Andy Whitfield's cancer fight opens film festival

The late Andy Whitfield as Spartacus.

A film about the late star of the New Zealand-filmed Spartacus series will open the 11th Documentary Edge International Film Festival in Wellington and Auckland next month.

Be Here Now (the Andy Whitfield Story) is described in the programme - which is released today - as "powerful and intimate love story".

The film, directed by Lilibet Foster, follows the fight of Whitfield and wife Vashti Whitfield after the Welsh actor was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, which eventually took his life in 2011.

The film is one of of 37 feature-length films in the annual "Doc Edge" festival, opening in Wellington on May 4 and in Auckland on May 18.

The event's programme includes films on prominent authors - in Gabo: The Creation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise - as well as the winner of this year's Oscar for documentary short, A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness.

New Zealand titles in the festival include an on-the-road doco on country singer Donna Deans as she tours the southern United States.

For the full programme go to docedge.nz