39th International Film Festival Rotterdam: 27 January - 7 February 2010

Competition and Jury
To raise the profile of short films as a highly influential form of art but also a the realm in which cinema has been both democratized and popularized by the online and digital developments, the International Film Festival Rotterdam founded its Competition for short films in 2005. This edition, thirty-one films of up to sixty minutes in length will be presented to the international jury consisting of Jeremy Rigsby (programmer of Media City Festival in Ottawa, Canada), Shai Heredia (director of Filter India Festival, Mumbai, India) and Albert Wulffers (filmmaker, writer, visual artist and teacher, The Netherlands). The winners of the three equal Tiger Awards for Short Films, with prize money of 3.000 euro each, will be announced on Monday February 1.

Spectrum: Shorts
From the overwhelming worldwide production, the IFFR has selected 210 short films, including thirteen ‘short features' with durations between forty and sixty minutes, for its dedicated section ‘Signals: Shorts'. All films are screened during a five-day event in festival location Lantaren/Venster. Here festival audiences, filmmakers and industry professionals gather to watch the films, introduce their works and meet for getting the lowdown on the latest developments. The films are grouped by four or five titles in screening slots of 80 minutes that allow introductions and Q&A sessions. The Shorts Marathon, a usually sold out program of repeat screenings, takes place on Saturday February 6.

Signals: Shorts 2010 presents six programs of narrative works including premieres of medium lengths films by Geetu Mohan Das (India), José Luis Torres Leiva (Chili), Terril Calder (Canada) and Julia Kozyreva (Russia/Estonia).
Furthermore, Signals: Shorts comprises a wide range of essayistic, abstract and experimental short filmmaking by, among many others, Jem Cohen (USA), John Price (Canada), Liu Wei (China), Kleber Mendonca Filho (Brazil) and prolific US filmmaker Kevin Jerome Everson who presents four films in IFFR 2010: his short films Company Line and The Citizens as well as his feature film Erie in Spectrum and the commissioned short film BZV in the Africa focus program.

Focus on Jim Jennings, homage to Frank Cole
As part of Spectrum: Shorts, NYC-based filmmaker Jim Jennings will present eight of his recent 16 mm works, all filmed on location in his home town. Mostly edited in the camera Jennings' films are tributes to the NYC landscape and urban architecture. Jennings will attend the festival to introduce his films.

Within its Regained section, the festival presents a tribute to Canadian filmmaker Frank Cole (1954-2000), who entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the first man to cross the Sahara on foot. His murder in Mali left us with a legacy of two features, a pair of award-winning short films and a mystery that may never be solved. IFFR 2010 presents his short documentaries A Documentary (1979), The Mountenays (1981) and A Life (1986) as well as The Man Who Crossed the Sahara, Korbett Matthews recent documentary about Cole. The program was curated and will be introduced by Canadian filmmaker Mike Hoolboom. In the Spectrum section, Hoolboom presents his documentary Mark, an elegiac portrait of his friend and long time editor Mark Karbusicky.

More shorts films in various program sections
Giving each film its appropriate context, the IFFR presents many shorts film in various sections of the festival together with feature length films or as part of performances or installations.

Connected with IFFR's new initiative Cinema Reloaded (see http://www.cinemareloaded.com/), the special festival section Kino Climates brings together, for the first time ever, organizers from some thirty independent art house cinemas across Europe and beyond. Daily meetings and debates that look to the future of independent theatrical film distribution will be followed during the evenings by presentations, screenings of 31 short films and live performance previews of hybrid cinematic productions. Performing artists are among others: Martha Colburn (with live music by Knalpot and composer Thollem Mc Donal), Greg Pope & Mike Cooper, Floris Vanhoof, Pascal Baes and Gran Lux.

As in earlier editions, the IFFR presents online films. During the festival, a jury will choose the best out of eight New Arrival films. The online initiative New Arrivals (http://kortefilmonline.nps.nl/page/content/newarrivals/english) is organized by the IFFR in collaboration with Dutch public broadcaster NPS.

The program committee that selects films for Signals: Shorts consists of IFFR programmers Peter van Hoof, Juliette Jansen, Erwin van 't Hart, Saskia Bronwasser, Peter Taylor and Theus Zwakhals.

From January 20, the full festival lineup will be online on http://www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com/.

Tiger Awards Competition for Short Films 2010:

Backstory, Mark Lewis, Canada, 39', European premiere
Oops Wrong Planet, Anouk de Clerq, Belgium, 8', European premiere
Gaarud (The Spell), Umesh Vinayak Kulkami, India, 10'
Bruits de fond, Jean-Claude Ruggirello, France, 17', world premiere

Hoe vertel ik het mijn ouders #1 (How to Explain My Parents #1), Lemert Engelberts, Netherlands, 9', world premiere
Rendez-vous à Stella Plage, Shalimar Preuss, France, 18', world premiere
Drömmar från skogen (Dreams from the Woods), Johannes Nyholm, Sweden, 9'
La trilogie chrysalides (The Chrysalides Trilogy), Patrick Bernatchez, Canada, 17'

White Shoe Station, Sara Preibsch, UK/Germany, 15', world premiere
Travelling Fields, Inger Lise Hansen, Norway, 9', international premiere
For Cultural Purposes Only, Sarah Wood, UK, 9'
Oxigen (Oxygen), Adina Pintilie, Romania, 40', world premiere

Wednesday Morning Two A.M., Lewis Klahr, USA, 6', European premiere
Underexposed, Greg Smith, France, 23', world premiere
Centipede Sun, Mihai Grecu, France, 10', world premiere
Soy mi madre, Phil Collins, USA, 28'

Monuments, Redmond Entwistle, UK, 30', European premiere
Mudanza (Removal), Pere Portabella, Spain, 20'
Sex Is Sentimental, Erik van Lieshout, Netherlands, 21'

Empirical Effect, Rosa Barba, Italy, 27', world premiere
Atlantiques, Mati Diop, France/Senegal, 27'
Heliocentric, Semiconductor, UK, 15', world premiere
Wei wen (Condolences), Ying Liang, China, 19', international premiere

M, Félix Dufour-Laperrière, Canada, 8', international premiere
Out of Love, Brigitte Staermose, Denmark, 29', international premiere
Dissonant, Manon de Boer, Belgium, 11', world premiere
Desert 79°: 3 Journeys Beyond the Known World, Anna Abrahams, Netherlands, 18', world premiere

Palmele (Palm Lines), George Chiper, Romania, 17'
Bu sahilde (On the Coast), Merve Kayan, Turkey, 21', world premiere
Over the Bones, Charlotte Ginsborg, UK, 30'
Massage the History, Cameron Jamie, USA, 10', world premiere
http://www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com/