Movies and more movies: A report from the 2025 Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival

There’s nothing like a film festival to rejuvenate one’s passion for cinema, especially after the first quarter of 2025 provided a less-than-stellar sampling of theatrical releases. One of the oldest film festivals in the country, the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival (abbreviated as MSPIFF and pronounced “EM-spiff”) was a mini oasis, providing a vast lineup from every continent.

The festival opened with the documentary “Free Leonard Peltier,” a close-to-home story about the titular Native American activist who was wrongly imprisoned for nearly five decades. While I did not attend the screening, those who did relayed many positive remarks to me in the subsequent days.

My experience began on the first Saturday with a triple feature, starting with the A24 title “The Legend of Ochi.” Writer-director Isaiah Saxon opened the film with a video message explaining that he made the feature for children — and that their intelligence deserves more credit than it typically gets. Because I had just seen the overly juvenile “Minecraft: The Movie” the weekend before, those words resonated. The film itself didn’t walk the walk as much as Saxon talked the talk, but it still deserves credit for its impressive technical qualities and willingness to explore adult themes. It will be released in theaters nationwide April 25.

Following that was co-writer and director Andrew Ahn’s remake of the 1993 Ang Lee film “The Wedding Banquet.” The original premise – a gay man and a straight woman entering a fake marriage out of convenience – has been updated to modern-day Seattle and expanded to include two same-sex couples. The logic behind the need for a fake marriage feels weaker now than it did 30 years ago, but Ahn remains precise with emotional stakes and moments of comic relief. The standout is Youn Yuh-jung, the recent Oscar winner for “Minari,” who makes a strong case for a second trophy. The film opens in theaters this weekend.

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Capping off the night was a Midnight Mayhem screening of “Friendship,” quite possibly the funniest film I’ll see all year. Tim Robinson brings the same laugh-out-loud absurdity from his Netflix sketch show “I Think You Should Leave” to the big screen in this story of a loser suburban dad getting in way over his head when he tries to win the approval of his cool new neighbor, played by Paul Rudd. Several jokes were drowned out by the roaring laughter of the sold-out crowd. I recommend seeing it in a packed theater when it opens May 9.

There weren’t just remakes of Ang Lee films at the festival – the director himself appeared on the first Sunday for a brief masterclass. He offered insight into his transition from Taiwanese cinema to English-language filmmaking and shared why he’s chosen to hop between genres throughout his storied career.

Later that night, he introduced a 20th-anniversary screening of what is likely referred to as his magnum opus: “Brokeback Mountain.” After sentencing it to years on my never-ending watchlist, it was great to see the film on the big screen. Lee said that he was miserable while making the film due to the passing of his father and years of exhaustive work on “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “Hulk,” and that he doesn’t deserve much credit for the film’s success. Of course, everyone disagrees with his sentiments, with his win for Best Director at that year’s Oscars being more than deserved due to the emotional maturity he granted to the actors in his wonderful cast.

Things became more sporadic from there. Tuesday featured a screening of “By the Stream,” from the incredibly prolific South Korean writer-director Hong Sang-soo, and “When Fall Is Coming,” directed by France’s François Ozon. Also from a French filmmaker was “Misericordia,” an entertaining small-town murder cover-up now in theaters.

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I reverted to Asia for my final day of the festival. “Caught by the Tides” by the famed Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhang-ke is not a film for those unfamiliar with his work, incorporating deleted scenes and alternate takes from several of his previous films to craft a loose decade-spanning narrative of a man and woman falling in and out of love. Despite my perpetual confusion from having not seen the referenced films, I was marvelously fascinated by Zhang-ke’s ability to weave it all together.

The film likely has no commercial prospects in the United States, so seeing it in a semi-crowded room and discussing it afterward with other attendees illustrated the importance that festivals possess in illuminating works that would otherwise go completely unnoticed. If you’d like a more thorough analysis of the film and the work of Zhang-ke, I highly recommend heading over to Deep Focus Review by fellow critic and friend Brian Eggert, who recently concluded his “Filmmaker in Focus” series on the director.

Other festival titles currently in theaters or set for release include the canine comedy-drama “The Friend,” starring Naomi Watts and Bill Murray; the Southeast Asian adventure “Grand Tour” (April 18); “One to One: John & Yoko” (April 18); “On Swift Horses” (April 25); and the Nicolas Cage Ozploitation thriller “The Surfer” (May 2).

The MSP Film Society will be replaying several of the highest audience-scoring films at The Main Cinema in Minneapolis over the next few weeks. To learn more about everything to do with the festival and the year-round programming, you can visit the MSP Film Society website.

Eden Prairie resident Hunter Friesen is a film critic who owns and operates The Cinema Dispatch, a website where he writes reviews, essays, and more. He currently serves as the president of the Minnesota Film Critics Association and travels the globe covering film festivals both big and small. To view his entire body of work, you can visit his website and Instagram.