From Argentina to Austria, Congo to China, films from all corners of the globe are peppered through the programme of the Rotterdam International Film Festival (IFFR), which opens tomorrow, Thursday January 30.
Now in her fifth year at Rotterdam, festival director Vanja Kaludjercic – whose previous roles include stints at the Coproduction Office and as head of acquisitions at Mubi – says the 2025 edition presents filmmakers, themes and topics “that you do not often get a chance to see”.
Rotterdam’s two competitions – Tiger and Big Screen – each screen 14 films. Tiger is for emerging auteur filmmakers, while Big Screen “presents more classical cinema from dramas to arthouse, something more on a bigger scale and popular,” says Kaludjercic.
Of the non-competitive sections, Limelight has 45 titles, many of them box -office successes in their own country or festival highlights that help to broaden IFFR’s audience appeal.
The Bright Future section is for debuts at the cutting edge of contemporary filmmaking, while Harbour is billed as ‘a safe haven to the full range of contemporary cinema that the festival champions”.
The wide-ranging festival also encompasses retrospectives (Katja Raganelli, Sergii Masloboishchykov, VHS culture and the Bandung Conference), talks (including Cate Blanchett and Miike Takashi) and immersive section Art Directions as well as being home to industry strand IFFR Pro, project market CineMart and the Hubert Bals Fund.
Underrepresented cinema
For Kaludjercic, one of the most exciting aspects of IFFR is shining a light on films from countries that are underrepresented in terms of cinemagoing worldwide.
India, she says, “delivers so many delights every year in many different genres” that the big challenge is choosing which to select. They range from Varsha Bharath’s coming -of age comedy Bad Girl in Tiger Competition to Suman Mukhopadhyay’s period drama The Puppet’s Tale in Big Screen.”
She also highlights Indonesia, a country of over 280 million with a strong cinemagoing culture particularly in genre and horror films.
Kaludjercic points to Hanung Bramantyo’s 1960s-set Gowok: Javanese Kamasutra, about a woman hired by a family to teach their young men about sexual relationships during marriage, that is screening in IFFR. “It is remarkable because it ties into a tradition that has been buried over time, but also into some of the pivotal moments in recent Indonesian history.”
IFFR closes with This City Is A Battlefield by Indonesian filmmaker Mouly Surya which is set during the country’s fight for independence from the Dutch in 1946. It is, says Kaludjercic, a mix of ‘nuanced arthouse filmmaking’ and ‘fantastic war action scenes.
“[Surya] can really can bring the best of two worlds together,” she says.
This City Is A Battlefield and Gowok: Javanese Kamasutra were both supported by IFFR’s Hubert Bals Fund.
Dark comedy Fabula, by Dutch director Michiel ten Horn, about a provincial criminal grappling with personal and professional failures, will open the festival. It’s a delight to be able to programme a Dutch opening film, says Kaludjercic; it last happened in 2018. “For the Dutch team to have a world premiere at an international festival means everybody can come – it makes it a huge celebration.”
For her, the film “is a perfect example of cinema we like to present at IFFR,” describing it as a multi-layered film that combines arthouse and popular elements.
Kaludjercic also highlights a number of notable films across Rotterdam’s programme that are yet to secure sales representation: they include Albert Oehlen’s Germany-US co-production Bad Painter, a mockumentary about the artworld, in Big Screen competition.
In Tiger Competition there is Belgian directors Noëlle Bastin and Baptiste Bogaert’s dry comedy Vitrival – The Most Beautiful Village In The World; Chinese director Li Dongmei chamber drama Guo Ran; and Indian director Varsha Bharath’s Bad Girl.
In the Harbour section, meanwhile, she picks out US filmmakers Courtney Stephens and Michael Almereyda’s archive- based feature John Lilly And The Earth Coincidence Control Office.
Festival funding
Rotterdam’s overall budget has increased slightly from €9.1m last year to around €9.4m this year, despite the inflationary pressures that have led to a significant rise in costs for festivals.
IFFR’s slight budget increase is a relief given the volatile climate for cultural funding in the Netherlands. The country’s right-wing coalition government last year announced a round of significant budget cuts for cultural organisations in a bid to address fiscal challenges. Meanwhile, the city of Utrecht withdrew its subsidies for The Netherlands Film Festival (NFF) last summer.
But Rotterdam has so far escaped similar cuts. The festival has secured a four-year funding settlement from the Dutch government and the city of Rotterdam covering its 2026-2029 editions. The festival “counts itself as being very fortunate,” says Clare Stewart, IFFR’s managing director. “Our subsidies are staying the same or increasing marginally in line with indexation.”
There is now a renewed focus on generating revenue from new partnerships and ticket sales, while carefully managing the size of the festival and the resources required to stage it.
Another focus for Stewart has been “a lot of work” on a strategic plan for the future development of the festival, especially around its industry programmes. The exact plans will be shared after this year’s edition, she says: “At the moment, our focus is very much on the 2025 edition.”
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