Familiar faces from the world of film: new work from established filmmakers, auteurs and festival veterans.

IFFR 2018

F.J. Ossang

In 2011, contentious French punk filmmaker F.J. Ossang was a special guest at IFFR. Seven years later, he returns with a new, elegant, black-and-white mystery about a criminal plot led by the shady 9 Fingers, a character very reminiscent of Fritz Lang’s Dr Mabuse.

Deep Focus

Signatures

9 doigts

Philippe Garrel

A philosophy lecturer houses his 23-year-old daughter with a broken heart and his mistress of the same age. He tries to be a father to one and lover to the other. French filmmaker Philippe Garrel’s Lover for a Day concludes a trilogy of anecdotal, black-and-white films on the vagaries of love.

L'amant d'un jour

Anatoly Vasiliev

Medea, Jason, Bacchus and Saturn – are they donkeys and/or mythological creatures here? Like the Italians in Alba during the donkey races, Anatoly Vasiliev worships donkeys. His film also summarises the donkey’s role in Western culture: from stupid and stubborn to a loyal beast of burden.

Asino

Rustam Khamdamov

This Russian adaptation of the story that inspired Kurosawa's masterpiece Rashomon (1950) is filmed in stately black-and-white and is set partly at the Court of Czar Alexander II and partly in a wood where a murder takes place. Three involved parties give their version of the story. Which is true?

The Bottomless Bag

Ben Russell

Serbian miners find their counterparts across the ocean, in the tropical heat of an illegal Surinamese gold mine. An attentive, earthy film about the sense of community that invariably develops under harsh conditions. This is the basis of our capital and Ben Russell puts a face to that fact.

Good Luck

Obayashi Nobuhiko

Choosing stylised vivacity over realism, this anti-war period drama set on the eve of World War Two captures an historical moment of frenzy. The director of cult film Hausu follows a group of teenagers caught up in the chaos of impending war.

Hanagatami

Tonino De Bernardi

Residents of the Greek resort of Amarynthos declaim excerpts from Euripides' tragedy Iphigenia in Aulis. They act like a Greek chorus, commenting on the many immigrants arriving in the Greek islands or in Italy, the home country of director De Bernardi, who focuses with great compassion on both locals and refugees.

Ifigenia in Aulide

Jan Švankmajer

An amateur theatre group rehearses unenthusiastically, though they almost all have winged costumes. The most perseverant surrealist presents a forgotten play from 1921: The Insect Play by the Čapek brothers as his – perhaps last – feature film, a mix of live action and animation. With a dash of Kafka's Metamorphosis.

Insect

Bruno Dumont

In 1425, 8-year-old Jeannette is not Joan of Arc yet but is already yearning to kick some English butt out of France. Based on Charles Peguy's poetic writing about the fierce heroine, this unorthodox retelling is an electro-heavy-metal-punk musical that Bruno Dumont infuses with energy and madness.

Jeannette

Andrew Kötting

Kaleidoscopic portrayal of the emotional universe of a child who sought safety and protection with a pack of street dogs. A fascinating experimental trip that links the raw Russia of the 1990s with reflections on trauma and sorrow, love and the urge to survive. Inspired by a true story.

Lek and the Dogs

Wang Bing

Wang Bing continues to work, his empathy and concentration as great as ever, on an oeuvre depicting the struggles of poor Chinese to survive in a country in transformation. Here, he trains his camera on Mrs Fang and those gathered around her deathbed. Confrontational, poignant and intimate, this film won the Golden Leopard in Locarno.

Mrs. Fang

Kawase Naomi

Hearing is believing: Japanese Misako writes audio descriptions for blind and visually impaired film audiences. She receives harsh criticism from an almost blind photographer in her feedback panel. Nevertheless, the two of them come together in Kawase’s sensitive exploration of loss and acceptance – which also probes the role of photography and film.

Radiance

James Benning

As usual with James Benning, the proposition is extremely simple. Here, he points his camera at four people (three women, one man) who spend just under half an hour reading. Then we see a quote from the book. That’s it. The result, as we call it, is vintage Benning.

Readers

Amar Kanwar

A celebrated mathematician suddenly abandons his career and becomes a hermit, moving into an abandoned train carriage as his humble abode. He then devotes all his energy to observing with the maximum possible awareness. From the dread of losing his eyesight? A delicate art film in which each image provides a powerful sensual experience.

Such a Morning

Raúl Ruiz

Valeria Sarmiento

Ruiz, who passed away in 2011, posthumously delights with his 121st film, shot in 1990 and completed by his widow Sarmiento – a hilarious, absurdist, satirical commentary (in the form of a seven-part soap opera) on the political-social landscape he found upon returning to Catholic-capitalist Chile after years of exile.

La telenovela errante

Teresa Villaverde

The great Portuguese filmmaker Villaverde spent a summer in the company of her Italian cult colleague Tonino De Bernardi. Her documentary is a loving, intimate and artistic portrait of a unique filmmaker, and at the same time an associative essay on the art of living – and living for art.

IFFR 2025
30 Jan – 9 Feb 2025