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IFFR 2025: Competition Lineups Announced

IFF Rotterdam today revealed the lineup of films selected across the Tiger, Big Screen and Tiger Short competitions at the festival’s upcoming 54th edition. At the heart of the festival, the Tiger Competition showcases emerging voices from across the globe, with 14 world premieres exploring personal stories and profound connections to history, identity, and place—spanning Montenegro to Malaysia and Congo to India. The 14 titles in the Big Screen Competition bridge the gap between arthouse and popular cinema through genre-blurring stories of rebellion, tradition and expression, covering territories from Lithuania to Japan and the Netherlands to Argentina. The 20 titles in the Tiger Short Competition represent the most exciting and refreshing film art of today, featuring a Slovenian climate sci-fi, a re-appropriation of Myanmarese government broadcasts, and a Georgian photomontage.

Additionally, the first names in IFFR’s 2025 Talks lineup are also confirmed. Leading the programme are Cate Blanchett and Guy Maddin, who, following their recent collaboration on Rumours, will come together for an expansive dialogue about creative collaboration, the role of film festivals, and the enduring power of the short film form. IFFR will also welcome Lol Crawley to discuss his acclaimed cinematography, and Alex Ross Perry will talk about his documentary Videoheaven, part of a Focus programme celebrating the community spirit of VHS culture. As previously announced, the festival will open with Fabula, a compelling dark comedy from the award-winning Dutch director and screenwriter Michiel ten Horn, and close with the ambitious historical epic This City Is a Battlefield from Indonesian filmmaker Mouly Surya, which was also supported by IFFR’s Hubert Bals Fund.

Source: IFFR

Images: BFI

Flow (Gints Zilbalodis, 2024)

With roots dating back to the 1930s, Latvian animation has greatly evolved in the decades since, employing a wide range of techniques and styles that reflect the country's cultural heritage.  The earliest examples of Latvian animation saw several pioneers, including woodcut artist Oļģerts Ābelīte and newspaper cartoonist Ernests Rirdāns, experimenting with various forms of storytelling.  Today, Latvian animators generally subscribe to the auteur theory, in which filmmakers are recognised for their unique voices and signatures; one such director is Gints Zilbalodis, who made his feature debut with 2019's Away.

Zilbalodis' new film Flow, which opens in Dutch cinemas on Boxing Day, marks a significant milestone in animated cinema—Latvian or otherwise.  Penned by the director alongside producer Matīss Kaža, this wordless film follows the journey of a saucer-eyed cat who, after a cataclysmic flood, finds itself on a boat with a range of other animals—including a lemur, a capybara and a golden retriever.  Together, the group must navigate this watery, hostile environment, a challenge that forces them to learn to work as a team.  This setup allows Zilbalodis plenty of scope to explore themes such as survival, friendship and adaptation.

This collaborative spirit is reflected in the production of the pan-European Flow, which was made with support from various funding bodies, with the film's audio post-production work being completed in Belgium.  Flow's great success at the 2024 Annecy International Animation Film Festival, where it won the Jury, Audience, Best Original Music and Gan Foundation awards, is a marker of its affecting story and top-drawer animation.  The film crystallises some of life's most essential elements, and its ability to convey complex emotions without relying on sentimentality—or even dialogue—is wholly admirable.

As the film limbers up for its theatrical release in the Netherlands, it provides a reminder that animation is not confined to children's entertainment but is rather an exceptionally powerful medium for storytelling, one that can move people of all ages; Flow's universality is enhanced by the complete absence of a language barrier.  At no point does the film explicitly attribute its subject matter to climate change—a point that is self-evident—which is testament to its sophistication.  Flow's narrative and emotional depth set it apart from every other animated film released this year; do not miss this instant classic.

Darren Arnold

Images: BFI / Charades

Small Hours of the Night (Daniel Hui, 2024)

Daniel Hui's fourth feature Small Hours of the Night—which screened at the most recent edition of the London Film Festival—received its world premiere at this year's International Film Festival Rotterdam, where it played in the Harbour strand alongside the likes of Michael Gitlin's The Night Visitors, NZ coming-of-age tale (and festival opener) Head South, Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo's horror The Soul Eater, and Damien Hauser's After the Long Rains.  The last of these films joined the 16mm-shot Small Hours of the Night at this year's LFF, but while the IFFR saw these two titles as stablemates (in the admittedly wide-ranging Harbour), the LFF placed the films in separate strands, with After the Long Rains assigned to Journey and Small Hours of the Night occupying a berth in Experimenta.

