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James Marsh

Every summer, the Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF) stages Summer IFF, a mini showcase that presents a crowd-pleasing smorgasbord of brand new festival delights, future cult favourites and restored classics from around the world.
This year’s line-up includes a number of highlights from the latest Berlin and Cannes film festivals, including It Was Just an Accident, the Palme d’Or winner from controversial Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi.
The programme also includes documentary, animation and short-film sections, while a mouth-watering selection of remastered classics is not to be overlooked.
Oscar winners One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) and Amadeus (1984), both directed by Milos Forman, are back on screens, as are a pair of Latin American favourites, Amores Perros (2000) and The Motorcycle Diaries (2004), starring Gael Garcia Bernal.

Forgotten Iranian drama Downpour (1972) from Bahram Beyzaie is given a new lease of life, while the Maurice Chevalier musicals One Hour With You and Love Me Tonight, both from 1932, look and sound better than ever.
Below are 10 highlights not to be missed from this year’s summer festival.
1. It Was Just an Accident


Opening the festival is the Palme d’Or winner at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Jafar Panahi’s latest film follows a former political prisoner, now working as a mechanic, who believes a customer is his old torturer because of his squeaky false leg. He follows the man home and kidnaps him, only to start doubting his decision.
Panahi, who filmed without official permission from the Iranian government, takes aim once again at his nation’s authoritarian regime.
In addition to screening the Asian premiere of Panahi’s new film, the festival is also hosting a 10-film retrospective of his works, including celebrated titles such as Offside, This is Not a Film and Taxi.
2. Kowloon Generic Romance


While the title might sound local, this year’s closing film hails from Japan, adapted from Jun Mayuzuki’s hit manga of the same name.
It imagines a version of the notorious Kowloon Walled City residential neighbourhood that is still standing and thriving, and focuses on two young employees at a property agency who were once romantically involved.
Riho Yoshioka and Koshi Mizukami star in this urban fantasy that weaves an air of nostalgia into its growing mystery.
3. Eddington


After establishing a name for himself for his modern horror masterpieces Hereditary and Midsommar, Ari Aster turns his attention to the more immediate terrors of Trump-era America.
Joaquin Phoenix plays the right-wing sheriff of a small town in New Mexico who squares off against Pedro Pascal’s left-leaning mayor at the height of the Covid pandemic.
Darkly satirical yet unflinching in its dissection of a nation on the brink of catastrophe, Eddington is absurdist farce at its most frightening.
4. The Mastermind


Josh O’Connor (Challengers), Alana Haim (Liquorice Pizza) and John Magaro (Past Lives) star in Kelly Reichardt’s alternative heist movie, set at the end of the 1960s in an America wrestling with its identity and global status.
A young father (O’Connor) turns to petty theft to support his family and begins plotting a larger scheme: to steal a quartet of paintings by the abstract painter Arthur Dove.
The director of First Cow and Wendy and Lucy displays a personal perspective that proves endlessly intoxicating, reframing seemingly small, straightforward narratives into pure poetry.
5. Alpha


Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2021 for her fantastical body horror drama Titane, French filmmaker Julia Ducournau returned to the Croisette earlier this year with another dark genre film exploring women’s bodies and their role in modern society.
Golshifteh Farahani and Tahar Rahim star in the tale of a young girl who is branded with an “A” tattoo that becomes a stigma she cannot shake, not least as it may have infected her with a mysterious virus.
The film divided opinion at Cannes, but Ducournau remains one of the most exciting female voices in cinema today.
6. Family Matters


Expanding the themes of his Golden Horse-nominated short film for his debut feature, Taiwanese filmmaker Pan Ke-yin weaves a complex and emotionally volatile tapestry detailing the challenges faced by a single family over the course of 10 years.
Filmed in the Minnan dialect and employing a complex non-linear structure, the film poses the question “What keeps a family together?” and in answering, introduces Pan as an ambitious and unique new cinematic talent to watch.
7. New Group

Japanese cinema loves to explore the nightmarish experiences of high school, but perhaps none has done so with the uniquely surreal eye of director Yuta Shimotsu.
His second feature, after 2023’s Best Wishes for All, stars Anna Yamada as high schooler Ai, who is confronted by a bizarre cultlike mentality among her classmates, manifesting as acrobatic human pyramids.
Part psychological horror film, part social commentary, New Group calls out a society where the voice of the individual is silenced, and where mob mentality can push people in dangerous, delirious directions.
8. Dangerous Animals


One of the year’s most gleefully entertaining delights hails from Australian genre stylist Sean Byrne, who first made waves with the blood-spattered prom-com The Loved Ones.
Maligned leading man Jai Courtney gives a transformative, career-reviving performance as a deranged sea captain who takes unsuspecting tourists out on shark-spotting excursions, who learn too late that the killer fish are the least of their problems.
Arriving on the 50th anniversary of Steven Spielberg’s classic Jaws, Dangerous Animals gives film-goers another compelling reason to stay out of the water.
9. Welcome to Lynchland

This year saw the death of David Lynch, one of cinema’s most eccentric and singular voices. Next month, the HKIFF’s Cine Fan programme presents a definitive retrospective of Lynch’s works, screening all 10 of the auteur’s feature films, from Eraserhead to Inland Empire.
What better way to whet audiences’ appetites, then, than with Stéphane Ghez’s new documentary? Welcome to Lynchland focuses on Lynch’s life and work, his imagery and aesthetics, and features new interviews from a number of key collaborators, including Kyle MacLachlan and Laura Dern.
10. The Red Spectacles/Love & Pop


Fans of cult Japanese classics can enjoy a double dose of singular cinema with these newly remastered offerings from anime legends Mamoru Oshii and Hideaki Anno.
Years before he blew our minds with Ghost in the Shell, Oshii made his first foray into live-action cinema with the endlessly surreal, genre-bending dystopian action thriller The Red Spectacles, which laid the groundwork for later favourites Stray Dog and Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade.
Similarly, Anno followed up his seminal anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion with Love & Pop, a wildly inventive portrait of school life and adolescent dysfunction that follows a gang of girls who make fast cash in the risky world of compensated dating.


Summer IFF runs from August 13 to 25 at various venues. For full programme details, visit the HKIFF website.
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From It Was Just an Accident to Eddington, here are 10 highlights to catch at the Summer International Film Festival, from August 13 to 25


From It Was Just an Accident to Eddington, here are 10 highlights to catch at the Summer International Film Festival, from August 13 to 25.


Hong Kong’s Summer International Film Festival 2025: 10 must-see movies and programmes

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}From It Was Just an Accident to Eddington, here are 10 highlights to catch at the Summer International Film Festival, from August 13 to 25

From It Was Just an Accident to Eddington, here are 10 highlights to catch at the Summer International Film Festival, from August 13 to 25