Asian Films Screening at the 53rd edition of International Film Festival Rotterdam

Bright Future

Blue Imagine

Matsubayashi Urara
93′ | Japan | 2024 | World Premiere

In the wake of a sexual assault, young actress Noel goes to Blue Imagine, a refuge for people who have experienced violence. With the help of her fellow residents, she is able to reclaim some of her confidence, and decides to confront her abuser.

Borrowed Time

Choy Ji
93′ | China | 2023 | European Premiere

Ting is on the brink of marriage, but still wounded by her father’s departure twenty years earlier. Setting out in search of him and for a sense of resolution, she travels from Guangzhou to Hong Kong, moving through late-night fruit markets and piers soaked in blue light, as an impending summer typhoon grows near. Meeting a childhood friend and reconnecting over a bootleg CD, Ting delves into her family’s secrets and the emotional turmoil still sharply rooted in her life.

Naangal

Avinash Prakash
259′ | India | 2023 | International Premiere

It’s the 1990s, in a sleepy hillside town in Southern India there is a cavernous mansion surrounded by plantations, inside three preadolescent brothers live with their German shepherd. They buy the groceries, lug water up the slopes in plastic cans, get each other ready for school and lend a hand to workers on the estate. The boys may practically run the house, but the lord of this forsaken domain is their father, a ruthless martinet whose mere sight frightens them to the core.

Riptide 

Afrad Vk
85′ | India | 2024 | World Premiere

As college life comes to a close, roommates and lovers Suku and Charlie prepare to part ways. They spend their final days together drinking on the beach, discussing literature, making love and taking long drives down deserted roads. A health emergency forces Suku to leave town early, and when he returns following a near-death experience, he finds Charlie leading a spectral existence, intimate to him but invisible to everyone else. 

Rivulet of Universe 

Possathorn Watcharapanit
89′ | Thailand | 2024 | World Premiere

Seeking to explore his newfound power to perceive beyond the strictures of time, Cambodian migrant Jit travels to Phimai, Thailand, believed to be the site of the epic conflict between prince Prajit, his beloved Orapim and Phommathat the King. In this temple town, Jit meets Pim and Tat, a young couple drifting apart, and together, the trio find themselves reprising the love triangle of legend.

Sandstorm 

Park Jaemin
78′ | Korea | 2023 | International Premiere

Wrestlers Choi Heehwa, Kim Dahye, Yang Yoonseo, Song Songhwa and Lim Soojeong are novices of the Kolping Women’s Ssireum Team. A women’s sport that was only accepted by the Korean Ssireum Association in 1999 and only began to receive attention ten years later when Lim Soojeong won the championship.

Schirkoa: In Lies We Trust 

Ishan Shukla
103’| India | 2024 | World Premiere

Rumours about a mythical free land sow havoc in an ultra-regulated society where citizens wear paper bags on their heads to dissolve their differences. In this stylish sci-fi animation, a well-oiled system with echoes of George Orwell’s 1984, starts crumbling when whispers of a land where freedom reigns begin to spread. The hero, a fresh council member in love with a free-spirited girl, finds himself involved in a complicated net of incidents that open his eyes to a new reality.

Short & Mid-length

Ade (on a Sunday)

Theja Rio
17′ | India | 2024 | World Premiere

In “Ade (on a Sunday)”, shot on nostalgic 16mm film, we meet a young boy (Ade) from a village in Nagaland. Together with his friend Abu, he skips Sunday school to go swimming. The two are curious about their fathers’ vices and have a rice beer and a cigarette in secret. A touching coming-of-age story that deals with serious themes in a surprisingly light and charming way.

A Brave New World

Arnold Tam
9′ | Hong Kong | 2023 | International Premiere

Two COVID-testing employees make out in hazmat suits. A blindfolded student sits on her bed, rhythmically reciting lines from the national security handbook. Evocative scenes, rich in symbolism, are strung together to form this striking, wry portrait of Hong Kong’s current socio-political climate. Arnold Tam commits to a daring visual style and doesn’t shy away from dashes of absurdity to get his message across.

East Coker

Wang Hanxuan
20′ | China | 2024 | World Premiere

In an arctic village in the north of China, an elderly woman awaits the return of her deceased father – the rhythmic tapping of her fingers echoes the hooves of his horse when he rode off to war. Inspired by Buddhist philosophy, Wang Hanxuan’s directorial debut finds unshakable confidence in the loving bond between father and daughter.

The Inescapable Desire of Roots

Mark Chua, Lam Li Shuen
6′ | Singapore | 2024 | World Premiere

When hair begins to sprout wildly all over a man’s body, his struggle becomes a resistance against subjugation in which the human anguish is palpable. Combining overlaid 16mm and Super 8 film loops, this manic new short by Singaporean duo Mark Chua and Lam Li Shuen is an exploration of the relationship between the body and the city in an ever violent society.

Storyboard Suli

Anggun Priambodo
16′ | Indonesia | 2023 | International Premiere

When Suli’s day starts with an eyeball in her beverage, it’s only the beginning of a series of rather absurd events. Various fantastic elements – ranging from an enormous cat to frogs that talk – all seem to be business as usual in Suli’s world. Enriched with casual commentary and a playful sense of humour, Anggun Priambodo presents an amusing and clever adventure in four acts. In the format of a storyboard, it leaves plenty of room for our imagination.

When the Wind Rises

Chen Hung
18′ | Taiwan | 2023 | International Premiere

An ageing activist wages a solitary struggle against the expansion of an oil refinery in his tiny fishing village. All the while the other villagers are infectiously united in their indecisiveness between sustainable change and short-term social security. A simple and charming portrait with a humorous undertone that hits the nail on the head: if we compromise on health risks and environmental pollution, we’re not going to make it.

