These are our fifteen recommended Asian films from the International Film Festival Rotterdam, taking place from January 25 to February 4, 2024, in Rotterdam, Netherlands.

Anubhuti by Anirban Dutta – India | 2024 – 96 minutes (WP)

The mythical cowherdess Radha and poet-saint Meera vie for the attention of their blue-skinned paramour-god Krishna. Singled out by the poet Jayadeva as Lord Krishna’s favourite inamorata in his twelfth century epic love poem Gita Govinda, Radha is often characterised by feelings of jealousy and heartbreak at Krishna’s eternal fickleness. Meera, on the other hand, was a sixteenth century poet-saint whose relationship to Krishna was one of constant devotion and unfulfilled yearning, sentiments immortalised in her poems that continue to be sung today as musical compositions.

Anirban Dutta’s highly stylised musical performance piece Anubhuti sets these mythical and historical figures together in a love triangle with Krishna, charting Meera’s mental states and fluctuating sentimental fortunes: from a pining, distant admirer who can only access her beloved vicariously through Radha, to an amorous equal who shares Krishna’s affections with simplicity. – – Srikanth Srinivasan

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Blue Giant by Tachikawa Yuzuru – Japan | 2023 – 120 minutes (EP)

One day, Dai Miyamoto picked up a saxophone and with it, made a resolution to be remembered as one of the greatest players of all time. He leaves his sleepy hometown for the bustling nightclubs of Tokyo, but the journey to becoming a professional musician is not an easy one. After many struggles, his enthusiasm wins over pianist Yukinori and convinces his friend Shunji to learn the drums. Together, they form a jazz trio, JASS, and with fresh, untamed, raw energy they aim for stars, living for the moment, just like blue giants, the brightest and hottest stars.

Adapted from Shinichi Ishizuka’s award-winning manga of the same name, Blue Giant by Tachikawa Yuzuru is a spirited, delightfully chaotic, intimate story of self-discovery, friendship and passion expressed by jazz music. A breath-taking visual and musical ride that borrows from anime and uses a blend of animation techniques. Earnest, undistracted and exquisite, Blue Giant resonates like a perfectly improvised note. – kijA

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Blue Imagine by Matsubayashi Urara – Japan | 2024 – 93 minutes (WP)

In the wake of a sexual assault, young actress Noel goes to Blue Imagine, a refuge for people who have experienced violence. With the help of her fellow residents, she is able to reclaim some of her confidence, and decides to confront her abuser.

In her directorial debut, actress Matsubayashi Urara takes bold and considered aim at the permeating sexual violence of the Japanese film industry. Blue Imagine skilfully addresses some of the many mental and emotional nuances of the aftermath of abuse while employing a peculiar mixture of subtle, slightly dark humour. Matsubayashi is neither exploitative, nor trivial in her approach, and is ever cautious not to fall for the pitfalls of an easy ‘girl power’ narrative seen in many cinematic studies into the subject. – kijA

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Borrowed Time by Choy Ji – China | 2023 – 93 minutes (EP)

Ting is on the brink of marriage, but still wounded by her father’s departure twenty years earlier. Setting out in search of him and for a sense of resolution, she travels from Guangzhou to Hong Kong, moving through late-night fruit markets and piers soaked in blue light, as an impending summer typhoon grows near. Meeting a childhood friend and reconnecting over a bootleg CD, Ting delves into her family’s secrets and the emotional turmoil still sharply rooted in her life. – Sophie Tupholme

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Dear Kaita Ablaze by Sato Hisayasu – Japan | 2023 – 101 minutes (IP)

Murayama Kaita, a Japanese painter, novelist and poet died in 1919 at the age of 22, leaving behind an impressive and time-defying body of work. In his most recent film, Sato Hisayasu offers a surreal, time-crossing, meta-layered essay on the artist, his originality and his legacy.

Dear Kaita Ablaze brings together a young woman Azami obsessed with Murayama’s painting, a young man Saku, who can hear unusual frequencies and claims to be Murayama or his spiritual imprint and a quartet of young performers with psychic abilities. They bond over Murayama’s work which they recreate in performative dance while driving to a mysterious cave called Agartha. – kijA

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Hungry Ghost Diner by We Jun Cho – Malaysia | 2023 – 116 minutes (DP)

After her long-unseen uncle mysteriously turns up one night at her food truck in Kuala Lumpur, Bonnie drives home to her semi-estranged father in a village up north. With a sudden lockdown preventing her return, she is forced to spend the night at the family-owned café, where she encounters the ghosts of those dearly departed gathering around for a scrumptious meal.

The dead and the living are connected through their stomachs in We Jun Cho’s heartwarming food-centric dramedy, Hungry Ghost Diner, set among the Malaysian Chinese community during the weeks preceding the Hungry Ghost Festival. The film finds a unique tone for its subject, poised between bittersweet family drama, surreal fantasy and matter-of-fact horror, but always leaning on the side of levity. This is a work in which musical numbers rub shoulders with resplendent puppet shows and stately religious ceremonies.

