The Malay feminist cinephile in 2026 (Part 1)

In the spirit of last year’s love affair with Tarkovsky, I decided to watch as many films in one filmmaker’s filmography as possible, along with all other extraneous documented audio-visual material about that filmmaker, their process, philosophy, and collaborators (mainly their ‘family’ of actors, DOP, composer). This year, it is the New German wunderkind Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Helped along by Ian Penman’s superb book, Thousand Mirrors, I watched Fassbinder’s films back to back (not all, alas, but one day..), reading reviews and essays written about them, and often poring over images archived online of the filmmaker himself at different stages (of decay). After watching Ali: Fear Eats the Soul last year, I felt it was time to be committed to Fassbinder, and below is the basic declamation of evidence, and other viewings, including a fairly committed watching of Ingmar Bergman’s oeuvre:

Films watched in 2026 so far (up to 4th June):

1. The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979, dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
2. Lola (dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
3. Veronika Voss (1981, dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
4. Love is Colder Than Death (1960, dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
5. Katzelmacher (dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
6. Effi Briest (1969, dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
7. Fox and his Friends (dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
8. Eight Hours Don’t Make a Day (Miniseries, dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
9. Berlin Alexanderplatz (Miniseries, 1981, dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
10. Baal (1970, dir. Volker Schlöndorff)
11. World on a Wire (1973, dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
12. Querelle (1982, dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
13. Scenes from a Marriage (1973, dir. Ingmar Bergman)
14. Autumn Sonata (1978, dir. Ingmar Bergman)
15. Fårödokument 1979 (1979, dir. Ingmar Bergman)
16. Cries and Whispers (1972, dir. Ingmar Bergman)
17. The Passion of Anna (1969, dir. Ingmar Bergman)
18. Playtime (1967, dir. Jacques Tati)
19. The Green Ray (1986, dir. Eric Rohmer)
20. Ploy (2020, dir. Prapat Jiwarangsan)
21. Clockwatchers (1998, dir. Jill Sprecher)
22. Solids by the Seashore (2023, dir. Patiporn Boontarig)
23. Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald (1997, dir. Koki Mitani)
24. Mencari Rahmat (2002, dir. Al Jafree Md Yusop)
25. La Villa Santo Sospir (1951, dir. Jean Cocteau)
26. A Poet (2025, dir. Simon Mesa Soto)