Programmer Karolis Žukas

Resurrection (Dir. Bi Gan)

MASTERS
A six-part epic transporting us to a future where humanity has traded the ability to dream for immortality. This is an ode to cinema itself, divided into six chapters, each reflecting one of the Buddhist senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, and mind. Director Bi Gan leads the viewer through various epochs and styles: from silent film expressionism to gritty film noir, vampire drama, and neon gangster thriller. You will recognize numerous references to the giants of film history – from the Lumière brothers to Wong Kar-wai. The director remains true to his signature style: time, memory, and, of course, his unique ultra-long single-take sequence dominate the screen. Bi Gan seems to suggest that while cinema is an ever-dying art form, as long as there are dreamers, it will always be resurrected in a new guise.

It Was Just an Accident (Dir. Jafar Panahi)

MASTERS
In It Was Just an Accident, Jafar Panahi departs from his usual docufiction style to immerse the viewer in a tense moral thriller. An accidental encounter transforms into a ruthless confrontation with past traumas as a group of former Iranian political prisoners attempt to identify their torturer. The director masterfully juggles absurdist comedy and moral drama, posing a fundamental question: can a victim yearning for revenge avoid becoming the very monster they seek to punish? Jafar Panahi proves once again that he is one of greatest humanists in cinema.

Dazed and Confused (Dir. Richard Linklater)

SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT
I strongly recommend every film in the Smells Like Teen Spirit program, but Dazed and Confused holds a special place in my heart. This is a film that brings me immense comfort and one I watch at least once a year. Richard Linklater captured not just the look of the seventies , but its very soul. We don’t just see the bell-bottoms or long hair – we can almost smell the summer night air, feel the scent of the car seats, and sense that sweet, slightly melancholic anticipation when it feels like something wonderful is about to happen. It is a film about rebellion without a cause, about friendships bonded by loud rock’n’roll, and about the fact that sometimes being here and now is all that matters. Watching it makes you want to step into the screen and have a smoke with the characters.

Vive L’AmouR  (Dir. Tsai Ming-liang)

MADE IN TAIWAN
One of my favorite directors, Tsai Ming-liang, gracefully and poetically portrays the captives of a real estate boom: three Taipei residents wandering between a search for meaning and an insatiable thirst for intimacy. Today, when owning a home has become the ultimate luxury, when digital dating has made sex more accessible while making love more complicated, and when we increasingly hear the term “loneliness epidemic” Vive L’Amour is more relevant than ever. The film’s cult status is best proven by a tradition in Taipei’s Daan Park: on New Year’s Eve, students gather here not just to celebrate, but to sit and cry together in homage to the film. I urge you to check out the other films in the Made in Taiwan program – they are all superb.

The Voice of Hind Rajab (Dir. Kaouther Ben Hania)

MASTERS
Director Kaouther Ben Hania has created perhaps the most emotionally devastating film of the past year, where the line between cinematic art and brutal reality simply vanishes. Utilizing the actual emergency call recording of six-year-old Hind Rajab that shocked the world, the filmmaker forces the viewer not just to watch, but to physically feel a paralyzing helplessness. This is a document of collective memory and a testament to a tragedy from which we no longer have the right to turn away. A film that speaks for itself.

Alpha (Dir. Julia Ducournau)

MASTERS, MIDNIGHT SCREAMS
Following the scandalous success of Titane, Julia Ducournau returns with a far quieter yet no less impactful work. Alpha uses a ruthless virus that freezes bodies into living marble statues as a powerful symbol of stigmatization and grief. The director moves away from her signature gore but maintains the same surgical attention to physicality. Drenched in a cold palette of greyish and amber tones, the film is a claustrophobic family drama where Tahar Rahim’s physical dedication to the role is breathtaking. An ambitious, occasionally complex, but deeply empathetic tale of how death turns us into monuments and memories into dust.

Barrio Triste (Dir. rež. Stillz)

LOST, LOST, LOST
Director Stillz, who has already earned acclaim in the music world for his Bad Bunny music videos, searches for inspiration in the past – specifically, the streets of Medellín in the 1980s. Barrio Triste balances between street neorealism and sci-fi, where mysterious lights in the sky become symbols of hope or perhaps approaching doom. Although the film’s structure is intentionally chaotic, it is this uninhibited camera gaze that captures the pulse of teenagers roaming the streets. It is a noisy, gritty, and hypnotic debut where fashion, street culture, experimentation, and an aggressive soundtrack by Arca collide.