Rotterdam Film Festival has more films in its 2025 edition than days in the year. We tried to hold its offerings, like collecting water in a sieve.
Screen Rotterdam
Tag: Film
Strandzha. Between the Borderlines.
The woods straddling Bulgaria and Turkey are imbued with multivalent meanings in Pepe Hristova’s Strandzha, playing in Harbour at IFFR.
Gay Men’s Book Club. Jubilee for Normal People.
The end of identity politics is discussed with nuance and heart in Matthew Lax’s simple yet effective mid-length documentary Gay Men’s Book Club.
No Mercy, or We Need More Fog Machines
The 1986 Richard Gere star vehicle No Mercy shows that all a movie needs is a girl and a gun. And lots of fog machines.
There, There. A Tender Depiction of Care.
With a documentary-like aesthetic and profound use of the mundane, Heather Young’s sophomore film There, There reasserts her singular voice.
The Other One Explores the Glass Children Phenomenon
Marie-Magdalena Kochová’s debut feature acutely captures the Glass Children phenomenon: being overshadowed by your sibling with more complex needs.
Losing It at The Opera!
An EU-funded cousin of Megalopolis, The Opera! is a baffling and bad film that astounds with its incredibly basic classical music choices.
Radical Images: The New York Counter Film Festival
New York Counter Film Festival, created in opposition to NYFF’s Zionist ties, enjoyed its inaguaral, radical edition. We report from the frontline.
Chasing Pavements
Pavements is a biopic, musical and exhibition, with Alex Ross Perry applying the idiosyncratic spirit of the 90s band to novel forms of cinematic expression.
Aye, There’s The Cherub
A fat straight man finds a new lease of life when he sends his self-portrait into a gay magazine in Devin Shears’ touching debut Cherub.