{"id":207276,"date":"2025-02-05T15:54:13","date_gmt":"2025-02-05T14:54:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iffr.com\/en\/?p=207276"},"modified":"2025-02-05T15:54:18","modified_gmt":"2025-02-05T14:54:18","slug":"blog-not-even-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iffr.com\/en\/blog-not-even-past","title":{"rendered":"Not Even Past"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Each year, the Cinema Regained programme spotlights restored classics, documentaries on film culture and explorations of cinema\u2019s heritage. IFFR programmer Olaf M\u00f6ller guides us through the ideas behind this year\u2019s selection and its connections to films in other programmes.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Over the last few editions, Cinema Regained developed into the section where the IFFR programme’s different lines and interests criss-cross. But never more openly so than in this edition. The retrospective of Sergii Masloboishchykov, and his interest in Ukrainian modern history, gains an additional perspective through the presentation of Edgar Georg Ulmer’s digitally restored Cossacks in Exile<\/strong><\/a> (1939), a production by Ukrainian exile dancer-choreographer Vasyl Avramenko. Hafiz Rancajale’s essay Bachtiar<\/strong><\/a> (2025), connects straight to our commemoration of the Bandung Conference and the Afro-Asian Film Festivals directly inspired by this foundational event for what we now call the Global South, where we present Bachtiar Siagian’s only recently rediscovered masterpiece Turang<\/strong><\/a> (1957), a story of the Indonesian struggle against the Dutch colonisers \u2013 which, again, will surely enrich thoughts on IFFR 2025’s similarly themed closing film, Mouly Surya’s This City Is a Battlefield<\/strong><\/a> (2025). Another Cinema Regained find that connects to the theme of Anti-Colonialism is Oleksiy Radynski’s Where Russia Ends<\/strong><\/a> (2024) which hints at a core contradiction of the Bandung Conference: that some of the event’s major sponsors were colonisers themselves, in this case, the USSR might have supported the independence struggle in Africa and Central and South America (see Aleksandr Medvedkin’s Law of Baseness<\/strong><\/a>, 1962), but at home they were busy oppressing the indigenous peoples of the Tundra and the Far North, and for the same reasons as their Western counterparts, that of financial gain… Finally, there’s our tribute to Katja Raganelli, especially her decades-long work on the history of women in cinema which was originally produced for the Federal Republic of Germany’s various public broadcasting stations. Television as vehicle for education in is also the subject of Christiane B\u00fcchner’s Erz\u00e4hlungen eines Kinogehers<\/strong><\/a> <\/strong>(2025), a portrait of commissioning editor Werner D\u00fctsch, whom some of IFFR’s older regulars might still remember, as he often attended the festival to find films he could buy for TV and present works he had co-produced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While D\u00fctsch returns to IFFR solely as an on-screen presence, we have two old friends of the festival who return in person. The last time Uzbek master Ali Khamraev graced Rotterdam was in 2011 when he presented The Seventh Bullet<\/strong><\/a> (1972) as part of our Red Westerns selection. Now he returns with a highly personal documentary about an IFFR shining light Sergej Parajanov. Hosting the world premiere of The Lilac Wind of Parajanov<\/strong><\/a> here feels especially apt as it includes a lot of footage from the Soviet-Armenian master’s visit at the festival. Meanwhile Burkinab\u00e9 auteur<\/em> Drissa Tour\u00e9 was at IFFR only two years ago \u2013 after a hiatus of almost thirty years, during which he couldn’t get a film financed and made his living as a taxi driver. The experience of having a documentary about him circle the world and his two films from the 1990s shown again seems to have stirred something in him because now he’s back with a new work: Mousso Fariman<\/strong><\/a> (co dir. St\u00e9phane Mbanga, 2025).This could have been shown in Harbour, with other masters like Stere Gulea and Alexander Kluge, but as the film’s existence seems so closely connected to Cinema Regained, it felt right to have it here. But there are not only people returning to IFFR in this section: films do so as well, usually in a digitally restored fashion, like this year Jos\u00e9 \u00c1lvaro Morais’ O