IFFR always had the most significant selection of Asian films among European film festivals, both in terms of quantity and quality. It seems this year, however, the programmers truly outdid themselves, with what seems to be one of the biggest selection of Asian films ever in the festival. India and Indonesia seem to lead the way, but the selection from Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Iran is also intense. Among the highlights is definitely Miike’s latest, “Blazing Fists”, with the director also attending, as much as the works of Toyoda, Lou Ye and Jia Zhangke, while the return of some of the festival’s favorites, like Perumal and Ertanto are also rather anticipated. Without further ado, here is a rundown of the Asian films in this year’s IFFR.
*all the descriptions were taken from IFFR’s official website
Tiger Competition
Tears in Kuala Lumpur (Ridhwan Saidi, Malaysia)
Inspired by the iconic Malaysian singer and actor P. Ramlee, Ridhwan Saidi’s contemplative paean to Kuala Lumpur surveys a relationship that has ended through ruminative recollections that exist somewhere between a memory and a dream, while the city remains in a constant state of architectural and cultural change.
Sunshine Express (Amirali Navaee, Iran)
Participants assigned a specific character in a role-playing game undertake a fictional train journey to an island, in order to win a cash prize, only for the competition to become a microcosm of the limitations they experience in their real lives.
Guo Ran (Li Dongmei, China)
In Li Dongmei’s chamber drama, a young couple live in a small apartment in the city. Through their brief exchanges and moments of solitude, it becomes clear that the couple’s relationship has edged towards a crisis – one that resonates as a reflection of contemporary Chinese society.
Blind Love (Julian Chou, Taiwan)
An unexpected kiss unburies memories and longing for Shu-yi, a mother quietly holding her family together despite her unhappiness. As her rebelling son Han grows drawn to the enigmatic Xue-jin, Shu-yi rekindles her past connection with the same woman in this tenderly crafted exploration of family dynamics, identity and desire.
Bad Girl (Varsha Bharath, India)
From her journey through high school and college, then out into the wider world, Ramya’s dream of finding the perfect guy is obstructed by societal mores, strict parents, unrequited love and the untrammelled chaos of her own mind, in Varsha Bharath’s naughty and affecting comedy.
Big Screen Competition
Gowok: Javanese Kamasutra (Hanung Bramantyo, Indonesia)
Inspired by a centuries-old Javanese text, Hanung Bramantyo’s resplendent, 1960s-set drama details the practice of a learned woman hired by a family to teach their young men about the realities and practicalities of a sexual relationship during marriage.
Macai (Sun-J Perumal, Malaysia)
A drug dealer finds himself in hot water when the merchandise he’s carrying for a local kingpin is lost. Fearing his vicious boss’ retribution, he sets off to make amends, in a visceral, kinetic film that knowingly plays with genre conventions.
The Puppet’s Tale (Suman Mukhopadhyay)
Shashi, an urbane doctor, returns to his native village, a place seemingly mired in a backward way of life, for a short visit. As he becomes closely involved with the villagers, Shashi’s short stay threatens to become permanent.
Yasuko, Songs of Days Past (Negishi Kichitaro, Japan)
With Yasuko, Songs of Days Past, veteran filmmaker Negishi Kichitarō crafts a simmering portrait of a love triangle, ambition and the complexities of creativity, taking as its subject one of Japan’s most beloved early 20th-century poets, Nakahara Chūya.
Harbour
An Unfinished Film (Lou Ye, Singapore)
When the pandemic confines Lou Ye and his crew to their hotel near Wuhan, their film grows into a gripping record of creative process in times of crisis. Liberally mixing fact and fiction, An Unfinished Film traces a recalcitrant film intent on evading its maker.
And the Rest Will Follow (Pelin Esmer, Turkey)
Dreamy housekeeper Aliye spends her days between hotel rooms, escaping into the lives of the guests. But after a brief encounter with a famous filmmaker, Aliye decides that she has a story to tell, leading to an entanglement of lives and fictions.
