Gearing up for the 46^th edition of International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) with an ongoing focus on championing auteur films, celebrating innovative cinematic art and bringing this to a broad audience, festival director Bero Beyer presented the festival's renewed and reinforced team tonight at the Toronto International Film Festival.

To optimize the support and services the festival offers to extraordinary film talent from around the world, IFFR is taking the momentum to reshape its industry activities. As Head of Industry Marit van den Elshout will oversee this reshaping process. Having run the Hubert Bals Fund (HBF) for more than seven years, current HBF chief Iwana Chronis has decided to move on after the next festival, handing over the reins to Van den Elshout. 

Head of Programme Chris Schouten will extend her activities, also supervising IFFR’s various distribution initiatives, and programmer Bianca Taal will oversee IFFR’s Talent Development schemes, such as BoostNL, the recently introduced coproduction market collaboration between CineMart and the Netherlands Film Festival’s Holland Film Meeting (HFM). Former Brave Talk Coordinator Müge Demir and Shorts Programmer Julian Ross have joined the programming team to handle research for territories in Asia.
 
The festival also welcomed new team members. Press Officer Jenny Canters, formerly at Benelux distributor Lumière, will handle International Press. Further appointments include Fiscal Peters as Head of Marketing and Susan Gloudemans, who joins IFFR in November from the Rijksakademie, as Head of Development.
 
Festival director Bero Beyer: “In the rapidly shifting marketplace in which the traditional cinematic contact with audiences is being challenged, the role of film festivals is increasing. With the coproduction market CineMart, the funding schemes of HBF and through distribution endeavours like IFFR Unleashed and IFFR Live the festival is taking on a greater responsibility in bringing films to life. Having an integrated approach is just as crucial as a matching team like ours, with such valuable experience, impeccable and daring filmic taste and boundless energy.”