43rd International Film Festival Rotterdam 22 January – 2 February 2014  


 
International Film Festival Rotterdam adds How to Survive…, a program focusing on and broadening the idea of contemporary survival, to its thematic Signals section. Acknowledging the fact that global developments in society are the point of departure for survival films in both contemporary commercial and independent cinema, all selections provide practical variations and appropriate metaphors on the theme. 
                                                                                                                                        
As the current awards avalanche for 12 Years a Slave, Gravity or All is Lost shows, survival is everywhere, and survival is everything. Comprising twelve independent films from all around the world, How to Survive… shows that under the current circumstances, simply no one is safe. The films range from Spanish survival horror La cueva (In Darkness We Fall) by Alfredo Montero to Jang Cheol-soo’s Korean spy thriller Secretly Greatly, and from Canadian internet found footage documentary Hoax_canular by Dominic Gagnon to Iranian apocalyptic visions in From Tehran to Heaven by Abolfazl Saffary.
 
In the How to Survive… Clinics, experts teach visitors forgotten survival skills. Countless urban initiatives teach modern individuals how to repair, refurbish and produce things artisanally, as a response to overdependence on consumer technology in an age of economic downturn. In a workshop by Rotterdam based Wild Vleesch you can learn how to make goose and boar sausages, Woolfiller will show you how to repair your woollen sweater, or you can learn how to defend yourself in a demonstration by Rotterdam based Khalid Chennouf, former kick boxing world champion.
 
Full line up of films in How to Survive…:
 

• #PostModem by Lucas Leyva and Jillian Mayer (USA)
• App Sapiens by Ko Hyun-chang (South Korea)
• Blutgletscher by Marvin Kren (Austria)
• Canopy by Aaron Wilson (Australia)
• La cueva by Alfredo Montero (Spain)
• Fish and Cat by Shahram Mokri (Iran)
• From Tehran to Heaven by Abolfazl Saffary (Iran, Germany)
• Hoax_canular by Dominic Gagnon (Canada)
• The Sacrament by Ti West (USA)
• Secretly Greatly by Jang Cheol-Soo (South Korea)
• Starred Up by David Mackenzie (United Kingdom)
• White Bear by Carl Tibbetts (United Kingdom)

 
Installations:

• Phire by eteam (USA) located in Schouwburg, Shell Foyer 1^st floor
• How to Survive… Daily Life, various, web video installation, KlubKat, Kruisplein 151-153