With its vibrant, expressive cinematography, propulsive score and an endearing, doe-eyed lead performance by singer Keat Yoke Chen, Hungry Ghost Diner tells an entertaining and universal story of reconnecting with one’s family. – Srikanth Srinivasan

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Makbetamaximus by Khavn – Philippines | 2024 – 80 minutes (WP)

“Double, double, toil and trouble,” indeed! Shakespeare’s punchiest tragedy gets a makeover in a way that only the prodigious Filipino multi-hyphenate Khavn De La Cruz could deliver. Unfolding in the Municipality of Marcos, Ilocos Norte and Khavn’s own Burroughsian Interzone of Mondomanila – also the title of the director’s crazed horror-comedy-crime drama, which premiered at IFFR 2012 – this mash-up of styles, genres, moods and atmospheres features a cast of over 100 performers and defies any easy description, even with so familiar a text. But as Khavn says of his source material, “Usually, word is king. Here, text is just one of the many cogs. It’s a column, a roof shingle, an ornament.”

This is a Macbeth for our chaotic, fragmented, attention-deficit times. Khavn’s thorough understanding of Shakespeare’s text is beyond question; it would be impossible to create a work of such irrepressible, fiery originality without it. But this is unlike any other adaptation; Makbetamaximus is both a striking work in its own right, and a continuation and expansion of its creator’s artistic statement, which to date includes over 50 features and 200 shorts, eight books of poetry, two short story collections, a novel and 40 albums. – Ian Haydn Smith

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Not Friends by Atta Hemwadee – Thailand | 2023 – 129 minutes (EP)

Pae isn’t doing too well at his new high school. His only chance to go to university and avoid working at his father’s flour mill, arrives in the form of a short film contest. Betting on the sentimental potential of a story about his recently deceased classmate Joe, Pae embarks on a short film project with his schoolmates amidst much hype and hope. But the group’s best laid plans go awry when a close friend of Joe’s returns to school after illness.

Thai filmmaker Atta Hemwadee’s vivid and flavourful Not Friends begins as a sprightly high school comedy before blooming into a bittersweet drama about the meaning of friendship. Despite its playful setting and persistent humour, Hemwadee’s debut feature unfolds as a series of real ethical dilemmas that its teenage protagonist must learn to negotiate. Every decision that Pae makes involves determining the right thing to do. In the process, he comes to discover what originality means and where the true character of an individual lies.

Dynamically shot and edited, Not Friends is an ode to the heady adventures of adolescence and to days and nights consumed in passionate collaboration. – Srikanth Srinivasan

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Obedience by Wong Siu-pong – Hong Kong | 2024 – 71 minutes (WP)

A site of rapid redevelopment, the Hung Hom district of Hong Kong is home to the Kwun Yum temple, which attracts droves of devotees seeking financial betterment during the grandiose Treasury Opening Festival. Across the street, however, is a run-down yet lively block running a parallel economy consisting of recycling shops, illegal flea markets and modest restaurants, all on the verge of extinction.

In unobtrusive wide-angle shots, Wong Siu-pong’s finely observational street documentary Obedience casts a curious glance on this vulnerable microcosm. Sustaining this ecosystem is a group of elderly workers who patrol the area with their wheelbarrows, salvaging recyclable objects from garbage in order to exchange them for money. Without condescension or sentimentalism, the film documents the precarious life of these frail men and women, cast out of Hong Kong’s economic boom and left to fend for themselves by rummaging for food in bins.

The film’s socioeconomic and ecological enquiry is enriched by a subtly existentialist perspective that invites us to question the meaning of prosperity and well-being in a lopsided society. Looking beyond the glitz and glamour of Asia’s World City, Obedience presents a face of Hong Kong rarely seen on screen.– Srikanth Srinivasan

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Rei by Tanaka Toshihiko – Japan | 2024 – 189 minutes (WP)

The title of Tanaka Toshihiko’s ambitious exploration of human relationships is polysemous. A genderless given name, the kanji character can similarly represent a variety of meanings. As such, it’s the perfect symbol for this portrait of early thirtysomething company employee Matsushita Hikari. Her life is stable and seemingly without worry, unlike many of those around her. But it’s through their struggles that they find their counterparts in life – the balance in relationships that steadies them. Hikari lacks this ballast and this begins to worry her. However, on a trip into the mountains of Hokkaido she encounters a Deaf landscape photographer, Masato. Through him Hikari embarks on a journey that will transform her sense of being and connectedness with the world.

