75 feature & short films
Watch in cinema and online
In Cinema
Auckland / 24 June – 12 July
Wellington / 15 – 26 July
Christchurch / 31 July – 2 August
Virtual Cinema
Nationwide / 27 July – 10 August
Doc Edge Virtual Cinema
This is our video streaming platform that enables audiences across Aotearoa New Zealand to watch 2026 festival films from 27 July to 10 August 2026 online. During this period, you can watch 71 films within Aotearoa New Zealand.
General information
- All films have a geo-block for Aotearoa New Zealand. This means you can watch the films only in New Zealand.
- Some films will not be available through our virtual cinema platform at the request of the filmmakers or distributors. We respect these decisions and appreciate your understanding, as availability rights and distribution preferences may vary from title to title. Four films not available are American Doctor, Seized, The Werewolf in the Waves, and Unlikely Kin.
- A list of Closed Captions / Full English Subtitles films are available. Look for the “Closed Captions” or “Full English Subtitles” tags in the film listing below.
- When you push Play, you have 48 hours to watch the film. During this time, you can stop, start again, and watch the film again as many times as you want. After 48 hours, the film will expire and cannot be watched again.
Tickets information
You can buy tickets and passes from now until the Virtual Cinema closes on 10 August. To see all the details, go to the tickets page.
- A single ticket is best if you watch fewer than 7 films. To buy a single ticket, go to the page for the film.
- A pass is best if you watch 7 films or more. There are three passes: the 8-Film Pass (any 8 films), the Shorts Binge Pass (all 26 short films), and the Full Binge Pass (all 72 films).
- Doc Edge Members always get the lowest ticket prices. Sign up to become a member.
Around the World
From the Arctic to the streets of Kabul, these films take you to places, people and moments reminding us how vast, and how connected, our world truly is. Encounter a mother bear fighting for survival in the fastest-warming place on earth or follow the diverging paths of two brothers navigating faith and freedom in Afghanistan. Seven films. Seven worlds. Endless humanity.
Art of Becoming
Art does not just reflect life, it shapes it, sustains it, and sometimes saves it. These seven films explore the transformative power of creativity across dance, music and the visual arts. Watch raw talent collide with fierce ambition on the competitive dance floor or discover how one woman built an entire world to keep a love story alive. In every frame, someone is becoming.
Being Oneself
Who are we, really, and what does it take to live as our true selves? From the competitive pickleball courts of Venice Beach to three doctors, Palestinian, Jewish and Zoroastrian, united by a single oath to save lives, these five films celebrate the courage, humour and heart it takes to be fully, unapologetically yourself.
Crime & Conspiracy
Behind every headline lies a deeper story of power, corruption, and the individuals who dare to challenge both. A lone activist takes on Cambodia’s most powerful industry. A box of old tapes reveals a CIA spy’s secret life. And a fatal shooting becomes less about facts than who pulls the trigger. The truth is always more complex than it appears.
Facing the Edge
These are the films that take you to the boundary of justice, technology, love, and what it means to be human in a shifting world. A daughter fights for history’s 58th forgotten victim. A father traces his daughter’s death to Silicon Valley’s algorithms. And three women fall for AI lovers who never disappoint. Urgent, provocative, unforgettable.
Fearless Wahine
These are the stories of women who refused to be silent, invisible, or defined by the world around them. Iranian women’s forty-year resistance against a regime that imprisoned and exiled them. A Palestinian wife’s extraordinary act of defiance against occupation. A stand-up comedian challenging audiences with truths that are no laughing matter. And three trailblazers who broke barriers, and never stopped. Unstoppable, unsilenced, unforgettable.
French Connection
An unflinching window into the French filmmaking world, and the stories it cannot look away from. A father’s silence speaks through his drawings. A journalist returns home to reckon with violence and denial. On a Marseille beach, women remake the world with nothing left to prove. And from inside Gaza, one camera bears witness where no other can enter.
Shorts
From a Greymouth church to the Gaza shoreline, from a piano tuner chasing perfect pitch to a granddaughter capturing sixty years of love — these films travel far and land close to home. These twenty-six films prove the short form stories are enormous in feeling.
Special presentation
The world premiere of the latest episode of NZ Wars: Stories of Waerenga-a-Hika, a landmark moment for both the series and for the communities whose history it honours. This is a one-off screening only.
Tūrangawaewae | Where We Stand
A place to stand. A place to belong. These five films root us in the land, rivers and oceans that sustain us, and the peoples fighting to protect them. From a Nuxalk river waiting to come alive again, to a Papua New Guinean activist seeking rights for a mother river, to an elder honouring the sacred bond between whales and ancient trees. The earth is speaking.