IFFR 2018

IFFR 1992

IFFR 1973

IFFR 2012

IFFR 2011

IFFR 1993

IFFR Unleashed

IFFR 2016

IFFR 1977

IFFR 2010

IFFR 2015

IFFR 2017

IFFR 2014

IFFR 2013

IFFR 2007

IFFR 2020

IFFR 2019

A poetic title, almost a film description, that demands some close reading. Just like the film, which - as a visual poem - doesn’t immediately divulge its meaning. A young filmmaker looks back at his childhood in the sometimes boring, sometimes beautiful countryside.

Tiger Awards Competition

In April the Following Year, There Was a Fire

marimbas del infierno, Las

Hubert Bals Fund

Las marimbas del infierno

Hypnotic drama about a native Amazonian whose life is disrupted when his daughter tells him she wants to study in Brasilia.

Middle-aged native widower Justino’s life is disrupted when his daughter tells him she wants to go study in Brasilia. This hypnotic fiction feature by Brazilian director Maya Da-Rin won the international film critics’ award in Locarno, where lead actor Regis Myrupu also won Best Actor.

Bright Future

Bright Future Main Programme

The Fever

Soul of Sand, 

Soul of Sand

Pinkel, 

Rotterdam Classics

Pinkel

After receiving a strange picture postcard, Marina knows there’s nothing else to it but to return to Rio de Janeiro, the beautiful city that here seems threatening and almost enchanting. Part of a collective inventive film operation.

Spectrum

Rio Belongs to Us

A heartening return to Pedro Costa’s painterly cinema of hope and hopelessness - we go rabbit hunting with Ventura, thinking of Cape Verde.

Spectrum Shorts

O nosso homem

Funeral Parade of Roses, 

Funeral Parade of Roses

Adult Fun, 

Adult Fun

A loving portrait of old-fashioned beach huts by the North Sea. They form the set for a season which is long gone.

A loving portrait of a small enclave of old-fashioned beach huts by the North Sea. The protagonists on screen are the huts, the beach and the sea. And, only a stone’s throw away, the heavy industry of the Hoogovens furnaces. The huts form the set for a season which is long gone.

Main Programme

Dichter bij de zee

Meek wants to lead colonists to Oregon, by using a shorter route. Hardships mount up quickly. A real Western yet very topical.

In 1845, Meek wants to lead a group of colonists to Oregon, by using a shorter route straight across unknown mountain ridges. Hardships mount up quickly in Reichardt’s (she made Tiger winner Old Joy in 2006) first historic film. Indeed, a real Western yet very topical.

RotT

Meek's Cutoff

Tan Chui Mui shot a short science-fiction film in South Africa (see No Woman Born). In that way she got to know the film makers of Durban. In her own country of Malaysia, Chinese and Malaysians do everything separately. How do blacks and whites do it here? She asked two of them. A black one and a white one.

Signals - Where Is Africa

Sarah and Omelga

To forget the death of his father and a broken relationship, a young man roams through a far corner of China. He comes to a halt in a resort. Yang has a unique talent for compellingly beautiful long shots and is getting better and better at it. World premiere of his third and most accessible film.

Lake August

Dichter bij de zee, 

1970s punk to make your ears bleed by Rotterdam bands Rode Wig and REVO: four 14-year-olds including singer Aram Slappendel.

Rock Against Religion

Magic Mountain, The

Festival 2020

The Magic Mountain

We follow a man during three seemingly separate periods in his life: as a member of a commune, isolated in the wilderness and as a singer/guitarist at a black-metal concert. Hypnotic images and sound make this film an unforgettable experience.

A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness

Full Contact, 

Full Contact

Verano de Goliat, 

Verano de Goliat

Poetic, patient and loving film essay about Emile, who is almost 80 and looks back on a wondrous youth in the French Pyrenees.

In 2015, IFFR screened filmmaker Peter van Houten’s The Life of Jean-Marie. The slow-cinema portrait of a talkative pastor in the French Pyrenees proved an audience favourite at the time. In Miel-Emile, Van Houten presents his younger brother, the thoughtful Emile. Surrounded by beautiful nature, he wrestles with his past.

Deep Focus

Signatures

Miel-Emile

Bollywood-film nostalgia colours the experiences of fifteen-year-old Qodrat, who ends up in an orphanage during Afghanistan's 1980s Soviet-oriented period.

With humour and a dash of nostalgia, we follow fifteen-year-old Qodrat, who ends up in an orphanage during Afghanistan's Soviet-oriented period in the 1980s. The realism is breached at crucial, dramatic moments by big songs done in full Bollywood style, with Qodrat imagining himself a film star in his own story.

Voices

Voices Main Programme

The Orphanage

Corner of Heaven, A

A Corner of Heaven

Lucía, 

Previously On

Lucía

Lake August, 

Not everything is progress in China. Less and less rain means that the inhabitants of Inner Mongolia have to do everything to survive. For instance, sell their own blood. And in order to sell enough blood, you have to drink. A drama of fate shot in impressively expressive black-and-white.

