For a filmmaker associated primarily with the South Caucasus, Sergei Parajanov made most of his films in Ukraine. After graduating from VGIK in Moscow, he became an employee of Dovzhenko Film Studio in Kyiv. While in later life, he was prone to rubbishing his filmography up until Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, the four features and three documentaries that preceded it present a very different but no less fascinating director. Bringing together a new restoration of Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, scans from the Dovchenko Centre’s original camera negatives and rare 35mm archival prints, this program traces Parajanov’s creative evolution as a filmmaker and celebrates the filmmaker’s centennial.
Curated by Olena Honcharuk and Daniel Bird, in collaboration with Cecilia Cenciarelli

Kozaburo Yoshimura (1911-2000) is one of the neglected masters of classical Japanese film. He was responsible for some of the postwar Japanese cinema’s most compelling dramas, which bear eloquent witness to social change in a rapidly modernising and Westernising country. He began his directorial career at Shochiku in the 1930s and worked until the 1970s, but this programme will concentrate on his career in the 1950s, when his art was at its height. Working mostly at Daiei in fruitful collaboration with screenwriter Kaneto Shindo (himself also a distinguished director), he realised a sequence of gems such as Clothes of Deception (1951) and Undercurrent (1956) (the latter scripted by Japan’s leading woman screenwriter, Sumie Tanaka). These films earned him comparison with Mizoguchi for his sensitive exploration of female experience. Facilitated by the support of Kadokawa, Shochiku, The Japan Foundation and the National Film Archive of Japan, and featuring a new 4K digital restoration as well as vintage 35mm prints, this retrospective will highlight the beauty, power and relevance of Yoshimura’s cinema.
Curated by Alexander Jacoby and Johan Nordström

Photo from Chijo © Kadokawa

The late 1940s and very early 1950s saw a scattered production of films in which the worries of today and the pain and shameful memories of the recent past got discussed in stories set at the edges of Germany and Austria – in the rural far-away of the Alpine regions. In terms of genre, they’re rooted in what soon would be called Heimatfilm: movies set in specific landscapes whose people are seen as paragons of traditions needed to face the challenges of modern (city) life. But in contrast to the official Heimatfilm classics, these gems had more to do with film noir (Die Alm an der Grenze, 1951) or horror (Die seltsame Geschichte des Brandner Kaspar, 1949, by Josef von Báky); experimented with expressionism (Die Sonnhofbäuerin, 1948) and neorealism (Bergkristall, 1949) alike, and offered political opinions not at all in line with the official narratives of the day. Little known and shown even in their countries of origin, these films offer unexpected insights into a transitional period of Germany and Austria, their cinemas alike.
Curated by Olaf Möller

Women’s subjugation within patriarchal society, both in a literal sense and as an allegory of a totalitarian regime; a backward journey to process family memories that become a collective political narrative; the condemnation of colonial repression and the celebration of culture and artistic expression an element of resistance and liberation – are among the themes that run through the works presented this year. Eleven brand new restorations, seven world premieres, will take us from the outskirts of Dakar to the womb of Manila, to the rural villages of southern Iran and western Syria, and again to the Indian region of Odisha and the island of Cape Verde.
Curated by Cecilia Cenciarelli

In a career lasting half a century, director Gustaf Molander made more than 70 films in a variety of genres and styles and left a lasting imprint on Swedish film history. While Ingmarsarvet (The Ingmar Inheritance, 1925) is the epilogue to the Golden Age of Swedish silent cinema and on par with some of the more famous films from the era, the programme also includes examples of his brilliance in drama, film noir and comedy from the sound era in films such as En natt (Solo una notte, 1931), Kvinna utan ansikte (La furia del peccato, 1947) and Fästmö uthyres (Fiancée for Hire, 1950). Not just a versatile director excelling in different genres, Molander also had an extraordinary ability to bring forth the true potential in actors – in particular actresses. His films with the young Ingrid Bergman in the 1930s launched her to international stardom, but the tribute also provides a rare opportunity to see Harriet Andersson, Eva Dahlbeck, Inga Landgré and Gunn Wållgren in the early stages of their respective careers.
Curated by Jon Wengström