email print share on Facebook share on Twitter share on LinkedIn share on reddit pin on Pinterest

IFFR 2017

The countdown to the 46th IFFR begins

by 

- The festival has unveiled the line-up for several of its sections, including the Big Screen Competition, which features the controversial French title This Is Our Land by Lucas Belvaux

The countdown to the 46th IFFR begins
This Is Our Land by Lucas Belvaux

The line-up of the 46th International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) is steadily being padded out, as the organisers have announced the latest titles that will be screening in the gathering’s several venues, including the opening and closing films – both of which are US productions – as well as the movies in the Big Screen and Bright Future sections. A huge list of world premieres is in store for Europe’s most famous indie showcase, which this year unspools from 25 January-5 February.

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

Opening the festival is New York-born director Janicza Bravo’s debut feature, Lemon, a film “able to create a picture of our present time in a very unique way”, in the words of IFFR director Bero Beyer. Lemon is also one of the titles in the Big Screen Competition. The closing film is Mike Mills’ Golden Globes nominee 20th Century Women, featuring three multi-generational female characters at the centre of its plot.

While Europe is absent from the opening and closing nights, some European co-productions have made it into the Big Screen Competition, in which an audience jury will decide on the winner of the VPRO Big Screen Award, worth €30,000 in addition to a guaranteed release in Dutch cinemas and a purchase by Dutch public broadcaster NPO, for screening on the VPRO channel.

The list includes several interesting titles, including the world premiere of Belgian-French co-production This Is Our Land [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Lucas Belvaux
film profile
]
. Lucas Belvaux’s latest film has seemingly annoyed France’s far-right Front National party, as it portrays one of the characters as a blonde political leader arguably similar to Marine Le Pen. This Is Our Land focuses on a devoted young nurse who is offered a candidacy for mayor by a far-right party in what can be seen as a portrait of the corrupting of good people suddenly caught up in the tentacles of populist ideology. The other two European co-productions in the Big Screen Competition are Ivica Zubak’s A Hustler's Diary [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
(Sweden) and Chico Pereira’s Donkeyote [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
(Spain/Germany/UK).

The IFFR team has also unveiled several new titles in the Bright Future section as a complement to those announced previously (read more).

The IFFR 2017 will also feature a sizeable retrospective on Jan Němec, one of the pioneers of the Czech New Wave in the 1960s and a key figure in Eastern European avant-garde cinema, who passed away last year.

Here is the list of films unveiled so far:

Opening film

LemonJanicza Bravo (USA)

Closing film

20th Century WomenMike Mills (USA)

Big Screen Competition

A Hustler's Diary [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
Ivica Zubak (Sweden)
This Is Our Land [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Lucas Belvaux
film profile
]
Lucas Belvaux (Belgium/France)
Donkeyote [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
Chico Pereira (Spain/Germany/UK)
Lemon – Janicza Bravo
Marjorie Prime - Michael Almereyda (USA)
Pop Aye - Kirsten Tan (Singapore)
The Last Painting - Chen Hung-I (Taiwan)
Family Life - Alicia Scherson, Cristián Jiménez (Chile)

Bright Future (competition)

António One Two Three [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Leonardo Mouramateus
film profile
]
- Leonardo Mouramateus (Portugal/Brazil)
Cactus Flower [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
- Hala Elkoussy (Qatar/Egypt/United Arab Emirates/Norway)
Children Are Not Afraid of Death, Children Are Afraid of Ghosts - Rong Guang Rong (China)
Body Electric - Marcelo Caetano (Brazil)
Drifting Towards the Crescent - Laura Stewart (USA)
Haruneko - Hokimoto Sora (Japan)
I Am Truly a Drop of Sun on Earth [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
- Elene Naveriani (Switzerland)
Inside the Distance [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
- Elias Grootaers (Belgium)
Still Night, Still Light - Sophie Goyette (Canada)
A Window to Rosália - Caroline Leone (Brazil/Argentina)
The Pot and the Oak - Kiarash Anvari (Iran)
Self-criticism of a Bourgeois Dog [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
- Julian Radlmaier (Germany)
Super Dark Times - Kevin Phillips (USA)
The Territories - Iván Granovsky (Argentina/Brazil/Palestine)
Ugly [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Juri Rechinsky
film profile
]
- Juri Rechinsky (Ukraine/Austria)
William, the New Judo Master - Ricardo Silva, Omar Guzmán (Mexico)

Bright Future (out of competition)

When Paul Came over the Sea [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
­- Jakob Preuss (Germany)
Bamseom Pirates Seoul Inferno - Jung Yoonsuk (South Korea)
Filthy [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Tereza Nvotová
film profile
]
- Tereza Nvotova (Slovakia/Czech Republic)
A Heart of Love [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
- Lukasz Ronduda (Poland)
Live from Dhaka ­- Abdullah Mohammad Saad (Bangladesh)
Manifesto [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
- Julian Rosefeldt (Germany)
Another Mother - Mariano Luque (Argentina)
Suffering of Ninko - Niwatsukino Norihiro (Japan)
Wailings in the Forest - Bagane Fiola (Philippines)

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

Did you enjoy reading this article? Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive more stories like this directly in your inbox.

Privacy Policy