This film was a whirlwind! It was cool getting to see this at the finals last night- I wish you could have seen my grin when the singing started and the fairytale costumes came out! So funny, and yet also so sincere and moving which I didn't see coming and landed great emotionally. You guys really did it all! Super well done!

This was so so good! My elderly grandfather lives with my family and my sister and I were leaning over to each the other the whole film whispering [this] is Grandad. We were in stitches the whole time and I think you guys got the biggest laughs of the evening at the finals - so well deserved this was awesome!

I was sat in stunned silence watching this at the finals last night. The cinematography in this is sooo incredible, cannot commend you enough for how beautiful this looks.

Two films this year had excellent pay off.
This film and Positive Barry.
An absolutely deserving national finalist.

This is an absolutely beautiful story. It has both a deep, powerful message - the last line brought tears to my eyes at the final - but great humour also ("I'll be your red flag" etc were great!). The balance is perfect - the interesting story and the humour carry the viewer along to the end, enjoying it all the way, until they are hit by the "punchline", the actual message of the film, what is really going on - which is a complete surprise - and this impacts so well because of all that excellent leadup, and the fact that it takes the audience by surprise. And the story being told in song takes it to an even higher level. Utterly brilliant.

Have you ever lost someone close to you too soon? I'm meaning a spouse, a child, a sibling. Sitting here reflecting about my younger sister's death who passed from an accident when she was only 22 I'm telling you now the void of despair is more painful than anything you can ever imagine. Aligned with that I was absolutely blown away by how THE SHROUD was one of the very few films in the entire competition in 2025 that took a massive swing for the fences, and knocked their source material out of the park.

Here we have a modernistic yet grim naturalistic take on a deep cut from the German maestros. The driver of the beautiful haunting avant-garde tale being a shout for a missing child and swirling spiraling nothingness that sonically induces viewers to sit up and take notice as the film takes us on an undeniable pilgrimage down the river of grief.

There is a lot to unpack here. Metaphors for days run in abundance from rivers and lakes working as the flow of tears, to the pride of the family on a literal mountain as their precious future has been cruelly taken away instead being taken down to rocky ground.

Death makes life stand still and grasp onto those we know, cherish and love and Jake The Sound Guy absolutely nail a film that has a unique vision and knows how to get there. The subtext isn't even thinly veiled, we quite literally get the most disturbing image of this year's comp through a heavy veil.

But you know what? The filmmakers also present hope. They show that collective healing will heal all wounds, and nature as a whole will always run its course. To take the message from the source material and uplift it in a way that called to mind THREE MONKEYS and SATANTANGO quite genuinely blew me away.

It's a tight film, with not an inch of space wasted in the academy windowed shots that always direct the eye curiously to explore the true meaning of the silhouettes and backdrops, technology be damned. The audio is raw for its soundscape, trickles and waves and greenery coming to the fore. Stillness might be the name of the game visually, yet Jake knows what's up to make sure we are listening to what the film is really saying. Bravo.

Awkward Animations you absolutely blow me away every year in this competition, and MOTHER was no exception, a beautiful film that pulls on the heart strings throughout, with warmth and reflection consistently on display from frame 1 to the last.

What Adam does is genuinely next level from a technical point of view. There have been a large number of stop motion animated films in the competition over the years, but I immediately forget I'm even watching a collection of thousands of photographs with the lighting, the camera movement, the weather effects and most importantly a fully lived in world. How this did not win Best Production design at the grand finals let alone Auckland is beyond me!

It is genuinely endearing to see wholesome heartwarming films that come from a place of love in this competition. To see a bildungsroman of a life pieced together with such tender care really filled me with joy. It's the little moments that are often the big moments in our lives and the film captured that absolutely perfectly.

Also my goodness me that sound design and choice of music was so pitch perfect it really captured the beautiful memories amazingly well.

My two little nitpicks is the park bench as central location to relieve memories did call to mind FORREST GUMP pretty quickly for me, and whilst the beats were brilliant, showing how great a mum she was to our lead to pick him up whenever he was down, and provided the literal building blocks for him to lead his life, I just wonder if a slightly stronger dramatic question at some point could have elevated the film further? Don't get me wrong, it is a brilliant film and an inspiring one that's just my nitpicks. Please never change how you make your films!

It's always excellent when people act as themselves - when children act as children, and old people act as old people. I loved how the actors were happy to make fun of themselves, and lean into the caricature of old people in a rest home. It was a very fresh film because the actors and the setting were so different to anything else. Very enjoyable to watch, and it would have been even more enjoyable to make!

Such a great film. An absolute standout at the Grand Finals.
The story was well set up, and the actors took us with them beautifully.
Cinematography was crisp throughout.
Well worth a rewatch, or two