Inspired by the tombstone trial of Tan Chay Wa, Hui's film is a 60s-set two-hander that pits Irfan Kasban's nameless interrogator against Vicki Yang's Vicki.  As per the title, much of Small Hours of the Night appears to take place over the course of one long, dark night as the official quizzes his prisoner on various incidents, some of which are actually from the future.  For Small Hours of the Night is a film in which time is slippery, à la the work of Alain Resnais, and in one sequence—as impressive as it is eerie—Vicki watches a clock face on which the minutes tick by as normal, yet the date changes every few seconds.  The interrogator seems not entirely unsympathetic towards Vicki—think O'Brien's relationship with Winston in Orwell's 1984 (a tale set just one year on from Tan's trial).  

Small Hours of the Night is perhaps one of the more accessible examples of experimental cinema, but it's still a demanding film, one that requires much patience and attention.  While both of the actors put in strong performances, plenty is asked of them; the story largely unfolds in a single location, and Hui's dialogue isn't always able to keep the odd lull at bay.  The film invites us to read around what it presents; for example, it's fairly clear that Yang is playing a composite character, but what isn't obvious is that several figures from the tombstone trial have been incorporated into this persona.  Despite its aura of disconnect and frequent temporal shifts, those who stay the course will be rewarded by this haunting film, whose cathartic conclusion proves that even the darkest night is followed by dawn.  

Darren Arnold

Images: BFI

IFFR: Hubert Bals Fund Announces New Projects

International Film Festival Rotterdam's Hubert Bals Fund has selected 12 feature films to each receive a Development Support grant of €10,000. Diverse yet united in their common effort to remain vocal, the filmmakers of this funding wave extend across a variety of unique and creative styles. Tamara Tatishvili, Head of the HBF said: "This wave of grant recipient filmmakers each come from a different context but share a common approach—they do not remain silent or give in to despair amid the challenges of our current times. Instead they stay active, speak up, and make their voices heard through their stories and artistry. The filmmakers selected for the grants are just a fraction of those who submitted for consideration, making this an incredibly challenging round".

Brazilian filmmaker Lillah Halla is one of a number of filmmakers with an IFFR history who are supported in this round of funding. Her new project Colhões de Ouro is a dark musical comedy centring on Krista Bomb, an 85-year-old radical who plans to infiltrate and destroy a hyper-masculine cult to save her son. Kenyan filmmaker Angela Wanjiku Wamai's epic neo-Western Enkop (The Soil) sets the story of 55-year-old Lorna Marwa on the dusty expanses of Kenya's volatile ranch land. Kiss Wagon (pictured above) director Midhun Murali's next project, MTV i.e. Mars to Venus, is a similarly inventive feature that combines four different genres. Muayad Alayan's Conversation with the Sea follows a Palestinian man from Jerusalem who is ordered by an Israeli court to pay a debt owed by his late son.

Christopher Murray's Piedras gigantes tells the story of the archaeologist Katherine Routledge arriving on Easter Island in 1914. In Una Gunjak's road movie How Melissa Blew a Fuse, Melissa steals €200k from her workplace in Germany, buys a car, puts on music and heads towards her home town in Bosnia. Indonesian filmmaker Kamila Andini is supported for Four Seasons in Java, about a woman's journey to find peace after being wrongly convicted of murdering a young man. The short Notes of a Crocodile by Cambodian filmmaker Daphne Xu is now the basis for a feature of the same name; the HBF backs this docufiction hybrid project, which weaves myth, queer desire and politics against the Chinese development of a canal project in Cambodia.

Belarus is the setting for a dark sci-fi comedy touching on the immigrant experience in Darya Zhuk's Exactly What It Seems. In Falso positivo, Theo Montoya approaches the 'false positives' murders in Colombia, where civilians were killed by the military and falsely passed off as enemy combatants, to sculpt a narrative on the falsification of reality. Georgian filmmaker Elene Mikaberidze's documentary Blueberry Dreams (pictured above) had its world premiere earlier this year, and she's supported for her debut fiction feature Le goût de la pêche, which focuses on a young woman caught in escalating geopolitical tensions. Kasım Ördek's feature debut Goodbye for Now follows Sevgi, who is drawn into a dangerous search after her mother's mysterious disappearance.

Source: IFFR

Images: Festival Scope

IFFR 2025: Focus Programmes Announced

Four Focus programmes at IFFR 2025 will celebrate the contributions of underappreciated filmmakers and revisit historical and cultural legacies, with the strands highlighting documentary filmmaker Katja Raganelli; Ukranian director Sergii Masloboishchykov; the 70th anniversary of the Bandung Conference; and VHS culture. The first titles in the programmes include world premieres of Alex Ross Perry's Videoheaven and Rotterdam filmmaker Gyz La Rivière’s Videotheek Marco.

