International Film Festival Rotterdam has made the first programming selections for its 54th edition (IFFR, January 30-February 9, 2025) in the Bright Future and Harbour strands.
The festival has selected 13 titles, all world premieres – five in Bright Future and eight in Harbour.
Scroll down for the full list of titles
Titles in Bright Future, the section for feature debuts, include Oskar Weimar’s Kenyan film Nyamula. Set in a fishing community, it sees an elderly woman face accusations of witchhood when fish begin vanish. Melbourne-based director Weimar previously made 2021 short Each Other which played at Slamdance in the US.
Also in Bright Future is Lilly Hu’s One Girl Infinite, about two friends in Changsha who become separated when one falls in with a drug dealer. Dune: Part One writer Eric Roth is an executive producer on the US-Latvia-Singapore co-production.
The Harbour strand, which looks to represent contemporary cinema and echo Rotterdam’s port city identity, includes Hicham Lasri’s Morocco-France co-production Thank You Satan.
A dark comedy set in the early 1990s, it follows a writer who gives it all he has to write his best-seller, at the willing of his publisher – with killer consequences. Moroccan filmmaker Lasri has previously made features including Marrakech 2023 selection Moroccan Badass Girl.
Also in Harbour is Austrian feature Un Gran Casino, a consideration of Europe’s largest casino and the effect it has on the Italian village where it is based. It is the latest feature from Austrian director Daniel Hoesl, who won a Rotterdam Tiget Award in 2013 for his debut feature Soldier Jane.
“We can also see each year what a vital launch platform this is for titles which go on following their IFFR debut to commercial and critical success – and continue to champion and celebrate the progress of the projects we shared earlier this year in our 2024 edition,” said IFFR festival director Vanja Kaludjercic.
Further IFFR titles will be announced in the coming weeks, with the full programme unveiled on December 17.
IFFR 2025 first titles
Bright Future
Girl Infinite (US-Lat-Sing) dir. Lilly Hu
Camp D’Été (Switz-Fr) dir. Mateo Ybarra
Later In The Clearing (Hun-Sp) dir. Marton Tarkovi
Nyamula (Ken) dir. Oskar Weimar
Your Touch Makes Others Invisible (Sri-US) dir. Rajee Samarasinghe
Harbour
And The Rest Will Follow (Tur-Bul-Rom) dir. Pelin Esmer
Dead Dog (Leb) dir. Sarah Francis
Finding Ramlee (Mal) dir. Megat Sharizal
No Dejes A Los Niños Solos (Mex) dir. Emilio Portes
Primitive Diversity (Ger) dir. Alexander Kluge
Thank You Satan (Mor-Fr) dir. Hicham Lasri
The Night Is Dark And Brighter Than The Day (Ger) dir. Christina Friedrich
Un Gran Casino (Austria) dir. Daniel Hoesl
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