Afternoons of Solitude
As 2025 unfolded, returning to the ritual of asking filmmakers about the films that moved them feels both fragile and necessary. This exercise appears days after yet another grotesque display of interventionism in Latin America, an event so swiftly normalized that its violence dissolves into the background noise of the present. In this context, cinema—even in its most superficial, market-driven or seemingly shallow dynamics—reasserts its essence: a place of resistance, a safer space, a memory capsule. Against a futile and often despicable world, the cinema persists not because it is pure, but because it is collective, embodied, and stubbornly alive.
The filmmakers invited this year—those who premiered shorts and features in 2025—are the clearest pulse of that vitality. Even though there are countless lists of this kind circulating everywhere, I believe this one carries a specific perspective: a space where renowned auteurs converge with the voices of the future, and where the exclusivity of encountering these films at the very moment of their premiere gives the exercise a particular urgency and context. Their choices reflect not consensus but friction, curiosity and risk; they remind us how vibrant and necessary cinema and art remain right now. For me, this exercise is also a way to hold onto memory at a time when it increasingly risks being outsourced to algorithms, annual Letterboxd wrap-ups and data summaries. Gathering these voices becomes an act of reflection on my own cinematographic experience, especially as a curator, re-centering lived encounters with images, sounds and rooms shared with others.
My deepest thanks to all the filmmakers who made this possible, to Flavia Dima and Gloria Albanesi for their support in helping reach some of the invited filmmakers, and to Vadim Rizov for the space and his extraordinary editorial work throughout the years.
Top 3 most voted films of the poll:
- Afternoons of Solitude
- Dry Leaf
- The Secret Agent/I Only Rest in the Storm
Considering that the most voted film premiered in 2024—an outcome that itself invites reflection on access, circulation, and what remains reachable within the contemporary festival circuit—What Does Nature Say to You, Hair, Paper, Water… and Sentimental Value stood out as crucial repeat mentions.
Ignacio Aguero (Letters to My Dead Parents, Chile)
Sirāt, Oliver Laxe, 2025
Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World, Radu Jude. (Even though it’s from 2023. How time flies! )
Afternoons of Solitude, Albert Serra (even though it’s from 2024 )
Cuadro negro, José Luis Sepúlveda y Carolina Adriazola (2025)
An evening song ( for three voices ), Graham Swon 2023
Copper, Nicolás Pereda, 2025
Pin de Fartie, Alejo Moguillansky, 2025
Other movies I’ve watched during this time:
Le Camion, Marguerite Duras, 1977
El tren se ha detenido, no hay estrellas sobre él, Magdalena Carrasco, 2022
Last Screening, Darezhan Omirbayev, 2022
Undefined Things, María Aparicio, 2023
Clorindo Testa, Mariano Llinás, 2022
Mahmoud Alhaj (Control Anatomy, Palestine)
For me, the most significant cinematic moment in 2025 was not about discovering a new film, entering a real movie theater for the first time, seeing my work projected on a giant screen I never imagined would hold it or even walking the red carpet at an international festival. The defining moment was a series of mental projections of scenes I had seen in films and others I had witnessed in reality, images that followed me throughout the year.
The first of these projections came from the movie Cinema Paradiso, specifically the farewell scene in which Alfredo tells Salvatore: “Don’t think about us, don’t look back, don’t write, don’t give in to nostalgia, forget about us.” As I watched it, I felt that those few seconds, which became so decisive in Salvatore’s life, echoed my own farewell to my family in Gaza before leaving alone in April 2024 under the shadow of the genocide, a moment when I had to move forward while everything I needed remained behind.
The second projection is the scene in which intimate moments and kisses are cut out from the films before they are screened at the Paradiso Cinema. I found it impossible not to link this to the censorship of photos and videos that emerged from Gaza before October 7th, materials that revealed the city’s beauty and the simplicity of its people, and which have now disappeared just like so many places I knew well. Sitting far away, trying to recover what little remains of my archive, I found myself confronted with a painful reflection on everything that now exists only in images. Moreover, at the very end of the movie, we are left with a miraculous collage of all of these censored scenes, the last gift from Alfredo to Salvatore. As I dig the internet looking for images and videos of Gaza before, I find myself confronted with the fact that these moments are increasingly harder to retrieve as they are drowned in thousands and thousands of footage of death and destruction.
This year, I realized that my relationship with cinema has changed. It is no longer merely an aesthetic language, but a space through which I attempt to reconstruct what has been erased, and to face the void left by images when they survive only as traces held together solely by memory.
Kamal Aljafari (With Hasan in Gaza, Palestine)
Back Home, Tsai Ming-liang
Escape, Masao Adachi
Nuestra Tierra, Lucrecia Martel
Hair, Paper, Water…, Trương Minh Quý, Nicolas Graux
Fabrice Aragno (Le Lac, Switzerland)
Unfortunately, I didn’t see everything in 2025 from afar, but of the films I had the chance and the opportunity to see in cinemas, wondering where the Cinématographe (to use R. Bresson’s phrase) would come out of it grown and strengthened, there would be these films:
- Yi Yi by Edward Yang, 2000. Discovered thanks to its restored 4k version and re-released this year, this film, made with apparent simplicity, without formal pretension or genre effects, is a masterpiece of intelligence, subtlety, finesse and humanity.
- Dry Leaf by Alexandre Koberidze, 2025. In competition at Locarno, this film is fascinating for its pictorial suggestion of the human soul, swept up in the turmoil of feelings in the face of loss, emptiness and what seems to have passed through the frame. Here, filming bodies and landscapes as a study of reaction rather than action is, in fact, tragically out of frame, out of time.
- Bright Summer Days by Nevena Desivojević, 2025. Using the art of writing through movement to express the stoppage of time, the past suddenly frozen, the universe under a veil of memories and things left unsaid. But it is precisely through cinema that water, spring and fluids flow through this sumptuous and sensitive short film of vital impulses.
