CHRISTIE PITS Park
Sunday, july 6, 2025

Hunt for the Wilderpeople

With the short film Weekends

The pain of growing up (or failing to) is a recurring theme for Taika Waititi, from his early independent features (Boy, Eagle vs Shark) to his recent forays into big-budget franchises (Thor: Ragnarok, The Mandalorian). Hunt for the Wilderpeople stands out among the Maori pop auteur’s oeuvre thanks to the irresistible dynamic of its odd-couple protagonists. When an overzealous Child Services agent tries to send foster kid Ricky (the irrepressible Julian Dennison) back to the orphanage, he takes off into the wild New Zealand bush, pursued by his gruff, reluctant foster uncle Hector (the legendary Sam Neill). As the two forge an alliance, a national manhunt is declared and things start to get out of hand. Striking a delicate balance between outrageously funny and earnestly heartfelt, Ricky and Hector’s mutual coming-of-age story is a surefire crowd-pleaser.

Filipino-Canadian director-writer-animator Trevor Jimenez’s indie short film Weekends is a lyrical hand-animated short about a boy in 1980s Toronto caught between two homes in the wake of his parents’ divorce. Jimenez (whose animation credits also include Pixar’s Soul and Turning Red) exhibits lush artwork that imbues the story with warm humour and gentle melancholy as the young protagonist makes sense of his changing family relationships.