IFF Art Film will present ten boundary-pushing films in the Love & Anarchy section

The non-competitive Love & Anarchy section, a long-standing pillar of the IFF Art Film programme, will showcase ten bold and formally innovative works that straddle the line between documentary and fiction. According to the section’s curator, film theorist and critic Martin Ciel, this line-up “examines contemporary experimental approaches to cinematic language and hints at the direction cinema may take in the future.” Among the section’s stand-out titles are Black Dog, the Cannes Un Certain Regard winner; the biographical roller-coaster Limonov: The Ballad; and the essay documentary Cleaning and Polishing, partially shot in Slovakia.

“This year the regular Love & Anarchy programme focuses on para-documentaries, hybrid films and innovations along the fiction/documentary frontier—the part of today’s audiovisual landscape that, thanks to new technologies, is ever more intriguing and offers fresh views on reality. Or alternative views. Three of the ten new films presented (Black Dog, Always in Summer, The Report) are standard independent features, yet they remain firmly grounded in an exploration of our shared reality. The other films in the section make full use of observational, staged or participatory methods, or of archival material typical of documentary work. They reveal new aesthetic paths as we gradually move beyond the now-rather-old-fashioned (though still operative!) divide between documentary and fiction. This is what research through art might look like in the future. True, art employs different—perhaps less exact—tools than science or philosophy, yet it can yield an equally precise and profound insight into its subject. And that subject is reality,” adds Martin Ciel.

Among the ten exceptional works is one of director Kirill Serebrennikov’s latest films, Limonov: The Ballad (2024), about Russian writer and dissident Eduard Limonov. Serebrennikov recounts Limonov’s perverse story at a mad, kaleidoscopic roller-coaster pace, plunging the viewer into rapture one moment and revulsion the next.

Also commanding attention is the 2024 Cannes Un Certain Regard winner, the Chinese western Black Dog (2024). Set in an apocalyptic post-industrial landscape, it tells the dramatic tale of a lone hero who clashes with local gangs after befriending a dangerous, wanted dog. The story unfolds in the recent past, documenting real transformations in Chinese society and serving both as a memory trace and a metaphor.

The meditative observational piece Cleaning & Cleansing (2024) guides viewers into a curious world of hygiene and mental cleansing—from sacred rituals and daily routines to military decontamination and church clean-ups—through an associative montage that evokes Zen-like calm. Parts of the film were shot in Slovakia.

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Best U.S. Dramatic Feature and the Directing Award at Sundance 2024, In the Summers offers an authentically portrayed, rigorously realistic contemporary story told across several time periods. Naturalistic performances and a keen eye for realism elicit deep empathy as audiences follow the evolving relationship of a troubled father and his daughters. Alessandro Lacorraza’s new film exemplifies the branch of American independent cinema noted for precise realism, psychological detail and powerful reflections on everyday life.

The prize-winning Fiume o morte! (2025), which took both the Tiger and FIPRESCI awards at the 54th IFF Rotterdam, is a hybrid comedic docudrama written and directed by Igor Bezinović. It reconstructs—or rather deconstructs—the geopolitically absurd occupation of the border city Rijeka by the decadent Gabriele D’Annunzio, famed poet, bohemian, war hero and madly charismatic extremist.

Miguel Gomes, one of today’s most original directors exploring the possibilities and power of film, invites viewers on a wild ride across Asia in his new film Grand Tour (2024). The journey unfolds not only in 1917 but also in the present—and essentially at any time. Fiancée Molly relentlessly pursues the tragicomic protagonist in this action-philosophical reflection on film and reality. The fusion of formal experiment, archival footage and adventure proved a triumph: Grand Tour won the Best Director prize at Cannes 2024.

The highly amusing archival compilation by directors Radu Jude and Christian Ferencz-Flatz, Eight Postcards from Utopia (2024), uses period commercials in eight chapters to document the dynamic transition from totalitarianism to free-market consumerism. An un-narrated sequence shows how ideas and fantasies changed, how old stereotypes died and new ones arose. Often absurd, these TV spots tried to “sell” a new lifestyle, meeting with ridicule, misunderstanding and enthusiasm alike. At IDFA the directors received the IDFA ReFrame Award for creative use of archives.