Zuremingu

Ranmaru Usui
4′ | Japan | 1976 | International Premiere

This silent, 8mm film combines two camera procedures: time lapse and the zoom lens. It aims not for technical smoothness but a beguiling abruptness. Starting at the same time each evening, the camera records, in jerky leaps, the moment when the sky darkens and an urban streetlight turns on, illuminating the screen. Alternating zooms-in and zooms-out, Ranmaru Usui – part of a Japanese 1970s movement that explored ‘cinema of the soul’ – offers transcendence within the everyday.

Leela

Tanmay Chowdhary
14′ | India | 2024 | World Premiere

Two young women from a small village discuss the recent, mysterious vanishing of Leela. Is there any truth in the rumours about her death? Did she really take her own life? Or did she manage to escape and make it to the city? Roaming through their surroundings where despair is palpable, they wonder if they’ll ever find a way out themselves.

Light, Noise, Smoke, and Light, Noise, Smoke

Nishikawa Tomonar
6′ | Japan | 2023 | European Premiere

Nishikawa Tomonari returns to IFFR with tantalising Super 16 images of fireworks at a Japanese summer festival. By delaying and separating the sonic imprints captured on the optical soundtrack area of the filmstrip, a peculiar and unique rhythm is created throughout the film, keeping the viewer both mesmerised and fascinated.

Golden Dragon 

Boren Chhith
17′ | Cambodia | 2023 | European Premiere

When Vicheka wakes up in a hospital in the coastal town of Sihanoukville, he tries to piece together the reason for his visit. Overwhelmed by his dreams, memories and the rapidly urbanising landscape of his birthplace, a conversation with a local nurse helps him to begin navigating this pivotal moment in his life. Boren Chhith’s debut film simultaneously explores a traumatic past and captures the ever-changing reality of modern day Cambodia.

Peeper 

Han Changlok
17′ | Korea | 2023 | World Premiere

When a woman meets the filmmaker she claims to admire most, she offers him a story to use as the premise of a film – leading to an unnerving piece of theatrical storytelling and sensual movement. Sustaining a remarkable level of tension and possessing an eerie eroticism, this short from South Korean filmmaker Han Changlok explores the seeds of inspiration with a feverish intensity that’s sure to unsettle.

Spirits of the Black Leaves 

Thaweechok Phasom
30′ | Thailand | 2023 | International Premiere

A young woman wakes up feeling like there is a hole in her chest, as she goes about her daily routines she tries to navigate her fragmented memories. Later that day, a mysterious goat appears: reality and fiction seem to be slowly blending. In search of answers and attempting to break free from her anxiety and feelings of powerlessness, she ventures on a transformative journey into the night.

The Witness Tree 

Niranjan Raj Bhetwal
14′ | Nepal | 2023 | European Premiere

On the eve of his coming-of-age ceremony, Shreedhar uncovers the secret of his father’s death, forcing his mother to choose between the truth and his protection. Niranjan Raj Bhetwal (“Eternal Melody”, IFFR 2022) returns to Rotterdam with “The Witness Tree”, a subdued, yet poignant story of identity within family and community, set against a stunning mountain backdrop that serves as a silent witness to the past.

Cinema Regained

Emperor’s Adventures in Hsi Hu

Liu Yi-hung
108′ | Taiwan | 1994

The story of frivolous and lecherous emperor Qianlong’s search for a morally upstanding person is told in a fashion that smartly fuses the puppet proscenium with the conventions of cinematic language. While everything is obviously arranged on a stage, the camera moves freely around in this environment, getting close to the puppets or setting them up in deep focus shots. The result is deeply enchanting, with the puppets soon feeling like living creatures of a very special kind, whose presence and company one cheerfully enjoys.

The Great White Tower

Yamamoto Satsuo
150′ | Japan | 1966

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.

Joymoti Never Left

Mehdi Jahan
65′ | India | 2024 | World Premiere

In 1935, celebrated writer Jyotiprasad Agarwala directed the first Assamese film: “Joymoti” – a milestone in Indian cinema. “Joymoti” had a troubled legacy, the film vanished around the time of India’s independence, to resurface only partly in the early 70s, with more reels reappearing over time.

The technical quality of the print(s), though, is deplorable – but these are the only elements we have. In a sense, this may be typical for the state of Assamese culture, which is the starting point of “Joymoti Never Left”. In a future Assam, rains have destroyed vast parts of the state and merely a few people still speak the language. An ethnographer discovers a diary he cannot read as it is written in Assamese and so a historian translates it for him. Its author was Satyashree Agarwala Das, the daughter of Agarwala, who also talks about the film’s making. Another witness to the family we encounter is the great grandson of Agarwala, Raghu Pratap, who wants to become a filmmaker – and who plays not only himself but also the ethnographer as well as Agarwala in a re-enactment.

Parama

Aparna Sen
131′ | India | 1985

Accompanying the world premiere of Suman Ghosh’s documentary “Parama – A Journey with Aparna Sen”, as part of IFFR 2024, is Sen’s own film from which it takes its title: “Parama” (1985).

In her second feature, Sen acts in a secondary role, not the protagonist Parama, whose life is defined by her relationship with her family, never as an existence of her own. The joys of individuality are revealed to Parama by Rahul, a photographer, who starts taking pictures of her for a series on typical housewives. As they grow closer, the shots slowly become more intimate. When Rahul publishes these images without Parama’s consent, her family, starting with her husband, violently turns against her.

Parama: A Journey with Aparna Sen

Suman Ghosh
81′ | India | 2024 | World Premiere

In “Parama – A Journey with Aparna Sen”, Ghosh takes Sen on a journey to some of the locations where she shot her iconic films. Surprise sights and meetings, accompanied by stories from her nearest and dearest, this is a perfect introduction to one of world cinema’s most important oeuvres!