21/02/2025 - The event brings cinematic heavyweights and emerging voices to the forefront, offering a platform for experimental essays, festival hits and premieres, along with local co-productions

The 15th Luxembourg City Film Festival (LuxFilmFest) (6-16 March) has unveiled its full programme, along with a line-up of special guests and jury members. This year’s festival will welcome renowned talents such as Alejandro Amenábar, Tim Roth, Trine Dyrholm and Mohammad Rasoulof.

Kicking off on 6 March, the festival opens with Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s Berlinale competition entry Hot Milk [+see also:
film review
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interview: Rebecca Lenkiewicz
film profile], starring Emma Mackey, Vicky Krieps and Fiona Shaw. The film delves into a complex tale of filial love disrupted by an unexpected romance. The festival’s awards ceremony on 15 March will feature The Safe House [+see also:
film review
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interview: Lionel Baier
film profile] by Lionel Baier, offering audiences a poignant family story set against the backdrop of May 1968 and showcasing Michel Blanc’s final on-screen performance. Closing the festival is The Thing with Feathers [+see also:
film review
film profile] by Dylan Southern, an adaptation of Max Porter’s bestseller. The film stars Benedict Cumberbatch as a grieving father struggling to help his two sons cope with the sudden loss of their wife and mother.

Over 1,000 films were reviewed in order to arrive at the final selection for 2025, with the Official Competition serving as its showcase. Nine films are vying for the festival’s Grand Prix, offering a prize of €10,000, to be decided upon by the international jury led by Iranian filmmaker and Oscar for Best International Feature Film nominee Mohammad Rasoulof, who is joined by Danish actress Trine Dyrholm, British screenwriter Paul Laverty, Austrian actress Valerie Pachner, Catalonian filmmaker Albert Serra, and Luxembourgish writer-director and VFX artist Jeff Desom.

The films are: Bound in Heaven by Huo Xin (China), Hanami [+see also:
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interview: Denise Fernandes
film profile] by Denise Fernandes (Switzerland/Portugal/Cape Verde), Holy Electricity [+see also:
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interview: Tato Kotetishvili
film profile] by Tato Kotetishvili (Georgia/Netherlands), Kontinental '25 [+see also:
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film profile] by Radu Jude (Romania/Brazil/Switzerland/UK/Luxembourg), The New Year That Never Came [+see also:
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interview: Bogdan Mureşanu
film profile] by Bogdan Mureşanu (Romania/Serbia), On Falling [+see also:
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interview: Laura Carreira
film profile] by Laura Carreira (UK/Portugal), Reflection in a Dead Diamond [+see also:
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interview: Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani
film profile] by Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani (Belgium/Luxembourg/Italy/France), The Village Next to Paradise [+see also:
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film profile] by Mo Harawe (Austria/France/Germany/Somalia), and Vittoria [+see also:
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interview: Alessandro Cassigoli and Ca…
film profile] by Alessandro Cassigoli and Casey Kauffman (Italy).

Merging experimental essays, festival hits and exclusive works, six documentaries will be duking it out for the Documentary Prize, worth €5,000: About a Hero [+see also:
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interview: Piotr Winiewicz
film profile] by Piotr Winiewicz (Denmark/Germany/USA), A Fidai Film [+see also:
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interview: Kamal Aljafari
film profile] by Kamal Aljafari (Palestine/Germany/Qatar/Brazil/France), Afternoons of Solitude [+see also:
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interview: Albert Serra
film profile] by Albert Serra (Spain/France/Portugal), Home Game [+see also:
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interview: Lidija Zelovic
film profile] by Lidija Zelović (Netherlands), Invention by Courtney Stephens (USA) and The Landscape and the Fury [+see also:
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film profile] by Nicole Vögele (Switzerland). The documentary jury features experts such as Doris Bauer, head of selection at Vienna Shorts; Jumaï Laguna, programmer at Premiers Plans; Hugo Rosàk, head of the Industry Office at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival; Léo Soesanto, journalist and programmer for the Riga International Film Festival; and Wim De Witte, director of programming at Film Fest Gent.

In addition to its competitions, the Made In/With Luxembourg selection at LuxFilmFest showcases a record-setting array of works (co-)produced with Luxembourg, including Désirée Nosbusch’s directorial debut, Poison [+see also:
film review
interview: Désirée Nosbusch
film profile] (Luxembourg/Netherlands/Germany/UK), starring Trine Dyrholm and Tim Roth, which offers a poignant portrayal of a couple reunited on an anniversary date. Premiered at Göteborg, Jahia’s Summer [+see also:
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film profile] by Olivier Meys (Belgium/France/Luxembourg) explores teenage friendship amidst an asylum-seeking journey. Jean-Claude Barny's biopic Fanon [+see also:
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interview: Jean-Claude Barny, Alexandr…
film profile] (France/Luxembourg/Canada) delves into colonialism's impact through the lens of the titular freedom activist and psychoanalyst. Horizonte [+see also:
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film profile] by César Augusto Acevedo (Colombia/France/Luxembourg/Chile/Germany) unfurls a metaphysical drama set during Colombia’s civil war, while Christophe Hochhäusler's Death Will Come [+see also:
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interview: Christoph Hochhäusler
film profile] (Germany/Luxembourg/Belgium) is a thriller about a contract killer. Kiyoshi Kurosawa revisits his 1998 film with Serpent’s Path [+see also:
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film profile] (France/Belgium/Luxembourg/Japan), featuring Damien Bonnard, Kō Shibasaki and Mathieu Amalric.

In the documentary section, Ali Asgari’s Higher than Acidic Clouds (Iran/Luxembourg) provides a black-and-white autobiographical take on censorship. A Place Called Home (Luxembourg/Thailand/Netherlands), co-directed by Pattrawan Sukmongkol and Max Jacoby, is an elegy to displacement and love. Fränz Hausemer’s Terre Rouge (Luxembourg) honours Luxembourgish author Gaston Rollinger through poetic docu-fiction. Kateryna Gornostai’s Timestamp [+see also:
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interview: Kateryna Gornostai
film profile] (Ukraine/Luxembourg/Netherlands/France) portrays Ukrainian schoolchildren amid conflict. Finally, LuxFilmFest concludes Wang Bing’s trilogy with Youth (Hard Times) [+see also:
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film profile] and Youth (Homecoming) [+see also:
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film profile] (France/Luxembourg/Netherlands), continuing his profound exploration of capitalism’s toll on Chinese factory workers.

For the first time, LuxFilmFest will dedicate an entire evening to TV series (co-)produced in Luxembourg. The line-up includes Dangerous Truth by Barbara Eder (Germany/Luxembourg/Greece), which follows a young man on a witness protection programme as he investigates his father’s murder. Finisterra by Guilherme Branquinho and Leone Niel (Luxembourg/Germany/Portugal) is set in World War II-era Portugal and tells the story of a young orphan accused of witchcraft, on a quest for truth, freedom and vengeance. Finally, Hometowns by Lukas Grevis, Lucie Wahl, Catherine Dauphin and Akim Elouardi (Luxembourg) is a documentary series that profiles six young people through the lens of as many emerging filmmakers. The event is presented in collaboration with RTL.