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IFFR-backed films continue their festival journeys in Toronto, Busan, San Sebastián and more

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With 2025 so far full of prizes and premieres for Hubert Bals Fund, CineMart, Darkroom and IFFR 2025 titles, the autumn sees more IFFR-supported filmmakers reaching major international festival stages.

Film: Amoeba by Siyou Tan

TIFF welcomed two IFFR-backed world premieres, whilst highlights at San Sebastián include John Skoog’s CineMart-presented debut Redoubt in New Directors competition, next to Kim Torres’s HBF-supported Si no ardemos, cómo iluminar la noche. The Basque festival close out their daring Zabaltegi Tabakalera section with our IFFR 2025 Tiger Award-winner, Fiume o morte!.

Toronto International Film Festival (4–14 September)

Among the world premieres hosted at TIFF was Amoeba by Siyou Tan, a rebellious coming-of-age story of four teenage girls in Singapore, and Bayaan by Bikas Ranjan Mishra, a tense Indian drama about a rookie detective (Huma Qureshi) confronting entrenched power and silence. Both HBF-supported, the latter was screened in IFFR Pro’s Darkroom work-in-progress programme last edition.

World premieres

Film still: Bayaan

North American premieres

Canadian premiere

Busan International Film Festival (17–26 September)

Several supported films screen in Busan, including the world premiere of Spying Stars by Sri Lankan filmmaker Vimukthi Jayasundara in the newly launched Competition section. 

Film still: Spying Stars by Vimukthi Jayasundara

A sci-fi mediation on loss, mourning and technology, the film follows bioengineer Anandi, who returns from space only to be quarantined at a remote resort during a mysterious pandemic. Jayasundara’s debut The Forsaken Land (2005) won the Camera d’Or at Cannes. The project was funded in 2022 through the HBF+Europe: Minority Co-production Support scheme, supported by Creative Europe MEDIA.

Competition

Icons

A Window on Asian Cinema

World Cinema

San Sebastián International Film Festival (19–27 September)

Update: Hiedra (The Ivy) by Ana Cristina Barragán received a special mention during the presentation of the awards in the Horizontes Latinos section.

The Basque festival hosts two IFFR-backed world premieres, and closes its daring Zabaltegi Tabakalera section with our 2025 Tiger Award winner Fiume o morte! by Igor Bezinović. 

Film still: Redoubt by John Skoog

Swedish filmmaker and visual artist John Skoog’s debut feature Redoubt screens in the New Directors competition, after its presentation at the 2023 edition of CineMart – where it won the Filmmore Post-Production Award. French actor Denis Lavant (Holy Motors) stars as a farm worker who, at the peak of the Cold War, compulsively transforms his house into a fortress to protect himself and his puzzled neighbours from an enemy attack. 

The film was produced by Plattform Produktion, founded by Ruben Ostlund and Erik Hemmendorff, and is a Dutch co-production together with Amsterdam’s Lemming Film. 

Costa Rican filmmaker Kim Torres presents her HBF+Europe-supported debut feature Si no ardemos, cómo iluminar la noche in the same section. In the film, the thirteen-year-old Laura must navigate a new rural home amid forests and endless palm plantations, where violence lingers like a shadow.

Film still: Si no ardemos, cómo iluminar la noche by Kim Torres

World premieres in New Directors

Horizontes Latinos

Zabaltegi Tabakalera – Closing Film

New York Film Festival (September 26 – 13 October)

Four IFFR-backed films are set to screen in New York across the Main Slate and Currents programme.

Film still: Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes by Gabriel Azorín

Main Slate

Currents

BFI London Film Festival (8–19 October)

Amongst the wide range of supported films screening in London, HBF-supported work by Lucrecia Martel and Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke feature in the two feature competitions, whilst IFFR 2025 Big Screen Competition film The Assistant by Wilhelm Sasnal & Anka Sasnal screens in in the “Dare” section. 

Film still: The Assistant by Wilhelm Sasnal and Anka Sasnal

Official Competition

First Feature Competition

Love

Create

Dare

Journey

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