Anais Emery

Source: Vincent Calmel

Anais Emery

Anais Emery, artistic director of the Geneva International Film Festival (GIFF), says the mission to provide a cultural space that celebrates the plurality of voices and fosters unexpected encounters, is becoming more demanding every year as global and societal issues become more complex.

“It hasn’t discouraged us,” she says of the socio-political backdrop to this year’s festival. “We are presenting a lineup that goes against algorithmic logic, inviting viewers to explore uncharted cinematic territories, powerful series, visionary films, and to traverse new narrative spaces within the framework of our Virtual Territories.”

“My feeling is there is a fresh boost of artistic dynamism in film,” Emery adds. “We could really feel it.”

GIFF 2025 is taking place in Switzerland from October 31- November 9.

This year’s 10-strong international film section, half of which are directed by women, includes high-profile titles such as Kristen Stewart’s directorial debut The Chronology Of Water, which premiered at Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section this year. Based on Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir and adapted for the screen by Stewart, the film stars Imogen Poots, Jim Belushi and Thora Birch.

Carolina Cavalli’s second The Kidnapping Of Arabella, a quirky Italian-language road movie starring Chris Pine in his first Italian-language role is also screening, along with Argentina-born, Swiss-raised filmmaker Milagros Mumenthaler’s drama The Currents and Spanish filmmaker Amalia Ulman’s zany satire Magic Farm.

Also screening in the international film competition is the Brooklyn-set drag queen zombie apocalypse title Queens Of The Dead from Tina Romero, daughter of George A. Romero.

The competition also includes Sham by Japanese auteur Takashi Miike, based on a piece of investigative journalism,  John Skoog’s Cold War drama Redoubt starring Denis Lavant,  Columbian filmmaker Simón Mesa Soto’s Un Certain Regard prize winner A Poet,  now Columbia’s Oscar submission, Alireza Khatami’s dramatic thriller The Things You Kill, from Canada, and also submitted to the Oscars, and Dutch filmmaker Sven Bresser’s Reedland, which debuted in Critics’ Week in Cannes earlier this year.

Creativity is what counts, says Emery, who is delighted with what she and the team have been able to programme.

“We’ve been screening a lot of content,” she says. “It’s our first year in a new decade, our 31st edition overall, and we have the feeling that the convergent DNA of the festival is more understood.

“It means we can come to audiences with a lineup that tackles the issue we are meant to tackle, which is the creativity in films, the new path for expression in terms of artistic structure, narratives. It seems to me, the programme looks like us.”

Beyond the international film section, the series section also reflects an uptick in quality and ambition. With TV work from Taiwan, Iceland, the Netherlands and Germany alongside projects from Norway and France, the festival is once again making the shows accessible in their entirety in a hybrid format: the first episodes are presented in theatres and the rest of the season is available online via personalised viewing links.

“More and more series are being produced, especially in Europe, and the work of screening and building up the programme is more and more intense for us,” Emery says.  “It is great because it’s one of the core elements of the festival. To have smaller national productions, to important mainstream series, to scout, gives us the ability to represent the diversity of production.”

This year’s festival features 85 works, of which 36 are films, 25 series and 24 are immersive experiences.

GIFF has a special focus on the Netherlands this year and is honouring a trio of renowned names: US film and television creator Alan Ball, veteran UK filmmaker Stephen Frears and French-speaking Switzerland’s key media and cultural figures Nathalie Nath.

Emery says she is most looking forward to meeting with the festival’s audiences again. “We prepared a strong lineup for them and the immersive experience section is also very strong.”

The festival runs from October 31 to November 9. The 13th edition of its Geneva Digital Market (GDM) takes place from November 3-6. 

Topics