bobo<\/strong><\/a> (1987), first presented at IFFR 1988. A meditation on the beginning and end of an empire that has gained new urgency and depth in the decades since… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which brings us to a work with unexpected echoes in the realm of current affairs. When we selected Ram\u00f3n Rivera Moret’s poetic documentary about the beginnings of cinema in Puerto Rico, Todo parec\u00eda posible<\/strong><\/a>, we were quite aware of the fact that a massive installation by Pablo Delano, The Museum of the Old Colony<\/em> (2016-ongoing), had been among the most widely celebrated pieces on show at the last Venice Biennale. The artist is the son of Jack Delano, a Ukrainian in exile who became one of Puerto Rico’s first filmmakers, and whose Las manos del hombre<\/strong><\/a> (1952) we show in a programme of digitally restored shorts that accompanies the world premiere of Todo parec\u00eda posible<\/strong><\/a>. Then, a man making a living telling jokes, called Puerto Rico a \u201cfloating island of garbage\u201d at an election rally for Donald Trump, and a racism rooted in colonialism raised its ugly head, one that now had mistakenly felt beyond the pale of public discourse. The US president-elect’s recent expansionist comments about Greenland, Panama and Canada show that indeed \u201c[the] past is never dead. It’s not even past\u201d.  Similar things could be said about the latest work of a true IFFR darling, Saeed Nouri, whose Tehran, An Unfinished History<\/strong><\/a> (2025) is full of moments, memories whose depths are difficult to fathom in these our days, like the shots from the 1974 Asian Games football tournament final in which host Iran faced Israel, to win 1-nil due to an own goal by defender Itzhak Shum \u2013 a match that back then was seen as a sign of Israel and Iran slowly finding common grounds, in defiance of a long history of boycotts against Israel in the Asian sports world which also marred this event and ended with Israel being expelled from the Asian Games Federation two years on. That is also a history in need of consideration along part of the Bandung Conference’s anti-colonialism programme…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But we’re not only continuing to support certain directors dear to IFFR \u2013 we’re also continuing to research particular fields of interest, one of these being the history of women in filmmaking. Over the last few editions, we screened various portraits of female directors as well as documentaries on women in cinema and television. This year, we chose to focus on new digital restorations of films directed by women. In line with our focus on television, we present two episodes of the short-lived 1973 series The Classic Ghosts<\/strong>, one each directed by Lela Swift (The Deadly Visitor<\/strong><\/a>) and Gloria Monty (The House and the Brain<\/strong><\/a>), both pioneering figures of a little-researched and critically belittled sphere of TV-production: daytime drama. We also pay a special cross-programme tribute to Gujarati director Chetna Vora by showing her main works realised at the German Democratic Republic’s film school in Potsdam, Babelsberg: Oyoyo<\/strong><\/a> (1980) here in Cinema Regained, and Frauen in Berlin<\/strong><\/a> (1982) as part of our adventure into VHS. Vora also plays a small role in Gabriele Denecke’s Orangemond<\/strong><\/a> (1980), one of several films known to have been censored by the school. Finally, there’s Katha<\/strong><\/a> (1983) by Marathi writer-director Sai Paranjpye whose works were successful back home but barely ever shown outside India \u2013 making this a rare chance to encounter one of South Asia’s more prolific female directors of popular cinema. Which is what Cinema Regained in best IFFR fashion is all about: opening up perspectives beyond the borders of the canonical and established.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cinema Regained 2025 is dedicated to the memory of Adriano Apr\u00e0: cinema activist and historian, filmmaker, guide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

written by Olaf M\u00f6ller<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1<\/strong> William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun<\/em>, 1951<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n\t

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A list with articles<\/h2>\n\t\t\n\t\t
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