Then there were a few promising shots from Bi Gan’s Resurrection and Chloé Zao’s Hamnet. Claire Simon’s documentary film Writing Life: Annie Ernaux Through the Eyes of High School Students may not seem to me to revolutionise the language of film in its form, but it has a very touching, comforting humanity. The idea behind the film is very judicious, to have considered the young people (especially the women) who unfold before us, so sensitive and promising for the future despite the world they face, twirling and spreading the wings of Klee-Benjamin’s Angelus Novus. (I would say at the dawn of the last day of this year 2025).
Sarah Ballard (Full Out, USA)
An incomplete list of films I can’t stop thinking about from those I’ve encountered or returned to this year. Choosing favorites among the shorts I’ve seen feels impossible, so I’ve kept to feature and mid-length films, with one exception being Light, Noise, Smoke, and Light, Noise, Smoke (2023) by Tomonari Nishikawa.
In no particular order:
Nightshift (1981), Robina Rose
Sirāt (2025), Oliver Laxe
Invention (2024), Callie Hernandez and Courtney Stephens
Sentimental Value (2025), Joachim Trier
When The Phone Rang (2024), Iva Radivojević
The Goblin Play (2025), Chae Yu
The Shards (2024), Masha Chernaya
Architecture of Mountains (2012), Tom Joslin
Strange Weather (1993), Peggy Ahwesh, Margie Strosser
James Benning (little boy, USA)
I’ve only seen two films this year. One was Blue Moon by Richard Linklater. It was quite good. The other was my own, little boy. I watched it with audiences in Berlin, Paris, New York and Vienna.
They seemed to like it a lot. So I suppose I could say that it was quite good too.
Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke (A Useful Ghost, Thailand)
New Films (2024-2025) in alphabetical order:
- A Poet (2025, Simón Mesa Soto)
- All the Long Nights (2024, Shô Miyake)
- Drunken Noodles (2025, Lucio Castro)
- Dry Leaf (2025, Alexandre Koberidze)
- Hard Truths (2024, Mike Leigh)
- Human Resource (2025, Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit)
- I Only Rest in the Storm (2025, Pedro Pinho)
- Sirāt (2025, Oliver Laxe)
- Sound of Falling (2025, Mascha Schilinski)
- The Mastermind (2025 Kelly Reichardt)
Discovery (First-time watch) (not in any order)
- Bushido: The Cruel Code of the Samurai (1963, Tadashi Imai)
- Far from Home (1975, Sohrab Shahid-Saless)
- The Goldman Case (2023, Cédric Kahn)
- Eden is West (2009, Costa-Gavras)
- Chronicle of the Years of Fire (1975, Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina)
- Niagara, Niagara (1997, Bob Gosse)
- The Story of a Small Town (1980, Hsing Lee)
- Susman (1987, Shyam Benegal)
- Pather Panchali (1955, Satyajit Ray)
- The Devil’s Model (1976, Chatrichalerm Yukol)
Clemente Castor (Frío Metal, Mexico)
Letters to My Dead Parents (Ignacio Agüero, 2025)
Fistful of Love (Reynaldo Rivera, 2025)
Nothing Out of the Island (Dalissa Montes de Oca, 2025)
Skin of Dead Bull (Edward Aroldo, 2025)
A Metamorphosis (Lin Htet Aung, 2025)
Control Anatomy (Mahmoud Alhaj, 2025)
The Secret Agent (Kleber Mendonça Filho, 2025)
First watched in cinema that marked me:
The White Rose (Bruce Conner, 1967)
Lacrimosa (Aloysio Raulino y Luna Alkalay, 1970)
Tent City (Miñuca Villaverde, 1981)
Two Monks (Juan Bustillo Oro, 1934)
Window Water Baby Moving (Stan Breakage, 1959)
Film event:
Hou Hsiao-Hsien retrospective in 35mm
Denis Côté (Paul, Canada)
2025 has been a busy year for me, promoting one film (Paul) and shooting another one (Violence du corps de l’autre). But I feel cinephilia is a continuous journey and no matter how busy you are, you should never stop fueling your passion.
Recent films that had an impact on me:
What Does That Nature Say to You (Hong)
Hard Truths (Leigh)
Nickel Boys (Ross)
Alpha (Ducournau)
Simon of the Mountains (Luis)
Hair, Paper, Water… (Graux, Quy)
Mirrors No. 3 (Petzold)
Caught by the Tides (Jia)
We don’t talk enough about older films we discover or rediscover. Film archeology in 2025:
Kira Muratova’s work
The Rain People (Coppola)
Love is the Devil (Maybury)
Bless Their Little Hearts (Woodberry)
The Red Shoes (Powell & Pressburger)
Oprheus (Cocteau)
PTU (To)
Music: Crippling Alcoholism, CamGirl
Deniz Eroglu (The Shipwrecked Triptych, Turkey, Germany)
Dying (1976) by Michael Roemer
A film about a subject we will all become intimately acquainted with. What does it mean to “have a good death”? In this film we follow four terminally ill humans as they face death. How do you manage to die with dignity? Unsettling and mysteriously soothing at the same time.
Mysterious Object at Noon (2000) by Apichatpong Weerasethakul
So beautiful, sweet and funny. Loved it.
Miséricorde (2024) by Alain Guiraudie
How audacious to make a film with so many intertwined characters. It makes for a wonderfully sophisticated viewing experience, the antithesis of all of the streamlined films that we presently have to contend with. Why can’t a film have a plethora of characters? Because everything has to be intelligible at all times and the studios want to get us hooked instantaneously. The result is often reductive. No room for ambiguity. Along comes Alain Guiraudie. Miséricorde builds gradually and becomes a complex study of human nature and group psychology. Similar to what made The White Ribbon a masterpiece. Miséricorde harks back to another of my favourite films La Règle du Jeu by Renoir and its famed dictum: “Everybody has their reason.” Every character in this film is embroiled in some kind of duplicity, some pursuit of desire.
Hollywood 90028 aka Insanity (1973) by Christina Hornisher
A rough diamond excavated from the soil of film history. The film follows a lonely LA drifter as he commits murders in a sort of hypnotic state. It has an ending that will easily rival whatever Hollywood’s most potent blockbusters can conjure up.
Afternoons of Solitude (2024) by Albert Serra
The very focused observations are quite spellbinding. This film made me erupt loudly in my seat.
Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser (1988) by Charlotte Zwerin
Thelonious playing the piano. Awe-inspiring.
Yrsa Roca Fannberg (The Ground Beneath Our Feet, Iceland)
No particular order but these films I have either encountered or rewatched this year,
and they still resonate with me by the end of the year.
Afternoons of Solitude (2024), Albert Serra
Always (2025), Deming Chen
Songs of Slow Burning Earth (2024), Olha Zhurba
To the West, in Zapata (2025), David Bim
When the Phone Rang (2024), Iva Radivojević
Silent Observers (2024), Eliza Petkova
In Vanda’s Room (2000), Pedro Costa
Là-bas (2006), Chantal Akerman
La libertad (2001), Lisandro Alonso
Tempestad (2016), Tatiana Huezo
Sepideh Farsi (Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, Palestine, France)
Always by Deming Chen
Never I have seen a film depicting poetry in a more organic way. I was really taken there and lived those moments with this young boy in that remote valley.
Palestine 36 by Anne-Marie Jacyr
An essential film to understand the history of occupied Palestine and the British colonial presence.
Leila and the wolves by Heiny Srour
I discovered this year, 41 years after its first release. Feminist, formalist and decolonial. A must see.
Maureen Fazendeiro (The Seasons, Portugal)
This year I definitely stopped watching movies on my laptop. I was lucky to travel a lot with The Inhabitants and The Seasons and was able to see many films that unfortunately won’t have a commercial release in Portugal. So here is my list, including the cinemas where I watched the films.
Some of the best 2024 films that were released in 2025 in Portugal or France:
Afternoons of Solitude (Albert Serra)—Cinema UCI El Corte Ingles, Lisbon
Collective Monologue (Sarah Jessica Rinland)— Le Saint André des Arts, Cinéma du Réel Film Festival, Paris
100,000,000,000,000 (Virgil Vernier)—Cinéma Archipel, Paris
DIRECT ACTION (Ben Russell, Guillaume Cailleau) —Yamagata Film Festival, Japan
The Room Next Door (Pedro Almodóvar) – Le Max Linder, Paris
The best 2025 movies:
The Secret Agent (Kleber Mendonça Filho)—Cinema UCI El Corte Ingles, Lisbon
Mektoub My Love, Canto Due (Abdellatif Kechiche)—MK2 Bastille, Paris
Dry Leaf (Alexandre Koberidze)—Locarno Film Festival, Switzerland
Nouvelle Vague (Richard Linklater)—Cinema UCI El Corte Ingles, Lisbon
Phantoms of July (Julian Radlmaier)—Seminci, Spain
Sol Menor (André Silva Santos)—Curtas Vila do Conde, Portugal.
Pin de Fartie (Alejo Moguillansky)—Le Concorde, La Roche Sur Yon Film Festival
The Girl in the Snow (Louise Hémon)—MK2 Beaubourg, Paris
I Only Rest in the Storm (Pedro Pinho)—Les 3 Luxembourg, Paris
Mauricio Freyre (Estados Generales, Perú)
Films that stayed with me this year and helped me understand, or at least accompany, some of the ideas and questions I’ve been trying to shape through my work. They’re very different from one another and were made in different times, but perhaps they share an erratic search across different conflicts and questions. Along those lines, I’m interested in the blind spots, distortions and unstable areas of their structures.
Niños, Grupo de Cine Liberación sin Rodeos, 1974
Reassemblage, T. Minh-ha Trinh, 1982
The Opening Monologue, Pedro Barateiro, 2018
October Noon, Francisco Rodriguez Teare, 2024
Dahomey, Mati Diop, 2024
Evidence, Lee Anne Schmitt, 2025
The Inhabitants, Maureen Fazendeiro, 2025
The Seasons, Maureen Fazendeiro, 2025
Iván Fund (The Message, Argentina)
In a year when Argentine politics (and not only here, I’m afraid) seem determined to erode film culture and undermine an otherwise vibrant cinematography, gathering around movies (and making them!) once again felt essential. It reminded us that cinema, like love, is inevitable.
And perhaps more than ever, we need films to reclaim the world, to expand our reality. I wasn’t able to watch as many films as I would have liked this year. Paradoxically, making films, and touring with them, leaves very little time to actually watch cinema, but I had the chance to serve as a jury member at a couple of great festivals and got to watch some remarkable films, films that make you want to keep making films and to keep living. And that is no small thing.
Red Black Yellow by Aktan Arym
Mad bills to pay (or Destiny dile que no soy malo) by Joel Alfonso Vargas
Afternoons of Solitude by Albert Serra
The Secret Agent by Kleber Mendonça Filho
Predator: Badlands by Dan Trachtenberg
Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed by Hernán Rosselli
Nouvelle Vague by Richard Linklater
Jurassic World: Rebirth by Gareth Edwards
Back Home by Tsai Ming Liang
One Battle after Another by Paul Thomas Anderson
BONUS: Minnie and Moskowitz by John Cassavetes, as one of my all time favorites I recommend watching it at least once a year!
Sylvain George (Obscure Night: Ain’t I a Child?, France)
Today, again and always, certain films continue to open zones of clearance. They do not seek to explain or to repair, but to institute intervals—moments in which looking withdraws from obedience. Cinema has not exhausted its powers. Other regimes of perception, other ways of inhabiting time and the world, remain to be invented, against what is prescribed and ordered. This list brings together a few such attempts, without order or hierarchy, according to a logic of deviation rather than selection.
