During the IFFR 2012 Awards Ceremony on Friday, February 3, 2012 in festival venue de Doelen, the winning films of the 41st International Film Festival Rotterdam were announced. The three Hivos Tiger Awards were granted to feature débuts Egg and Stone by Huang Ji (China), Hubert Bals Fund-supported film Thursday Till Sunday by Dominga Sotomayor (Chile/Netherlands) and Clip by Maja Miloš (Serbia), which also took the KNF Award of the Dutch film critics. Hubert Bals Fund-supported and competing film Neighbouring Sounds by Kleber Mendonça Filho (Brazil) took the FIPRESCI Award and Chinese film Sentimental Animal by Wu Quan was awarded by the NETPAC Jury.

On Saturday 4 February the UPC Audience Award and the Dioraphte Award for Best Hubert Bals Fund Supported Film will be announced.

Hivos Tiger Awards

Fifteen first or second films competed in the 2012 Tiger Awards Competition. The Jury consisted of Eric Khoo, director and producer from Singapore; Tine Fischer, festival director of CPH-DOX in Denmark; Israeli filmmaker Samuel Maoz (Golden Lion winner Lebanon, a former CineMart Project); Helena Ignez P. de Mello e Silva, Brazilian actress and filmmaker and Ludmila Cvikova, Head of International Programming at Doha Film Institute. Each Hivos Tiger Award comes with a prize of Euro 15,000 for the filmmaker.

The three winners of the equal Hivos Tiger Awards 2012 are:

Klip (Clip) by Maja Miloš (Serbia, 2012)

‘A vigorous, rebellious, authentic, honest and revealing film using modern means to depict in a punchy way the mobile generation, who capture their lives through images recorded on their phones. An emotionally disturbed main character in a fractured family, within a broken society. Klip provokes many questions and gives no answers.’

Clip saw its world premiere in the Tiger Awards Competition 2012. The film is produced by Film House Bas Celik (Serbia).

De jueves a domingo (Thursday Till Sunday) by Dominga Sotomayor (Chile/Netherlands, 2012)

‘In focus, this film is a very precise and gentle depiction of the intimate space of a family. We are captured in a journey seen through a child’s perspective, and recall the moments of our own childhood, at the same time experiencing and understanding all the complexities that adult life entails. The minimalistic story is revealed through the fresh angles of the camerawork. A gentle piece, rich with sensitive observations.’

Thursday Till Sunday was supported by the IFFR’s Hubert Bals Fund for script and project development and was selected for the Hubert Bals Fund Plus-program. The film saw its world premiere in the Tiger Awards Competition 2012 and was produced by Forastero and Cinestación (Chili) in co-production with Circe Films (Netherlands). Sales agent is FiGa Films (USA).

Jidan he shitou (Egg and Stone) by Huang Ji (China, 2012)

‘The director creates a sensation by telling the private story of a girl who unwillingly becomes trapped in a life in the margins. The taboo present in the film is broken by means of poetic language. The director does so with a convincing author’s approach and sensitive direction of non-professional actors. The beautifully framed, conscious choice of camerawork is relevant to storytelling, and unveils human secrets.’

Egg and Stone saw its world premiere in the Tiger Awards Competition 2012 and was produced by Yellow-Green Pi and Panorama (China).

NETPAC Award

The NETPAC Jury (Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema) awards the best Asian film in IFFR 2012 Official Selection. The Jury consisted of Hao Jian (Beijing Film Academy, China), Jean Hae Noh (Mirovision and Screen International, South Korea) and Meiske Taurisia (babibutafilm, Indonesia).

The winner of the NETPAC Award 2012 is:

Sentimental Animal by Wu Quan (China, 2011)

‘For employing innovative visual and narrative construction to cultivate a poignant cinematic style, thereby creating a subtle metonymy about the power structure and tension-ridden human relationships in Chinese society today.’

Sentimental Animal had its international premiere in the Bright Future-section for first or second time filmmakers of the International Film Festival Rotterdam 2012.

FIPRESCI Award

The Jury of the international association of film critics FIPRESCI (Fédération Internationale de la Presse Cinématographique) awards the best film in the Tiger Awards Competition. The Jury consisted of Carmen Gray (Jury Chair, Sight & Sound; Little White Lies, UK), Dennis Lim (Artforum, USA), Marcelo Janot (O Globo, Brazil), Nicole Santé (Oor; Ad Valvas, The Netherlands), Clarence Tsui (South China Morning Post, Hong Kong).

The winner of the Rotterdam FIPRESCI Award 2012 is:

O som ao redor (Neighbouring Sounds) by Kleber Mendonça Filho (Brazil, 2012)

‘For evoking an atmosphere of paranoia and menace through a highly ambitious use of sound and cinematography the winner is Neighbouring Sounds.’

