IFFR 2005

Raymond Depardon

How do people behave when they are imprisoned in the labyrinth of the legal system? The French photographer and film maker Raymond Depardon sets up his camera in court and records in minute detail how petty criminals, judges and lawyers behave at the bar.

Kings & Aces

10e chambre, instants d'audiences

James Benning

The best American landscape film maker records thirteen lakes in masterful shots. Or how exciting a sudden change in sunlight can be.

13 Lakes

Wong Kar-wai

A writer (Tony Leung) is working on a book about a mysterious train that travels to the year 2046. He thinks he is making a science-fiction story, but increasingly ends up in an autobiographical adventure. By the maker of the Chungking Express and In the Mood for Love.

2046

Oskar Roehler

Mix of melodrama, social satire and grotesque entertainment. For her one true love, Agnes has had herself turned into a woman; her two brothers are obsessed by sex and barbecue wurst. What links them is a difficult relationship with their rich, eccentric father.

Agnes und seine Brüder

Kim Ki-Duk

Unlikely romance blossoms between a battered wife and the hunky oddball who breaks into her luxurious home. Elliptical, bizarrely sweet fable of love and revenge from Korea's most interesting director told without a word too many.

Bin-jip

Hou Hsiao-hsien

Observations in the spirit of Ozu, by the Taiwanese master film maker Hou Hsiao-hsien. A pregnant writer and a bookseller with a passion for trains together move around anonymous Tokyo, looking for a special bar. With leading roles for the Japanese pop idols Yo Hitoto and Asano Tadanobu.

Café Lumière

Gianni Amelio

Moving film, in which a father sees his handicapped teenage son for the first time in his life and travels with him for treatment abroad. Beautifully acted roles by Kim Rossi Stuart and Charlotte Rampling among others.

Le chiavi di casa

Olivier Assayas

Moving and convincing film about the young widow of a pop star, who fights for her child and against her addiction. A film that is carried by the famous Hong Kong actress Maggie Cheung and in which everything figures. Especially feelings.

Clean

Raúl Ruiz

New and against enchanting film by former Film Maker in Focus, Raúl Ruiz, who returned for this film to his homeland Chile. Two men in a bar talk about their lives as if they were dead. True or false?

Dias de campo

Iwai Shunji

Subtle portrait of teenage emotions and their selfish obsessions. At the instigation of Alice, Hana tries something on with Miyamoto, but that only seems to work out when he accidentally gets knocked out. She persuaded him that he is suffering from amnesia and that they are lovers. About growing up and growing apart. With great music, also by Iwai.

Hana and Alice

Miyazaki Hayao

Whirling fairy-tale by the maker of Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, about a shy girl who miraculously changes into a sprightly old lady (who is also the apprentice to the young sorcerer Howl). Infinitely lively fantasy, originally for old people, in a kind of enchanted Dickensian central Europe, scourged by twentieth-century war.

Howl's Moving Castle

Serik Aprymov

A Kakakh kid (12) commits a robbery with a pistol he stole from a hunter. The hunter gives him a choice: either he goes to jail or they undertake a harsh journey through the mountains. Poetic Central Asian horse opera about the laws of nature.

Hunter

Claire Denis

A new highpoint by Claire Denis based on her Beau Travail, with beautiful shots and a wayward narration. A man is on the waiting list for a heart transplant and looking for his long-lost Tahitian son.

L'intrus

Fred Kelemen

They're still to be found: masterful, black &amp; white and intensely sad Eastern European films. By a young German master. About a long lost great love...

Krisana

Jan Němec

The visit to Prague by the most powerful man in the world coincides with the heart operation of Jan Nemec, the master of the Czech Nouvelle Vague. Nemec camptures both events in a philosophical video diary and in doing so reports on what is probably the most important day in his life.

Landscape of My Heart

Tonino De Bernardi

Homage to Betty Faria, a Brazilian film and theatre actress and soap star, and to Brazil as a whole. The popular soaplet Betty goes looking for her twin sister Marlene, a prostitute, in the slums of Sao Paulo.

Marlene De Sousa

Angela Schanelec

Bald and restrained reflections by a young Berlin photographer who doesn't know what she wants. The film knows very well what it wants and follows the woman to Marseilles.

Marseille

Ousmane  Sembène

Powerful statement by Ousmane Sembene (81) against the controversial practice of female circumcision, that is still common in thirty-eight African countries. Six girls flee their village for fear of this ritual.

Moolaadé

Kore-eda Hirokazu

Lord of the Flies, but then different. Shocking and heart-warming at the same time, this portrait of the strategies for survival of four abandoned children in the Japanese Big City. The fourteen-year-old protagonist won the Golden Palm at Cannes.

Nobody Knows

Eugène Green

Masterful film about crossing lives, grand love, real art and the beauty of life. In the unmistakably baroque acting and montage style of Green, hence as humorous as it is formal.

Le pont des arts

Arnaud Desplechin

In two parallel narrative lines, the film zooms in on the lives of two former lovers: Nora looks after her terminally ill father and Ismael, a brilliant musician, plans his escape.

Rois et reine

Two school girls discover prostitution as a lucrative source of income on the side. But of course it has to go wrong one day. The father of one of the girls, a detective, turns in to a vengeful machine.

Samaritan Girl

Kira Muratova

A young crook and his capricious girlfriend plan to swindle two elderly ladies. But at first they need to gain their confidence and establish a close friendship. An expertly crafted, absurd comedy with a touch of a detective story. Funny and heart-breaking at once.

The Tuner

Hong Sangsoo

Two men approaching middle age have nostalgic feelings about the beautiful Sunhwa, whom they once both dated. However they have very different memories and decide to look her up. The latest by festival favourite Hong again provides his characteristic dry humour and formal and psychological games.

IFFR 2025
30 Jan – 9 Feb 2025