The satirical documentary Strange Abandoned Deranged (2024), shot in circus style, recounts the nearly unbelievable story of Turkey’s first “eco” amusement park. The megalomaniac resort project and its gradual decay into catastrophe become a process the filmmaker records through a dramaturgically balanced collage of dance numbers, performances, archival footage, guests’ and staff memories, news reports and shots of a dinosaur.

Another film from Cannes—where director Roberto Minervini, an acclaimed artist and experimenter, won the 2024 Un Certain Regard directing prize—The Damned (2024) returns to the era of the American Civil War, as the government sends a cavalry unit on a remote reconnaissance mission into “no-man’s-land.” It does not end well.

The melancholic road movie The Message (2025) follows young Anika, who has a peculiar gift: she can communicate with animals—or can she? In any case, she becomes a lucrative asset for her guardians, a kindly man and woman who run the entire business. They travel dusty Argentine roads, doggedly seeking clients for this “service.” Would you like to know what your dog or cat is saying? Told in long, expansive black-and-white takes, the film casts a strange poetic spell, inviting viewers to drift along without worrying about how much is real, since the film explains nothing unnecessarily. It won the Jury Prize at the Berlinale 2025.

The 31st IFF ART FILM will take place thanks to the support of:

Organizer: ART FILM FEST s.r.o.;

Co-organizers: City of Košice, K13 – Košice Cultural Centres, Visit Košice, ART FILM FEST n.o., LGM s.r.o., FORLIVE;

Financially supported by: Audiovisual Fund and the SPP Foundation

Co-financed by: Košice Self-Governing Region through the Terra Incognita programme;

Main partners: national lottery company TIPOS, Slovak Electricity Transmission System, a.s., CODES Brand House;

Main media partners: TV JOJ, Pravda, Eurotelevízia;

Automotive partner: Moris Slovakia

Advertising partners: Best Press, U. S. Steel Košice, ANTIK telecom, Kino Úsmev, LOKO TRANS Media, CORE Labs, Technical University of Košice;

Technology partners: NOV, ZEBRA, Deutsche Telekom Systems Solutions Slovakia, T4H, LEDGO, DELTA OnLine, ARICOMA, TelekomCLOUD;

Official suppliers: DKC Veritas, Slávia Café, PLOOM, Krušovice BOHÉM, Lucka spring water, DOMOS SLOVAKIA, Contessa Restaurant, Aupark Shopping Center Košice, Pierre Baguette, Julius Meinl, Red Fox Golf Club; Official wine:Kubbo Select and Ostrožovič;

Media partners: JOJ play, JOJ 24, Film Europe, Rádio KOŠICE, Aktuality.sk, Forbes, Startitup.sk, Korzár, Slovenka, SITA, TASR, Mediaboard, See & Go, Czech-Slovak Film Database – ČSFD, BigMedia, Košice City Guide, Košice v skratke, Film.sk, diva.sk, koktejl.sk, zenskyweb.sk, MOJAkultúra, Kino Sterio, Košice Transport Company;

Partners: JOJ Cinema, Jojko, Embassy of India in Bratislava, Carmeuse Slovakia, DDDental, TINY Houses, ECO Technologies, Košice Airport, Local Nomad Tours, Slovak Film Institute, Taper, YumEarth, Puella fragrances, Kvety Garomi, čLOVEčina game, Austrian Cultural Forum, TESCO Store SK, CPK Transport, Tabačka Kulturfabrik, King Media, East-Slovak Museum in Košice, Summer Film School, KPK Reklama, MIHYRING, Zoberma taxi, Hair Factory Košice;

Gastronomy partners: Pub u Kohúta, El Nacional, OhniskO Fire Dining & Brew Bar, Maiko Sushi, Macarons Košice, Café de Paris, šum Wine Bar, Casa Trade – Casablanca Café, TATRATEA, Moritz Eis.