121280 Ritual
Pregnancy becomes ritual in Antoinetta Angelidi’s film of her son’s birth, finished 28 years later.
16'
Greece
IFFR 2024
Yamamoto Satsuo is one of Japanese cinema's grandmasters for whom the rest of the world so far hasn't caught up. One wonders why, after seeing The Great White Tower, a dive headlong into university politics and the battle for who will succeed as the head of the medical department.
Two futures open up by way of the film's antagonists: the decent researcher and community-conscious humanist against the careerist who uses his undeniable brilliance for nothing other than his own advancement. The two-and-a-half-hour feature unfolds the intricacies of how a university department in Japan works. Lectures and operations, with a side of confrontation, sometimes person to person and sometimes in group settings, in which questions of ethics and politics are fervently debated.
Entering a whole world, The Great White Tower unveils a staggering black and white, a choice justified by Yamamoto to soften the shock from the operation scenes, with a starkness that perfectly reflects the film's uncompromising moral stance. A singular and multi-dimensional masterpiece!
– Olaf Möller
IFFR 2024
Programme IFFR 2024
A sphere of collective remembrance and imagination offering restored classics, documentaries on film culture, and explorations of cinema’s heritage.
Read more about this programmePregnancy becomes ritual in Antoinetta Angelidi’s film of her son’s birth, finished 28 years later.
16'
Greece
IFFR 2024
An invasive film crew attempts to make a gritty documentary on some Cali slums.
27'
Colombia
IFFR 2024
A sensitive and insightful documentary on the art of Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti.
53'
Switzerland
IFFR 2024