IFFR 2004

Yu Lik-wai

Lo-tech sci-fi from Hong Kong's indie maverick Yu Lik-Wai. A Taliban-like sect rules Asia until its collapse leaves a huge void in the lives of adherents and dissidents alike. At once intimate and enigmatic... and very beautiful.

hubert bals fund

All Tomorrow's Parties

Celina Murga

A stunning Camila Toker plays a young woman who returns to her birthplace for the first time in years and seeks in vain the places, memories and intimacy she once knew. Melancholy film with a light touch, at once recognisable and mysterious.

Ana y los otros

Viatcheslav Amirkhanian

Poetic documentary about the life of the Russian poet Arseny Tarkovsky, father of master film maker Andrei. Director Amirchanian documented Arseny Tarkovsky's last years as well as Russia in the 20th century.

Arseny Tarkovsky Eternal Presence

Leonardo Di Cesare

Pinteresque social comedy is of course a parable about survival in Argentina. A young man things he finds a nice girlfriend, but ends up with her whole family and a cookie factory in the house.

Buena Vida Delivery

Abolfazl Jalili

No one can film running boys the way Jalili can. Humane, poetic, epic and autobiographical: about a boy who grows up in Iran in the turbulent 1970s and has to confront the resistance to art and to his love for the girl next door.

The First Letter

Pjer Zalica

Moving tragi-comedy about post-war life in Bosnia. When Clinton promises to pay a visit to the apparently peaceful town of Tesanj, all hell breaks loose: all corruption and crime has to be stamped out at high speed. Winner of the Silver Leopard at Locarno 2003.

Fuse

Martín Rejtman

Sad snigger film, in which Rejtman (Silvia Prieto) uses an undercooled sense of humour and drama to provide his view of the demise of the middle classes in Buenos Aires. Taxi driver loses control of his beloved Renault 12 etc, etc.

Los guantes mágicos

Sergey Dvortsevoy

Jewel from Moscow. Blind old man makes beautiful string shopping nets, his cat plays with balls of string. But outside, people use plastic bags.

In the Dark

Zeka Laplaine

Neo-post-colonial relations on the dark continent. Honeymoon trip by a French couple to his African birthplace goes wrong as soon as their taxi causes an accident on the way to the hotel.

Le jardin de papa

Vilsoni Hereniko

First feature directed by an inhabitant of one of the Fiji Islands, Rotuma, and shot there. It is the story of a young woman who clears her family name after it has been wrongly besmirched after a minor infringement. She allows herself to be inspired by the mythical Warrior Woman.

The Land Has Eyes

Pen-ek Ratanaruang

Suicidal ex-Yakuza (Asano) with a fear of infection hides as a librarian in Bangkok. His life has almost come to a halt. Then people die and he meets a Thai who wants to go to Japan. Beautiful (camera Chris Doyle) and sensitive. And with Miike as Yakuza.

Last Life in the Universe

Nariman Turebayev

Dry, subtle tragi-comedy about the friends Bek and Max who live together in a flat in the capital of Kazakhstan. They earn their living selling door-to-door and have an unusual view of the future and how to get on with women.

Little Men

Artan Minarolli

Burlesque and poetic social drama from Albania. In a chaotic full train of potential emigrants on their way to the coast, a boy meets a girl. Her grandfather tries to keep them apart.

The Moonless Night

Andrei Kudinenko

Second World War trilogy from Belorus. The population suffers both from German soldiers and from bandits instructed by Moscow. An expressive drama shot with a limited means and great flair.

Mysterium Occupation

Maria Joao Ganga

Sketch of the cruel political situation in Angola, based on the story of the twelve-year-old refugee from war N'Dala who roams the grim streets of the port city of Luanda.

Na cidade vazia

Mohammad Shirvani

Iranian cinema, but very different. Prize-winning Iranian short-film maker Shirvani has made an experimental reality drama about five different modern Iranians (from a former imam to a conscript and a woman who has returned from abroad) in one house.

Navel

Nina

Siddiq Barmak

First Afghan film production after the fall of the Taliban regime. A twelve-year-old girl is forced to dress up as a boy, because she has no male relatives and girls are not allowed out on their own. Shocking and humane.

Osama

Naguel M. Belouad

Algerian kid wants to go looking for the father he doesn't know in Marseilles. Meandering between fantasy and reality, Belouad creates a convincing picture of the terrifying situation in Bejaia and the bleak outlook in Marseilles.

Père

Sinisa Dragin

Insights and views change over time. An old tramp can no longer remember his forty years as a political prisoner in Siberia. Dragin (Everyday God Kisses Us on the Mouth) made a film about the view of a novice reporter in Bucharest who comes across this story.

The Pharaoh

He Jianjun

Life-sized portrait of contemporary Chinese society based on the ubiquitous illegal trade in pirated western features. Eroticism, violence and confusion, but also tenderness and understanding.

Pirated Copy

Babak Payami

How messages from hell can taunt heaven with their beauty. In a godforsaken landscape, a simple executioner does his work. Then he has to marry a woman condemned to death, because she is still a virgin and otherwise she might go to heaven. His world starts to fall apart slowly and inevitably.

The Silence Between Two Thoughts

Sabiha Sumar

Pakistan, late 1970s. Against the background of increasing intolerance and fundamentalism, in which her son also becomes involved, unbearable secrets about Aicha's past come to light. Winner of the Golden Leopard in Locarno.

Silent Waters

Amir Shahab Razavian

24 hours in Tehran. A traffic cop is interested in an actress, two old sourpusses terrorise the drug control lab, not everything a taxi driver says is the truth and a building worker seems to be in love. By the maker of Journey of the Grey Men.

Tehran 7:00 A.M.

Nuri Bilge Ceylan

Visuals and sound from snow-covered Istanbul are breathtaking in one of the top films of the year; sad and funny, human and intimate, personal and universal. About the world of a big-city photographer and his country cousin and the distance between them.

IFFR 2025
30 Jan – 9 Feb 2025