Black Blood

A geological exploration intertwined with the history of our relation to the Earth's subsoil: the underground worlds of quarries, tunnels and caves.

In three chapters, each with a different focus on quarries, caves and tunnels, Mann and Efrat investigate the insatiable human desire to extract natural resources from the ground in relation to different modes of knowing, sensing and seeing the world. A geological exploration and cultural history of our relation to the subsoil of the Earth.

A gangster film that doesn’t look or feel like one, but like life itself. At least, life in the lawless border area between Myanmar (Burma) and Thailand. A lively trade in drugs, young girls and other illegal things. With plenty of dreams and few winners.

Poor Folk

vida útil, La

La vida útil

hombre que cuida, El

Curaçao Winners

El hombre que cuida

Some time in the 1980s, in the Argentine pampas, four female spies have to successfully complete ‘Operation Hercules’. In the morning, a life-and-death confrontation awaits them – but until then we crisscross the world, taking in tangents and prequels. A narrative masterpiece.

Perspectives

The Spying Thing 

La Flor (Parte 2)

Pereda is rapidly acquiring admirers for his equally rapidly expanding, cohesive oeuvre. The fifth film is a beautiful mix of fiction and documentary, which reveals a small Mexican village community in all its beauty, including moving and shocking details.

A couple of young people drive out of town for a long journey. It could well be a Thai Jules and Jim. On the way, it however becomes clear that the world outside the car is not so light-hearted, that one Thai is after another Thai’s blood. A late second film by a now-wiser filmmaker.

The Island Funeral

De jueves a domingo, 

Tigers

De jueves a domingo

Thirty-something Amanda's life changes dramatically when she has to care for her alcoholic grandmother. Restrained drama.

Restrained drama about loneliness, memories and family relationships. Thirty-something Amanda's life changes dramatically when she has to care for her alcoholic grandmother. After a difficult beginning, the two women discover they have more in common than they thought. Winner Yellow Robin Award CIFFR 2013.

No quiero dormir sola, 

No quiero dormir sola

Flor (Parte 2), La

La Flor

Five young people wander through a forest. It unfolds beautifully and mysteriously, like a puzzle.

Deep in the woods, birds whistle and trees rustle. Five friends roam among the trees, talking and seducing. Are they lost? Or are they stuck? Fragments on a sound recorder, a key ring, a cushion and a car slowly reveal the group's destination.

Leones

Scenes from a marriage, viewed from the back seat of the spacious Mazda 929 that a Chilean family uses to go on holiday for a couple of days. Sensitive, personal debut by Sotomayor, beautifully shot by camerawoman Bárbara Álvarez (25 Watts, The Headless Woman).

Meek's Cutoff, 

Orphanage, The

Powerful second feature by Anocha Suwichakornpong, who won a Tiger in 2010 with Mundane History, starts with the Thammasat University massacre of 1976 in Bangkok. In an effortless and elegant manner, the filmmaker then takes the viewer through meandering storylines that examine both Thailand and the medium of film itself.

By the Time It Gets Dark

Björk landed her first enchanting role in this rediscovered feminist allegory, shot in the deeply mysterious nature of Iceland. Now restored on 4K.

Aged 20, Björk played her first enchanting role in this rediscovered, feminist version of one of Grimms’ fairy tales, shot in the deeply mysterious Icelandic nature. Director Nietzchka Keene created a powerful allegory on witchcraft and misogyny, where the worlds of the living and the dead intertwine. Restored on 4K.

Regained

The Juniper Tree

Taciturn Juan tries to forget a lost love. Major tensions lurk beneath the otherwise placid surface of this sunny island drama.

Major tensions lurk beneath the otherwise placid surface of this sunny island drama. Taciturn Juan tries to forget a lost love while his daily routine as watchman at one of the villas along the coast is disrupted by the arrival of the owner’s son.

Great filmmaker prepares for a historical masterpiece set in an inhospitable, black-and-white jungle. A taster.

Prologue to the Great Desaparecido

Rock Against Religion, 

Black Blood, 

Leones, 

Flor (Parte 3), La

La Flor (Parte 3)

This controversial work in three parts provides a glimpse of the Rotterdam art and music scene in the 1980s. A unique documentary of an eventful era.

This controversial work in three parts provides a glimpse of the Rotterdam art and music scene in the 1980s. The film, made for the VPRO, provoked fierce reactions and criticism. Unique documentary of an eventful era, including the punk group de Rondos, Cor Kraat, Jules Deelder, Bob den Uyl and Hans Citroen.

Groeten uit Rotterdam

Prize-winning authentic record of an era, in a meticulously shot portrait of the young drug-addicted poet and musician Gaby from Rotterdam.

Prize-winning authentic record of an era, in a meticulously shot portrait of the young, drug-addicted poet and musician Gaby from Rotterdam.

Ik hou het wel voor gezien

Mai morire, 

Mai morire

Coming-of-age drama in which a Puerto Rican teen girl is living at her strict grandmother’s house, waiting until she can move to America to be with her mom.

