A harvest of outstanding features, the future classics of arthouse cinema. With the eight nominees for the VPRO Big Screen Award.

IFFR 2018

Sérgio Oliveira

Renata Pinheiro

Against her better judgment, elegant Bethania refuses to relinquish her heritage, instead reviving the past. The old sugar mill is on an estate currently controlled by the descendants of slaves. Are these merely Bethania's dreams, or is candomblé (voodoo) involved?

Voices

Açúcar

Devashish Makhija

A 9-year-old girl has gone missing. She was taking granny's stitching to a sex worker in her slum. Once discovering what happened that night, granny quickly realises that the only satisfactory justice lies in her own hands. Masterful atmosphere, full of dread and twists.

Ajji

Carlos Marqués-Marcet

Contemporary, bittersweet drama on the classic thirty-something dilemma – to have children or not? Eva and Kat’s relationship is disrupted when Kat can't contain her desire for a child anymore. Kat's best friend is prepared to donate sperm, but Eva isn’t sure being a parent is for her.

Anchor and Hope

Alexey Fedorchenko

The horrific true story of Jewish Anna, a girl who somehow survived World War II in Ukraine, is of great beauty. The six-year old hid in a building commandeered by the Nazis. Fear of discovery by the guard dog keeps her imprisoned. Ode to the ingenuity and resilience of a child.

Anna's War

Boris Khlebnikov

A passionate, yet often drunk paramedic is about to lose his home, his job and most of all his beloved wife who wants to leave him. A powerful and highly engaging study of a couple in crisis, which reflects the turbulent state of modern Russia.

Arrhythmia

Joanna Kos-Krauze

Krzysztof Krauze

Painstaking, poignant portrait of two women thrown together after the Rwandan genocide of 1994: Polish academic Anna and young Rwandan refugee Claudine. The two try to build a new life in Poland. Winner of (shared) best-actress award in Karlovy Vary and Chicago.

Birds Are Singing in Kigali

Yang Ya-che

Murder, intrigues, political vendettas and exuberant sets: this modern costume drama from Taiwan has it all. The trio from the title are Mrs Tang and her two daughters, who become involved in a corruption scandal and the gruesome slaughter of a family of friends. An extravagant mix of soap and thriller.

The Bold, the Corrupt and the Beautiful

Bruce Goodison

A teenage Sam lives with his single mother, a nurse. He splits his time between high school and and a hospital where he cares for elderly patients. Sam also seems to have psychopathic tendencies. A careful, griping and shocking study asking if one is, or becomes, a murderer. Season 1, episodes 1 and 2.

Born to Kill

Tolga Karaçelik

Cemal, Kenan and Suzan receive an unexpected invitation from their father whom they haven’t seen for 30 years. They travel to their village of birth in rural Turkey from Istanbul where they discover more about their unprocessed traumas in increasingly absurdist scenes interlarded with black humour and exploding chickens.

Butterflies

Rodrigo Moreno

The great Argentine filmmaker Rodrigo Moreno (El custodio, Reimon) composed an intimate, amiable and yet unforgettable symphony of the life of every country town in the world in several vignettes – even if this focuses on Colón, a couple of hours north of Buenos Aires. Both lyrical and modest.

Una ciudad de provincia

Hans Block

Moritz Riesewieck

Hidden behind thousands of monitors on the Philippines, there’s a shadow industry of digital cleaners who decide what the internet can show us and can’t. Who decides the laws of social media? When is it art, porn or journalism? A sinister documentary with occasionally shocking images that mercilessly opens the eyes.

The Cleaners

Ram Nehari

Countless stories have been told about love, and yet with this moving drama about two young misfits in Tel Aviv, Ram Nehari manages to add a very personal element to the story. Two regal children at the edge of the world meet by chance and fall in love. But for how long?

Don't Forget Me

Jim Hosking

Lulu Danger (Aubrey Plaza)’s marriage is already at a low ebb when it takes another blow from the arrival in her small town of the enigmatic Beverly Luff Linn to perform his mysterious show – a night of magic.

An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn

Hsiao Ya-chuan

On his 60th birthday, Van Pao-te is told he is seriously ill. Together with his son, he goes in search of the father who abandoned him as a child. Past and future revolve around the present like a whirlpool in this calm, well-thought-out family story with subtle references to Taiwanese history.

