A diverse competition bridging the gap between popular, classic and art house cinema. An expert audience jury picks the winner.Still: As We Like It

IFFR 2021

Félix Dufour-Laperrière

Animation, imagination and reality merge in this enchanting search for the soul of the French-Canadian province of Quebec.

Creative animation, imagination and documentary combine with unparalleled candour in this odyssey along the Saint Lawrence, the Canadian river bisecting the region where Félix Dufour-Laperrière was born. Does a community only really exist in our dreams and stories? An exploration as pugnacious as it is poetic.

Competitions

Big Screen Competition

Archipel

Sode Yukiko

Sophisticated, layered drama about breaking out of your social bubble and looking for love in contemporary Japan.

The boundaries between love and friendship blur in this sophisticated drama in which up-and-coming Japanese director Sode Yukiko examines contemporary Tokyo’s various social bubbles. Two women meet because of the same aristocratic man. The result: a subtle, merciless critique of class, identity and origin.

Aristocrats

Chen Hung-i

Muni Wei

Energetic, colourful reworking of Shakespeare’s love story, in which the lovebirds are now played by women. Set in the bustling metropolis of Taipei.

Colourful, energetic reworking of Shakespeare’s play set in the bustling metropolis of Taipei. Orlando and Rosalind are in love with each other, but unaware of this. In Shakespeare’s time all the roles were played by men; now the lovebirds are played by women.

As We Like It

Paz Fábrega

A loving, painstaking study of the dilemmas of a girl facing an unwanted pregnancy and the woman helping her.

The story of a passionate architect and a girl confronting an unwanted pregnancy unfolds calmly and gently, without any big drama: but this doesn’t lessen the dilemmas the characters face. Julia and Luisa each have something the other needs – they could quite easily form some kind of family.

Aurora

Renata Pinheiro

Revived wrecked cars prove more evil than expected in highly original film about steel, sex, populism, ecology and humanity.

Revived wrecked cars gain speech and consciousness. The mechanic who builds them dreams of a motorised revolution with fascist overtones. His younger nephew senses danger. A bitter struggle follows in which populism, sex, steel, absurdism, ecology and hormones fight for precedence.

Carro Rei

Bariş Sarhan

Cemil wants to be an actor so badly he becomes the villainous character he vainly auditioned for.

Darkly comical, slightly absurd drama about a young Turkish wannabe actor who refuses to give up after being dismissively rejected for his dream role in a film. He immerses himself in the life of a once-famous actor and loses himself in his greatest role – a villain.

The Cemil Show

Jun Li

Hong Kong’s homeless fight for their rights in the shadows of the high-rises. A politically committed look at a precarious existence.

“I may be homeless, but I'm not worthless.” Treated like garbage, Hong Kong’s homeless protest under this slogan. Among them is Fai, who really wants to kick his heroin habit – but something is eating away at him. Poignant, committed portrayal of a marginalised group that foregrounds their humanity.

Drifting

M. Manikandan

Agricultural traditions are in danger of being lost when an aged farmer is imprisoned. Highly original Indian drama about their importance.

Striking drama full of drily comic, Kafkaesque elements and fairy-tale lessons in life about the last remaining farmer in a remote Indian village. No one realises the importance of his traditional agricultural know-how until he is wrongly imprisoned: a long period of drought ensues, and the gods demand a sacrifice.

The Last Farmer

Jonathan Ogilvie

An intriguing thriller made up of images from hidden cameras, phone taps, Skype sessions and other Australian-government surveillance footage.

Australia in the near future. The government uses cameras and extensive bugging technology to spy on its citizens − especially a group of environmental activists. Using little more than surveillance footage, director Jonathan Ogilvie keeps up a relentless pace. An edge-of-the-seat thriller that works on both political and emotional levels.

Lone Wolf

Renata Litvinova

The matriarchal Margarita struggles to keep the power over her family’s future after her son is hit by a tragedy.

The powerful matriarchal clan led by charismatic Margarita is deeply shaken when her son loses his beloved fiancée. An offbeat and visually stunning fairy-tale set during the endless New Year’s Eve when all miracles are about love, eternity and death. Get ready to be blown away by The North Wind.

The North Wind

Ana Katz

Kind-hearted thirty-something Sebastián hops listlessly from job to job in this pleasing mix of empathetic drama and the slightly absurd.

Thirty-something Sebastián hops listlessly from job to job in this tragicomic story, each scene in which is a jump forward in time. Lead actor Daniel Katz beautifully portrays his character’s unease in this black-and-white film that strikes a pleasing balance between empathetic drama and the slightly absurd.

El perro que no calla

Yoshida Kota

Triptych on sex, aphrodisiac foods and secret desires. No explicit sex, but plenty of very sensual close-ups of women eating.

A Japanese triptych about sex, aphrodisiac foods and perhaps unusual sexuality. Although Sexual Drive contains no explicit sex, it is definitely an erotic film. Yoshida Kota’s sensual close-ups of women who eat their food with relish, becoming increasingly aroused, are reminiscent of the Japanese classic Tampopo (1985).

Sexual Drive

Julien Faraut

Volleyball like you’ve never seen it before. Playful documentary that combines fantastic anime with 1960s Japanese Olympic volleyball stars.

Volleyball like you’ve never seen it before. The Japanese women’s volleyball team that won gold at the 1964 Olympic Games were so popular that a whole raft of manga and anime series grew up around the sport. This sparkling documentary interweaves fantastic anime with blood-curdling archival footage and great music.

Les Sorcières de l’Orient

Dāvis Sīmanis

Europe in 1913, seen through the prisms of ideological extremism, dangerous sex, existential doubt and psychoanalysis.

A doorman from Riga sets off roaming through Europe and encounters a motley collection of extremists, all of whom want to recruit him. He has a romance with Mata Hari and is psychoanalysed by Freud. The year is 1913, and the world is about to be engulfed by catastrophe.

IFFR 2025
30 Jan – 9 Feb 2025