Der 10. Mai
When Nazi Germany invaded the Benelux, Switzerland faced the question: what if we’re next? Restored 1950s masterpiece.
93'
Switzerland
IFFR 2021
What can we do to fight an invisible enemy like Covid-19? Japanese special-effects wizard Higuchi Shinji thinks we should use our Godzilla toys as magic-conductive tools for this fight, and put an instruction video on YouTube. Iwai Shunji took up the idea and turned it into a 12-part internet series about the way model/actor/director Saitō Takumi (playing himself) passes his solitary-confinement days by raising three tiny monsters, so-called capsule kaijū: Avigan, Remdesivir and Ivermectin. This is something he and Higuchi remembered from their childhood days, from the well-loved special-effects TV series Ultraseven (1967-68), whose hero also grew little helpers.
What looks at first like a sweet audio-visual jest with masses of in-jokes and references, reveals itself on closer inspection as an existential show of belief in cinema and television, their shared history as a source of magic, and of remembrance and play as forces of healing.
IFFR 2021
Programme IFFR 2021
A sphere of collective remembrance and imagination offering restored classics, documentaries on film culture, and explorations of cinema’s heritage.
Read more about this programmeWhen Nazi Germany invaded the Benelux, Switzerland faced the question: what if we’re next? Restored 1950s masterpiece.
93'
Switzerland
IFFR 2021
As Japanese monsters like Godzilla have so often saved the world, could they now help us fight Covid-19? Find out here!
88'
Japan
IFFR 2021
Can we find a different feminism in the images of state-sponsored Soviet documentaries about women and their role in socialism? Yes.
20'
Russia
IFFR 2021