Father to Son

João Canijo

Canijo made his debut in 1988 at the last festival organised by Huub Bals. He returns to IFFR with this lively and beautifully acted fiction about the journey on foot by a group of women to the place of pilgrimage Fátima – surreptitiously also a beautiful landscape film about changing Portugal.

Fátima

Shariff Korver

A kidnapping going awry provokes a shock wave in the Netherlands and Belgium. Two detectives, a small-time criminal and a political-science student burdened by his shadowy family are the protagonists of this ambitious, stylish and moody TV series, where the lines between thugs and law and order are blurred.

Fenix

Paul Schrader

Tormented by his son's death, Reverend Toller struggles with his faith. He is further tested when a young couple asks him for advice. In this intense thriller with a fabulous role for Ethan Hawke, Schrader (American Gigolo, Cat People, Affliction), himself raised a Calvinist, successfully returns to his famed theme: existentialcrisis in humans.

First Reformed

René Hazekamp

A trawler converted into a rescue ship departs from Rotterdam with its strong-willed captain and a group of inexperienced idealists on a rough voyage to the Mediterranean to save refugees. The camera records the joyful rescues as well as shocking images of those who died before help arrived.

Gangway to a Future

Gustav Möller

A single space, a great lead, a compelling script and a nail-biting soundtrack is all debut director Gustav Möller needs to captivate his audience for 90 minutes. Asger Holm is fabulous as the tortured, headstrong cop hell bent on solving a disturbing phone call during a shift manning the emergency line.

The Guilty

Eddie Martin

Engaging documentary about the high and low points in the life of world-famous Australian graffiti artist Anthony Lister, who started his career decorating traffic light control boxes in Brisbane. 'Brizzy Banksy', was the headline in a local paper. Lister always had a camera with him, so we see everything first-hand.

Have You Seen the Listers?

Thunska Pansittivorakul

Harit Srikhao

What feeds nationalist ideologies? They always arise in 'empty time', asserts this documentary on nationalism in Thailand. Various groups are observed, from military cadets to pupils at a Christian boarding school. They have very different views on politics or religion, but they share boundless confidence in the monarchy.

Homogeneous, Empty Time

Ogata Takaomi

A high-school teacher is arrested for having sexual relations with a minor. Young Hiromi finds herself in the eye of the storm when she is suspected of featuring in her teacher’s leaked sex video and her innocence is questioned by everyone around her.

The Hungry Lion

David Verbeek

In the maze of streets, parking lots and alleyways in Taipei, an eight-year-old girl enjoys herself late one evening with her kite. A photographer takes a picture of her. When he gets back home, it makes him think. Moving, beautifully filmed meditation about alienation, loneliness and the bond between photographer and subject.

An Impossibly Small Object

Jesper Ganslandt

Four-year-old, blonde Jimmie has to flee his home in Sweden. In this gripping, impressionist film, Jesper Ganslandt (Falkenberg Farewell, The Ape) turns a real crisis upside down and depicts a horrific flight through Europe through the eyes of a child. At times exciting and fun, but more frequently heart-rending. Opening Film IFFR 2018.

Jimmie

Olivier Peyon

Cyril Brody

After her son is killed in a terrorist attack, French-Moroccan Latifa becomes an influential activist striving to prevent such attacks. In this documentary, we follow Latifa as she travels France with unstinting energy, discussing integration, racism and of course Islam. Emotions at times run high.

Latifa, le coeur au combat

Jacopo Quadri

The hard-working brothers Lorello and Brunello are filmed throughout the seasons on their farm in Tuscany. Their efforts look like a labour of Sisyphus, in which all progress is destroyed by prices on the world market and the return of packs of wolves hunting sheep. Respectful, detailed and filled with earthly beauty.

Lorello e Brunello

Gustavo Pizzi

Fernando (16), the eldest son of Irene and Klaus, has been scouted by a German handball club. He is soon to leave the warmth of his chaotic parental home in Brazil. A colourful family drama with a beautiful leading role by Karine Teles, about pride familiar to all and the sorrow of all parents; don’t they grow up fast?

Loveling

Serge Bozon

A shy science teacher gets hit by electricity in her school lab. She develops a darker alter ego to overcome the condescending attitude of her pupils. Isabelle Huppert sparkles in this female version of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, twisted into a wacky and absurd comedy.