Good Valley Stories (Jose Luis Guerin,2025)
Magellan (Lav Diaz, 2025)
little boy (James Benning, 2025)
A Ladder (Scott Barley, 2025)
Hair, Paper, Water… (Truong Minh Quy, Nicolas Graux, 2025)
Scénarios and Exposé du film annonce du film “Scénario” (Jean-Luc Godard, 2024)
Périls, péril (Jacques Perconte, 2024)
Where the Night Stands Still (Liryc Dela Cruz, 2025)
Night is Day (Ghassan Salhab, 2024)
Lilith Grasmug (Some of You Fucked Eva, France)
Little Boy, James Benning
Matt & Mara, Kazik Radwanski
Yi Yi, Edward Yang (released in a restored version in France)
In the Manner of Smoke, Armand Yervant Tufenkian
Kontinental ’25, Radu Jude
Four Nights of a Dreamer, Robert Bresson (released in a restored version in France)
Ari, Léonor Seraille
Afternoons of Solitude, Albert Serra
Two Prosecutors, Sergueï Loznitsa
Who Cares?, Alexe Poukine
Luca Guadagnino (After the Hunt, USA)
My few heroes of the year are:
Radu Jude
Hong Sang-soo
Tsai Ming-liang
And so:
Kontinental ‘25 by Radu Jude
Dracula by Radu Jude
What Does That Nature Say to You by Hong Sang-soo
Back Home by Tsai Ming-liang
Plus another rewatch of the astonishing Hitchcock’s Psycho to remember where we come from and what we might lose.
Radu Jude (Kontinental ‘25, Dracula, Romania)
The greatest thing was to see Michael Witt’s reconstruction of Jean-Luc Godard’s montage film Sauve la vie (qui peut). I proposed it as my carte blanche in FIDMarseille and it was a great film. Michael also wrote an amazing book about Godard’s unfinished projects.
Dry Leaf by Alexandre Koberidze
Yes by Nadav Lapid
My Undesirable Friends by Julia Loktev
With Hasan in Gaza by Kamal Aljafari
Richard Linklater’s double bill, Nouvelle Vague and Blue Moon.
Alexandre Koberdize (Dry Leaf, Georgia)
One year ago I thought 2024 was the year with the fewest films in my life, this had different reasons but the main was the political situation in Georgia. I thought it was the lowest point, both in terms of the situation in our country and the number of films I saw in a year. I was wrong. The number of films is much lower and the situation is much worse.
I’m thankful to Tato Kotetishvili and his Holy Electricity, to Kelly Reichardt and her Mastermind and to Julian Radlmaier and his Phantoms of July for reminding me how wonderful cinema can be and why I want to make films. I almost forgot.
Nastia Korkia (Short Summer, Russia)
2025 was a special year for me when I was able to travel around the world with my debut feature Short Summer and watch some amazing films in the festival circuit.
Three main films from 2025 that stayed with me are:
Sound of Falling by Mascha Schilinski
The Love That Remains by Hlynur Pálmason
Imago by Déni Oumar Pitsaev
Besides those, I had a chance to watch or rewatch some films from previous years that stayed with me.
From an amazing retrospective of Harutyun Khachatryan films in Centre Pompidou:
Return to the promised land (1991)
Border (2009)
Also:
The Shards (2024) by Masha Chernaya
Dostoevsky’s Travels (1991) by Pawel Pawlikowski
The Four Times (2010) by Michelangelo Frammartino
Katatsumori (1994) by Naomi Kawase
Sombre (1998) by Philippe Grandrieux
Leviathan (2012) by Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Véréna Paravel
April (2024) by Dea Kulumbegashvili
Close-Up (1990) by Abbas Kiarostami
Mimosas (2016) by Oliver Laxe – This is how the year 2025 started for me. With my dearest friend, we decided to rewatch Mimosas over New Year’s Eve. So the whole year later on was “with the help of love,” as one of the characters shouts in the end of the film while running towards his inevitable death.
Oliver Laxe (Sirāt, Spain)
I saw I Only Rest in the Storm by Pedro Pinho in Cannes and I believe it’s a masterpiece. Really good film.
I really like The Rim by Alberto Gracia and Mare’s Nest by Ben Rivers too. And I just saw Highway by Sergei Dvortsevoy, which I found incredible.
Juliette Le Monnyer (Ramallah, Palestine, December 2018, Palestine)
For their rigor, clarity and depth in their respective productions, for the striking images they manage to create in a world saturated with them, for their political power, and their solidarity.
With Hasan in Gaza, Kamal Aljafari
A House of Dynamite, Katheryn Bigelow
We had Fun Yesterday, Marion Guillard
We Come From the Sea, Joan Jonas (video installation)
Razeh-del, Maryam Tafakory
Sharon Lockhart (Windward, USA)
I did not see many films this year because I was so busy finishing and showing
Windward. However, there are two films I saw that I’d like to mention, both set in the
early ’70s but so relevant for our current times.
I went to see One to One: John and Yoko the weekend it opened in IMAX at Grauman’s Chinese Theater. It was great to see this film on a big screen with an audience. The footage from the “One To One” concert at Madison Square Garden is cleverly cut together with news, TV commercials, footage from Lennon and Ono’s lives during the time and recordings from their phone calls (which Lennon and Ono recorded because they were sure their phone was already tapped) to create a picture of a moment both hopeful and prophetic of the surveillance society that would fully develop in the ensuing years. The last section of the film details the impetus for the eponymous concert. After seeing the movie Willowbrook: The Last Great Disgrace on TV, Lennon, commenting on the conditions in the state-run school, said “These children are almost symbolic for all the pain on earth” and asks, “Where do you start?” The concert raised $1.5 million to combat the deplorable conditions at Willowbrook State School, an institution for disabled children.
There are strange resonances from One To One in Kelly Reichardt’s new film, The Mastermind. Reichardt always picks interesting subject matter and renders it in a visually compelling way. This is the second in a series of films featuring lead characters dealing with the complexities of leading a creative life. Set in the early 70s, an art school dropout conceives a plan to steal four beautiful Arthur Dove paintings from a local museum. As is typical of her period pieces, the set design and look of the film perfectly evokes the era. Just as in One To One, the Vietnam War, its protests, and Nixon serve as a backdrop, appearing on television screens as well as figuring in the narrative. The disengaged protagonist selfishly uses the networks of war resistors to enable his escape. One can’t help to reflect on the ways surveillance has made even the idea of such a low-fi caper an impossibility. One of my favorite elements to the film are the many scenes of children in unstructured play. Sometimes, the play is actively involved in the narrative, but more often, it is an oddly present background that disengages you from the narrative and drops you into the realm of the everyday.
