Rotterdam film festival reveals first wave

The 46^th International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) has unveiled a first wave of titles ahead its 2017 edition, which runs January 25 – February 5.

The festival’s full programme will be divided into four sections.

Bright Future will present rising film-making talent from across the world. Films to play the strand will include the European premiere of Ricardo Alves Jr’s Elon Doesn’t Believe In Death, the Brazilian feature that premiered at the Brazilia Festival in September, Hope Dickson Leach’s The Levelling, which premiered in Toronto’s Discovery strand and played at the BFI London Film Festival, and Dane Komljen’s All The Cities Of The North, which premiered at this year’s Locarno Film Festival.

The strand offers a Bright Future Award worth €10,000 ($10,700), which is open to film-makers whose films are having their international premieres in the programme. Separately, as part of the Bright Future programme, eight directors will compete in the annual Hivos Tiger competition, with a cash prize of €40,000 ($43,000) for the winner. The eight-strong selection will also be up for a €10,000 (€10,700) special jury prize.

Voices, in which the IFFR programming team select films that offer distinctive views of the world from experienced film-makers, will feature the likes of Pablo Larrain’s Venice Film Festival hit and awards season contender Jackie, Tatsuya Mori’s documentary about ‘Japan’s Beethoven’ Fake, and Jim Jarmusch duo Paterson and Gimme Danger.

Eight of the films that have their international premieres in the Voices programme will compete for the VPRO Big Screen Awards, which comes with a cash prize of €30,000 ($32,000) as well as Dutch distribution support and a broadcast deal for Dutch TV. A further thirty titles in the Voices strand will see IFFR working with Dutch distributors to support their theatrical distribution.

Elsewhere, the festival’s Deep Focus strand, which celebrates cinema through retrospectives, masterclasses, compilation programmes and rediscovered classics, will feature the international premiere of Adolfo Arrieta’s re-telling of Sleeping Beauty Belle Dormant, Angela Schanelec’s Locarno premiere The Dreamlike Path (Der Traumhafte Weg), and Lav Diaz’s Venice title The Woman Who Left.

“These four sections each tell their own story and have their own character, helping festival visitors and film professionals find their way to the festival experience that best suits them,” commented festival director Bero Beyer.

“The great thing is that these parameters allow us to constantly go a step further. A film like The Woman Who Left best fits into the Deep Focus section, while the latest Jarmusch screens in Voices. The innovation and discoveries in Bright Future are reflected by the films competing in the Tiger competition, but also in films such as The Levelling. And the themed programming in Perspectives allows us to better express how a particular theme is being translated into cinema, and how we relate to this as a festival,” he added.