IFFR 2017

Fiona Tan

Mount Fuji, the holy Japanese volcano, is present in every shot of this kaleidoscopic compilation of photos. Balancing between documentary and fiction, this experiment has life blown into it on the soundtrack by an English woman’s reminiscences about her dead Japanese lover, who once climbed the volcano. Moving and philosophical.

Deep Focus

Signatures

Ascent

Júlio Bressane

A film as only the Brazilian veteran and festival favourite Bressane can make them. This imaginative, associative role-play between a man and a woman is both sensual and intellectual, as well as mocking and loving. He has no difficulty raising kitsch to art, forging absurdities into lyricism, erotic dreams into irresistible logic.

Beduino

Adolfo Arrieta

Ever since the 1970s, the Spaniard Arrieta has been building an oeuvre that is admired in underground circles and by his colleagues. Now he is past 70, he is finally able to work with a fully-fledged budget and some well-known French film stars. In the fairy-tale beauty of Brittany, an anachronistic update of <em>Sleeping Beauty</em> unfolds.

Belle dormant

Reha Erdem

The two orphans Ali and Zuhal started their lives in the big wide world with a crime. Now they are on the run, and end up deep in a marshy forest. There, away from the inhabited world, they make their own remote home. A lyrical, fairy-tale narrative by the Turkish master Reha Erdem.

Big Big World

Edgar Pêra

The carnival festivities in Torres Vedras, just to the north of Lisbon, are the most frenzied in Portugal. The ideal spot for filmmaker/artist Pêra to make an anarchic 3-D parody in which hysterical television and radio reporters battle among the merrymakers for the viewer's attention. With one of the last roles for Nuno Melo.

Delírio em Las Vedras

Mariano Llinás

Almost 10 years in production, some 12 hours of film. In six stories, Llinás uses the same four actresses in various ways. IFFR is now showing part one, a kind of B genre movie replete with evil mummy/romantic musical drama. Three and a half hours of epic film enjoyment. More to come in IFFR 2018!

La Flor (Parte 1)

Eva Claus

The chronicle of a long stay on an island. Each static shot offers an experience of the time spent facing out to sea, observing the natural landscape.

Hierro

Ting Min-Wei

Is it a computer game or actually a documentary report? Endless reconnoitering of a gigantic apartment complex in the night, along balconies, corridors and stairs, from bottom to top, turns into a hallucinogenic trip. In the face of desolate, visual monotony is an eclectic, extremely layered soundtrack filled with concrete sounds. Alienation all the way.

I'm Coming Up

Albert Serra

On 1 September 1715, King Louis XVI of France dies of gangrene in his palace at Versailles. In his darkened bedroom, confidants and doctors come and go during his last days. The Sun King’s mythical status and his agony come together in this memorable interpretation by Jean-Pierre Léaud.

La mort de Louis XIV

David Claerbout

What if animals stopped behaving like humans? And music was banned from the soundtrack? A non-narrative revisiting of the Disney classic, <strong>Jungle Book</strong>. To make his own version, the artist painstakingly redrew the frames of the original by hand, one by one, to create a familiar, yet entirely new experience.

Die reine Notwendigkeit

Patrick Bokanowski

Without any apparent coherence or story, this oneiric trip essentially evokes the battle between light and darkness. An incredible phantasmagoria of colours and movement opens up new worlds. If ever a filmmaker could be compared to an alchemist, it is this tireless inventor of new imaging techniques.

Un rêve solaire

Ulrich Seidl

In an uneasy yet secure way, the Austrian stylist Seidl shows white Westerners on hunting vacations in Africa. They pose proudly with the beautiful animals they have shot from a safe distance. While poor blacks drag the carcasses and butcher them, the affluent whites explain the excitement of a good shot.

Safari

Ashley Sabin

David Redmon

This film evokes a safe haven for abandoned and abused donkeys; animals have the lead roles, humans are only extras. The camera seeks to establish direct contact with the animals in an interplay of trust, curiosity, and vulnerability. Empathy as a prerogative, also for the viewer.

Sanctuary

Amiel Courtin-Wilson

Shot in three days in January 2016, the film captures the legendary jazz pianist Cecil Taylor and Japanese dancer-choreographer Tanaka Min in a delicate interaction. An impressionistic, extremely intimate portrait of the unspoken dynamics between two masters who have been collaborating for over thirty years.

The Silent Eye

Kevin Jerome Everson

Election Day, 8 November 2016. In Tonsler Park, Charlottesville, the workers in the polling station hand out voting slips and see rows of voters pass by. Democracy in action. While everyone has to make an important choice on this day, the documentary mainly records the hubbub in the room: the voice of the people.

Tonsler Park

Throughout his career, the artist, filmmaker and musician Conrad designed instruments that made it impossible to adhere to traditional Western harmonic principles. The artist himself takes us on a guided tour through an exhibition that brings together all of his low-budget, DIY, deceptively simple noise contraptions.

Tony Conrad: Invented Acoustical Tools-Instruments 1966-2012

Angela Schanelec

Spanning over thirty years, the film tells the story of two couples who go through an existential crisis while facing the larger crisis of Europe. In a minimalist style, Angela Schanelec delivers a deep insight into the state of contemporary man and society. A quiet, rigorous masterpiece.

Der traumhafte Weg

Lav Diaz

Locked up for thirty years because of a false accusation and then to hear your relatives have disappeared. Moreover, the unexpectedly freed Horacia has to discover her country all over again. She takes pity on poor losers, from street hawkers to prostitutes, and plans revenge. A calm sit (nearly 4 hours) by master Diaz won the Golden Lion in Venice.

The Woman Who Left

Hong Sangsoo

A playful narrative structure and psychological acumen are the two certainties in every film by Korean master Hong – also in his 18th feature. Minjung breaks off her relationship with the painter Youngsoo because he believes nasty rumours about her. When she then meets old friends, Minjung acts as if she is someone else. Or is it a double?

IFFR 2025
30 Jan – 9 Feb 2025