Tiger, Big Screen and Tiger Short competitions unveiled for IFFR 2025

During today’s press conference, we revealed the lineup of films selected across the Tiger, Big Screen and Tiger Short competitions at the festival’s upcoming 54th edition.

At the heart of the festival, the Tiger Competition showcases emerging voices from across the globe, with 14 world premieres exploring personal stories and profound connections to history, identity, and place – spanning Montenegro to Malaysia and Congo to India. The 14 titles in the Big Screen Competition bridge the gap between arthouse and popular cinema through genre-blurring stories of rebellion, tradition and expression, covering territories from Lithuania to Japan and the Netherlands to Argentina. The 20 titles in the Tiger Short Competition represent the most exciting and refreshing film art of today, featuring a Slovenian climate sci-fi, a re-appropriation of Myanmarese government broadcasts, and a Georgian photomontage.   

Watch the IFFR Press Conference on demand

Additionally, the first names in IFFR’s 2025 Talks lineup are also confirmed. Leading the programme are Cate Blanchett and Guy Maddin, who following their recent collaboration on Rumours, who will come together for an expansive dialogue about creative collaboration, the role of film festivals, and the enduring power of the short film form. IFFR will also welcome Robby Müller Award recipient Lol Crawley, in conversation with writer and film critic Peter Bradshaw to discuss his acclaimed cinematography, including his work on The Brutalist and highlights from his award-winning career.

Alex Ross Perry will talk about his documentary Videoheaven, part of the Focus programme Hold Video in Your Hands, celebrating the community spirit of VHS culture. Perry will also discuss his other new film, Pavements, featured in the Harbour section. In another Talks highlight, Cheryl Dunye (who also brings her latest project Black Is Blue to CineMart) and Albertina Carri will explore radical queerness and cinema as a means to challenge normative pressures, gender, and identity.

As previously announced, the festival will open with Fabula, a compelling dark comedy from the award-winning Dutch director and screenwriter Michiel ten Horn, and close with the ambitious historical epic This City Is a Battlefield from Indonesian filmmaker Mouly Surya, which was also supported by IFFR’s Hubert Bals Fund. 

The IFFR 2025 programme is now available on IFFR.com, including the latest lineups in Bright Future, Harbour, Limelight, Cinema Regained, Art Directions and more. 

“Cinema flourishes when it is free – free to experiment, cross boundaries, and voice truths that often go untold.”

Vanja Kaludjercic, Festival Director at IFFR, said: “Since our very first festival in 1972, IFFR has been a space for bold creativity, where the unexpected finds a home, and where cinema in all its splendour is celebrated. As we step into this next chapter, we remain steadfast in our belief that cinema flourishes when it is free – free to experiment, cross boundaries, and voice truths that often go untold. Today’s announcement spotlights the competitions, which remain the beating heart of the festival. Beyond that, the programme is vast, diverse, and bursting with discovery, not least in our Talks programme, which we’re thrilled this edition will welcome such a remarkable array of talent, including Cate Blanchett and Guy Maddin, Lol Crawley, Alex Ross Perry, Cheryl Dunye and Albertina Carri.”

Tiger Competition 2025

IFFR’s trademark competition celebrates the innovative and adventurous spirit of up-and-coming filmmakers from all over the world. This is the festival’s platform for emerging film talent and features a selection of 14 titles in 2025, each a world premiere. Yuki Aditya, Soheila Golestani, Winnie Lau, Peter Strickland, and Andrea Luka Zimmerman make up the Tiger Competition Jury for 2025 and are set to choose the winners of the Tiger Award, worth €40,000, and two Special Jury Awards, worth €10,000 each.

