This year we raised enough money for SIFF to sponsor four films. After the votes were tallied, we chose the following films:

EVIL DOES NOT EXIST
After finally breaking through in the U.S. with the Oscar®-winning Drive My Car, filmmaker Ryûsuke Hamaguchi turns his eye to Mizubiki, a remote lakeside village that’s about to be overtaken by a new “glamping” site built on sensitive natural land.  (d:Ryûsuke Hamaguchi  c: Hitoshi Omika, Ryo Nishikawa, Ryuji Kosaka, Ayaka Shibutani, Japan 2023, 105 min)

TERRESTRIAL VERSES
In this absurdist, formally inventive Iranian movie structured around nine vignettes, a cross-section of Tehran society—fathers, filmmakers, schoolgirls, rideshare drivers—is interrogated by various offscreen authority figures and bureaucrats intent on making their lives harder.  (d: Ali Asgari, Alireza Khatami  c: Bahram Ark, Sadaf Asgari, Ardeshir Kazemi, Iran 2023, 77 min)

HAMMARSKJOLD
A speculative biopic about Swedish UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld (Mikael Persbrandt, “Sex Education”), the anti-colonialist, allegedly queer diplomat who died under mysterious circumstances during the Cold War while trying to bring peace to the Congo.  (d: Per Fly  c: Mikael Persbrandt, Francis Chouler, Cian Barry, Hakeem Kae-Kazim, Sweden/Norway/ Denmark 2023, 114 min)

VOY! VOY! VOY!
How far would you go to change your life? In Egypt’s official Oscar® submission, Hassan is desperate to leave his home country. With few options left, he pretends to be blind so he can join a disabled soccer team headed to Poland. Inspired by an unbelievable true story.  (d: Omar Hilal  c: Muhammad Farrag, Nelly Karim, Bayoumi Fouad, Egypt/United Arab Emirates 2023, 109 min)