Bokshi (Bhargav Saikia, India)
Anahita, traumatised by the brutal disappearance of her mother, finds comfort in Shalini, her history teacher. But on an unconventional school excursion to a mysterious prehistoric site, it seems this teacher has nefarious plans for the timid teenager. A visceral high-school-set supernatural horror.
Dead Dog (Sarah Francis, Lebanon)
Walid and Aida, husband and wife, are reunited after Walid’s many years spent living abroad. Answers to long-hidden secrets are sought in Sarah Francis’ careful unravelling of an estranged marriage.
Eid (Yousef Abo Madegem, Israel)
A young man’s dream of becoming a writer is shattered when his family forces him into an arranged marriage. Eid, the first feature film ever made by a Bedouin filmmaker, offers an invaluable and insightful exploration of Bedouin culture while telling a universal, layered story of oppression, self-reclamation, and the search for freedom.
Finding Ramlee (Megat Sharizal, Malaysia)
An endearing retro dramedy set in swinging seventies Kuala Lumpur. Destitute and deep in debt, Zakaria is offered a lifeline by his loan shark Yusef: impersonate the Malaysian screen icon P. Ramlee in order to entertain his homebound, time-warped sister.
Gaami (Vidyadhar Kagita, India)
A melancholic ascetic on an odyssey for a mythical cure, a captive adolescent subject to inhuman scientific procedures, a young child struggling against trafficking. Three fragile beings, divided by geography are united by destiny, in this operatic, larger-than-life mix of fantasy, sci-fi and melodrama.
Half Moon (Frank Scheffer, Netherlands)
An elegiac documentary following virtuosic clarinettist and composer Kinan Azmeh, a Damascus-born musician living in exile, as he attempts to find meaning and purpose after the outbreak of war in Syria. A profound exploration of the role art can play in forging identity and community.
Happy Holidays (Scandar Copti, Palestine)
Four interconnected tales of two families in Haifa, one Palestinian and the other Israeli, deliver a universal cry for personal dignity. Filmmaker Scandar Copti examines the tangled web of deceit that arises from the intersection of state institutions, societal pressures and cultural conventions.
Hear Me: Our Summer (Jo Seon-ho, South Korea)
Yong-jun is working part-time as a delivery driver when he meets and instantly falls for Yeo-reum, the devoted sister of gifted swimmer and Ga-eul, who is deaf. A story of young love and finding oneself, told in Korean Sign Language.
I Dreamed a Dream (Wei Shujun, China)
In Wei Shujun’s wry docu-fiction, a group of ambitious young male rappers take part in a film shoot at a tropical beach resort, led by an absent genius auteur. Sunbathing by day, and recording by night, the men succumb to a series of unsettling dreams.
Last Song For You (Jill Leung, Hong Kong)
Can a song change your life? When a teenage girl turns up on the doorstep of So Sing Wah, a former pop star, and asks him to help her spread the ashes of her mother, he accepts, and a magical journey through memory follows.
Midnight in Bali (Razka Robby Ertanto, Indonesia)
Other than her hugely popular shows at one of Bali’s favourite gay bars, life isn’t exactly going to plan for trans performer Bulan. After meeting aspiring filmmaker Lily, however, Bulan starts to address her pain and anger. The result is both shocking and cathartic.
Morichika (Ishaan Ghose, India)
Priya, a single mother with an infant in hand, and Kishan, a penniless man looking for work, migrate to the city of Kolkata hoping for a better life. Morichika pays a lively tribute to their struggle for survival in the City of Joy.
Operation Undead (Kongkiat Komesiri, Thailand)
War quite literally turns men inhuman in Operation Undead, a rousing antiwar saga in which Japanese and Thai armies come together to curb a zombie outbreak during World War Two. A gory, intelligent work of morbid humour, compositional wit and deep humanist commitment.
