The Ungrateful Tenant premieres at NZ International Film Festival
A New Zealand filmmaker's micro-budget silent film about Auckland's rental struggles debuts at the festival, blending experimental art with political messaging about housing.
The Ungrateful Tenant is a black-and-white silent feature that took four and a half years to make using iPhone footage and the director's own flats as sets. The horror comedy follows a neurotic millennial tenant cursed into cycles of bad housing situations and evil landlords, and premiered with a live orchestral performance. The film impresses with its technical execution—editing, lighting and music—and cinematography of Auckland, but critics note it struggles with repetitive scenes and a lack of character depth, ultimately prioritising political messaging about landlords over a more nuanced human story.
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The Spinoff
The Ungrateful Tenant brings a timeless tale of housing woe to the NZ International Film Festival
The black-and-white silent film about the struggles of renting in Auckland takes some bold creative swings but the execution falls short. The most impressive thing about New Zealand’s filmmaker Conor Bowden’s feature-length debut The Ungrateful Tenant is that it exists…