Leonardo Martinelli (Samba Infinito, Brazil)
Alpha by Julia Ducournau
A Different Man by Aaron Schimberg
A Useful Ghost by Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke
Deuses da Peste by Gabriela Luiza, Tiago Mata Machado
Eddington by Ari Aster
God is Shy by Jocelyn Charles
Psychotronic Attacks by Calebe Lopes
The Secret Agent by Kleber Mendonça Filho
One Minute Is an Eternity for Those Who Are Suffering by Fábio Rogério, Wesley Pereira de Castro
Gabriel Azorin Miller (Last Night I Conquered Thebes, Spain)
+10K, Gala Hernández López
Afternoons of Solitude, Albert Serra
Glimmers, Pilar Palomero
Grand Tour, Miguel Gomes
The Piano Accident, Quentin Dupieux
A Scary Movie, Sergio Oksman
The Secret Agent, Kleber Mendonça Filho
Sleepless City, Guillermo Galoe
Southern Brides, Elena López Riera
Strange River, Jaume Claret Muxart
Sundays, Alauda Ruiz de Azúa
The Secret Agent, Kleber Mendonça Filho
Zucchini, Miles Emanuel
And as a bonus track: The Dead (John Huston, 1987), which is the film that moved me the most this year. I watched at home and when it finished, I played the final sequence a couple more times. I guess it was the only way I could find to be sheltered there for a while longer.
Quenton Miller (Koki, Ciao, Croatia)
Hair, Paper, Water… (Trương Minh Quý and Nicolas Graux)
A grandma passes on a language and a history. 16mm photography with field recordings and a narrating voice that spreads out like a chord.
Little Amélie or the Character of Rain (Mailys Vallade, Liane-Cho Han)
Between avant-garde and made for babies, in the best possible way.
Whale language research (UC Berkeley’s Linguistics Department and Project CETI)
Not a film, but documentary and durational.
Sleep With your Eyes Open (Nele Wolhatz)
Crepuscular characters.
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (Mary Bronstein)
Rose Byrne’s performance is an amazing feat, smartest recent use of in-your-face camera.
Extracurricular Activity (Xu Yidan & Dean Wei)
Painstakingly clinical, sad, funny, tragic. Rewards rewatching.
Monikondee (Tolin Alexander, Lonnie van Brummelen, Siebren de Haan)
On a fast-moving river between Suriname and French Guiana, a delivery boat driver struggles to keep up with the speed of extraction.
I Only Rest in the Storm (Pedro Pinho)
Still not sure what I make of this film from Portugal/Guinea-Bissau—made me think about satire repeating or repairing. Seems to combine a Portuguese actor playing an awkward satirical character alongside real-life post-colonial NGO situations in Guinea-Bissau, which could turn out like prank comedy but it’s done more as a slow three-hour neorealist epic about geopolitics. Imagine Nathan Fielder moving through a Joseph Conrad tale.
God is Shy (Jocelyn Charles)
Weaves realism into an expressionist fantasy with an uncanny bag of tricks.
Resurrection (Bi Gan)
Vice versa.
Comic World, Goyang City
Pushing cinematic formats often just translates to VR or ’70s expanded cinema, but there were so many possibilities here that fit my own criteria for cinema even better. Expo characters morphing at super speed and merch-funded bootleg webseries…
What Does That Nature Say to You (Hong Sang-soo)
I love every film, but Hong in explicitly funny mode is extra special. The Preston Sturges film I always wanted.
Loynes (Dorian Jespers)
Makes me excited about where and when filmmaking could go.
Olivia and the Clouds (Tomás Oichardo Espaillat)
It Was Just an Accident (Jafar Panahi)
Daria’s Night Flowers (Maryam Tafakory)
The Message (Iván Fund)
The Gold Rush (4K restoration with a whole other level of detail/reality) (Charlie Chaplin)
Temo Rei (Anka Gujabidze)
Their Eyes (Nicolas Gourault)
How Are You? (Caroline Poggi & Jonathan Vinel)
The Millennial Kids (Nirartha Bas Diwangkara)
The Nature of Dogs (Pom Bunsermvicha)
I could go on. This is a small slice of the many films I loved and was grateful to see in 2025.
Shô Miyake (Two Seasons, Two Strangers, Japan)
In no particular order:
Spring, on the Shores of Aga by Haruka Komori
Victoria by Sivaranjini J
BAUS: The Ship’s Voyage Continues by Sora Hokimoto
A Complete Unknown by James Mangold
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice by Tim Burton
Dry Leaf by Alexandre Koberidze
Mission: Impossible The Final Reckoning by Christopher McQuarrie
The Approach of Autumn by Mikio Naruse
The Cannibals by Manoel de Oliveira
…All the Marbles by Robert Aldrich
Alban Muja (I Believe Your Portrait Saved Me, Kosovo)
Short Films
Incident by a Bank, Ruben Östlund, 2010
I admire how Östlund transforms a real event into a masterfully choreographed long take. The film shows how the everyday can suddenly turn absurd, and how collective behavior unfolds in public space — something that always interests me as an artist.
The Cage, Adrian Sitaru, 2010
A brilliant observation of tension and intimacy. I appreciate Sitaru’s minimalistic approach and the moral friction he creates with almost nothing—just character, space and a simple situation.
Circle, Joung Yumi, 2024
I love the sensitivity and poetic rhythm of this animation. The film is almost meditative—it reminds me how repetition, memory, and cycles shape our experiences.
How Are You?, Caroline Poggi & Jonathan Vinel, 2025
Vinel and Poggi touched on youth, technology, and vulnerability in ways that feel urgent. This short has an emotional directness that I find deeply relatable.
Being John Smith, John Smith, 2024
John Smith’s humor, precision and conceptual clarity have always inspired me. I like how he plays with identity, language and perception—themes I often return to in my own work.
Documentaries
Whose Is This Song? Adela Peeva, 2003
An important and very relevant documentary for our region, exposing how a single song can become a battleground of cultural ownership. It shows how fragile and politicized identity can be.
Cities on Speed: Bogotá Change, Andreas Dalsgaard, 2009
I like how this film demonstrates that urban transformation is possible when political will and civic responsibility align. A hopeful documentary about real change.
