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30 Jan – 9 Feb 2025

Big Screen Competition

A multifaceted competition that bridges the gap between popular, classic, and arthouse cinema, the Big Screen Competition is dedicated to supporting the distribution of nominated films in the Netherlands. The winning filmmaker(s) will be awarded the Big Screen Award along with €15,000 in prize money. Additionally, IFFR offers €15,000 to the Dutch distributor that acquires the film’s distribution rights, incentivising local distribution.

Big Screen Competition 2025

The films selected are:

Big Screen Jury

(FLTR: Bero Beyer, Digna Sinke © Tara Fallaux, Sara Rajaei, Dewi Reijs, Jia Zhao)

Bero Beyer

Bero Beyer is a film professional based in the Netherlands. His company Augustus Film, initially founded in 2000 with director Hany Abu-Assad, produced and co-produced several independent feature films including the first ever Palestinian Oscar nominee and Golden Globe winner Paradise Now by Hany Abu-Assad, the Indo-European coproduction Qissa by Anup Singh starring the late Irrfan Khan and the Morocco set poetic road-movie/windsurf drama Atlantic. by Jan-Willem van Ewijk. All of Bero’s films were internationally coproduced and distributed, and premiered on festivals like Cannes, Berlinale, IFFR, IDFA, Sundance and TIFF. He was the General and Artistic Director of IFFR from 2015 to 2020, and CEO of the Netherlands Film Fund from 2020 to 2023. After leaving the fund, Bero re-kindled the artistic spark of Augustus Film for outstanding auteur cinema as a producer. 

Dewi Reijs

Dewi Evita Reijs works as a producer, actress and film and theatre maker. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Amsterdam. Dewi played in various theatre productions such as The Hidden Force and The Doctor (ITA) and Trojan Wives. She also appeared in feature films, Mijn Vader is een Vliegtuig, A Real Vermeer, Kung Fu Lion and the award-winning youth series Floor Rules. Dewi directed the short film Idiot. Since 2017 she has been the director and founder of Buddy Film Foundation. A starting point for refugee professional filmmakers and creatives from various countries such as Syria, Iran, Eritrea and Ukraine. In 2018 Buddy Film Casting and Buddy Film Productions were born. The production house focuses on migration and refugee stories.  From 2020 to 2023, Dewi was a board member of the Dutch–Indonesian memorial committee in Rotterdam. From 2022 to 2023 she was the festival director of the Floating Pasar, the first Indonesian Outdoor Memorial Festival in the Netherlands.

Jia Zhao

Jia Zhao is a Chinese-Dutch film producer based in Amsterdam. In 2012, she founded MUYI FILM and co-founded SILK ROAD FILM SALON with Afghan-Dutch director Aboozar Amini. Her films Mr. Hu and the Temple, Lady of the Harbour, Kabul, City in the Wind, and Smog Town were consecutively shortlisted for IDFA Competition (2015–2019), with Kabul opening IDFA 2018 and winning the Special Jury Award. Inner Landscape closed IFFR 2019. She co-produced I’m So Sorry (Cannes 2021) and A Marble Travelogue (IDFA 2021). In 2023, Flower Chasers competed at Sheffield DocFest, and An Asian Ghost Story, with her as executive producer, won CPH:DOX. Jia was Artistic Director of CinemAsia (2022–2024) and is now its advisor. She is Director of Asia at Oscar-winning studio Off the Fence and a mentor/juror at top documentary festivals.

Sara Rajaei

Sara Rajaei is an Iranian/Dutch artist and filmmaker based in the Netherlands. Her work addresses the notion of time and reflects on the absence of imagery, memory psychology, oral history and physical/psychological space. After her graduation from the Royal Academy of Art The Hague in 2002, she attended a two-year residency at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten Amsterdam. In 2009, she was awarded the Prix de Rome basic prize. Her work has been shown at various film festivals and art venues around the world, including Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin, Hong Kong International Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Nederlands Film Festival, Tirana International Film Festival, Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, Rencontres Internationales Paris Berlin Madrid, de Appel Arts Center, Stroom Den Haag, Art Brussels, and many more. Her debut feature film, Headless Trees is currently in development.

Digna Sinke

Digna Sinke (Zonnemaire, 1949) graduated from the Dutch Film Academy in 1972 as writer/director of fiction films and documentaries. Her first feature film De stilleoceaan was selected for competition at the Berlinale 1984. In 2010, she completed her long term documentary project Wistful Wilderness about the transition of a small agricultural island into ‘wild’ nature. After the Tone, a hybrid feature film, was selected for IFFR 2014. And her documentary BEWAREN – of hoe te leven ended up in the 4th place of the audience award rankings of IFFR 2018. As a producer, she was involved in Kala azar by Janis Rafa (Tiger Competition IFFR 2020), and documentaries like Tanzania Transit (2018) by Jeroen van Velzen (Tribeca 2012). In 2023, she received the Golden Calf for film culture.

Past winners

2024

The Old Bachelor by Oktay Baraheni

2023

Endless Borders by Abbas Amini

2022

Kung Fu Zohra by Mabrouk El Mechri

2021

El perro que no calla by Ana Katz

2020

A Perfectly Normal Family by Malou Reymann

2019

Transnistra by Anna Eborn

2018

Nina by Olga Chajdas

2017

Pop Aye by Kirsten Tan

2016

Les ogres by Léa Fehner

2015

Second Coming by Debbie Tucker Green 

2014

Another Year by Oxana Bychkova

2013

Bellas mariposas by Salvatore Mereu