IFFBoston Fall Focus 2025 Wrap-Up

The most frustrating element of the codification of "awards season" is that it unbalances the rest of the movie release calendar. The first half of the year usually sees a couple splashy releases, such as Challengers, Sinners, and Everything Everywhere All At Once. But the bulk of the most anticipated films premier at various festivals to garner buzz before being launched between late September and December, a gambit to capitalize on recency bias and score as many nominations as possible. It's why Netflix's most notable releases of the first nine months were The Electric State and K-Pop Demon Hunters, but October saw movies from celebrated directors Kathryn Bigelow and Edward Berger, with five more to come of comparable stature: del Toro and Linklater and Baumbach, along with the new Knives Out and one from the co-writer of Sing Sing. Which is all before you consider the many that only play NY and LA for a week to qualify for awards, then expand nationwide next year.

The result is that despite a slow start to the calendar, one that included a number of disappointments, catching up on the awards push clarifies that it's been a good year, if not particularly great. I've seen some of my favorites at the newly bifurcated Fall Focus, and even got to rewatch a few across it and the New Hampshire Film Festival. So although I first saw Sound of Falling at Fall Focus, my rewatch means you already know how much I loved it.

The downside is that its approach of mostly screening high profile titles eliminates the chance to discover a diamond in the rough. Especially since its duration, distance from my home town, and à la carte ticketing makes attending all twenty-eight screenings prohibitively expensive, given this blog's lack of financial backing. As such, Fall Focus occupies a very different place in my festival attendance than NHFF, full of anticipation for what others have loved than the curiosity of watching things I've never heard of.

Let's get to it!

Resurrection

Director Bi Gan is the rare modern filmmaker whose success has largely come from quiet, slow, contemplative movies full of abstract, dream-like imagery. He manages to capture the sadness of the search for what's lost, while also portraying the haunting beauty and complication of human connection. His latest weaves that surreal storytelling into the fabric of the narrative, as we wander the streets of a world in which humans have traded dreaming for immortality, and follow someone with no interest in such an existence across many decades and many faces. It's a powerful and often confounding ode to the mystical power of cinema, less concerned with you understanding what's going on in the story than overwhelming you with its emotions and wholly unique and acrobatic cinematography.

Much like Synecdoche, New York, I anticipate repeat viewings will peel back the layers, never yielding all of its secrets but giving way to endlessly moving meditations on the experience of existence.

US Release Status: December 12 (unclear how wide, but I'd guess pretty limited)

Sound of Falling

Mascha Schilinski's sophomore feature is a beautiful demonstration of the power of impressionistic filmmaking. She weaves together the stories of multiple women and girls across one hundred years or so, connected by some form of kinship or another, and always by a baseline of experience. But her goal is less a point A to point B retelling of what happened than to use the fullness of cinematic language to convey the emotional experience of it, including all the strife that's hidden just under the surface. The open secrets harbored by all slowly hollow out the core of the family, inflicting wound upon wound, and resulting in heartbreaking tragedy. But Schilinski refuses to look away from the ways that society fundamental undermines the experience of women of all ages, then blames them for their (sometimes extreme) rejection of it.

This is not a comforting film by any means, which makes its engrossing nature all the more impressive.

US Release Status: Acquired; release TBA

Sirāt

Having first seen Sirāt at the New Hampshire Film Festival a couple of weeks ago, I leapt at the chance to catch it a second time on the big screen. Going in with full and fresh knowledge of what was to come laid bare how the events could have played out differently if any of a dozen small decisions had been altered, heightening the tragedy. The sense of forged community and a desire to live their lives free from the world's bullshit is palpable, and the experience of this cross-desert trek results in landscapes and experiences rarely put to film. And of course, the music is top notch, easily entering the conversation for best score of the year.

US Release Status: Nov 14, 2025 (extremely limited); nationwide release in January 2026.

The Testament of Ann Lee

I have no idea what moved director Mona Fastvold, creative partner of Brady Corbet and co-writer of The Brutalist, to work on a musical biopic about the founding leader of the Shakers. While musical biopics are experiencing a moment, Ann Lee is hardly a household name. Hell, the Shakers as a whole are generally not well known outside of the northeastern US, and their last remaining location (and final two members) are near Portland, Maine. None of that deterred Fastvold, who's crafted a wholly unique approach to the story. The "musical numbers" are primarily adapted from Shaker spirituals by Daniel Blumberg, and are more rhythmic, organized chaos than they are the clean choreography you associate with the genre. The cinematography is worthy of the highest class of prestige picture, and the screenplay is as lush with soaring dialog appropriate to the late 1700s. All of it is enriched by a series of outstanding performances, with none moreso than Amanda Seyfried's incredibly dedicated performance as the titular Ann Lee.

This is the film I didn't know I needed in my life, but am overjoyed to have seen.

US Release Status: December 25 (NY and LA); widening in January 2026

Sentimental Value

After the masterpiece produce by director Joachim Trier's collaboration with actor Renate Reinsve, there was no chance their follow up could avoid being a huge event. Fortunately, the films lives up to the hype, even as it doesn't quite rise to the heights of The Worst Person in the World. Its emotional exploration remains quite deep, but is more centered on the strain between family members due to their father's absence, as well as reckoning with the passage of time, both personally and regarding family history. So it's less immediately relatable, even as it's an unmistakably human story. While Reinsve and Stellan Skargard turn in characteristically fantastic performances, Elle Fanning turns in an uncharacteristically great one, finally shedding her robotic monotone for a heartfelt recognition that she's found herself in a situation in which she does not belong.

Admittedly, The Worst Person in the World took multiple viewings for my opinion to reach as high as it is now. Maybe the same will be true here.

US Release Status: November 7, 2025 (limited); widening afterwards

Honorable Mentions: The Plague; It Was Just An Accident; Train Dreams

If you want my thoughts on all of the 14 features I watched, check out my Letterboxd.