For Sama, Waad Al-Kateab, Edward Watts, 2019
A heartbreaking and brave film. I respect its honesty—the way it shows love, survival and motherhood in the middle of war resonates with many stories I grew up hearing.
Müezzin, Sebastian Brameshuber, 2009
A quiet and beautifully observed film. I appreciate how it opens a window into a world shaped by discipline, ritual and tradition.
Feature Films
In the Soup, Alexandre Rockwell, 1992
A film full of charm and chaos. I love its independent spirit and warmth — it reminds me why I love cinema in the first place.
Latest film
Dreams, Dag Johan Haugerud, 2024
A sensitive and intelligent film and very simple as well. I appreciate Haugerud’s delicate storytelling and his ability to capture quiet emotional truths.
Films from the Balkans (my region)
I always want to mention a few films from the region where I come from—the Balkans, and especially films in Albanian made in Kosovo and Albania. Kosovo’s film scene has grown remarkably in the last decade; some even call it the “Kosovo New Wave.”
Kosovo Films (before and after the war)
Old Films
Proka, Isa Qosja, 1985
A strong and poetic work from one of Kosovo’s most important filmmakers.
Rojet e Mjegullës, Isa Qosja, 1988
A haunting film that reflects the spirit and challenges of its time.
The Man of Earth, Agim Sopi, 1984
A powerful story with strong visual storytelling.
Era dhe Lisi, Besim Sahatçiu, 1979
Beautifully crafted—a classic of Kosovo cinema.
117, Besim Sahatçiu, 1976
Another important work, showing the evolution of film in Kosovo during that period.
Contemporary Kosovo “New Wave” (last 10 years)
Babai (2015) and Exile (2020), Visar Morina
Morina’s films are emotionally precise and beautifully constructed. He raises important questions about identity, displacement and belonging.
The Marriage, Blerta Zeqiri, 2017
A courageous film that explores love, family and social pressure with honesty and elegance.
Hive, Blerta Basholli, 2021
Sundance triple-award winner. A milestone for Kosovo cinema. I admire the film’s strength, simplicity and the real story behind it.
Cold November, Ismet Sijarina, 2018
A strong, intimate portrait of life under political pressure.
Unwanted, Edon Rizvanolli, 2017
A touching film that addresses trauma and migration with sensitivity.
Vera Dreams of the Sea, Kaltrina Krasniqi, 2021
A powerful feminist narrative with exceptional acting and atmosphere.
Echo, Dren Zherka, 2016
A beautifully minimal and atmospheric film.
The Hill Where Lionesses Roar, Luàna Bajrami, 2021
A bold debut by a young filmmaker with a strong visual identity.
Ocarina, Alban Zogjani, 2023
A poetic and emotionally rich film—I appreciate its sensitivity to everyday life.
Albania
Slogans, Gjergj Xhuvani, 2001
An excellent film—heartfelt, humorous and deeply human. Xhuvani is one of Albania’s great storytellers.
Films about the wars in ex-Yugoslavia
No Man’s Land, Danis Tanović, (2001)
A dark comedy, but painfully real. It captures the absurdity of war in a way that is still relevant today.
Quo Vadis, Aida?, Jasmila Žbanić, 2020
One of the most powerful films about Srebrenica. It is essential viewing—both emotionally and historically.
Old films:
I Even Met Happy Gypsies, Aleksandar Petrović, Yugoslavia, 1967
A classic. Bekim Fehmiu, one of the most important Kosovo-Albanian (ex-Yugosslavian) actors, carries the film with his unique presence. This film is part of our collective film heritage. Independent filmmakers that are worth seeing from ex-Yugoslavia are, as well, Dušan Makavejev and Želimir Žilnik.
Jaume Claret Muxart (Strange River, Spain)
List A
The Currents, Milagros Mumenthaler
Screened at the Olympion Cinema during Thessaloniki Film Festival.
What a beautiful film. So full of mystery, so many questions left unanswered—just like its protagonist, who either doesn’t try or simply can’t manage to solve them. This is expressive cinema, where the story matters less than the way it is told. It begins almost in silence, reminding me of certain films by Petzold; there’s a scene at the lighthouse that feels brilliant, fresh, and wholly original, and then a final shot that keeps unfolding in your mind. After watching it, I found myself walking through the streets of Thessaloniki.
Two Seasons, Two Strangers, Shô Miyake
Screened at Filmmuseum Wien during the Viennale.
A hymn to the desire to make films, to writing. A film that shifts halfway through, cinema within cinema. A snowbound film. It reminded me of passages from Ermanno Olmi’s Time Stood Still.
The Fence, Claire Denis
Screened at Tabakalera during San Sebastian Film Festival, after her masterclass, conducted amazingly by the programmer Irati Crespo.
I don’t understand why there’s a certain tendency to undervalue Claire Denis’s recent films. She remains personal, unique, genuine—and it’s hard to find that nowadays. Perhaps more imperfect, but the way she films… Long live imperfect cinema. The nights in this film. One of the most interesting transitions from theater to cinema that I’ve seen in a long time.
Mirrors No. 3, Christian Petzold
Screened at Gartenbaukino during the Viennale opening.
A film in which the characters come and go with the wind. Petzold achieves a simplicity that is anything but simple in this story. The final shot contains all the mystery and ghostliness of his cinema—a shot that is an act of love toward an actress’s work.
Explanation for Everything, Gábor Reisz
Screened at home with a cup of tea in my hands.
I was captivated by the originality of the proposal from the very first minute, with what is, in my view, the best performance of the year. An interesting portrait of education and society in Budapest. A film I truly learned from. It should be screened in every school.
Other relevant films of the year: The Stranger, François Ozon; A Complete Unknown, James Mangold; Blue Moon, Richard Linklater; Carol & Joy, Nathan Silver; The Love That Remains, Hlynur Pálmason; Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes, Gabriel Azorín.
List B
Army of Shadows (1969), Jean-Pierre Melville
Screened at home.
We Won’t Grow Old Together (1972), Maurice Pialat
Screened at Zumzeig Cinema in Barcelona.