The films selected are: 

• L’arbre de l’authenticité, Sammy Baloji, Democratic Republic of Congo, Belgium
• Bad Girl, Varsha Bharath, India
• Blind Love, Julian Chou, Taiwan
• Fiume o morte!, Igor Bezinović, Croatia, Italy, Slovenia
• La gran historia de la filosofía occidental, Aria Covamonas, Mexico
• Guo Ran, Li Dongmei, China
• Im Haus meiner Eltern, Tim Ellrich, Germany
• Perla, Alexandra Makarová, Austria, Slovakia
• Primeira pessoa do plural, Sandro Aguilar, Portugal, Italy
• Tears in Kuala Lumpur, Ridhwan Saidi, Malaysia
• Vitrival – The Most Beautiful Village in the World, Noëlle Bastin, Baptiste Bogaert, Belgium
• Wind, Talk to Me, Stefan Djordjevic, Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia
• Wondrous Is the Silence of My Master, Ivan Salatić, Montenegro, Italy, France, Croatia, Serbia

The 14th title in the Tiger Competition will be revealed closer to the festival due to sensitivities surrounding its release. 

Big Screen Competition 2025

A multifaceted competition that bridges popular, classic, and arthouse cinema, the Big Screen Competition is dedicated to supporting the distribution of nominated films in the Netherlands. 14 titles have been selected and will each have their world premiere at IFFR 2025. 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.

The films selected are:

• The Assistant, Wilhelm Sasnal, Anka Sasnal, Poland, United Kingdom
• Back to the Family, Sharunas Bartas, Lithuania, France, Poland, Latvia
• Bad Painter, Albert Oehlen, Germany, United States
• ¡Caigan las rosas blancas!, Albertina Carri, Argentina, Brazil, Spain
• Gowok: Javanese Kamasutra, Hanung Bramantyo, Indonesia
• De idylle, Aaron Rookus, Netherlands, Belgium, Estonia
• Macai, Sun-J Perumal, Malaysia
• Orenda, Pirjo Honkasalo, Finland, Estonia, Sweden
• L’oro del Reno, Lorenzo Pullega, Italy
• Our Father – The Last Days of a Dictator, José Filipe Costa, Portugal
• The Puppet’s Tale, Suman Mukhopadhyay, India
• Raptures, Jon Blåhed, Sweden, Finland
• Soft Leaves, Miwako Van Weyenberg, Belgium
• Yasuko, Songs of Days Past, Negishi Kichitaro, Japan

Tiger Short Competition 2025

IFFR announces 20 short films selected for the Tiger Short Competition in 2025. The jury consists of Angela Haardt, Frank Sweeney, and Yaoting Zhang, who will choose the winners of three equal awards worth €5,000 each.

The short films selected are: 

• Baby Blue Benzo, Sara Cwynar, United States, Germany
• BAN♡ITS, Omar Chowdhury, Belgium, Bangladesh, South Korea
• Bury Us in a Lone Desert, Nguyễn Lê Hoàng Phúc, Vietnam
• Capitol Limited, Lily Ekimian Ragheb, Ahmed T. Ragheb, United States
• Common Pear, Gregor Božič, Slovenia, United Kingdom
• La durmiente, Maria Inês Gonçalves, Portugal, Spain
• Empty Rider, Lawrence Lek, Switzerland, United Kingdom
• The Garden of Electric Delights, Billy Roisz, Austria
• Hepingli Playthrough, Zheng Yuan, China
• I Wan’na Be Like You, Margit Lukács, Persijn Broersen, Netherlands, France, Belgium, United Kingdom, Germany
• Memory Is an Animal, It Barks with Many Mouths, Eva Giolo, Belgium, Italy
• Merging Bodies, Adrian Paci, Italy
• A Metamorphosis, Lin Htet Aung, Myanmar
• Now, Hear Me Good, Dwayne LeBlanc, United States
• Les rites de passage, Florian Fischer, Johannes Krell, Germany
• The Rock Speaks, Amy Louise Wilson, Francois Knoetze, South Africa, Spain
• Suspicions About the Hidden Realities of Air, Sam Drake, United States
• Temo Re, Anka Gujabidze, Georgia
• Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, Kevin Walker, Irene Zahariadis, Greece, United States
• World at Stake, Susanna Flock, Adrian Jonas Haim, Jona Kleinlein, Austria

IFFR is grateful for the support of our subsidisers, partners and donors including Ministerie van Onderwijs, Cultuur en Wetenschap (OCW), Gemeente Rotterdam, Creative Europe Media, NL Film Fonds, Fonds 21, de Volkskrant and VriendenLoterij.