Madame Hyde

Jordana Spiro

Juvenile delinquent Angel leaves prison with just one aim: to right wrongs with her father, the man who killed her mother. The only distraction from this self-destructive mission is her little sister, who looks up to Angel as a mother. A film about hope and love, even in the darkest of times.

Night Comes On

Olga Chajdas

Masterful and sensuous drama about thirty something Nina, who is looking for a surrogate mother for the child she and her longtime husband desperately long for. Young, independent Magda looks like a suitable candidate. But everything changes when Nina unexpectedly gets attracted to her. A turbulent love story with a strong vibe.

IFFR Live

Nina

Kitano Takeshi

Stylish finale of the Outrage trilogy. A new battle breaks out between rivals in the Japanese organised crime world, where tradition makes way for cold opportunism. Kitano Takeshi is helmsman and protagonist, offering a supercool chess game of men in perfect suits, intercut with explosions of violence and pitch-black humour.

Outrage Coda

Babis Makridis

Absurdist drama with a dash of black humour about an anti-hero who is only happy if he is sad. Everything goes fine as long as his wife is in a coma. When she unexpectedly awakens, things go wrong. He has become addicted to sympathy and must at all costs be pitied.

Pity

Constantin Popescu

The unthinkable happens in a sunny playground: suddenly five-year old Maria is gone. Her disappearance destroys her family’s everyday joy.  Father Tudor's soul-destroying descent into blinding desperation follows as he seeks answers. Won the prize for Best Actor in San Sebastían.

Pororoca

Jens Assur

The Swedish leasehold farmer Agne wants his son Klas to take over the farm, but Klas prefers to sit in the library bus and read a book. The landowner wants to modernise, something that the stubborn Agne doesn’t want. Does his farm have any future? Beautifully filmed debut, full of telling details, that slowly nestles under the skin.

Ravens

Zhang Miaoyan

When describing a film by Zhang Miaoyan, you can’t avoid using terms like ‘hypnotic tracking shots’. Lurking in all corners behind the beauty of a quiet, misty canal town in a Chinese delta, however, is a menacing reality: (male) sexual violence and corruption. A dreamy poem becomes a wordless indictment.

Silent Mist

Matt Porterfield

Social-realist drama about an ex-con trying to make a fresh start in Baltimore. He tries to go straight but unemployment, segregation, poverty and drug abuse involving shady figures and criminal solutions all pull him the other way. Inner demons from his past also prove hard to ignore.

Sollers Point

Anup Singh

Legend says the scorpion's sting can kill in 24 hours unless a sage who can sing a counter-melody is found. A mesmerising tale of love, revenge and the redemptive power of song. Set in the breath-taking landscape of Rajasthan and masterfully created.

The Song of Scorpions

Gerardo Calagui

In this unflinching yet open-hearted portrait of prostitution, we follow transgender women Tuesday, Amanda and Barbie through Burgos, the red light district in Manila. The women take varying approaches to their work and identity, but most importantly, they accept one another first and foremost as friends.

Those Long Haired Nights

Sebastián Hofmann

Tropical intrigues in a sun-drenched Mexican resort. At the Vistamar Holiday Park, paradise can be bought – but at what price? While their better halves blossom, Andres and Pedro become convinced that dark forces are at play. Satirical, familiar and with a dash of subversive black humour.

Tiempo compartido

Lee Kwangkuk

A film with an ideal title for IFFR, naturally. Festival favourite Lee Kwangkuk (Romance Joe) serves up a delicate, tragicomic romantic story about a listless writer who is thrown out by his girlfriend and then comes across his former lover (a wonderful role for Ko Hyunjoung). Meanwhile, an escaped tiger roams Seoul.

A Tiger in Winter

Annemarie Jacir

A road-movie in miniature through the neighbourhoods of Nazareth, where divorced teacher Abu Shadi, together with his son Shadi who is home from Italy, deliver personally the invitations for the wedding of daughter and sister Amal. Over the course of a long day, the tensions between them reach boiling point.

Wajib

Valeska Grisebach

Real and cultural boundaries are tentatively transgressed with the arrival of German builders in a quiet Bulgarian village. An old-fashioned showdown is imminent. The language barrier, cultural stereotypes and excess testosterone create an explosive mix and a great starting point for a Western adventure on the European border between east and west.

In 'Voices'