Perry’s documentary Videoheaven (pictured above), which chronicles the history of video stores in Hollywood cinema, anchors Hold Video in Your Hands, a Focus programme celebrating the community spirit of VHS culture. This programme examines the interplay of private and public film cultures. Rotterdam filmmaker La Rivière returns to the festival with his ode to the video store Videotheek Marco (pictured below), an investigation into local video store history and connected audiovisual activities like community television.

As conversations evolve around streaming platforms and their impact on cinematic viewing practices, IFFR presents a timely exploration of VHS culture deeply rooted in community, creativity and unique viewing practices. This diverse programme includes film screenings ranging from the 2011 Indian documentary Videokaaran to David Cronenberg’s latest, The Shrouds (pictured top), as well as interactive projects inviting Rotterdam citizens to share their personal home video stories, creating a communal cinematic experience.

Source/images: IFFR

IFTUK Festival (13/11/24–17/11/24)

Irish Film and Television UK (IFTUK) will bring its annual festival to the heart of London from November 13 to 17, unveiling a line-up that celebrates the very best in Irish filmmaking. Taking place at Vue West End, Vue Piccadilly and the ICA, Irish Film Festival London will showcase a mix of feature narrative, documentaries and short films shedding fresh light on the country’s culturally dynamic past, present and future.

The festival opens with Aoife Kelleher’s feature documentary Mrs Robinson, an illuminating portrait of Ireland’s first female president Mary Robinson. With extraordinary access, the film reveals a singularly influential force whose gift for bridging differences was instrumental in bringing about seismic change in Ireland. Mrs Robinson pays tribute to a woman who remains actively committed to peace, justice, and human rights to this day.

From the highest echelons of Irish politics to the grit of the land itself, the festival is set to close with Christopher Andrews’ visceral feature debut Bring Them Down, a thriller set on a farm starring Barry Keoghan (Saltburn, Bird), Christopher Abbott and Colm Meaney. Shot in Wicklow, this Belgian co-production stunningly evokes rural Ireland through a nail-biting story of feuding shepherds, marking Andrews as an exciting name to watch.

As well as spotlighting new talent, the festival will celebrate the 40th anniversary of Neil Jordan’s hugely influential classic The Company of Wolves (pictured above and top), with an exclusive screening followed by a Q&A with the director. A cinematic breakthrough on its release in 1984, this unsettling Freudian fantasy, co-written with renowned author Angela Carter, is still lauded for its astonishing use of non-digital practical effects.

Source/images: TPR Media

68th London Film Festival (9/10/24–20/10/24)

The 68th BFI London Film Festival closed on Sunday 20th October with the European Premiere of Morgan Neville’s Piece by Piece (pictured above), a vibrant journey through the life of cultural icon Pharrell Williams, all told through the lens of LEGO animation. In addition to Neville and Williams, the event was attended by an exciting array of special guests from the worlds of music, fashion and sport. The Closing Night Gala took place at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, which returned as the festival’s Headline Gala and Special Presentation venue for a fourth time since its inaugural year in 2021.

Placing audiences at the heart of the festival, the winners of this year’s LFF Audience Awards, as chosen by members of the public, were announced yesterday. Darren Thornton’s funny and heartwarming comedy drama Four Mothers, about one Irish son juggling four very different mothers, took the Audience Award for Best Feature; Holloway, which follows six women who were formerly incarcerated at what was once the largest women’s prison in Europe, was the winner of the Audience Award for Best Documentary; and Two Minutes won the Audience Award for Best Short Film.

The 68th edition welcomed more than 815 international and UK filmmakers, immersive art and extended reality artists and series creatives to present their work at venues across the capital. The festival kicked off with a press conference for the world premiere of Opening Night Film Blitz led by Steve McQueen. The festival’s highly anticipated series of Screen Talks included acclaimed filmmakers Andrea Arnold, Sean Baker, Mike Leigh, Denis Villeneuve, remarkable acting talents Lupita Nyong’o and Zoe Saldaña (star of Jacques Audiard's Emilia Pérez, pictured below), as well as the versatile Daniel Kaluuya.

The festival featured an exciting range of 252 titles (comprising features, shorts, series and immersive works) hailing from 79 countries, and featured 63 languages. All features and series screened to UK audiences for the first time, including 38 World Premieres, 12 International Premieres (6 features, 4 shorts, 2 immersive) and 21 European Premieres (17 features, 1 series, 3 shorts). Across the programme, including events for industry delegates and the immensely popular LFF for Free programme, the festival had 230,342 attendances, the highest in-person attendance in the last ten years.