Dressed to Kill (1980), Brian De Palma
Screened at home.
Inferno (1980), Dario Argento
Screened at Filmoteca de Catalunya.
Jacquot de Nantes (1991), Agnès Varda
Screened at home.
Isabel Pagliai (Fantasie, France)
In the end, I’m putting aside all the socio-historical-political articles, books, and interviews I’ve collected this year… which ultimately seem far too obscure to share, even though they were my main source of nourishment in 2025.
Here are a few works I saw and read this year that continue to stay with me:
Films:
I Only Rest in the Wind, Pedro Pinho
Afternoons of Solitude, Albert Serra
Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, Johan Grimonprez
Books:
The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II, Svetlana Alexievitch
Qui a tué mon père, Monique s’évade, L’Effondrement, Edouard Louis
Faits d’affect,: conferences by Georges Didi-Huberman available on internet, also in two books
Christian Petzold (Mirrors No. 3, Germany)
In this year I have seen many “old“ movies, a voyage into film history. The only contemporay movies I have seen:
House of Dynamite, Bigelow
Roofman, Cianfrance
When Fall is Coming, Ozon
Blue Moon, Linklater
One Battle After Another, Anderson
The Secret Agent, Mendonça Filho
Sound of Falling, Schilinski
Nuestra Tierra, Martel
Sentimental Value, Trier
Phantoms of July, Radlmaier
Theo Ponagopoulos (The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing, Palestine, UK.)
- Soundtrack to a Coup D’Etat directed by Johan Grimonprez
- A Want in Her directed by Myrid Carten
- Sentimental Value directed by Joachim Trier
- Palestine 36 directed by Annemarie Jacir
- On Falling directed by Laura Careira
- All That is Left of You directed by Cherien Dabis
- It Was Just An Accident directed by Jafar Panahi
- Bugonia directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
- Sinners directed by Ryan Coogler
- Sudan Remember Us directed by Hind Meddeb
- Nickel Boys directed by RaMell Ross
- The Stimming Pool co-directed by Neurocultures Collective and Steven Eastwood
- Partition directed by Diana Allan
Marta Popivoda (Slet 1988, Serbia, Germany)
My absolute favorite film this year is Dry Leaf by Alexandre Koberidze.
Ben Rivers (Mare’s Nest, UK)
Robert Wilson and the Civil Wars, Howard Brokkner (restoration)
Morgenkreis, Basma al-Sharif
Dry Leaf, Alexandre Koberidze
Being John Smith, John Smith
Little Boy, James Benning
Angel’s Egg, Mamoru Oshii (restoration)
Hair, Paper, Water…, Nicolas Graux, Truong Minh Quy
Zodiac Killer Project, Charlie Shackleton
Weapons, Zach Cregger
The Vanishing Point, Bani Khoshnoudi
And my favourite screening this year: The Clock, or: 89 minutes of ‘Free Time,” a program by Alexander Horwath.
Vladlena Sandu (Memory, Ukraine, France)
In my opinion, the best films of this year that I managed to see are:
Sound of Falling (2025), Mascha Schilinski
Silent Friend (2025), Ildikó Enyedi
Some of the older films I revisited this year that I consider outstanding are:
Shoah (1985), Claude Lanzmann
Zechmeister (1981), Angela Summereder
Mirror (1975), Andrei Tarkovsky
Seasons of the Year (1975), Artavazd Peleshyan
All of these films left a strong impression on me, both for their artistic vision and emotional depth.
Claire Simon (Writing Life: Annie Ernaux Through the Eyes of High School Students, France)
This year I loved:
Yes from Nadav Lapid
Sentimental Value from Joachim Trier
A Simple Accident from Jafar Panahi
One Battle After Another from Paul Thomas Anderson
Life after Siham (doc) from Namir Abdel Messeeh
Holding Liat (doc) from Brandon Kramer
Imago (doc) from Déni Oumar
No Other Land (doc) from Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham
Afternoons of Solitude (doc) from Albert Serra.
The Mastermind from Kelly Reichardt
That’s not bad, isn’t it!
Sinan Taner (1:10, Switzerland)
Short Films
- O, Rúnar Rúnarsson (Iceland/Sweden, 2024)
For me, this is the best short film of the year. Everything aligns perfectly—the camera work, the rhythm, the emotional impact achieved in such a short time. You can feel the immense experience and craftsmanship in every frame; it’s truly impressive. - IT’S FINE, I’M FINE, EVERYTHING’S FINE, Rino Barbir (Croatia, 2025)
The film is wonderfully funny and incredibly close to life. The overlapping dialogue feels natural and gives the film an effortless sense of realism. It creates a world that is both humorous and truthful at the same time. - Söder, Raoul Bruck (Austria, 2024)
A beautifully absurd and genuinely funny short. The performances are excellent, full of subtle comedic timing. The stylised direction and visually playful approach make it stand out. - Fish River Anthropology, Veera Lampinää (Finland, 2024)
For me, the best animated film of the year. Visually striking and inventive, it works with a small, everyday theme and elevates it beautifully. The stop-motion craftsmanship is exceptional. - Loynes, Dorian Jespers (Belgium/France/North Macedonia/UK, 2025)
A truly unique short film in terms of scale and ambition. It creates a captivating pull—a cinematic current that is rarely felt so strongly. The sheer number of people, costumes and artistic detail involved is deeply impressive. - Skin on Skin, Simon Schneckenburger (Germany, 2024)
Every aspect of this film works flawlessly—acting, camera, editing, sound and production design. It’s emotionally powerful in a very immediate way. A beautifully directed piece that stays with you.
