10/01/2025 - With 114 films, encompassing both features and shorts, on the menu, the Genevan festival will once again train the spotlight on independent cinema

From Ground Zero

The Black Movie International Independent Film Festival in Geneva (17-26 January) is once again set to bring audiences face to face with the beauty as well as the cruelty of the world, with an enticing selection of the best in independent film productions from all over the world. Enriching this fulsome programme are 17 filmmakers who have been invited along to the gathering as well as an as-yet unseen exhibition at the Fonderie Kugler, called "Photo Kegham of Gaza: Unboxing" and curated by visual artist Kegham Djeghalian Junior. Black Movie will also host the entirety of the currently available productions from From Ground Zero, a collection of short films made since October 2023 (the start of the war in Gaza) by Palestinian filmmakers, which is representing Palestine at the Oscars. A round-table with Palestinian director Rashid Masharawi and French producer Laura Nikolov, as well as a conversation with French-Palestinian MEP Rima Hassan, will accompany the screenings.

Furthermore, the festival will welcome Chinese helmer Wang Bing, who will present the two most recent instalments of his documentary trilogy, Youth (Hard Times) [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] and Youth (Homecoming) [+see also:
film review
film profile], and will attend a meeting with the audience. Artistic director Maria Watzlawick stresses that 2025 is meant to be the international year of peace and trust, according to the UN, and that “we can dream… Just like the dreams of those directors who make films bearing witness to the incredible diversity our planet has to offer.”

Nestled in the 11 sections that make up the programme are several co-productions and a clutch of European gems. In the To Be Followed… strand, which invites the audience to sample the latest, singular works by six filmmakers whom the festival has been following closely for several years, we find the co-production Harvest [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Athina Rachel Tsangari
film profile] by Greece’s Athina Rachel Tsangari, a kind of tragicomic western about modernity that was presented in competition at Venice, and the aforementioned movies by Wang Bing. Cities, a section that homes in on cities going through changes, is playing host to the film L’Homme-Vertige: Tales of a City by Guadeloupe’s Malaury Eloi Paisley, which powerfully and delicately portrays an almost ghostly Pointe-à-Pitre. Meanwhile, the In Search of Human Rights sidebar, which offers movies with protagonists whose rights are trampled upon, includes Songs of Slow Burning Earth [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Olha Zhurba
film profile] by Ukraine’s Olha Zhurba, which talks about a new generation of Ukrainians who dare to imagine a different future, alongside the co-productions My Stolen Planet [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Farahnaz Sharifi, a supremely powerful personal cinematic testimony; The Empty Grave [+see also:
film review
interview: Agnes Lisa Wegner, Cece Mlay
film profile] by Agnes Lisa Wegner and Cece Mlay, which lays bare the hypocrisy and cowardice of human beings when confronted by the horrors of the past; and the tragicomedy The New Year That Never Came [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Bogdan Mureşanu
film profile] by Romania’s Bogdan Mureşanu, crowned Best Film in Venice’s Orizzonti. In Words Are Golden, which underlines how risky speaking out in public can be, we find Lesson Learned [+see also:
film review
interview: Bálint Szimler
film profile] by Hungary’s Bálint Szimler. On the other hand, in the section titled The Joys of Marriage, we find the European co-production Sister Midnight [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Karan Kandhari
film profile] by India’s Karan Kandhari, an off-the-wall and liberating tale that toys with the codes of black comedy and fantastical film. Lastly, in the Sensitive People section, which gives a voice to men and women who are trying to start anew after enduring trauma or disruption in their lives, audiences will be able to discover Tata [+see also:
film review
interview: Lina Vdovîi, Radu Ciorniciuc
film profile] by Romania’s Lina Vdovîi and Radu Ciorniciuc, a remarkably astute examination of transgenerational trauma.

(Translated from French)