Source/images: BFI

HBF+Europe: Post-production Support Grants Announced

International Film Festival Rotterdam's Hubert Bals Fund has announced the four projects each awarded a grant of €60,000 through the HBF+Europe: Post-production Support scheme. The awards, sponsored by Creative Europe MEDIA, offer support for the final stages of European co-productions with filmmakers from regions where the Hubert Bals Fund targets its support. Filmmakers from Georgia, Nepal, Peru and South Africa are supported through co-producers in Luxembourg, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands respectively. The diverse projects range from a 16mm inquiry into coloniality to a revenge noir.

Georgian filmmaker Rati Oneli’s feature fiction debut Wild Dogs Don’t Bite follows his observational documentary on a derelict mining town City of the Sun, which premiered in the Berlinale Forum in 2017. Dealing in the winners and losers of post-Soviet Georgia, the film is a noir-inspired revenge thriller. Nepalese filmmaker Sahara Sharma’s film My Share of the Sky is a search for the elusive dream of home in a patriarchal society, as a young woman grapples with uncertainty on the eve of her wedding. Sharma was the first female director to open the Kathmandu IMFF with her debut Chasing Rainbows.

The selection moves into the realm of experimental storytelling with Estados generales by Peruvian filmmaker Mauricio Freyre, whose current project is a 16mm film that reimagines the voyage of a parcel of seeds from Madrid back to the place where they were picked in Peru. Fresh from the premiere of their Afrikaans-language drama Carissa in Venice earlier this year, Devon Delmar and Jason Jacobs are supported for Variations on a Theme. Like the former, the project is rooted in the rural experience, blending the magical world and the mundane on the margins between fiction and documentary.

Source/image: IFFR

Hexham Heads (Mattijs Driesen / Chloë Delanghe, 2024)

As far as northern English Forteana is concerned, the case of the Hexham Heads is right up there with that of the Solway Firth Spaceman; barely 40 miles separate the sites of these bizarre events, which occurred in 1971 and 1964 respectively.  While the Solway Firth incident focused on a picture of what may or may not have been a photobombing alien, the Hexham affair involved something more tangible, namely a pair of stone heads that were unearthed by young brothers Colin and Leslie Robson.  Following the boys' discovery in the back garden of their home, a series of strange goings-on affected both the Robson household and the neighbouring Dodd family; this continued until the heads were offloaded.

While the heads' next custodian, Dr Anne Ross, was able to bring an academic's eye to the party—she was of the opinion that they were artefacts of ancient Celtic origin—her family also experienced the joys of residual haunting; as was the case with the Robsons, domestic order was restored upon the jettisoning of the creepy crania.  The heads' whereabouts are currently unknown, which only elevates a mystery that is now explored in Belgian-British experimental effort Hexham Heads.  Screening today as part of the BFI London Film Festival programme Right in the Substance of Them a Trace of What Happened, this curious, striking work plays like a folk horror run through a filter of stone tape theory.

The medium-length Hexham Heads starts out as a fairly linear endeavour, with co-director Chloë Delanghe's measured voiceover guiding us through the story of the heads' excavation—and subsequent eventful stay—at 3 Rede Avenue, the Hexham property where the Robsons lived; it's a fine précis, one that appears to be setting things up for an investigation into the various paranormal phenomena associated with the noggins.  What follows, however, is a haptic, fragmented piece that conjures a needling atmosphere worthy of such a juicy slice of oddball folklore.  Via an eerie succession of 16mm, VHS and still images, all set to Sam Comerford's unsettling score, the film achieves a cumulative, nightmarish quality.

While the movie's title is undoubtedly prosaic, Delanghe and Mattijs Driesen's treatment of the subject matter is anything but.  Hexham Heads drinks from the same well as Mark Jenkin's Enys Men and Kyle Edward Ball's Skinamarink—arguably the two most prominent examples of experimental horror in recent years—and like the latter work, it contains a top-class jump scare.  As the film draws to a close, it takes us back to a near-deserted cement plant that was glimpsed fleetingly in the opening scenes, the implication being that there's a pretty mundane explanation for all this.  Still, such airy reassurances count for little in the preceding half-hour, when the fever dream that is Hexham Heads exerts its clammy grip.

Darren Arnold

Images: BFI 

Trailer

Soundtrack to a Coup d'État (Johan Grimonprez, 2024)

Dag Hammarskjöld, the erudite Swedish diplomat and economist who served as the second Secretary-General of the United Nations, was catapulted into global politics during a turbulent period of cold war tensions and decolonisation struggles.  Hammarskjöld established the first UN peacekeeping forces during the Congo Crisis, a proxy conflict that forms the basis of Belgian-Dutch-French documentary Soundtrack to a Coup d'État.  While Dag Hammarskjöld is indeed a key player in the film, the main focus of this highly compelling work is Patrice Lumumba, the Congolese leader who was assassinated in January 1961 (Hammarskjöld's own premature demise came a mere eight months later).

