Stories

Introducing the IFFR Pro programme 2023

20 January 2023

The IFFR Pro team

Stories

Introducing the IFFR Pro programme 2023

20 January 2023

For our first physical edition in almost three years, we thought we could get back to basics, rediscover our core and present a lean, slimmed-down programme to bring people together. Turns out we were wrong.

It’s with great excitement that we present to you a programme with more content and opportunities for exchange than ever. Thanks to the amazing IFFR Pro team, everyone working on CineMart, Pro Hub and our newly shaped Talent Development initiative, this is an expansive programme that supports the present and future of our industry.

Pro Hub

The Pro Hub in our festival heart ‘de Doelen’ is the gathering point for the festival’s entire filmmaking community. Filmmakers with a film in the 2023 selection can expect a trajectory of several warm-up sessions and personal contacts with the IFFR team and mentors ahead of the festival. 

The Pro Hub offers a programme of Pro Dialogue panel discussions with specially invited guests from diverse backgrounds within the film community. These will encompass the breadth of experience to be found at IFFR and will be curated by the IFFR Pro team working across the programme. Topics this year include alternative distribution, marketing strategies, navigating film festivals, queer cinema and defending archives in perilous times.

See the lineup of Pro Dialogues here

The Pro Hub team

The IFFR Pro Central Dialogue takes place on Monday 30 January and is open to all passholders, including accredited students. There, the results of the Reality Check symposium on film festival futures (see below) will be shared followed by a discussion in collaboration with ACE Producers on creative control in co-productions. 

The Pro Hub team is Tommaso Priante, Nikolas Montaldi and Federico Anselmi.

CineMart

This year marks the 40th edition of our co-production market CineMart where we’ll be celebrating 40 years of supporting emerging and established filmmakers from around the world to bring their bold and innovative projects to life. In keeping with the proud history, we’re delighted to present a lineup of 20 fiction projects and 5 immersive works in this year's guide. We can’t wait to see the films that will emerge from this year's selection that represent a fantastic array of genres, styles, and perspectives.

The CineMart team

This edition also sees the introduction of the IFFR Pro Darkroom, where six former CineMart and Hubert Bals Fund-supported projects will present work-in-progress screenings to a select group of industry professionals in an intimate setting on Wednesday February 1.

See the CineMart lineup

The CineMart team is Inke Van Loocke, Jolinde den Haas, Alessia Acone, Sonia Schiavone and Lara González Lobo.

Talent 

We’re welcoming a whopping number of 160 participants to our various talent training programmes. Rotterdam Lab is back in full force, and includes a special alumni programme for the producers who could only attend online over the past two years. Our BoostNL projects will be doing their tailor made trajectories of expert sessions and follow up meetings during CineMart. You will also find Grushka, one of the BoostNL projects in our CineMart selection. 

The Talent team

The Creative Producer Indaba, organised by the Realness Institute, in partnership with EAVE, the Marrakech International Film Festival's Atlas Workshops and IFFR Pro will have its first physical Rotterdam edition. All the Talent programmes will be closely linked to our IFFR Pro programmes and CineMart, so please do look out for these exciting talents who are already a force to be reckoned with.  

The talent team is Vittoria Leardini, Alberto Pickers and Facundo Lema.

Read more about the talent development programme

Hubert Bals Fund 

The Hubert Bals Fund supports groundbreaking film projects in every stage of the production process, working especially with filmmakers from countries where local film funding and infrastructure is lacking or restrictive. Supported projects are again strongly represented in the IFFR 2023 selection and at many international film festivals throughout 2022. 

The HBF team is Jeske van der Slikke and Bianca Taal.

Read more about supported titles in the IFFR 2023 programme

 

The Hubert Bals Fund team

Reality Check 

Reality Check is the festival's platform to reflect on and discuss current issues in the film industry. The symposium returns at IFFR 2023 to ask: what is the future of film festivals? Taking place on Sunday 29 January, film festival and market professionals will be provided with a space to discuss how festivals can best organise themselves and collaborate with each other amid a shifting industry landscape.

Find out more about Reality Check

 

Go to the industry programme

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