After the gala films, the top five most popular films so far are the taut samurai thriller The Samurai and the Prisoner, Erupcja, starring Charli XCX and set on the streets of Warsaw, KitKatClub – The Kinks of Berlin, a documentary about the legendary fetish club, the humorous concrete documentary The History of Concrete, and the horror classic The Devils (1971), which was banned in Finland for 30 years. It is now being shown in a fresh, restored version.
A very different kind of spirituality is depicted in Thai gem 9 Temples to Heaven. This tale of a fading matriarch and a family’s spiritual journey was also chosen to represent its home country at the Academy Awards – a characteristic that connects many of the films in the programme.
Other International Feature submissions include: the perceptive Chilean The Meltdown, a mystery-drama set in a snowy ski resort where a tourist goes missing, Dua, an aching Kosovar coming-of-age tale about growing up under the threat of violence in 1990s Pristina, and We Are All Strangers, a vibrant Singaporean family drama where financial hardship turns into TikTok-stardom.
Also Germany’s Everytime, the Cypriot film Hold Onto Me, the Croatian God Will Not Help, India’s Homebound, Hungarian Silent Friend, Chadian Soumsoum, the Night of the Stars, and the Nepalese Elephants in the Fog were each their country’s International Feature submission, as was the Romanian Fjord, whose screening is among the ones that have sold out.
If you are overwhelmed by the cinematic cornucopia on offer, Love & Anarchy will offer a new tool to filter for your most compatible films. The festival’s new recommendation engine R&A Rec can help the undecided, the uncertain and the adventurous in finding their perfect watchlist.
The tool, which can be found on the festival website, can access information on tickets you have purchased in previous years and base the film recommendations on your purchase history. Users old and new can also use the engine to choose keywords such as “epoch”, “free of charge”, “feelgood”, “weird”, “R&A Shorts”, “indigenous peoples” and so on.
In addition to purchase histories and keywords, R&A Rec can also filter for film themes, languages and countries of production. The recommendation engine does not rely on artificial intelligence. It’s made by humans – as is the festival programme – and it encourages shared human experiences. You can use R&A Rec to save your own watchlist and festival schedule and share them with your friends. Films are best enjoyed in good company!