FIPRESCI award goes to The Fifth Gospel of Kaspar Hauser;  NETPAC prize goes to What They Don’t Talk About When They Talk About Love; inaugural Big Screen Award won by Pretty Butterflies; and The Future wins critics prize.

The 42nd International Film Festival Rotterdam presented its three equal Hivos Tiger Awards to features My Dog Killer (Moj Pes Killer) by Mira Forney (Slovakia/Czech Republic); Soldier Jane (Soldate Jeannette) by Daniel Hoesl (Austria); and Fat Shaker (Larzanandye Charbi) by Mohammad Shirvani (Iran).

The NETPAC jury (Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema) named the best Asian film in the IFFR 2013 official selection as What They Don’t Talk About When They Talk About Love (Yang Tidak Dibicarkan Ketika Membicarakan Cinta) by Mouly Surya (Indonesia).

The jury of the international association of film critics FIPRESCI named the best film of the 19 world premieres in IFFR’s Bright Future section to The Fifth Gospel of Kaspar Hauser (O Quinto Evanxeo de Gaspar Hauser) by Alberton Gracia (Spain).

The Big Screen Award Competition, a new prize aimed at supporting the distribution of films in Dutch cinemas, included 10 recent features with no Benelux distribution.

An audience jury selected Pretty Butterflies (Bellas Mariposas) by Salvatore Mereu (Italy), which will now get a guaranteed distribution offer for the Benelux in collaboration with Dutch distributor Amstelfilm.

The KNF Award, decided by the Dutch Circle of Film Critics (KNF), also chose a winner from the Big Screen selection, again complete with distribution from Amstelfilm as well as a subtitled DCP, sponsored by digital film lab NCP Holland.

The prize went to The Future (Il Futuro) by Alicia Scherson (Chile-Germany-Italy-Spain), first launched internationally as a project at Rotterdam’s co-production market, CineMart, in 2007.

The Tiger competition is for first or second features. This year’s Tiger jury comprised Iranian actress Fatemeh Motamedarya; Russian script writer and filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa; Dutch filmmaker Kees Hin; José Luis Cienfuegos, artistic director of the Seville European Film Festival (Spain) and Chinese visual artist and filmmaker Ai Weiwei, who was not able to attend the festival and judged the competition films at home in Beijing.

Each Tiger award comes with a prize of €15,000 ($20,500) for the filmmaker.

The jury said of My Dog Killer: “The challenge for showing a very strong subject from the inside reveals the difficulty of life and a sense of violence.”

On Soldier Jane, the jury commented: “The breaking out of two women is realised with strong imagery and visual power. Each shot is minimal but gives a high construction of forms and shapes; a very formalistic approach.”

Fat Shaker, which was supported by IFFR’s Hubert Bals Fund, prompted the jury to state: “The film introduces the audience to a very different world. It is a fascinating story with superb characters. The cinematography really draws out the story, the paranoia and the characters.”

Earlier in the festival, the Canon Tiger Awards for Short Films were won by Beatrice Gibson’s The Tiger’s Mind (UK), Zachery Formwalt’s Unsupported Transit (Netherlands) and Erik van Lieshout’s Janus (Netherlands).

The IFFR short film nominee for the European Film Awards 2013 is Though I Know the River is Dry by Omar Robert Hamilton (Egypt-Palestine-UK).

The Moviezone Award of the young people’s jury went to God’s Horses (Les Chevaux de Dieu) by Nabil Ayouch (Morocco-France-Belgium). The Lions Film Award of the Rotterdam Lions Club L’Espirit du Temps went to Hubert Bals Fund-supported film Penumbra by Eduardo Villanueva (Mexico).

The CineMart Awards were reported separately. Click here to read the winners report.

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