The film lineup for the "Ends of the Earth" section of the 7th Hainan Island International Film Festival (HIIFF) is officially announced! With a broad vision and keen insight, this section gathers new films from across the global film landscape that transcend regions, cultural contexts, and genres, carefully selecting award-winning and highly acclaimed masterpieces from major international film festivals worldwide throughout the year for screening, aiming to showcase the latest trends in the global film industry to festival audiences. From December 3 to December 9, using cinema as our medium, we take in a global panorama where people's emotions are interconnected and their destinies are intertwined.
In this year's "Ends of the Earth" section, several directors present their first or second feature films. Kunsang Jilong's 100 Sunset Boulevard focuses on the Tibetan community in Toronto, portraying a rare portrait of diaspora life from the perspective of female friendship and revealing the true face of Toronto's Tibetan neighborhood. Ondřej Provazník's Broken Voices similarly turns its gaze to young girls, exploring desire and power with distinct psychological drama tension, taking us back to 1990s Prague. João Rosas's A Luminous Life inherits the stylistic legacy of Portuguese auteur cinema, outlining the bewilderment of Lisbon's millennials on a sunny spring day. Guillermo Gallo's Sleepless City presents the issue of illegal immigration in Europe from a child's perspective, creating an intertextual dialogue with the works of Sylvain George, the "In Focus" filmmaker of this festival. Ilsa Roca Vanbergh's The Ground Beneath Our Feet uses delicate and gentle imagery to show audiences another side of Europe, documenting the silent daily life in an Icelandic nursing home. One Woman One Bra, directed by Winjo Njogu, juxtaposes humor with reality, focusing on land, identity, and women's autonomy.
In addition to these striking new faces, we are also pleased to welcome the latest work from the Pueblo Group once again. Alejo Moguillansky's Pin de Fartie, as always, boldly and playfully blends theater and cinema, inviting the audience to enter and exit a fictional world with immense freedom and imagination. Nicolás Pereda's new film Copper transforms the discovery of a corpse into a subtle reflection on disease, identity, and the invisible burden of exploitative labor, inviting the audience to spend another night with "Lázaro." Francesco Sossai depicts a journey across the Venice highway in The Last One for the Road, where Italian actor Filippo Scotti reunites with HIIFF audiences on the screen, following last year's Golden Coconut Awards feature film nominee The American Backyard.
From ethical dilemmas in small European towns to land disputes in African villages; from the growing pains in Latin American slums to turbulent childhoods in the suburbs of Madrid, the films in this section span thousands of miles geographically and culturally, yet resonate with each other in artistic expression and humanistic care. Together, these works present the creative vitality and intellectual depth of contemporary cinema, where even the "Ends of the Earth" can be woven into the revelations of light and shadow.
More screening lineups for the 7th HIIFF will be announced soon. We look forward to embarking on a cinematic journey with filmmakers and cinephiles from home and abroad, and, through inclusivity and creativity, seeing a broader world.
HI
