IFFK 2025: Mohammad Rasoulof To Head Jury, Palestine 36 To Open The Festival

The 30th International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) runs from December 12-19, 2025, in Thiruvananthapuram. Palestine 36, directed by Palestinian filmmaker Annemarie Jacir, will be the opening film of IFFK 2025. Award-winning Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof, who is forced into exile, will head the jury for the international competition.

According to Variety, Rasoulof will be joined by Spanish actor Ángela Molina, Vietnamese filmmaker and writer Bùi Thạc Chuyên, Malaysian filmmaker Edmund Yeo, and British-Indian filmmaker Sandhya Suri.

For the unversed, Palestine 36 was awarded the best film at the Tokyo International Film Festival, and it is Palestine's official selection for Best International Feature at the 98^th Academy Awards.

Renowned Mauritanian filmmaker Abderrahmane Sissako will be honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award at IFFK 2025 for his contribution to world cinema. Sissako’s five films: Life on Earth (1999), Waiting for Happiness (2002), Bamako (2006), Timbuktu (2014) and Black Tea (2024) will also be screened at the festival.

Legendary Indian filmmaker Mrinal Sen was the first recipient of the honour in 2009. Other awardees include Jean-Luc Godard, Werner Herzog, Fernando Solanas, Alexander Sokurov, Jiří Menzel, Majid Majidi and Béla Tarr.

The Fipresci jury includes writer, publisher and film programmer Christopher Small, film, television and pop-culture critic and broadcaster Ashanti Omkar, and film critic, poet and translator Aparajita Pujari.

Director, editor and sound engineer Upali Gamlath, and filmmaker and producer Supriya Suri are part of the Netpac jury.

16 past Golden Crow Pheasant winners will also be showcased in a special section. The films include Annemarie Jacir’s Wajib, Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Flowers of Shanghai, Nabil Ayouch’s Ali Zaoua: Prince of the Streets, Asghar Farhadi’s About Elly, Mohamed Diab’s Clash, Jayaraj’s Ottal and more.