Past Is Present (Shaheen Dill-Riaz, Bangladesh)
When his sister marries her cousin and takes her new husband to Australia, Shaheen Dill-Riaz’s family begins to crack. Scattered across continents and shot over fourteen years, Past Is Present offers a sweeping domestic documentary of their attempt at reconciliation.
Rhythm of a Flower (Amit Dutta, India)
Amit Dutta, arguably the greatest living Indian avant-garde filmmaker, has worked with animation since his earliest shorts. Over the last decade animation has taken centre stage in his practice and now reaches its zenith with his first feature-length essay in the realm.
Shapes of Normal Human Beings (Salim Mrad, Lebanon)
Three friends take an 8-day road journey to make sense of Lebanon at this moment in time. Each detour in their journey makes for a spectacular experience of co-narration and listening in the face of uncertainty.
Shaping the Future (Putu Kusuma Wijaya, Indonesia)
Are love stories beyond politics? Weaving together interviews with political prisoners detained after the 1965 anti-communist purge in Indonesia with footage from an unmade film about romance between communist cadres, Putu Kusuma Widjaja’s multifaceted docufiction assemblage interrogates the historical limits of an eternal sentiment.
Taklee Genesis (Chookiat Sakveerakul, Thailand)
On a trip home to her ailing mother, Stella is contacted via radio waves by her long-lost American father, now stranded in a different spacetime configuration. To bring him back, Stella must embark on a time-hopping odyssey across seven millennia.
The Legends of Eternal Snow (Aleksei Romanov, Sakha Republic)
In old Yakutia, young and beautiful Kiluk is sold by her parents as a bride. Escorted to her husband by three guards, she tries to break free from her dreadful fate. Love and ghosts meet in this deeply authentic mystical fairy tale set against the breathtaking scenery of the Sakha Republic.
The Slow Man and His Raft (Pradipta Bhattacharyya, India)
Nadhar, a man deemed dysfunctional for his extremely sluggish movements, becomes part of a travelling circus, where his condition turns into spectacle. An expansive meditation on human nature, slowness and being profoundly out of step with the world.
Theatre (Nishanth Kalidindi, India)
A cattle farmer who aspires to be a stage actor, Das works with a cosmopolitan theatre troupe headed by an ill-tempered, foul-mouthed director. When the director’s tantrums unearth buried resentments among the group’s members, the play they are rehearsing threatens to come apart.
Till Death Do Us Part (Upi, Indonesia)
In the wake of her marriage to Edwin turning violent, strange occurrences in Renata’s apartment drive her to question her husband’s past loyalty, her long-held religious beliefs, as well as her own sanity. Indonesian director Upi returns to IFFR with a spine-chilling psychological horror.
Transcending Dimensions (Toshiaki Toyoda, Japan)
A hitman pursues a mysterious Japanese ascetic, encountering an entanglement of mystical power and spacetime along the way. Blending science fiction with other genre elements, Toshiaki Toyoda brings new vitality to his “Mt. Resurrection Wolf” series with this film.
We Are Aliens (Kenichi Ugana, Japan)
Kitsch, cute and delightfully strange, cult Japanese filmmaker Ugana Kenichi’s latest is the sweetest sci-fi musical about an alien apocalypse you’ll see this year! With cuddly extraterrestrials and catchy songs We Are Aliens is an irresistibly fun, fluffy fable with a surprisingly profound humanist message.
Whispers in the Dabbas (Garin Nugroho, Indonesia)
Puspa, a novice lawyer handling trivial cases, fights for the cause of poor people accused of petty crimes and threatened with disproportionate punishment. As she takes on a rigged legal establishment, she must grapple with her crippling senses of powerlessness, and empathy.
Youth: Trilogy (Wang Bing, China)
Wang Bing’s epic observational Youth trilogy screens together for almost ten hours, with breaks in between. Lose yourself in the everyday lives of a group of young textile workers who, each year, leave their rural villages and migrate to the manufacturing city of Zhili, 150 kilometers from Shanghai, China.
