The Rotterdam International Film Festival (Jan 24-Feb 4) has announced the final 15 competitors for this year's Tiger Awards for first or second films, which include seven world premieres. A further 25 films will compete for the short film Tigers.

The world premieres include Me, by Spain's Rafa Cortes; La Fine Del Mare, by Nora Hoppe; Does It Hurt - The First Balkan Dogma, by Aneta Lesnikovska; Koen Mortier's Ex Drummer; The Unpolished, from Germany's Pia Marais; Tides, by Diego Martinez Vignatti; and opening-night film The Aerial, by Argentina's Esteban Sapir (supported by Rotterdam's Hubert Bals Fund).

International premieres include Bog of Beasts, from Brazil's Claudio Assis; Xiaolu Guo's How Is Your Fish Today', AFR from Denmark's Morten Hartz Kaplers; Fourteen, from Hirosue Hiromasa, and Rock N Roll Never Dies, by Juha Koiranen of Finland.

The festival's competitive element is rounded out by John Barker's Bunny Chow; The Man Of No Return by Katya Grokhovskaya and Love Conquers All, by Malaysia's Tan Chui Mui (also supported by the Hubert Bals Fund).

The Tiger feature jury has also been finalised, and will include Portugese film-maker Teresa Villaverde, Dutch actress Maria Kraakman, Chinese director Lou Ye, Toronto festival co-director Piers Handling, and UK film-maker Isaac Julien.

The three equal Tiger feature film winners will each take home $13,020 (Euros 10,000) and a guaranteed Dutch TV screening. The announcement of the winners will be made during the festival's closing-night festivities.

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