first selections from International Film Festival Rotterdam

39th International Film Festival Rotterdam
January 27 – February 7, 2010


Ben Russell’s LET EACH ONE GO WHERE HE MAY, Anocha Suwichakornpong’s MUNDANE HISTORY and Pedro Gonzalez-Rubio’s TO THE SEA have been selected in the VPRO Tiger Awards Competition 2010.
The Tiger Awards Jury 2010 will include Argentinean filmmaker Lucrecia Martel, French actress Jeanne Balibar and Singapore International Film Festival director Philip Cheah. A further two jury members will be announced later.
The 39th International Film Festival Rotterdam takes place from January 27 to February 7, 2010.

LET EACH ONE GO WHERE HE MAY is the feature début of Chicago-based filmmaker Ben Russell. The film, portraying contemporary Saramaccan life, traces the journey of two brothers who venture from the outskirts of Paramaribo, Suriname, on land and through rapids, past a Maroon village on the Upper Suriname River. Their journey reflects the voyage undertaken by their ancestors, who escaped from slavery at the hands of the Dutch 300 years earlier. The film, is written, directed and produced by Russell.

MUNDANE HISTORY (JAO NOK KRAJOK), first feature by Thai filmmaker Anocha Suwichakornpong is a family drama about a paralyzed son, an elusive father and the male nurse hired to take care of the wheelchair-bound patient. In its early developing stages, MUNDANE HISTORY received script support from Rotterdam’s Hubert Bals Fund. The HBF continued its support two years later by giving a post production grant.

TO THE SEA (A LA MAR), delicately portrays the relationship between a father and son spending a summer on Chinchorro reef on the Mexican-Caribbean coast, where the father is a fisherman. The sophomore film by Mexican director Pedro Gonzalez-Rubio was produced by Jaime Romandia for Mantarraya Producciones that previously produced films by Carlos Reygadas and Amat Escalante. MK2 handles the international sales of TO THE SEA.

Screenwriter, director and producer Lucrecia Martel (Argentina) received international acclaim for her début feature THE SWAMP (LA CIENAGA, 2000). THE HOLY GIRL (LA NIÑA SANTA, 2004) was presented at CineMart 2002 and was selected in Cannes Competition as was THE HEADLESS WOMAN (LA MUJER SIN CABEZA, 2008).

Stage and screen actress and singer Jeanne Balibar (France) played her first film role in Arnaud Desplechin’s THE SENTINEL (LA SENTINELLE, 1992). Recently she starred in Michael Winterbottom’s CODE 46 (2003) and CLEAN (2004) by Olivier Assayas. This year, she is subject of Pedro Costa’s NE CHANGE RIEN, an intimate portrait of her working process in several contexts: an Offenbach master class, a rock concert, song writing sessions and band rehearsals. NE CHANGE RIEN will screen in IFFR 2010’s Spectrum section.

Philip Cheah is the Festival Director of the Singapore International Film Festival and the editor of BigO, Singapore's independent pop culture publication. He is also Advisory Board Member and contributor to Cinemaya, Asia's film critics quarterly and Board Member of NETPAC (Network for the promotion of Asian Cinema).

Rotterdam’s VPRO Tiger Awards Competition, part of the festival’s Bright Future section, is open to first or second time feature films. Each edition, the winners of the three equal VPRO Tiger Awards of each 15.000 Euro are chosen by the Tiger Awards Jury. The price money for the three filmmakers as well as guaranteed acquisition of their films for television broadcast are kindly provided by Dutch broadcaster and main festival sponsor VPRO. Since its inception in 1995, the VPRO Tiger Awards Competition provides a platform for upcoming filmmakers and supports their international careers. Past winners are He Jianjun (for POSTMAN, 1995), Petr Zelenka (for KNOFLIKARI, 1998), Christopher Nolan (for FOLLOWING, 1999), Lou Ye (for SUZHOU RIVER, 2000) and Ilya Khrzhanovsky (for 4, 2005).

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