Once again, our coverage of Bucheon International Film Festival (BIFAN) reviews is cowritten by Film Festival Editor Joseph Perry and Guest Contributing Writer Chris Weatherspoon.
A man of the world, guest reviewer Chris Weatherspoon has lived in South Korea for “quite a bit.” A huge fan of all cinema, Chris also works locally in the entertainment industry, and knows what he is talking about . . . alright!?
100 Liters of Gold (Finland/Italy, 2025); review by Chris Weatherspoon
Official BIFAN synopsis from program notes written by Kim Byeonggyu: 100 Liters of Gold is a comedy of drunkenness and a farce of hangovers. Middle-aged sisters Taina and Pirkko, who live in a small village in southern Finland, are brewers of sahti, a traditional Finnish beer. Tasked with preparing 100 litres of sahti for the wedding of their younger sister Paivi, who has returned to their hometown, they accidentally end up drinking all the beer themselves. With only 48 hours left until the wedding, they must somehow brew the promised beer again.
100 Liters of Gold (2024) is a Finnish dark comedy set in the small village of Sysmä. The film introduces middle-aged sisters Pirkko (Elina Knihtilä) and Taina (Pirjo Lonka). Pirkko, the older, bolder and strong-willed sister works as a farmhand while Taina, the younger, artistic sister sweeps up hair at a salon. While they live relatively mundane lives the two sisters do have one point of pride: they are experts at making sahti, Finland’s traditional farmhouse ale. In fact, they make the best sahti in town. However, their father Seppo (Pekka Strang), a champion sahti brewer, is a perfectionist, and is never quite pleased with their efforts.
Things take an interesting turn when the youngest sister, Päivi (Ria Kataja), visits from the city, handsome boyfriend in tow, to announce her wedding. Päivi, who is noticeably missing a leg, asks her sisters for a small wedding favor: to brew 100 liters of their famous sahti for the celebration. So, the goal is set: create the ultimate brew.
However, after spending weeks to achieve their goal of making perfect 10 sahti, the sisters, known for enjoying their own product, drink the entire batch. With the wedding just 24 hours away, they find themselves in a desperate race against time to replace the magic brew. This leads them on a wild scavenger hunt through Sysmä, where their desperation causes them to do things that range from hilarious to possibly murderous. While interacting with the colorful inhabitants of Sysmä, it soon becomes apparent to the two sisters that the town has little respect for them. The reality is that they’ve been excluded from social gatherings due to their notoriously heavy drinking.
Amidst the comedic chaos, a darker truth emerges about a family tragedy that has hung over the three sisters for decades.
With 100 Liters of Gold, director Teemu Nikki truly exhibits mastery over tonal shifts. While the film is a bonkers, dark comedy, Nikki manages to seamlessly jump between moments of crass toilet humor and violence while examining more serious themes such as guilt, addiction, and toxic codependency. The end result is an unexpectedly poignant, bittersweet, touching story that feels real and organic.
Reflection in a Dead Diamond (Reflet dans un diamant mort; Belgium/Luxembourg/Italy/France, 2025); review by Joseph Perry
Official BIFAN synopsis from program notes written by Jin Park: At a luxury hotel on the French Riviera, a septuagenarian John D. enjoys a life of quiet elegance. Once a globe-trotting spy in the 1960s — an era marked by secrets, promises, conflict, and glamour — he now spends his days leisurely strolling the beach and basking in the sun. But his calm routine is disrupted when a mysterious woman checks into the room next door and catches his eye. One day, she vanishes without a trace, and the familiar stirrings of fear pull John back into the shadows of his past.
French filmmakers Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani are well known to aficionados of arthouse horror thanks to their first two features Amer and The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears, both of which took avant garde stylistic approaches to throwback giallo fright fare. Their third feature Let the Corpses Tan found the duo taking their talents to a Eurowestern homage that heaped on horrific violence, and their latest offering Reflection in a Dead Diamond finds their unmistakable touch in fine form once again.
Reflection in a Dead Diamond is a brilliantly bizarre take on 1960s Eurospy spy movies and comic books. John D (Yannick Renier as the younger version of the character and Fabio Testi as the older version) crossed paths with masked burglar Serpentik (Barbara Hellemans) decades earlier. He pursued her in a car chase that saw her go over a cliff and apparently die. The older John D has spent his life suspecting many women to be a Serpentik who survived the fall and crash, including the woman currently in the hotel room next to his.
Reflection in a Dead Diamond is the type of film that you just have to give into and go with, as the nonlinear storytelling, toying with memory, and head-scratching different paths it leads viewers down all make for quite the perplexing puzzle. Plenty of substance goes along with the remarkable style, though. Images both unsettling and beautiful — sometimes at the same time — superb score and soundtrack, gorgeous cinematography by Manuel Dacosse, and the energetic editing of Bernard Beets are all on breathtaking display.
Arguably the most accessible so far of Cattet’s and Forzani’s oeuvre, Reflection in a Dead Diamond is still as enigmatic and simultaneously baffling and entertaining as the duo’s previous films. It’s an excellent place to start if you haven’t experienced their previous efforts yet, and a grand fourth feature for those familiar with their work.
Reflection in a Dead Diamond and 100 Liters of Gold screened as part of Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival, which ran from July 3–13, 2025 in Bucheon, South Korea.