Curiously, the Swede's suspicious death in a plane crash isn't covered here, perhaps because that knotty subject is worthy of a film of its own.  Soundtrack to a Coup d'État—which screens today at the BFI London Film Festival—emerges as a thorough exploration of the complex relationship between jazz music and the political turmoil of the cold war, with particular emphasis on the events surrounding Congo's independence from Belgium.  Directed by the Belgian filmmaker Johan Grimonprez (Double Take, Shadow World), the documentary is bookended by the moment when jazz musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach gatecrashed the UN Security Council in order to protest the killing of Lumumba.

Grimonprez's essay film isn't simply a dry retelling of historical events, but rather presents a narrative that splices the genre of jazz with anticolonialism.  It portrays how the music became a medium for expressing solidarity with the oppressed; the soundtrack, which features numerous legendary jazzmen and women (Duke Ellington, Nina Simone, Thelonious Monk), encapsulates both the spirit of resistance and the thirst for change.  The film also considers the roles of the US, the UN and others during the decolonisation process, noting the vagaries of geopolitics and the fight for control over the mineral-rich Belgian Congo—a country that supplied most of the uranium for the Manhattan Project.

The film includes fine archival footage of US jazz icons, and highlights how some of these artists were used as unwitting decoys as the CIA set about meddling in post-colonial Africa.  Perhaps the most infamous of these episodes, detailed here, saw "jazz ambassador" Louis Armstrong visit the African continent, where his performance in Léopoldville provided a smokescreen that allowed for intelligence to be gathered on Lumumba; while Satchmo was still on his tour, the man who had served as the DR Congo's first prime minister was killed by firing squad.  Soundtrack to a Coup d'État isn't always entirely successful in its attempts to conflate jazz with politics, but it is immaculately assembled and thoroughly absorbing.

Darren Arnold

Images: Flanders Image

When the Light Breaks (Rúnar Rúnarsson, 2024)

Directed by Rúnar Rúnarsson (Volcano, Echo), Dutch co-production When the Light Breaks (Ljósbrot)—which received financial backing from Revolver Amsterdam and the Netherlands Film Fund's Production Incentive—screens tomorrow as part of this year's BFI London Film Festival.  The film explores the complex theme of bereavement as it follows young art student Una (Elín Hall), who struggles to come to terms with the sudden death of her bandmate Diddi (Baldur Einarsson)—one of many people confirmed as killed in a catastrophic road tunnel fire (an agonising wait in a Red Cross centre precedes this news).

Bookended by sunrise and sunset—both of which are captured, quite beautifully, by Swedish cinematographer Sophia Olsson—the story unfolds over the course of a single day, one that marks a turning point in Una's life.  The film's striking opening sequence features late Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson's (Sicario, Mandy) haunting "Odi et Amo", which promptly establishes the tone for the tale of love and loss that follows (while one of the film's main characters wears a t-shirt sporting the logo of Jóhannsson's compatriots Nyrst, the black metal band are not heard on a soundtrack that tends to remain on the mellow side).

As the film progresses, we witness Una's battle to internalise much of her grief; unbeknown to anyone else, she and Diddi were much more than just bandmates.  This internal conflict is exacerbated by Una's incipient friendship with the openly bereft Klara (Katla Njálsdóttir), Diddi's long-distance girlfriend.  Given the knotty situation, Una sees her mourning reduced—at least in public—to a form of secondhand grief, as she attempts to downgrade her sadness so it appears to be roughly equivalent to that of Diddi's platonic friends, all of whom are navigating these choppy waters with the help of shots, pints, and old home videos.

Yet Una and Klara do form a real connection, with the former relating a thinly coded story about her most recent boyfriend; has Klara understood?  In any case, Una implicitly elevates her status to a level where both women experience a shared sense of loss.  Rúnarsson deftly avoids both melodrama and the obvious, preferring to focus on the fact that a day that began with Diddi in this world will now end without him; the finality of death is conveyed, most poignantly, in the setting sun.  The ending reminded me of that of Éric Rohmer's 1986 masterpiece The Green Ray, which, like this tactile film, was also shot on 16mm stock.

