{"id":231057,"date":"2026-07-09T15:24:25","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T13:24:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iffr.com\/en\/?p=231057"},"modified":"2026-07-09T16:46:53","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T14:46:53","slug":"blog-remembering-tony-rayns-19482026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iffr.com\/en\/blog-remembering-tony-rayns-19482026","title":{"rendered":"Remembering Tony Rayns (1948\u20132026)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

British writer, festival programmer and screenwriter Tony Rayns passed away earlier this week, aged 77. An expert and champion of East Asian cinema, he was a hugely influential voice in film culture, bringing the work of filmmakers from East and Southeast Asia to Western audiences. He was a long-time collaborator with IFFR, and his passion for the region’s cinema has left a lasting legacy at our festival.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Tony Rayns was a true character, and as such a perfect fit for IFFR. For decades, he worked with the festival, discovering treasures from all over East and Southeast Asia, launching the international careers of Miike Takashi, Mochizuki Rokur\u014d and Ishii Y\u016bya (to mention but some of his Japanese champions), and deepening Europe’s understanding of subcultures, like the world of Thai action cinema, while always being a generous host to his auteur guests. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He did a lot<\/em> <\/em>at and for IFFR. And thanks to him, IFFR always stood at the vanguard of East and Southeast Asian cinemas: the<\/em> place for upcoming masters and film cultures bringing sights and sounds never seen before \u2013 be it the Fifth Generation in the People’s Republic of China, the South Korean cinema of the 1980s or Thai film of the 1990s. You name it, IFFR did its share to introduce it to international film culture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other spheres of Rayns’ interests left perhaps fainter traces at IFFR, but were no less characteristic of our programming vision, chiefly his passion for avant-garde cinema (see his 1979 monograph on Hellmuth Costard, for decades the only book on the subject), as well as the spikier kinds of queer films, be it Rainer Werner Fassbinder or Kenneth Anger. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rayns was a man of many passions. And also many talents: starting out as a film critic with Time Out<\/em> in the 1970s, he wrote widely on current trends in cinema; curated programmes for some of the most prestigious film and art institutions; (co-)directed two documentaries, both of which screened here; co-wrote the screenplay for Christopher Doyle’s eccentric Away with Words<\/strong>(1999); and subtitled numerous films, becoming the written voice especially of Jia Zhangke, and at times also of Hou Hsiao-hsien, Edward Yang, Wong Kar-wai, Nelson Yu Lik-wai and Hu Mei. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He did a lot, and he was always around when something interesting happened. He wasn’t always the easiest, and could be feisty. But this only means he stood his ground and stuck to his principles, ideas and visions \u2013 and for that, he’ll be remembered as someone who marched to the beat of his own drum while changing things and writing history. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tony Rayns had a rich life, and IFFR is honoured and grateful that it was a part of it \u2013 that we can say: he was our friend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 by Olaf M\u00f6ller<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\t

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