The 20th edition of the Leiden International Film Festival (LIFF), the Netherlands’ premiere festival for international narrative film, offered the Low Countries and visitors 11 days (October 9–19th) of access to global cinema, from high-profile titles expected to make noise during awards season to hidden gems eking out a name for themselves one satisfied screening room at a time.
Elysia spent a couple overcast days traipsing over canals and past windmills along Leiden’s café-dotted historical streets between the city centre’s two-and-a-half independent cinemas to take in a selection of the films on offer. Read her review round-up and check out this year’s LIFF prize winners (which happen to have no overlap) below.
Oscar Contenders
Norway’s 2026 Oscar submission, and likely Best Picture nominee, Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value (3.5/5) quickly wins over cinephiles with a story about the driving need to create films, tell stories, and what that can cost – captured with stunning camerawork and grounded production design. A father-daughters story at its heart, awards buzz for Renate Reinsve and especially Stellan Skarsgård was expected, and Elle Fanning also deserves praise. But the surprise in the cast is Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, who plays the quiet, resigned sister with a bundle of nostalgia, hope, and hurt simmering under the surface, her eyes telling an entire history of the burden of being “the down-to-earth one” in this family of artists. Ultimately, this film features more sweet and slightly less bitter than expected, ending with a dash of hope.
The prize for the most stressful film in this round-up goes to Mary Bronstein’s If I Had Legs I Would Kick You (3.5/5). This one is most likely to appeal to fans of Aronofsky films like mother!, sharing that movie’s focus on the overwhelming anxieties of motherhood, explored through ever-escalating magical realism that blends dark comedy with tinges of horror. Ultimately the film is strongest as a showcase for the immersive acting talents of Rose Byrne, who plays a character you will feel sorry for almost as much as you feel sorry for anyone who has to interact with her – but the surprising depth of the performances from Conan O’Brien and A$AP Rocky is also rightfully turning heads.
For those looking for a lighter take on the antics of fraught families, Shih-Ching Tsou’s Left-Handed Girl (4.5/5), Taiwan’s Oscar submission (soon to premiere on Netflix), shows the touch of one of Sean Baker’s long-time collaborators with a sensitive, intimate, and life-affirming story about a mother and two daughters figuring out how to make their way in a world that seems set against them. It’s a story that warms the heart while also inducing ache, periodically upending expectations with deliciously shocking developments. Nina Yeh, who plays the titular left-handed girl who forms the film’s emotional centre, delivers perhaps the strongest of all child performances in a year of especially notable child performances.
The last two serious award contenders are also the most family-friendly offerings: Arco (4/5), a likely Best Animated Feature nominee that premiered at Cannes and won Annecy, wraps everything from time travel and robots to dinosaurs and lovable (laughable) “villains” in colourful Ghibli-esque packaging. Originally released in French, this Ugo Bienvenu-directed, Nathalie Portman-produced crowd-pleaser for all ages will premiere in the US on November 14 with a dub from a star-studded English-language cast.
Finally, Rental Family (4/5) (Ed. note: read Dakota Arsenault’s review from TIFF) from Hikari (Beef) thrums all the heartstrings with a humorous touch – even if the visibility of the conductor of this orchestra of emotions highlights some of the seams in the storytelling. This fish-out-of-water story, about a struggling American actor who joins an agency that sends him out to play real familial roles in Japanese lives, is destined to have broad appeal, whether Brendan Fraser earns his next Oscar nomination from it or not. And it features another of the year’s top non-adult performances, from Shannon Mahina Gorman.
Popular Fare
The LIFF line-up was packed with popular titles that have been lauded across this year’s festival circuit, or even in some cases are already being gobbled up by film fans in home viewings. Twinless, Splitsville, It Was Just an Accident, Nouvelle Vague, Die My Love, Hedda, My Father’s Shadow were all well-received. Personal favorites The Ugly Stepsister – the dark Norwegian take on the Brothers Grimm’s Cinderella, full of stunning body horror – and bittersweet, reluctantly platonic, folk love story The Ballad of Wallis Island were among the best-rated watches of the festival as well.
But no viewing got a louder audience response than Eternity (4.5/5), an inventive afterlife-based screenplay rescued from the Black List that really puts the COM in rom-com. This one will remind ‘90s kids of the Albert Brooks–Meryl Streep-starrer Defending Your Life in all the right ways, with a colorfully bureaucratic framework that demands immediate contemplation of the life you have just lived – which, in the case of Elizabeth Olsen’s character, might be complicated by finding both of your deceased husbands there waiting for you to arrive. What follows is not nearly as predictable as the premise would lead you to believe, ultimately exploring the many forms of what love looks like, for better and worse, going to some surprisingly loopy places along the way. This is likely to be received warmly at the box office when it releases in Canada and the US on November 26.
Hidden Gems
Some of the most delightful discoveries, however, were the relatively unknown titles who have not yet secured wider distribution deals. Such as the American-made, Florida-set existential horror film It Ends (4/5), about a group of recent college grads who find themselves trapped on an endless road surrounded by woods full of strange dangers. Director Alexander Ullom explained during a Q&A that it is essentially a film about the existential dread of adulthood – though it keeps the audience equally enthralled with wry humour as well.
On the more serious side, The World of Love (3.5/5) is worth seeking out for its nuanced exploration of the prevalence and aftermath of sexual assault in Korea (and anywhere else, really). Beware that it can elicit strong emotional reactions through its recognizably understated revelations – and hopefully empathy amongst those who do not see themselves in this young woman’s experiences.
Like this festival’s Dutch audiences, though, this writer always holds the most space for dark absurdist humour – the defining feature of the final two films in this round-up: German film What Marielle Knows (3.5/5) from Frédéric Hambalek plays “what if” with the idea of a pre-teen girl suddenly developing the ability to see and hear everything her parents do throughout the day. Parents who then bring their lives down around them contorting to become the people they want their daughter to see, even if they’re not sure what kind of people they should be.
But no dark comedy at LIFF could best the desert-dry humor of Yuri Semashko’s The Swan Song of Fedor Ozerov (4/5) from Belarus, which proves that good taste and talent are far more important than budget in bringing an anti-existentialist tale of the thoroughly unglamorous existence of a creative to life – or death, as the case may be. Whether Fedor ever finds his sweater, or Putin blows up the world, or the final act takes several darker turns you won’t see coming, fans of millennial, European humour will find plenty to enjoy.
