Worldwide Movie Competition Rotterdam has revealed its Cinema Regained program, which showcases restored classics, documentaries on cinema and works by filmmaking masters.
This yr’s Cinema Regained choice shines a light-weight on filmmakers whose contributions have formed cinema historical past, each celebrated and missed.
After a 30-year hiatus, Burkinabé director Drissa Touré makes his return with the world premiere of “Mousso Fariman,” co-directed with Stéphane Mbanga, which explores the contradictions in Burkina Faso’s society, specializing in the resilience of girls in each day life.
The legacy of Sergei Parajanov is honored with the world premiere of “The Lilac Wind of Paradjanov,” 37 years after his first go to to the pageant. Filmmaker Ali Khamraev, accompanied by cinematographer Yuri Klimenko, delved into the archives and traveled to Armenia and Georgia to honor Parajanov.
“The Jester” by José Álvaro Morais, which screened at IFFR in 1988, returns in a restored model, mixing theater and cinema in a poetic adaptation of Alexandre Herculano’s 1842 novel on Portuguese independence. Thai cinema takes heart stage with Khom Akadet’s “I Am With a Monk,” a story of survival and redemption starring Thai display icons Sombat Methanee and Sorapong Chatree.
Cinema Regained has twice introduced Korean public broadcaster KBS’s documentary tv collection “Trendy Korea,” which critically examines the nation’s historical past via the prism of KBS’s personal manufacturing. The newest instalment, which has its worldwide premiere at IFFR, from filmmaker Lee Taewoong is “Korean Dream: The Nama-jinheung Mixtape,” a documentary constructed from fragments of movies by the now-defunct Nama-jinheung studio to seize the inside panorama of Koreans in the course of the Chilly Warfare.
“Bomba Bernal” is IFFR-regular Khavn’s AI-driven homage to the Filipino bomba style and in addition has its world premiere at IFFR. One other IFFR-favourite, Saeed Nouri, presents “Tehran, An Unfinished Historical past” exploring pre-1979 Iranian cinema’s unexplored historical past. In the meantime, Sami van Ingen returns with “Solid of Shadows,” an intimate archival essay unravelling the tales of girls behind Robert Flaherty’s legacy.
Ladies are central to the Cinema Regained program. Indian filmmaker Sai Paranjpye’s “Katha” brings wit and appeal to the basic hare-and-tortoise fable, whereas the world premiere of Vani Subramanian’s “Cinema Pe Cinema: The Theatres. The Films. And Us” explores the legacy of India’s single-screen cinemas, weaving the reminiscences of those theaters with the social and political shifts of the nation over the previous century.
Gujarati filmmaker Chetna Vora is honored with a screening of her first movie “Oyoyo,” an investigation into the lifetime of international college students within the German Democratic Republic, the place Vora studied movie, exploring themes of cultural identification, music, and group. Her second movie, “Frauen in Berlin,” screens in this system Focus: Maintain Video in Your Palms: a set of tales and impressions from the angle of girls. Moreover, Christiane Büchner’s “Erzählungen eines Kinogehers” paints a portrait of cinephilia via conversations with Werner Dütsch, a pioneer of German tv’s engagement with movie tradition.
This system additionally dives into historic narratives left untold. The world premiere of Hafiz Rancajale’s “Bachtiar” revisits the silenced legacy of Indonesian filmmaker Bachtiar Siagian, whose profession was lower quick in the course of the 1965 anti-Communist purge. Most of his work was both uncared for or destroyed underneath Suharto’s regime. This movie serves as a strong counter-narrative, difficult the distorted portrayal of his legacy in official historiography. Bachtiar’s lately rediscovered masterpiece “Turang” (1957) screens in Focus: By way of Cinema We Shall Rise!
