A Flickering Truth Submitted to Oscars

A Flickering Truth Submitted to Oscars

Pietra Brettkelly’s A Flickering Truth is New Zealand’s submission for the best foreign language film category of the 89th Academy Awards.

Each year the Academy invites countries to select and submit their best foreign language film for consideration. Selection of the film is made by a committee of experienced film industry representatives, chaired by New Zealand Film Commission (NZFC) CEO Dave Gibson.

Making the announcement, Gibson said “Pietra Brettkelly is an uncompromising and courageous filmmaker with a singular cinematic voice and vision. The selection committee and the New Zealand Film Commission are very pleased to endorse A Flickering Truth and we congratulate Pietra and her team.”

A Flickering Truth, directed and produced by Pietra Brettkelly, documents the preservation of Afghanistan’s film archive. The film follows three men who have dedicated decades to protecting this important vessel of Afghan culture through 100 years of war, hiding it from the Taleban, protecting it from the ravages of war and Kabul’s extreme weather. Now their project is to restore the archive and save the thousands of hours of film revealing cinema from the time of King Amanullah Khan in the 1920s, the invasion of the Russians, and the days when women wore miniskirts. A Flickering Truth unwraps a world literally frozen in time and dust.

A Flickering Truth had its world premiere at the 2015 Venice Film Festival where it screened in the Venice Classics section. It opened in New Zealand cinemas on 25 August.

After the film’s North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2015, Indiewire said, “Pietra Brettkelly’s eye-opening documentary is a moving navigation of Afghanistan’s past and present, that simultaneously bemoans the nation’s current struggles and finds reasons for hope in its previous struggles.”

A Flickering Truth is distributed in Australia and New Zealand by Umbrella Entertainment and is currently screening at selected New Zealand cinemas.

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