Rotterdam goes hardcore genre with an eclectic mix of films that brashly bend, blend or respect conventions each in their own distinctive way.

IFFR 2019

Rob Grant

When a boat breaks down at sea, a triangular relationship becomes a nerve-wracking struggle to survive, sparing no one’s secrets – or blood.

A love triangle gets out of hand when Richard, armed with a harpoon, Sasha and Jonah are marooned at sea due to engine failure. A struggle for survival quickly unfolds, sparing no one’s secrets – or blood. Tense thriller based on a story by Edgar Allan Poe, which also leaves space for laughs.

Voices

Rotterdämmerung

Harpoon

Tsukamoto Shinya

The grey colour palette, razor-sharp camerawork and pulsating synthesiser soundtrack set the tone of this bloody, nihilistic samurai film.

Shot in uncomfortable proximity and with a muted colour scheme, Tsukamoto Shinya’s darkly violent take on the samurai (chambara) genre asks us to consider the weight of each kill. A skilled young samurai is recruited for a mission by a ronin, played by Tsukamoto himself, but hesitates in the face of murder.

Killing

Jagoda Szelc

Nothing is what it seems when a group of students show up as interns in a drab, isolated hotel.

A traineeship at a remote hotel led by a demanding manager. The students work and grim Monument becomes ever more mysterious. Why do they keep asking each other for coins? And what are those teeth doing in the meat? A challenging, hard-to-define psychological thriller.

Monument

Alejandro Fadel

It seems they caught the culprit of a mysterious decapitation in the Andes. Or is there really a monster, as the suspect alleges?

Who’s responsible for a woman's brutal decapitation in the Andes? Local policeman Cruz is put on the case, turning into an Argentine Dale Cooper in this Lynchian monster film. A beautifully shot nightmare in which the lugubrious murder mystery becomes increasingly surrealistic.

Murder Me, Monster

Dennison Ramalho

A pathologist hears the last words of the dead. An innocent gift until he uses it for revenge.

Stênio doesn’t just work with the dead at São Paolo’s mortuary, he also talks to them. When a gang member who was stabbed to death reveals his wife’s secret, Stênio loses control of his supernatural gift. A haunting, unpredictable horror film about revenge, urban crime and family trouble.

The Night Shifter

Alejandro Brugués

Joe Dante

Mick Garris

Kitamura Ryuhei

David Slade

Five-part horror story by five grandmasters of the nightmare: slash, splatter and gore of the very highest quality. Five strangers meet in a deserted cinema, where The Projectionist (Mickey Rourke) decides what you watch. In the show that follows, they are confronted by their deepest fears and secrets.

Nightmare Cinema

Carol Morley

When a New Orleans detective investigates the shooting of an astrophysicist, her findings make her question herself, and her view of the universe.

A whodunnit with nods to the golden age of film noir. Investigating the violent death of prominent astrophysicist Jennifer Rockwell turns the world of experienced police woman detective Hoolihan upside down. The hunt she sinks her teeth into increasingly seems to lead to a search for herself.

Out of Blue

Elizabeth Sankey

Romantic comedies are a beloved yet conservative genre. What do thousands of excerpts say about a genre that simultaneously attracts and repels?

The romantic comedy colours how we think about love and relationships. But why is this genre so conservative? Sankey uses many film clips to analyse the unrealistic picture the genre sketches of male-female relationships with white, heterosexual, middle-class characters. Yet the romcom continues to move us: Why is this so?

Romantic Comedy

Zhang Yimou

Epic battle story with visuals that draw on China's centuries-old tradition of ink-wash painting, set against next-level fighting  sequences to dazzling effect.

Spectacular battle story with contrasting visuals drawing on China's centuries-old tradition of ink-wash painting, set against next-level fighting sequences to dazzling effect. Shadow, Zhang Yimou's reimagining of the classic Three Kingdoms Jingzhou epic, tells the story of a powerful king and a 'shadow', the mysterious body double of his general.

Shadow

Emma Tammi

An original Horror/Western about loneliness on the prairie. Is a woman being tormented by demons, or is her isolation creating delusions?

The early 19th century: life is harsh on the Frontier of the New West. While her husband is out working, Lizzie stays home alone in their house, on the deserted prairie. Is the loneliness making her slowly paranoid, or is a devilish spirit floating around? A unique mix of Western and horror.

IFFR 2025
30 Jan – 9 Feb 2025