Coming-of-age drama in which a Puerto Rican teen girl is living at her strict grandmother’s house, waiting until she can move to America to be with her mom. That gets cancelled. As she suffers and struggles with puberty, her natural father suddenly appears after years in prison.

Antes que cante el gallo

Spy thriller in which a stockbroker spies on a company for a mysterious organisation. Godard, Hitchcock and Graham Greene combined.

In this British spy thriller, a stockbroker enters a mysterious organisation’s employ to spy on another company, thereby embroiling himself in London’s underworld. Mix of grimy urban thriller, outright fantasy and pseudo-documentary somewhere between Godard, Hitchcock and Graham Greene.

Atlantiques, 

Mati Diop: Shorts

Atlantiques

Milagros Mumenthaler returns with a playful family drama set amongst stunning Argentinian mountains. Photographer Inès is pregnant and wants to find out about her father, who disappeared. She only has a single, old photograph of him. Dreamy fantasy elements are expertly interwoven with her reconnaissance of intimacy and undisclosed history.

La idea de un lago

Island Funeral, The

Sarah and Omelga, 

Kékszakállú, 

Kékszakállú

Ode to love and a melancholy lament about fading film culture go hand in hand in this old-fashioned precise black-and-white jewel. About a man whose talents seem to be becoming out of place in this modern era, when his job at the Uruguayan cinematheque is under threat.

A film with a logic, beauty and humour all of its own. Two ghosts - recognisable by their white robes with holes for the eyes - leave the Sonar Music Festival and set off for Finisterre, at the end of Jacob’s Way. And an ode to Philippe Garrel’s The Inner Scar, which was shown at the very first Rotterdam Festival.

Finisterrae

Co-director Llinás plays an intriguing, unique character in this existentialist fable about a woman who lives with a pack of dogs on the very edge of the populated world, with minimal contact with other people. The seasons come and go. On life and survival, love and death.

Hivos Tiger Awards Competition

La mujer de los perros

Day I Lost My Shadow, The

The Day I Lost My Shadow

Prologue to the Great Desaparecido, 

Alba, 

Alba

Djon África, 

Djon África

Poor Folk, 

Monumental masterpiece in two episodes: a B-film about a scary mummy and a musical drama mixed with a real mystery.

First part of a monumental masterpiece that, as a whole, is an ode to pleasure in cinematographic narrative, or rather a rediscovery of this. Part one comprises two episodes: a B-film with a cursed mummy and a musical-romantic drama combined with a mystery, both without any real ending.

La Flor (Parte 1)

Hallucinogenic film about a Hollywood crew making a Western that goes off the rails in Peru. With Samuel Fuller and Dennis Hopper.

This fever dream tells the engagingly insane story of a Hollywood crew shooting an aggressive Western in an unspoiled area in Peru. A hallucinogenic film about the making of a film going off the rails. Samuel Fuller plays the director, Dennis Hopper the stuntman.

The Last Movie

A young Syrian mother’s search for bottled gas ends in a panic-stricken journey. Awarded Best Debut in Venice.

At the start of the war in Syria, young pharmacist Sana tries to buy some bottled gas, but her search quickly gets out of hand. Sana’s panic-stricken journey is told with striking hyper-realism and an excursion into magic realism. Winner of the Luigi De Laurentiis Award for Best Debut in Venice.

Neighbouring Sounds, 

Neighbouring Sounds

Fever, The

Queen of Diamonds

A chance meeting sets 25-year-old Portuguese Djon África on the track of his roots in Cape Verde. He hopes to finally find his father, an adventurer whom he doesn't know. But things never go as planned in life – and particularly in this playful search for Djon’s identity.

Hivos Tiger Competition

Yo, 

Joy, The

The Joy

Influenza, 

Influenza

Juniper Tree, The

idea de un lago, La

Reimon, 

Reimon

Big in Vietnam, 

Big in Vietnam

A serious film about serious, complex issues (including a dramatic car crash), presented in a light, playful way. The film follows two very different men, each of whom changes his life in his own way. This doesn’t seem to be a direct result of the choices they make. Change can be like that.

Vanishing Point

Videophilia (and Other Viral Syndromes), 

Videophilia (and Other Viral Syndromes)

Antes que cante el gallo, 

Spell to Ward Off the Darkness, A

This highly praised first fiction film by Argentine talent Solnicki (Papirosen, IFFR 2012) is a beautifully filmed portrait of several young daughters of rich industrialists, examining in an equally intangible and compelling way the physical and spiritual aspects of a cultural recession. Tragicomic yet unsettling.

Pinkel, a working-class boy from Rotterdam, transforms from an anarchist punk into a dad. Proto-punk by Rotterdam punk band Tändstickorshock.

A mix of documentary and feature film. The story of Pinkel, a working class boy from Rotterdam who transforms from an anarchist punk into a dad. Proto-punk by the Rotterdam punk band Tändstickorshocks, and a legendary performance by Jules Deelder during the Rock Against Religion concert.