The 36th International Film Festival Rotterdam has attracted more international festival guests then during its 2006 edition. Also the public attendance has gone up: the festival organisation registered 367,000 visits to its film screenings, arts exhibitions, talk shows and many special events. Sunday February 4, the festival closes with the ‘Volkskrantdag’, a pre-booked screening day of festival favorites. The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen) took away the KPN Audience Award. The 37th International Film Festival Rotterdam will take place from Wednesday January 23 through Sunday February 3, 2008.

The editor of The Lives of Others, Patricia Rommel, received Saturday February 3, 2007 in ‘de Doelen’ in Rotterdam, on behalf of filmmaker Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, the KPN Audience Award of 7,500 Euro. The Award was handed over by Mr. Ivo Opstelten, Mayor of Rotterdam. The Closing Night Ceremony was followed by the screening of The Prestige by former Tiger Award winner Christopher Nolan.
The Prestige will be released in The Netherlands on February 8 by Warner Bros. Holland; The Lives of Others will be released in The Netherlands on March 1 by Cinemien Film & Video Distribution.

On Friday evening February 2, 2007, the VPRO Tiger Awards were presented to Pia Marais (Germany) for The Unpolished (Die Unerzogenen) and Tan Chui Mui (Malaysia) for Love Conquers All and, ex aequo, to Claudio Assis (Brazil) for Bog of Beasts (Baixio das bestas) and Morten Hartz Kaplers (Denmark) for AFR. The Tiger Awards for Short Films went to Vipin Vijay (India) for Video Game, Geoffrey Boulangé (France) for Hinterland and Köken Ergun (Turkey) for The Flag (Bayrak). The KNF Award was given to Nina Davenport (USA) for Operation Filmmaker, the Netpac Award to Hirosue Hiromasa (Japan) for Fourteen, and the FIPRESCI Award to Me (Yo) by Rafa Cortés.

Both festival audience and international guests were impressed by the attendance and the films by Johnnie To and Abderrahmane Sissako, this edition’s Filmmakers in Focus, by famous cinema auteurs Jia Zhang-ke, Tsai Ming-liang and Benoit Jacquot, as well as the many young filmmaking talents. Most of them have given many interviews and attended their screenings for Q & A sessions.

Special festival events attracted large audience numbers: ‘Script Stage’, a series of script readings by, among others, Nathalie Alonso Casale (The Netherlands), Tereza Villaverde (Portugal) and Jean-Claude Brisseau (France); the festival section ‘Hot Spots Bucharest and Tehran’ with films, visual arts and music performances; the ‘Seatless Cinema’ programme with live film performances by filmmakers and visual artists, as well as the arts exhibitions of cutting edge media related art installations ‘Speed of Light’, ‘Borderline Behaviour: Drawn towards Animation’ and the installation exhibitions of works by Artist in Focus Knut Åsdam (Norway).

The international attention for the International Film Festival Rotterdam has increased. This edition, more film industry representatives visited Rotterdam. Among them, 390 filmmakers, more then eight hundred CineMart guests, more then forty young producers who followed the training course Rotterdam Lab and the six young film critics taking part in the IFFR Young Film Critics Trainee Project. The newly installed Sales Club proved an asset to attending sales agents and buyers. The Film Office team looks back at a busy festival period, offering consultancy service to filmmakers in their contacts with sales agents, distributors and festival representatives.


36th International Film Festival Rotterdam in figures:

Total number of visits: 367,000 (2006: 358,000)

Number of page visits to festival website during festival period: 3,000,000 (2006: 2,400,000)

Total number of festival guests: 2940 (2006: 2814)
Total number of festival guests from The Netherlands: 980 (2006: 1036)
Total number of international festival guests: 1960 (2006: 1788)

Total number of attending filmmakers: 390 (2006: 379)

Total number of journalists: 495 (2006: 476)
Total number of international journalists: 201 (2006: 191)
Total number of journalists from the Netherlands: 294 (2006: 285)

Total number of CineMart guests: 841 (2006: 850)
Total number of international CineMart guests: 678
Total number of CineMart guests from The Netherlands: 163