Working with a cast and crew of mostly non-professionals and students, Tanaka’s impressive directorial debut (he also produced, edited and acted in it) unfurls at a measured pace, the drama’s tempo perfectly attuned to the shifts in Hikari’s worldview. By contrasting the exquisite beauty of the Hokkaido landscape with often raw emotions of his characters, the film successfully mines our feelings towards loneliness, dependency and the feelings that bind us together or tear us apart. – Vanja Kaludjercic

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Sandstorm by Park Jaemin – Korea | 2023 – 78 minutes (IP)

Wrestlers Choi Heehwa, Kim Dahye, Yang Yoonseo, Song Songhwa and Lim Soojeong are novices of the Kolping Women’s Ssireum Team. A women’s sport that was only accepted by the Korean Ssireum Association in 1999 and only began to receive attention ten years later when Lim Soojeong won the championship.

The directorial debut of Park Jaemin, Sandstorm follows the fighters of the Kolping Women’s Ssireum Team for five years from 2017. As a team and as individuals we witness their matches, joys and moments of glory but also the slumps, doubts and injuries. The film uncovers the persistent gender roles in Korean society as they pertain to the body, ageing and familial duties. Complementing and enriching each other’s stories, the player’s determination, passion, friendship and mutual support for one another sensitively unravel over time.  – kijA

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Seven Seas Seven Hills by Ram – India | 2024 – 135 minutes (WP)

Set on a moving train on a rain-soaked night, a chance encounter between a 32-year-old everyman and an 8,000-year-old immortal – and a rat!– triggers a series of events that will intertwine their destinies. Amidst moral dilemmas and unexpected compassion, the ordinary man grapples with survival while the immortal – played with no small amount of relish by the charismatic Nivin Pauly – seeks to heal centuries-old wounds. Tamil filmmaker Ram’s fifth feature is a cinematic mediation on Tamil philosophy, whilst simultaneously offering an exploration of love, pain, suffering, compassion and redemption – what might surprise anyone familiar with Ram’s previous work is how markedly different, in tone, style and scale Seven Seas Seven Hills is. – Vanja Kaludjercic

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Shadow of Fire by Tsukamoto Shinya – Japan | 2023 – 95 minutes (DP)

Tsukamoto Shinya’s war trilogy concludes with Shadow of Fire. Strikingly minimalist in its aesthetics, the film continues Tsukamoto’s ruminations on the frailty of the human body, mind and soul.

World War II has just ended. In a ruin that was once a diner, a woman forced into sex work, a small boy and a soldier meet. While the world around them transitions from terror to dismay these three survivors, each carrying their own set of scars, are looking for safety. A chamber drama that segues into a road movie of sorts, the film explores a new reality: where the coming of age of the nation is anchored to the coming of a young boy.  – kijA

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The Missing by Carl Joseph E. Papa – Philippines | 2023 – 90 minutes (EP)

Withdrawn animation artist Eric lives under the loving supervision of his supportive mother. He has a crush on his kindly colleague Carlo, an affection he doesn’t dare voice. Nor can he, as Eric cannot speak and interacts with others using a whiteboard that hangs from his neck. But when Eric is asked by his mother to check in on his estranged uncle Rogelio, he is wrenched out of his isolation and confronted with repressed childhood memories and sinister extraterrestrial beings.

Filipino filmmaker Carl Joseph E. Papa’s absorbing, animated psychological drama The Missing tells a highly personal tale of trauma and reconciliation. The film’s composite visual style, blending rotoscoping and traditional 2D animation, both retains the subtlety of actors’ performances and heightens the expressivity of their physical environment. More importantly, it allows the viewer to experience the world as Eric does, in defiance of conventional logic and true to his changing emotional state. – Srikanth Srinivasan

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“Trolley Times” by Gurvinder Singh – India | 2023 – 153 minutes (IP)

In September 2020, the Indian government passed three acts, known colloquially as farm laws, that sought to reform the way farmers sold their produce to the market. This triggered a series of non-violent protests across the country, with farmers chiefly from Punjab and Haryana marching towards New Delhi demanding a repeal of the laws. Prevented from entering the capital, they set up camps along highways, forming a veritable community that sustained the protests for over a year.

IFFR regular Gurvinder Singh returns to the festival with his first documentary feature “Trolley Times”, an unvarnished grassroots record of the protests that borrows its title from the newspaper printed and distributed at the camping site. The farmers recount their grievances directly to the camera, their words conveying a truth absent from state-aligned mainstream media, their timeworn, dignified faces familiar from Singh’s fictional work.

The film, however, accompanies the farmers even after the protests, observing family reunions, the resumption of agricultural work and peacetime domestic life with an unusual candour. Relentless and uncompromising, “Trolley Times” demonstrates its courage not only in cataloguing the protestors’ ardent testimonies, but also in breaking free from established notions of what political documentaries should look like. – Srikanth Srinivasan

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WP – World Premiere
IP – International Premiere
EP – European Premiere
DP – Dutch Premiere

For more information, please visit: https://iffr.com/en