Neighbouring Sounds received support from the IFFR’s Hubert Bals Fund for script and project development and for post-production; it saw its world premiere in the Tiger Awards Competition 2012.

KNF Award

The Jury of the Circle of Dutch film journalists KNF (Kring van Nederlandse Filmjournalisten) awards the best film from a selection of IFFR 2012-titles that have not yet been acquired for Dutch distribution. As a promotion to acquisition for distribution within The Netherlands the KNF Award comes with a grant for subtitling the film, sponsored by NCP Holland. The Jury consisted of Henk Maurits (Psynema), Ronald Rovers (de Filmkrant) and Arjan Welles (Film1, Filmtab, Filmtotaal).

From the selected films, the KNF Jury nominated three films: Nana by Valérie Massadian (France) from Bright Future and the competing films Klip by Maja Miloš (Serbia) and Sudoeste by Eduardo Nunes (Brazil).

The winner of the KNF Award 2012 is:

Klip (Clip) by Maja Miloš (Serbia, 2012)

‘The winning film is a daring and stunning debut, portraying an abandoned Serbian post-war generation. Its talented young director succeeds in constructing a brutal portrait using the pervasive and uninhibited visual language of the cell phone generation. It shows teens obsessively identifying with video clips, glorifying sex and violence and turning themselves into victims of pornofication. Though confronting, disturbing and explicit, Klip skilfully succeeds in avoiding the trap of exploitation.

We really hope a Dutch distributor will show the same courage as Maja Miloš did in making this film.’

Klip saw its world premiere in the Tiger Awards Competition 2012.

Earlier in the festival, the following awards were handed out:

Tiger Awards for Short Films and EFA Nomination

Monday 30 January, Makino Takashi’s Generator (Japan), Mati Diop’s Big in Vietnam (France) and Jeroen Eisinga’s Springtime (Netherlands) were awarded the three equal Tiger Awards for Short Films 2012. The jury gave a Special Mention to Charlotte Lim Lay Kuen for her short film I’m Lisa (Malaysia).

The International Film Festival Rotterdam short film nominee for the European Film Awards 2012 is Im Freien (In the Open) by Albert Sackl (Austria).

The eighth Tiger Awards Competition for Short Films comprised twenty-one films, ranging in length from five to fifty-six minutes. For its Jury the IFFR welcomed Rania Stephan from Lebanon who’s first feature-length documentary film The Three Disappearances of Soad Hosni screened in the festival; film curator and writer Andréa Picard from Canada, who worked for the Cinematheque Ontario and curated the Wavelengths section of the Toronto International Film Festival; and film critic and screenwriter Dana Linssen from The Netherlands, editor-in-chief of de Filmkrant and contributor to NRC Handelsblad. The Jury handed out the three equal Tiger Awards for Short Film (3,000 Euros) to the winning filmmakers at IFFR venue WORM on Monday evening 30 January 2012.

MovieSquad Award

British film Weekend by Andrew Haigh (UK, 2011), selected in IFFR’s Bright Future section, has won the MovieSquad IFFR Award. The young people’s jury announced the winning film Thursday February 2.

The MovieSquad jury consisted of five members aged 15 to 19 years: Nick Golterman, Manon Keus, Symen Hoogesteger, Juliette van den Dorpel en Roxanne Doorn. They selected the winner out of the twenty festival films that were up for consideration. Out of these twenty films, the jury also nominated the films Lena (Christophe van Rompaey, The Netherlands/Belgium, 2011) and Play (Ruben Östlund, Sweden/Denmark/Finland, 2011) but in the end chose Weekend by Andrew Haigh as their winner.

MovieSquad IFFR is an initiative of EYE Film Institute Netherlands in cooperation with the International Film Festival Rotterdam and is sponsored by SNS REAAL Fonds

ARTE France Cinéma and Eurimages Awards for best CineMart Projects 2012

The 29th CineMart, co-production market of the International Film Festival Rotterdam concluded Wednesday February 1 with the announcement of the two awards for best CineMart Projects 2012.

Duncharon by Athina Rachel Tsangari (Greece, Attenberg and producer of Dogtooth and Alps) won the ARTE France Cinéma Award (10,000 Euro) and first feature project Humidity by Nikola Ljuca (Serbia) - one of the five projects in the BOOST!-program, a collaboration of CineMart, the Hubert Bals Fund and Binger Filmlab - took the Eurimages Co-Production Development Award (30,000). The Jury gave a Special Mention to Indian-American co-production The Lunchbox by Ritesh Batra (India).

Jury members for the ARTE France Cinéma and Eurimages Awards were Claire Launay (ARTE France Cinéma), Petri Kemppinen (Finnish Film Foundation) and Winnie Lau (Fortissimo Films).