Darren Arnold

Images: BFI 

Skincare (Austin Peters, 2024)

Hollywood has long been fascinated with the concept of beauty and the lengths to which individuals will go to maintain it.  Austin Peters' feature directorial debut Skincare takes this obsession as a starting point for a cautionary tale which examines some of the cosmetics industry's often overlooked darker aspects, all the while considering the psychological impact of perceived beauty standards.  Elizabeth Banks plays Hope Goldman, an in-demand yet somewhat broke LA aesthetician whose life descends into chaos when another skincare specialist, Angel Vergara (Luis Gerardo Méndez), opens a salon just across the street. 

When Hope becomes the target of a smear campaign, she suspects Angel of being the perpetrator.  With the help of obsequious life coach Jordan Weaver (Lewis Pullman), Hope attempts to salvage her business and reputation, which have plummeted to the extent that several valuable clients have now deserted her for Angel.  Compounding the situation, an interview on a popular TV show where Hope was set to soft-launch her new skincare line has been cancelled due to the controversy; the resulting scheduling gap is filled by—you guessed it—Angel, whose latest snake oil comes with claims that it can reverse the aging process. 

Skincare is primarily a thriller, but it's also a commentary on the world's fixation with the superficial.  The script, co-written by the director, keeps things moving along at a nice clip, which helps some of the more far-fetched aspects fly under the radar (the film is loosely based on a true story—the case of Dawn DaLuise—that may be even more outré than what is presented here).  Peters is hitherto best known for making music videos, and he scatters a few well-chosen songs, including Queens of the Stone Age's "Millionaire", across a soundtrack otherwise dominated by Kuwaiti composer Fatima Al Qadiri's insistent score.

At once resilient and fragile, worldly-wise and naïve, Hope is a fascinating, compelling character, and Banks' well-judged performance brings a depth to the film that would otherwise be lacking; alas, the rest of the acting is pretty variable.  But there are other plus points, such as the superb cinematography by Christopher Ripley, which captures the sun-kissed locales of 2013 Los Angeles in a way that suggests this beauty is only ever skin deep; the slight but undeniably entertaining Skincare—which screens today at the BFI London Film Festival—invites us all to look beyond the surface as we consider the pitfalls of vanity.  

Darren Arnold

Images: BFI / Gage Skidmore

Eight Postcards from Utopia (Radu Jude, 2024)

The death of Nicolae Ceaușescu in December 1989—the disgraced tyrant and his wife Elena were tried and executed on Christmas Day—marked a significant watershed for Romania, one which saw the end of communist rule and the start of a tricky transitional period.  As the 1990s progressed, Romania's attempts to get to grips with democracy and market reforms were met with financial instability and widespread unemployment.  But the country weathered the storm and would eventually join both NATO and the European Union—alliances which signalled a new role for Romania on the geopolitical stage.

As directed by Radu Jude and philosopher Christian Ferencz-Flatz, documentary Eight Postcards from Utopia—which screens today at the BFI London Film Festival—is a coruscating exploration of Romania's rocky economic transition of the 90s.  The film consists entirely of post-communist Romanian television advertisements, with the resulting collage serving as a commentary on the changing consumer habits that emerged in this era.  As per the title, the documentary is split into an octet of thematic segments, each offering a snapshot of late twentieth-century Romanian life as seen through the prism of advertising.

The film's occasionally overlapping structure allows Jude and Ferencz-Flatz to delve into a number of topics, from gender representation to a country groaning under the weight of history as it navigates a new system.  It's a narrative that manages to be at once specifically Romanian and universal as it examines the effects of capitalism and consumerism on the construction of national cultural identity—all done with a complete lack of narration.  The decision to rely on commercials alone to tell the story is a wildly brave one, and it forces viewers to infer their own meanings from the barrage of sights and sounds presented here.

As a record of Romania's choppy passage through the post-Ceauşescu years, Eight Postcards from Utopia conjures up a wonderful sense of time and place, and its experimental form belies an accessible, intuitive experience.  Above all else, this critique of global commerce is wickedly funny, a trait we have come to expect from Jude's work; of course, from our 2024 perspective it's easy to snicker at the fashions of the 90s—just as, in three decades' time, the modish trappings of today will cause much hilarity.  But this fizzing documentary offers up something way beyond cheap laughs: it is a nexus of history, culture and media.

Darren Arnold

Images: BFI

A Traveler's Needs (Hong Sang-soo, 2024)

Hong Sang-soo's A Traveler's Needs—which screens today at the BFI London Film Festival—is the first of two films this year from the prolific Korean director, whose other 2024 effort By the Stream played at last month's Toronto IFF.  Hong also made a brace of films in 2023—the first of his releases last year was In Water, a work which caused a few ripples on account of it mostly being shot out of focus (moreover, it was barely an hour long—although some viewers may have considered that to be a blessing).  Those still traumatised by that blurry, hazy specatacle will be pleased to learn that A Traveler's Needs, in terms of its form, is much closer to orthodox filmmaking than it is to the (literally) opaque In Water.

