IFFK 2025 competition films portray stories of struggle and resilience across borders

Cinema is the complete art form not just because it synthesises other forms, but because it has become a quiet companion to human life, observing how people endure loss, make sense of change, and find ways to keep going even when certainty slips away.
This year, the films in the International Competition section of the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) underscored this fact. Despite their differences, these films communicate with one another. Each of them, in its own way, returns to the same emotional ground: the reality of struggle and the fragile yet persistent resilience that shapes everyday existence.

What stands out across these films is not grand heroism or dramatic triumph, but the small, often invisible battles people fight within their homes, relationships, memories, and bodies. The characters come from vastly different worlds, yet their experiences echo one another, reminding us that hardship does not belong to any one place or language. It is something deeply human. 

Argentina’s ‘Before the Body’ is a striking example of this quiet tension. While the film borrows elements from horror and mystery, its genuine unease comes from the ordinary rhythms of domestic life. Ana, the protagonist, moves through routines that feel emotionally suffocating. There are no monsters or jump scares here. The fear grows from exhaustion, emotional labour, and the sense of being trapped inside expectations that are never spoken aloud. The film suggests that some of the most unsettling experiences come not from the unknown, but from lives that continue without pause, even when the weight becomes unbearable.

A similar emotional intensity runs through Afghanistan’s ‘Cinema Jazireh’, which follows a mother searching for her missing son, Omid. Her journey is shaped by danger, fear, and uncertainty, yet the film never frames her as extraordinary. Instead, it shows how love pushes ordinary people to do incredible things. Each step she takes is an act of faith, even when the odds are against her. Her struggle is not only about survival, but about refusing to let hope disappear. Across borders and cultures, the figure of the mother becomes a symbol of resilience rooted in love and sacrifice. 

In ‘The Settlement’, set in Alexandria, grief takes on a more systemic form. Two brothers are left reeling after their father dies in a factory accident. The company offers them jobs as compensation, a gesture that forces them into an uncomfortable negotiation between survival and dignity. The film’s dusty streets and factory interiors feel heavy with exhaustion, reflecting lives shaped by labour and loss. What emerges is a painful truth about how systems fail people, and how resilience sometimes means enduring injustice to survive another day.

‘Black Rabbit, White Rabbit’ approaches struggle through interconnected lives shaped by chance and uncertainty. A struggling actress chasing an audition and a woman questioning a suspicious accident are just two of the stories that intersect in the film. Director Shahram Mokri blurs the line between performance and reality, turning the film into a space where nothing feels fully stable. This sense of unpredictability mirrors life itself, where people move forward without ever fully knowing what comes next.

The Bengali film ‘Shadowbox’ offers one of the most intimate portrayals of everyday endurance. Maya, a working woman in a Kolkata suburb, juggles multiple jobs while caring for her teenage son and her husband, a retired soldier dealing with PTSD. Her resilience is not loud or dramatic. It shows up in small gestures, in reassurances offered when everything seems to be falling apart, a quiet smile, a steady presence, a refusal to give in to despair. The film reminds us that strength often looks like persistence.

Several films turn inward, focusing on identity and internal conflict. ‘Life of a Phallus’ follows Nari, a young man from the Cholanaikkan tribe, as he grapples with masculinity, tradition, and unspoken family truths. His struggle is deeply internal, shaped by expectations he cannot articulate. ‘Cuerpo Celeste’ centres on Celeste, a 15-year-old girl growing up in post-dictatorship Chile. As she navigates grief and adolescence, the film captures the loneliness of growing up in a world that feels unstable and confusing. Her silence, withdrawal, and quiet observation become acts of survival. 

Urban alienation and emotional distance surface in films like ‘Khidki Gaav’, where a couple from Kerala struggles to hold on to love and ambition as they adjust to life in Delhi. The pressures are subtle but relentless. ‘Two Seasons, Two Strangers’ traces Lee’s emotional journey across different phases of her life, focusing on isolation and the slow process of self-discovery. In ‘Yen and Ai-Lee’, a woman returns home after killing her abusive father, forced to confront trauma, judgment, and the difficult task of rebuilding her relationship with her mother. ‘Kissing Bug’ follows a teenager caught in dangerous circumstances far beyond her years. At the same time, ‘The Currents’ uses emotional and environmental metaphors to show people struggling against forces they cannot control. 

Together, these fourteen films reveal a shared understanding of life as something fragile and demanding. Struggle appears in many forms, grief, economic pressure, emotional isolation, identity crises, and systemic injustice. Resilience, too, takes many shapes. Sometimes it is visible and urgent. More often, it is quiet, found in daily survival and small acts of courage. Across continents and cultures, these stories come together to reflect a single truth: while the world may divide people by borders and language, the experience of struggle and the need to endure connect us all. Through their characters and silences, these films ask us to look closely, to empathise, and to recognise ourselves in lives that may seem distant, but are never truly so.