{"id":209570,"date":"2025-02-10T17:22:46","date_gmt":"2025-02-10T16:22:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iffr.com\/en\/?p=209570"},"modified":"2025-02-10T17:22:51","modified_gmt":"2025-02-10T16:22:51","slug":"blog-iffr-closes-its-54th-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iffr.com\/en\/blog-iffr-closes-its-54th-edition","title":{"rendered":"IFFR closes its 54th edition"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

IFFR has wrapped its 54th edition, boosting its annual visitation by 12% to over 296,000. The festival included 482 films from 94 countries, of which 201 were world premieres, as well as immersive works through Art Directions, vibrant industry strand IFFR Pro and curated creative conversations across the Talks programme. The festival\u2019s Audience Award went to Walter Salles\u2019s Academy Award nominated I\u2019m Still Here<\/strong>, the true and moving story of one Brazilian family\u2019s struggle against a military regime.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Vanja Kaludjercic, IFFR Festival Director said: \u201cIt is incredibly heartening to close out an edition which has grown both in scope and ambition, but also in the attendance and support from our audiences. IFFR is a vital space to celebrate the expansive possibilities of cinema and share stories which deserve to be discovered \u2013 from emerging talent spotlight through Tiger Competition and Bright Future, to first of their kind programmes like our focus on pioneering documentarian Katja Raganelli. We are proud of the collective effort behind this edition and the groundswell of support from audiences who turned out for unexpected immersive works, insightful conversations, celebrations of culture like our VHS focus strand, and everything in between.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clare Stewart, IFFR Managing Director said: \u201cCreative partnerships that bridge global with local and build on legacy are essential to the future success of film festivals and the film industry at large. Working with an inspiring group of corporate and philanthropic founding partners, and actor, producer and Global Goodwill ambassador for the UNHCR the UN\u2019s Refugee Agency, Cate Blanchett, we launched an urgent new initiative \u2013\u00a0 the Displacement Film Fund \u2013 for which IFFR\u2019s Hubert Bals Fund (HBF) will act as the managing partner. We also amplified the many international and Dutch partnerships that support our Pro industry programme, continuing to expand our commitment to inclusion and accessibility, in particular through a collaboration with BFI which supported a delegation of Disabled filmmakers to attend the festival for the first time. And we welcomed a significant new venue collaboration with immersive hub Katoenhuis \u2013 as the new home for one of IFFR\u2019s flagship programmes, Art Directions, which also had terrific audience impact for that strand.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IFFR Talks<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Across Big Talks and Tiger Talks strands, IFFR hosted discussions from a spectrum of creatives, filmmakers and artists including Cate Blanchett & Guy Maddin, Alex Ross Perry, Costa Gavras, Cheryl Dunye & Albertina Carri, Steffen Haars & Joseph Kahn, Amie Siegel, Miike Takashi,\u00a0 Robby M\u00fcller Award recipient Lol Crawley,\u00a0and Victoria Pedretti & Hanna van Vliet. The festival also welcomed Academy Award nominated The Seed of the Sacred Fig<\/strong> director Mohammad Rasoulof, who presented his latest work and participated in a panel on cinema and the rise of authoritarianism, presented in collaboration with the International Coalition for Filmmakers at Risk, of which IFFR is a founding member.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Art Directions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

With immersive hub Katoenhuis as the new home for the Art Directions strand, located in the M4H\u2019s up-and-coming Keile cultural district, visitor numbers for the strand also increased for the 2025 edition, reaching over 17,000 across the festival. The Art Directions programme featured 26 works in total, including 9 installations, 2 exhibitions, 10 performances and 5 immersive experiences across 6 venues throughout the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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IFFR Pro<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This edition\u2019s IFFR Pro strand broadened the number of projects in selection across both Darkroom and CineMart, and hosted over 2,200 industry attendees as well as more than 250 press from across the globe. Head of IFFR Pro Marten Rabarts oversaw programming which also celebrated the 25th anniversary of Rotterdam Lab a training workshop for producers at the start of their career with the aim of offering emerging international professionals the means to build and develop their network. The Pro Hub presented a new Meet the Experts strand which hosted seven sessions, as well as delivering comprehensive support for professionals and filmmakers in selection, including over 50 more mentor meetings year on year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Attendance was up significantly across the entire IFFR Pro programme, which also included Pulling Focus: NL 2025 \u2013 a day dedicated to the Dutch film industry. As IFFR continues to build on the strategic alignment between Pro and IFFR\u2019s Hubert Bals Fund (HBF), this year also marked the inaugural HBF Empowerment Award, possible due to a private donation, which went to Georgian filmmaker Uta Beria\u2019s Darkroom project Tear Gas<\/strong>. The Darkroom work-in-progress selection – which includes projects supported through CineMmart, HBF and Rotterdam Lab alumni –\u00a0 increased in size this year and had a focus on Georgia due to the political urgency and need for support by filmmakers in the region.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hubert Bals Fund<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The HBF also marked another successful IFFR, launching the Displacement Film Fund with a panel bringing together Cate Blanchett, and fellow founding member Koji Yanai (Director of the Board of the Fast Retailing Group and producer of Perfect Days<\/strong>) with Selection Panel members Waad Al-Kateab (For Sama<\/strong>)<\/em> and Jonas Rasmussen (Flee<\/strong>) in dialogue with Head of the HBF, Tamara Tatishvili. The pilot scheme is set to champion and fund the work of displaced filmmakers, and filmmakers who are committed to authentic storytelling on the experiences of displaced people, with 5 short film production grants of \u20ac100,000. IFFR\u2019s Closing film This City Is a Battlefield<\/strong> <\/em>from Mouly Surya was a HBF backed Indonesian-Dutch co-production, and overall there were six HBF supported titles in selection for this edition.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Education<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In the Education strand, IFFR teamed up with Rotterdam\u2019s Codarts University for the Arts to perform live soundtracks composed by students of the Screen Scoring Master\u2019s programme for a selection of short films from recent IFFR editions. The programme also included filmmaker Idriss Nabil participating in a Q&A session for his short film Moustache<\/strong> at IFFR\u2019s family shorts 8 -12 programme, followed by a screenwriting kids-only workshop along with cast from the short.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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RTM \u00a0<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

IFFR 2025 also hosted a successful RTM Day, focussed on spotlighting filmmakers local to the port city. Regen in augustus<\/strong> by Ashley R\u00f6ttjers is the winner of the 2025 RTM Pitch prize and tells the story of Jasmine, a young woman in her twenties with Surinamese roots, who finds herself trapped in a suffocating routine where the elusive boundary between reality and imagination gradually blurs. The winning film project of RTM Pitch 2025 is supported with \u20ac20,000 from the Municipality of Rotterdam and will premiere during RTM at IFFR 2026. Attendance was up for RTM Day, totalling over 3,200 visits. The rapturous response to the World Premiere of last year’s RTM Pitch winner, Sharine Rijsenburg’s Bubbling Baby<\/strong>, also signalled an initiative that has made a strong impact in its first five years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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IFFR 2025 in numbers\u00a0<\/h2>\n\n\n\n