A Traveler's Needs stars the incomparable Isabelle Huppert, who here reunites with Hong following their earlier collaborations In Another Country and Claire's Camera.  The film finds Huppert back in East Asia just one year on from her turn in Élise Girard's Sidonie in Japan, and while Girard brought her outsider's eye to that film, which followed the title character on an overseas book tour, Hong is firmly on home soil—both literally and figuratively—with his second-latest picture.  Hong's films are something of an acquired taste, with his low-budget tales of the quotidian as likely to bore as to enthral viewers, but he has a devoted fanbase and is a mainstay at several of the world's leading film festivals.  

Huppert's Iris is a Korean-based Frenchwoman who gives language lessons to locals, and she seemingly has no teaching experience or qualifications.  Her methods are unconventional, to say the least: a typical one-on-one session with Iris sees the student engaging in casual conversation (in English) with their teacher, before Iris homes in on a particular emotion the student has just experienced.  Once these feelings have been verbalised, Iris then proceeds to scribble down a French translation—often with a degree of poetic licence—on an index card.  The student is then instructed to repeat this phrase as often as they can, with the idea being that the recital of such a personal statement will help la langue française sink in.  

The inscrutable Iris has no backstory, and thus seems to exist only in the present; she spends much of what she earns on bibimbap and makgeolli, and her great fondness for the latter becomes something of a leitmotif.  Iris is at the same time present and absent, assured and uncertain, and her dichotomous nature provides no clue as to what her raison d'être might be—is she an agent of chaos, à la Huppert's Caterine in I ♥ Huckabees (who peddles "cruelty, manipulation and meaninglessness"), or up to something much more benign?  What I do know is that I could have watched this enigmatic character all day long; it is only in the moments when Huppert is off screen that the brittleness of Hong's setup is exposed.  

Darren Arnold

Images: BFI

IFF Rotterdam: New Head of IFFR Pro Appointed

IFF Rotterdam has appointed Marten Rabarts to the position of Head of IFFR Pro, effective immediately. Recently, Rabarts served as Festival Director at the New Zealand IFF. His extensive global career also has significant legacy in the Netherlands, both as Head of EYE International (now SeeNL)—where he was responsible for the promotion of Dutch film and film culture worldwide—and as Artistic Director of the ground-breaking development centre Binger Filmlab in Amsterdam. Rabarts will work closely with IFFR’s Festival Director, Vanja Kaludjercic, and Chief of Content, Melissa van der Schoor.

As Head of IFFR Pro, Rabarts will play a crucial role in building this sustainable programme, developing and implementing IFFR’s industry strategy, establishing new partnerships and delivering the festival’s industry programmes. IFFR will also feature an industry day dedicated to the Dutch film ecosystem. Another key focus for the upcoming edition is the Darkroom, IFFR Pro’s programme of work-in-progress screenings that takes place during CineMart. The projects presented are either supported by the Hubert Bals Fund or formerly presented at CineMart—bolstering support of projects across their lifecycle.

Vanja Kaludjercic, Festival Director at IFFR, said: "Marten has an incredible track record in both developing and implementing industry programmes and in elevating Dutch film culture on the global stage—making him the ideal person to spearhead and revitalise our industry offering. His strategic, entrepreneurial and curatorial vision is unparalleled and we are very proud to have him joining the team. IFFR has a history of trailblazing in artistic selection but also through creating vital spaces for the industry to meet and collaborate—and we look forward to building on that in our upcoming edition together".

The 54th edition of IFFR will take place from 30 January–9 February 2025, with the IFFR Pro Days running between 31 January–5 February 2025.

Source/image: IFFR

The Empire (Bruno Dumont, 2024)

Having strayed from his home turf for 2021's largely Paris-set France, director Bruno Dumont once again finds himself on the familiar territory of the Opal Coast with The Empire (curiously, Dumont's Outside Satan was filmed under the same working title).  As with Outside Satan, The Empire is concerned with the age-old battle between good and evil.  Yet despite sharing the same broad theme and setting, the two films are very different from one another, with Outside Satan's Bressonian austerity nowhere in evidence as The Empire firmly aligns itself with the absurdist comedies Dumont has been making for the past decade.  Out of Dumont's post-Camille Claudel 1915 output, only 2019's Jeanne can be classed as a mostly "straight" film, but even that punishing, rigorous exercise was the sequel to a deranged heavy metal musical centring on Joan of Arc.  

