Three fledgling directors from three different international territories walked away with a VPRO Tiger Award at the close of this year's International Film Festival Rotterdam on Saturday night.

The winning directors were: China's Lou Ye for his Suzhou River; Argentinean Pablo Trapero's Mundo Grua (Crane World) and Katrin Ottarsdottir from Denmark for Bye Bye Blue Bird. Each of the three awards - which beat off competition from a field of fourteen titles in all - marched off with euros10,000 and the promise of theatrical distribution and a broadcast slot in the Netherlands.

Mundo Grua also picked up the international FIPRESCI critics prize. Suzhou River and Mundo Grua were supported by Dutch development fund, the Hubert Bals Fund. Contact Film will release Suzhou River in the autumn in the Netherlands while Mundo Grua and Bye Bye Blue Bird are set to be released in April and May in the Netherlands on the Festival label, Tiger Releases, unless another distributor snaps the titles up. Mundo Grua is now part of the festival's World Cinema tour.

The Rotterdam ceremony also carried several other awards including the Canal Plus audience award which went to Shower by Zhang Yang. Spanish film Solas was leading the audience polls, but Shower finally came out on top and will be released later this year by C-sales/Arteco. Japanese director Miike Takashi also scooped an additional award for the best film out of competition for Audition.