The International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) is to hold retrospectives of Croatian-German documentarian Katja Raganelli and Ukrainian auteur Sergii Masloboishchykov as part of its 2025 Focus programme.
Katja Raganelli’s work on public television, often aired only once and now largely faded from view, focused on the history of women in filmmaking. It includes: Margery Wilson – Vom Stummfilmstar Hollywoods zur Filmregisseurin (1996), Valie Export – Portrait einer Filmregisseurin (1981), and Die Liebe ist ein Mythos – Delpine Seyrig (1978).
The Focus programme will also present Raganelli’s portraits of figures like Agnès Varda, Márta Mészáros, Valie Export, Alice Guy-Blaché and Lotte Reiniger.
Sergii Masloboishchykov’s retrospective will include the international premiere of his latest work, Yasa (2023). It marks his return to IFFR three decades after the screening of his debut fiction feature, Josephine, the Singer and the Mice People (1994), which will be screened as part of the programme alongside titles including Own Voice (2016).
The festival said Masloboishchykov’s films, spanning fiction and documentary formats, provide a deeply personal yet nationally resonant perspective on Ukraine’s evolution.
The Focus programme will also explore the legacy of VHS culture through screenings including the world premeries of Alex Ross Perry’s documentaryVideoheaven, which chronicles the history of video stores in Hollywood cinema, and Gyz La Rivière’s ode to a video store, Videotheek Marco.
The 70th anniversary of the Bandung Conference, where the concept of the Global South was born, will also be marked with a thematic exploration of the film cultures of resistance and reform that it inspired.
IFFR festival director Vanja Kaludjercic said: “Each of these programmes is either the first of their kind or looks at the world through a new prism or point of view.”
The 54th edition of IFFR takes place January 30 – February 9 2025.
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