Feature Films
- Afternoons of Solitude, Albert Serra (Spain/France/Portugal, 2024)
The film’s approach to such a brutal subject matter fascinated me deeply. It’s brilliantly edited with a slow, deliberate rhythm while never losing its tension. Serra creates an atmosphere that feels both haunting and hypnotic. - Sometimes I Think About Dying, Rachel Lambert (USA, 2023)
A wonderfully absurd love story told with tenderness. The characters are distinct and beautifully drawn. The dialogue carries a quiet, off-beat charm that makes the film memorable. - A Day Without Women, Pamela Hogan & Hrafnhildur Gunnarsdóttir (Iceland, 2024)
A quietly bold and timely film that imagines a society suddenly confronted with the absence of women’s presence and labor. Without ever becoming didactic, it reveals how deeply our everyday structures rely on contributions that too often go unseen. I found its perspective both socially sharp and deeply humane. - Brunaupark, Felix Hergert & Dominik Zietlow (Switzerland, 2024)
For me, it is the best Swiss film of the year. This documentary approaches Zurich’s housing shortage with both wit and humor, while still treating the subject with sincerity and depth. It balances sharp social observation with a playful tone that makes it both engaging and thought-provoking.
Kim Torres (If We Don’t Burn, How Do We Light Up the Night, Costa Rica)
This is the year in which I finished my first feature film, so I’d like to name a few debut films that I discovered this year, even though they’re older works.
The first is La Pointe Courte (1955) by Agnès Varda. This movie completely blew me away. It is so delicately shot, with a curious eye that constantly wanders into the town’s faces and places; an attention to space as a character that lingered with me even more than the main storyline of a couple in the dawn of their separation.
The next is A New Leaf (1971) by Elaine May. She is a director with such a unique voice and sense of humor that it’s so disheartening but also not surprising that she was unjustly blacklisted by the major studios. Her debut is a screwball gem that everyone should watch. Also a huge shout out to her absolutely ridiculous and genius film Ishtar (1987) and The Heartbreak Kid (1972).
I was also lucky enough to catch the newly released restoration of Killer of Sheep (1978) by Charles Burnett. It is so inspiring to see a first film like this one, a thesis film made with a microbudget with friends and neighbors. Burnett’s visual poetry, gritty and full of tender ache, has stayed with me since then.
Finally, even though it’s not a debut film, I’d like to mention Waka: La tierra de los Bribris (1979) by Edgar Trigueros, a Costa Rican film that was restored and released this year via the YouTube channel of the Archivo de la Imagen. It explores the illegal dispossession of the indigenous Bribri land in Costa Rica in an uncompromising and at times poetic way. It is also a testimony of a strand of deeply political films from the 70s in Costa Rica that feel just as urgent today (if not even more) than back then.
Minh Quý Trương (Hair, Paper, Water…, France, Vietnam)
Água Mãe (Water Mother) by Hiroatsu Suzuki, Rossana Torres
Wind, Talk to Me by Stefan Djordjevic
What Does That Nature Say to You by Hong Sang-soo
I Only Rest in the Storm by Pedro Pinho
Back Home by Tsai Ming-liang
Dracula by Radu Jude
The Arch by Tang Shu Shuen, 1968
Angel’s Egg by Mamoru Oshii, 1985
Alisha Tepjal (Landscapes of Longing, India)
In the fissures of time between traveling with a finished work (Landscapes of Longing, 2025) and pulling at the seams of my first feature in development, I found it hard to watch or read any work that didn’t in some way speak to my own creative battling.
The list below reflects films that have in one way or another shaped my understanding of my own desires from the cinematic medium. This is to say that I do not think this list is comprehensive in the least, but instead is a curation of films, in no particular order, that I have watched (or re-watched ) this past year whose shapes, textures and contors in form and subject have generated ripples in my own work and being.
Nashville (1975), Robert Altman
Yi Yi (2000), Edward Yang
A Brighter Summer Day (1991), Edward Yang
The River (1997), Tsai Ming-liang
Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003), Tsai Ming-liang
Sentimental Value (2025), Joachim Trier
Misericordia (2024), Alain Guiraudie
28 Nights and a Poem (2015), Akram Zataari
Afternoons of Solitude (2024), Albert Serra
Tampopo (1985), Juzo Itami
La Cienega (2001), Lucrecia Martel
Everywhere Was the Same (2007), Basma Al-Sharif
Lastly, I’d like to also list a program of films I watched this year at the Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg: “Scattered as the Mountains: An excavation into Kurdish Landscape(s),” curated by Deniz Şimşek. While each film in this series holds a specific point of view and stands strong on its own, experienced as a curated whole, Şimşek sculpted an affective depth that became an artistic act of its own.
Rhayne Vermette (Levers, Canada)
2025 was the year I lost all joy watching films. I saw only a few films (and walked out of most). Honestly, only really watched my own films, films made by friends or films which I helped make (shout out to Grace Glowicki’s Dead Lover, Ben Petrie’s The Heirloom and Amalie Atkins’ Agatha’s Almanac). Below is a short but unbiased list.
Best film of 2025: Black Ox by Tsuta Tetsuichiro
Best rewatch of 2025: 5¢ a Copy by Ed Ackerman and Gregory Zbitnew, seen projected as a glorious 16mm print.
Blake Williams (FELT, Canada)
Features (New-ish)
Baby Invasion
Dry Leaf
Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie
Bugonia
Reflection in a Dead Diamond
YES
The Perfect Neighbor
What Does That Nature Say to You
Father Mother Sister Brother
Final Destination Bloodlines
Features (Older)
The Store (1983, Frederick Wiseman)
Le boucher (1970, Claude Chabrol)
They Live (1988, John Carpenter)
Model (1980, Frederick Wiseman)
Zoo (1993, Frederick Wiseman)
Scattered Clouds (1967, Mikio Naruse)
Deep End (1970, Jerzy Skolimowski)
High School (1968, Frederick Wiseman)
Anatomy of a Relationship (1976, Luc Moullet & Antonietta Pizzorno)
The Final Destination (2009, David R. Ellis)
Shorts
The Dark Room (2001, Minyong Jang)
Ferment (1999, Tim Macmillan)
Toward a Fundamental Theory of Physics (Victor Van Rossem)
Ode to R.G. Springsteen (2024, John Winn)
Tulsa (Scott Stark)
Fiction Contract (Carolyn Lazard)
CONFERENCE (Björn Kämmerer)
Lover, Lovers, Loving, Love (Jodie Mack)
Rojo Žalia Blau (Viktoria Schmid)
Acetone Reality (Sara Magenheimer & Michael Bell-Smith)
