Ahead of this year's festival, what are you looking forward to most'

I'm very much looking forward to the films we've commissioned from Guy Maddin, Nanouk Leopold and Carlos Reygadas. We've asked them to make films for very large outdoor projections. Film-makers are used to making films for a very generic space, the screen in the cinema. There are so many screens nowadays in public spaces but they all contain either information or commercials. I thought it would be very interesting to see what film-makers can bring to these screens.

What imprint do you think you can make on the festival'

It's my job to make sure we're very sharp in the selections we make and sharp in what questions we ask - what hypotheses we have.

What is the blueprint for a good festival'

What I like about Rotterdam, and what I think is an imprint for a good festival, is that we are very popular. We have a big audience (around 355,000 visitors last year) but we're not populist.

Which other festivals do you enjoy attending'

Last year I went to Cannes, Locarno, Pusan and Toronto. Since this was my first year, I wanted to go to those major festivals first.

Which films have you enjoyed recently'

The new Gustav Deutsch film, Film Ist. A Girl & A Gun - a new musical of archive film images - is great.