Rotterdam’s Bright Future and Spectrum sections provide both an overview as well as an update of contemporary world cinema. Brought together by IFFR’s team of programmers, each selecting adventurous, important and fresh titles from their research territories, the sections provide the filmmakers and producers with the opportunity to present their works to a dedicated festival audience and attending film professionals. Both sections combined contain thirty-seven world premieres, seventeen international premieres and seventeen European premieres.

(See full list of premieres in Bright Future and Spectrum online).

Bright Future

Comprising sixty-three films in total, the selection of Bright Future 2014 includes twenty-two world premieres, ten international premieres and ten European premieres. All are first or second features from young and upcoming filmmakers from around the globe. The Bright Future section includes five films supported by the Hubert Bals fund. The FIPRESCI jury at Rotterdam awards one of the films with a world premiere.

Five films from Bright Future will compete in the Big Screen Award Competition. Among these, world premieres La distancia by Tiger Award 2011 winner Sergio Caballero (Spain), a surreal thriller featuring three telepathic dwarfs; and Riad Sattouf’s (France) second feature after Les beaux gosses, Jacky au royaume des filles starring Charlotte Gainsbourg.

Supported by the Hubert Bals Fund, Las voces is the first solo-feature by Carlos Armella (Mexico), who co-directed Toro negro with Pedro Gonzalez-Rubio. Elisa Miller, former Tiger nominee from Mexico, presents an intimate portrait of visual artist Sarah Lucas, About Sarah. Rosendo Ruiz´ (Argentina) engaging and revealing romantic-comedy-meets-film-culture-essay Tres D looks set for a healthy festival career, as does The Iranian Film by Moroccan director Yassine el Idrissi.

Also premiering at the festival are Camilo Cavalcante’s (Brazil) eagerly awaited first feature drama The History of Eternity, and The Songs of Rice by Uruphong Raksasad (Thailand), whose critically acclaimed Agrarian Utopia screened at IFFR 2009. After his festival hit Burrowing, Henrik Helström (Sweden) presents his second feature The Quiet Roar about a dying woman who revisits her past through an LSD-trip. Vera Brunner-Sung (USA) presents her first feature Bella Vista, set in small town in Montana; and Whitney Horn and Lev Kalman re-evaluate 1990’s Gen X slacker hedonism from the nineties in L for Leisure.

Like every year, Bright Future also presents some highlights from recent international festivals, such as Of Horses and Men, Mouton, Rigor Mortis, Blue Ruin, Trap Street and Love Steaks.