through the eyes of two disparate yet similarly lonely characters, and it’s screening twice at this year’s ‘Homegrown’ sessions alongside five other top emerging NZ directors. The news cements Zia’s arrival after winning SPADA New Filmmaker of the Year in 2009 based on the success of some of her other short films, Eating Sausage and Clean Linen, which have traveled the international festival circuit.

Mandviwalla says her work is “about exploring the periphery: the people wholive on the edges of our world and beyond our common spheres ofperception.”

Click here to watch the Amadi trailer.

The Homegrown screenings take place at SKYCITY Theatre, Auckland and tickets are selling via www.nzff.co.nz for Friday evening 9th July (6:15pm)  and Saturday morning 10th July (11:30am).

Amadi will also screen at the Melbourne Film Festival 2010, which openson 22 July. The Zealand International Film Festival runs in Aucklanduntil 25th July 2010.