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GENEVA 2025

The GIFF unveils the line-up for its 31st edition

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- The Genevese festival will place Dutch audiovisual production centre stage between 31 October and 9 November

The GIFF unveils the line-up for its 31st edition
Reedland by Sven Bresser

The main motto for this year’s edition of the GIFF (Geneva International Film Festival) (running 31 October to 9 November) is "on course for creativity", proving the gathering’s determination to "enter into a new decade characterised by audaciousness and emotion". The festival’s USP has always been to free films from genre- and format-based constraints by inviting audiences to discover audiovisual fiction in all its forms. This year, the spotlight will be angled towards Dutch audiovisual production by way of the special Creative Netherlands section, which foregrounds of a selection of films, series and immersive experiences. Jostling among the many works gracing this section are Sven Bresser’s fiction film Reedland [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, Hazal Ertürkan and Marcel van Brakel’s documentary Future Botanica, and the immersive works Ancestors and From Dust by Steye Hallema and Michael van der Aa respectively.

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Stéphane Demoustier’s French-Danish film, The Great Arch [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Stéphane Demoustier
film profile
]
, set to be screened in the presence of Claes Bang, will kick off proceedings, while Kent Jones’ American movie Late Fame, carried by Willem Dafoe at the height of his game, is closing the event.

An equally impressive number of European productions and co-productions previously  presented in major festivals can also be found in the International Feature Film Competition. These include Sven Bresser’s afore-mentioned movie Reedland, revolving around a solitary character attempting to solve a murder case; The Currents [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Milagros Mumenthaler
film profile
]
by Argentine-Swiss director Milagros Mumenthaler, which follows a woman forced to face up to a painful past; the Italian work The Kidnapping of Arabella [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Carolina Cavalli
film profile
]
by Carolina Cavalli, which is an absurd comedy homing in on two female characters swimming against the tide; Redoubt [+see also:
film review
interview: John Skoog
film profile
]
, which is Swedish director John Skoog’s first fiction feature; A Poet [+see also:
film review
interview: Simón Mesa Soto
film profile
]
, a dramedy directed by Colombia’s Simón Mesa Soto, which won the Jury Prize in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section; American actress Kristen Stewart’s poignant and subversive offering The Chronology of Water [+see also:
film review
film profile
]
and the psychological thriller The Things You Kill [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Alireza Khatami
film profile
]
by Iranian-Canadian filmmaker Alireza Khatami.

A significant number (9 out of 10) of European series have also been selected for the International Series Competition, including the two Dutch productions This Is Gonna Be Great by Rein Mulder and Rutger Lemm, and Messed Up by Eva Crutzen; A Better Man by Norway’s Thomas Seeberg Torjussen, offering up a psychological thriller which follows a toxic male intent on harassing a female stand-up comic; Åse Kathrin Vuolab’s touching movie A Sámi Wedding; Emmanuelle Destremau and Bruno Merle’s French film Extra-lucide about a telepathic woman; the British dramedy Just Act Normal by Janice Okoh, which is an adaptation of her own stage play, Three Birds; Emmeline Berglund’s Norwegian work Requiem For Selina, which tells the story of the world’s first beauty blogger; Reykjavìk Fusion by Icelandic directors Birkir Blaer Ingòlfsson and Hördur Rùnarsson, focused on a chef who’s just been released from prison and who’ll stop at nothing to open his own restaurant, and the Belgian series with social documentary overtunes Putain, by Zwangere Guy and Frederik Willem Daem, which focuses our attention on angry youngsters living precarious lives.

The GIFF will also see British director Stephen Frears receiving the Film & Beyond Prize, while the Tales of Swiss Innovation section will pay tribute to Nathalie Nath as a visionary figure in the Swiss TV world.

Last but not least, this year’s gathering will likewise host the Geneva Digital Market (GDM) (running 3-6 November), which will shine a light on audiovisual innovation in Switzerland which has been confirmed, in recent years, as a vital European showcase for immersive audiovisual works.

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(Translated from French)

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