Dumont's shift into comedy began with the 2014 miniseries Li'l Quinquin, which kicked off a loose trilogy that is now capped with The Empire (in between came a second TV series, Coincoin and the Extra-Humans).  These three works are linked by a pair of bumbling cops, Van der Weyden (Bernard Pruvost) and Carpentier (Philippe Jore), who over the course of the past ten years have been investigating increasingly bizarre crimes.  Coincoin and the Extra-Humans introduced a sci-fi element to proceedings, and The Empire sees Dumont make the leap to full-bore science fiction, with his latest film playing as a Ch'timi take on Star Wars, lightsabres and all.  As far as Dumont's oeuvre is concerned, it has been posited that The Empire is a mix of Ma Loute and The Life of Jesus, but it is difficult to see much of the latter—barring the general locale—in this light divertissement.      

At its most basic level, The Empire pits two alien factions against each other as they vie to take control of Earth.  The Queen (Camille Cottin) spearheads the benevolent 1s, while Beelzebub (Fabrice Luchini) is the leader of the nefarious 0s; each side has taken a foothold in a small fishing village by inhabiting the bodies of locals.  Thus, 0-fuelled fisherman Jony (Brandon Vlieghe) has fathered a baby who, it is foretold, will lead the dark side to triumph—sound familiar?  Jane (Anamaria Vartolomei) works on behalf of the 1s, and is devoted to preserving mankind; she has a sidekick in the form of Rudy (Jeanne's Julien Manier), while Jony is backed up by Line (Lyna Khoudri).  Although these otherworldly beings should have loftier matters on their minds, their earthly bodies serve as a major distraction—particularly when opposing numbers Jane and Jony develop a mutual attraction.   

Just as France saw its male lead replaced prior to the start of filming, Dumont was forced into recasting no less than three of The Empire's main roles, with Vartolomei, Khoudri and Cottin replacing Adèle Haenel, Lily-Rose Depp and Belgian actress Virginie Efira, respectively.  While Vartolomei is the standout performer here, it is a pity that the film gives Pruvost, Jore and Cottin so little to do, especially as Luchini has way too much screen time as the tiresomely unfunny Beelzebub.  The Empire marks Luchini and Dumont's third collaboration together, but there's a sense that this time the director has indulged his star to the point of the film's detriment.  As a coda to the Quinquin cycle, The Empire possesses a sloppy charm, and while it's certainly the slightest entry in the trilogy, there is nevertheless some fun to be had from its splicing of the fantastic with the workaday.     

Darren Arnold

Images: ARP Sélection

London Film Festival 2024: Programme Launch

The 68th BFI London Film Festival (LFF) today announced the full programme line-up, which will be presented in cinemas and online across the UK. Over twelve days from 9–20 October, the LFF will invite audiences to return to its flagship venues in the heart of London – BFI Southbank and the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, which between them host Galas, Special Presentations and Official Competition titles. Films and Series from all strands of the Festival will screen in many of central London’s iconic cinemas, with global film talent in attendance. A curated selection of features will also be showcased at 9 partner venues across the UK.

Almost every feature and series will screen to audiences in the UK for the very first time, with many shown publicly for the first time anywhere in the world. As in previous years, the feature film programme is organised by strand to encourage discovery and to open up the Festival to new audiences. These are: Love, Debate, Laugh , Dare, Thrill, Cult, Journey, Create, Experimenta , Family, Shorts and Treasures. Audiences can also find new and exciting series programming in many of the strands. Premieres include 39 World Premieres (15 features, 2 series, 19 shorts, 3 immersive), 12 International Premieres (6 features, 4 shorts, 2 immersive) and 21 European Premieres (17 features, 1 series, 3 shorts).

World Premieres from filmmakers and artists include: Steve McQueen’s Blitz which opens the festival, Ben Taylor’s Joy starring Thomasin McKenzie, James Norton and Bill Nighy, the BFI National Archive and The Film Foundation’s restoration Silent Sherlock, Family Gala That Christmas directed by Simon Otto and starring Brian Cox, Jodie Whittaker and Bill Nighy, Eloise King’s eye-opening investigative documentary The Shadow Scholars, Manchester-set debut feature from Gino Evans Treading Water, and the BFI’s restoration of one of the UK's greatest animated films: Martin Rosen’s Watership Down.

Audiences will enjoy a rich programme of fiction, documentary, animation, artists’ moving image, short film, newly restored classics from the world’s archives, and exciting international works made in immersive and episodic forms. LFF for Free will return to the Festival with a compelling range of talks and short films alongside imaginative, playful events and filmmaker Q&As, in-person at BFI Southbank and at gallery@oxo. The Festival will also be accessible UK-wide via free short films on BFI Player, including the films nominated for Best Short, which viewers will be able to enjoy from 9–20 October.

Source/images: BFI