Parallel to the international competition, the 40th Fribourg International Airport was also held. Beyond premiere screenings, the festival spans a wide range of parallel programs that extend the festival’s focus to retrospectives, thematic sections and audience-curated screenings.
Held from March 20th to 29th in the Swiss city of Friborg, this year the event reconsiders its origins while highlighting emerging filmmaking scenes and genre traditions from around the world.
Looking back at the origins of the festival
A key feature, “Deciphering: FIFF 1st Edition,” looks back at the first edition in 1980, when the event was launched under the name “Third World Film Festival.” This first line-up introduced audiences in Switzerland’s university towns to works from a region that at the time was rarely performed on the European theatrical circuit.
The Decoding program revisits five of the seven films screened in that inaugural year, giving audiences a rare opportunity to experience some of the festival’s early highlights. The lineup includes “Yawar Marc” (“Blood of the Condor”, 1969), directed by Bolivian Jorge Sanginez. It is a harrowing story of indigenous communities who were secretly sterilized by organizations like the Peace Corps. “Muna Moto” (1975), directed by Cameroonian Jean-Pierre Dikong-Pipa. The country’s first widely distributed film about the social pressures of the dowry system. And Tunisian director Rida Behi’s “The Hyena Sun” (1977) is a powerful exploration of the lingering devastation of colonialism.
The retrospective will be accompanied by a roundtable discussion featuring figures involved in the festival’s early history, and will examine how global film distribution has evolved since the early 1980s.
Farewell to Visions Sud Est
Another retrospective celebrates one of Europe’s most important development initiatives for filmmakers from the Global South. The “Bye Bye Visions Sud Est” section pays tribute to the Swiss-backed fund Visions Sud Est, which supported dozens of projects in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe until it ceased operations this year.
The program combines short films screened at past FIFFs with feature-length projects produced by the same filmmakers later in their careers. The five combinations also include Indian director Payal Kapadia’s early short film “And What’s Summer Saying?” It joins Cannes Grand Prix-winning feature film All We Imagine Is Light, Moroccan director Fawzi Bensaidi’s FIFF-winning short film La Falaise, 2012 Berlin Panorama Best Feature Film winner Death for Sale, international jury member Ahmad Ghossein (Lebanon)’s 2017 short film White Noise and debut feature All This Victory. Winner of the Venice Critics Weekly Grand Prize.
This retrospective explains how early festival exposure and development support helped propel emerging filmmakers onto the international stage.
Colombia attracts attention
This year’s New Territories spotlight shifts to Colombia, the first Latin American country featured in this section, with a selection of films from the past decade showcasing the diversity of its growing film scene. The series offers movie fans the opportunity to watch 10 feature films and 6 short films.
Selected with the support of Swiss-Colombian director Jorge Cadena (El Cuento de Antonia), the program reflects the growing profile of Colombian films and brings together films by Colombian directors whose films have been widely distributed at international film festivals. This section provides audiences with a snapshot of national cinema, shaped by a variety of genres and storytelling traditions, from social dramas to crime stories.
Titles include Simon Mesa Soto’s Un poeta, winner of the 2025 Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at Cannes, and Theo Montoya’s Anhell 69, nominated for Venice in 2022.
Mothers at the heart of genre films
This year’s FIFF Cinema de Genre sidebar explores depictions of motherhood in international genre filmmaking.
The program is titled “Thank you, Mom!” It places the maternal figure at the center of a story that spans melodrama, horror, and psychological thriller.
This section also pays tribute to FIFF’s founding director, Magda Bossy, celebrating her role in bringing the festival to life and shaping its 40-year tradition.
Screenings with carefully selected audiences
The Audience Choice section continues FIFF’s experiments in participatory programming, inviting festival attendees to help shape the line-up. 300 votes were cast for 50 films, and the final five titles were chosen, reflecting themes of motherhood and blending well-known classics with unexpected rediscoveries.
Featured films include Pedro Almodovar’s darkly comic “Volver,” which explores the relationship between mother and daughter through family drama and supernatural elements, and Jane Campion’s Oscar-winning “Piano,” about a mute mother’s journey to love and freedom after an arranged marriage.
Spotlight on Kauser Ben Hania
Tunisian director Kauser Ben Hania will receive the first Friborg Film Award, which includes an honorary degree, in a joint award with the University of Friborg. Ben Hania, who was nominated for this year’s Oscar International Film Award for The Voice of Hind Rajab (2025), is a director familiar with FIFF, having served on the international jury in 2018. The Friborg Cinema Awards, a sidebar of the festival, features five films curated by Ben Hania, including Danish-Palestinian director Mahdi Freifel’s The World Not Ours and Tunisian film Under the Fig Tree. A youth drama directed by Elige Sehili. A public discussion with the director will also be held prior to the award ceremony.
Focus on local talent
Although the festival’s lineup is primarily international, FIFF maintains a space for Swiss cinema through the Passport Switzerland program, focusing on films related to the country’s filmmaking community.
The commemorative edition also includes a short film competition open to residents of the Canton of Friborg and welcomes participants from students to first-time filmmakers. This year’s competition focuses on ice hockey, one of the most popular sports in the region, and a selection of films will be screened during the festival.
Other sections include “Make It Family Time,” which features films aimed at younger audiences, and “Midnight Screening,” a lineup filled with horror and action.