The Cinema Regained program additionally highlights a number of pre-Seventies works, every providing explicit storytelling views. These embrace a retrospective of the Ukrainian filmmaker in Focus: Sergii Masloboishchykov. There’s additionally an exploration of Ukrainian exile cinema within the U.S. within the Nineteen Thirties “Cossacks in Exile” (1939), a joint endeavor between filmmaker Edgar Georg Ulmer and dancer-choreographer Vasilʹ Avramenko, telling the story of Ukrainians who refuse to undergo Russian authorities, and are then pushed from their nation.
Gustaf Molander’s “There’s a Hearth Burning” (1943) explores wartime tensions via an unraveling love story, lately honored with a retrospective at Bologna’s Il Cinema Ritrovato. Tengiz Abuladze’s “Somebody Else’s Kids” (1958) presents a young story of two siblings in search of a maternal determine, whereas Vatroslav Mimica’s “Kaja, I’ll Kill You!” (1967) is a daring, fragmented exploration of oppression.
The spirit of cinematic group is well known in “Todo parecía attainable” by Ramón Rivera Moret. The movie revisits Puerto Rico’s utopian second via the lens of rural filmmaking within the Fifties and 60s. Accompanying the movie is the quick program A Higher Tomorrow for Puerto Rico, that includes three titles tracing the beginnings of filmmaking in Puerto Rico, together with “Las manos del hombre” (1952), by Jack Delano.
Olaf Möller, the strand’s programmer, stated: “It’s an area to deepen curiosities and acts as connective tissue for the broader pageant, weaving collectively various narratives and increasing on our Focus packages. It’s a chance to mirror on cinema’s cultural and political legacies throughout time and marvel at a few of the best filmmakers that historical past has produced, these celebrated and people forgotten.”
The total lineup of function movies that can be screened as a part of Cinema Regained are:
“¡Homofobia!” (European Premiere)
dir. Goyo Anchou
Argentina, 2024
“Bachtiar” (World Premiere)
dir. Hafiz Rancajale
Indonesia, 2025
“Bomba Bernal” (World Premiere)
dir. Khavn
Philippines, 2025
“Solid of Shadows” (World Premiere)
dir. Sami van Ingen
Finland, 2025
“Cinema Pe Cinema: The Theatres. The Films. And Us” (European Premiere)
dir. Vani Subramanian
India, 2025
“Cossacks in Exile”
dir. Edgar G. Ulmer
United States, 1939
“Erzählungen eines Kinogehers” (World Premiere)
dir. Christiane Büchner
Germany, 2025
“I Am With a Monk”
dir. Khom Akadet
Thailand, 1984
“Kaja, I’ll Kill You!” dir. Vatroslav Mimica
Croatia, Yugoslavia, 1967
“Katha” dir. Sai Paranjpye
India, 1983
“Korean Dream: The Nama-jinheung Mixtape” (Worldwide Premiere)
dir. Lee Taewoong
South Korea, 2024
“Mousso fariman” (World Premiere)
dir. Drissa Touré, Stephane Mbanga
Burkina Faso, 2025
“Negligence”
dir. Ali Kasmaie
Iran, 1953
“No Magic for Socialists” (World Premiere)
dir. Htoo Lwin Myo
Myanmar, 2025
“Somebody Else’s Kids”
dir. Tengiz Abuladze
Georgia, 1958
“Tehran, An Unfinished Historical past” (World Premiere)
dir. Saeed Nouri
Iran, 2025
“The Gray Machine” (World Premiere)
dir. Péter Lichter
Hungary, Estonia, 2025
“The Jester”
dir. José Álvaro Morais
Portugal, 1987
“The Lilac Wind of Paradjanov” (World Premiere)
dir. Ali Khamraev
Armenia, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Italy, 2025
“The Crimson Badge of Braveness”
dir. John Huston
United States, 1951
“The Vast World of Thriller: Home and the Mind”
dir. Gloria Monty
United States, 1973
“There’s a Hearth Burning”
dir. Gustaf Molander
Sweden, 1943
“Todo parecía attainable” (World Premiere)
dir. Ramón Rivera Moret
United States, Puerto Rico, 2025