Each year the DOCNZ Festival aims to screen a selection of award-winning and critically acclaimed documentary films.

DOCNZ Festival is a contemporary cutting edge festival that seeks to bring documentaries that:

• are thought provoking and challenge the audiences
• provide a valuable insight into the topics and issues that confront our society
• build bridges of understanding
• give a voice to people and communities that are rarely or not heard
• are cutting edge and innovative in their genre, style, narrative and delivery and welcome multi-media and experimental documentary films
• promote a cinematic experience while at the same time ensuring that the works of emerging, independent and low budget films continue to be celebrated

We are dedicated to putting words into action and being a festival of the people and for the people. We look to increasing access for communities that do not have ready access to watching films eg. the deaf and hearing impaired, the physically challenged, the disadvantaged youth, senior citizens, ethnic communities that are not familiar with documentary films.

We believe that we should embrace the latest trends in documentary film-making and seek to expose New Zealand audiences to these developments.

Our programming ensures that the very best of these films from both New Zealand and overseas are shown. The screening process is a very long process which involves every film being screened by a Screening Panel and assessed by the Programming Committee. Due to the very strong selection submitted each year, we are often not able to programme every good documentary submitted. Where films are not chosen or screened, it is not a reflection of the quality of the film or the dedication of the film-makers but due to thematic choices, ensuring a good cross section of genres and topics, ensuring a good mix of short, medium and features documentaries, ensuring that new and unheard voices are expressed, the differing lengths of films, availability of films due to the requirements of other festivals and shipping, the local cultural differences between the different cities in New Zealand, the cross-over of themes and their relevance to New Zealand and so on. As we will be running a DOCNZ Cinema Club, we hope to be able to screen some of those films which did not make our programme but are films needing to be told.

We attempt wherever possible to screen similar programmes in every city and each year, we have increased the programming of each city to allow for similar coverage. Our venues are in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin.