The International Film Festival Rotterdam introduces a new Competition. Aimed to support the distribution of films in Dutch cinemas, The Big Screen Award Competition will include ten very recent films with no Benelux distributor confirmed. The Big Screen Award will be awarded by an Audience Jury. The Dutch Circle of Film Critics (KNF) Jury will choose their winner among these ten films as well. Both prizes come with a guaranteed distribution offer for the Benelux, in collaboration with local d...
Director: Hiba Vink.
For their annual trip, Lena - originally from Sweden - invites her close group of friends to a Frisian island to celebrate the Swedish Midsummer Night tradition. For the first time Meike, an outsider is invited.
As with all friendships, in this thirty-something group of friends some secrets are shared, and others remain untold.
Director: Pascale Simons.
The daughter of a mother who wants to die, a disabled
soccer player, a family man with a double life, a hip couple in their
thirties and a broken family with an autistic son.
They all live in one city. And in the next 24 hours , they will be
more connected than they think.
A painful and loving look at the complexity of loneliness in the
Netherlands. LOTUS is a rare cinematic experience that challenges
audiences to question their own loneliness and that of others. Diving
headfirst into the harsh individualistic reality of a big city, this
film investigates fear, loneliness and love from multiple
perspectives. No one seems safe in the battle for happiness. And no
one is immune to the hidden pain of individualism and anonymity that
causes loneliness and changes lives.
The lotus is a water plant that grows from the mud towards the light.
The lotus effect is the phenomenon that occurs when dirt lands on the
leaf of a Lotus: It won't stick. This self-cleaning feature is due to
the numerous small bumps on the leaf.
2011 has been a good year for cinemas, movie theaters and art houses. In 2011, over 30 million people purchased a movie ticket. That is a number that has not been achieved since 1978. Box-office receipts increased to almost € 240 million. To cap it all, for the first time since 1986 (Flodder) the Dutch feature film Gooische Vrouwen attracted a record attendance of over 1.9 million movie-goers, making it the number one movie at the box office in 2011. Despite the success, however, the cinema in...
Each year, the International Film Festival Rotterdam celebrates a number of outstanding films with a variety of awards. Many of these prizes are awarded by (international) juries, and several of them are conferred upon the winners by the IFFR audiences.
Feature films awards
Tiger Awards (three prizes of € 15,000 each awarded by an international jury)
Dioraphte Award (one prize of € 10,000 awarded to a film from the Hubert Bals Fund Harvest)
UPC Audience Award (one...
Dutch documentarian Barbara Visser has won the 2010 Dutch Cultural Media Fund Documentary Award, announced by the fund’s chair Jacob Kohnstamm at the opening ceremonies of IDFA, the largest documentary film festival in the world. The prize of € 125,000 was awarded for the realization of her plan for the film C.K. The film concerns an accountant for a large art fund who suddenly disappears from the face of the earth along with his family and millions of euros of public money. Bewi...
Inspired by the growing influence of China in some African countries, the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) asks seven filmmakers from South Africa, Cameroon, Uganda, Rwanda, Congo and Angola to make films in China. The African directors' films will premiere, along with a contextual film program, during the Rotterdam's 40th edition. The program, titled ‘Raiding Africa', includes a film workshop produced by the IFFR in collaboration with the Li Xianting Film School in Beijing and sup...
During the CineMart 2010 Closing Night Party, Wednesday February 3, 2010 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, the Arte France Cinéma Award went to CineMart 2010 Project LAYLA FOURIE by Pia Marais (Germany / South Africa / The Netherlands). The Prince Claus Fund Film Grant was awarded to CineMart 2010 Project BY THE TIME IT GETS DARK by Anocha Suwichakornpong (Thailand). Arte France Cinéma Award The Arte France Cinéma Award (10,000 Euro) for the Best CineMart 2010 Project is given to LAYLA FOURIE ...
During the IFFR 2010 Awards Ceremony for Short Films on Monday, February 1, 2010 in festival location Rotterdamse Schouwburg, the winning short films of the 39th International Film Festival Rotterdam were announced.
The three Tiger Awards for Short Film were granted to Wei Wen (Condolences) by Ying Liang (China), Atlantiques by Mati Diop (France/Senegal) and Wednesday Morning Two A.M. by Lewis Klahr (USA).
The Rotterdam Short Film Nomination for the European Film Awards 2010 was given...
As of January 1, 2010, The Filmmuseum, Holland Film, the Netherlands Institute for Film Education, and the Filmbank will pool their resources and form a new organization. The merger of these associate institutes will result in an umbrella body for Dutch film culture, known for now as the Netherlands Film Sector Institute.
The establishment of the Netherlands Film Sector Institute is the result of Education, Culture, and Sport Minister Ronald Plasterk's insistence that the secto...
During the Gala of the Dutch Film at the 29th Netherlands Film Festival, on Friday 2 October, departing director Doreen Boonekamp (1968) was honoured with the Golden Calf for the Culture Award 2009. The prize was presented by chairwoman of the board Jeltje van Nieuwenhoven. The Golden Calf for the Culture Award is granted by the board of the Foundation Netherlands Film Festival to a person or organisation that made an important contribution to the Dutch film culture.Doreen Boonekamp graduated fr...
Stella van Voorst van Beest’s documentary PRISONERS OF THE GROUND has been selected to close the 29th Netherlands Film Festival. The film will have its Dutch première on the final regular screening day of the festival, Thursday 1 October 2009, in Utrecht’s City Theatre.How do you survive the dark, Finnish winter? In PRISONERS OF THE GROUND, we travel across Finland, calling at karaoke bars and dance halls to hear the melancholy life stories of a wide variety of people. While they find solac...
For its 38th edition, the International Film Festival Rotterdam 2009 will present 43 world premieres as well as 35 international and 34 European premieres of feature length films. A strong year for Eastern European film is led by ROOM AND A HALF, a fictional biopic about poet Joseph Brodsky by Andrey Khrzhanovsky; MORPHIA, Alexei Balabanov’s latest film, based on a M. Bulgakov adaptation by the late Sergei Bodrov Jr. and acclaimed Armenian director Harutyun Khachatryan’s BORDER. Throughout t...
Saturday, November 29-----As IDFA began to wind down in anticipation of its Awards Gala this evening, here are some bits and pieces announced or experienced in the past week:
CROSS MEDIA PROJECTS AT IDFA FORUM
In addition to the traditional documentaries that were pitched at the IDFA Forum this past week, three projects were invited that deliberately cross media. Thee include the ambitious 24berlin-A Day In The Life, marking the 20th anniversary of the fa...
The winners of the Golden Calves, the Grand Prize of the Dutch Film Festival 2008Tonight, the Golden Calves, the Grand Prize of the Dutch film 2008, were awarded during the Dutch Film Gala. The presentation, hosted by Viggo Waas and Peter Heerschop, was broadcast live on the Internet on http://www.filmfestival.nl/festivaltv/festival-tv-2008. The Dutch Film Gala was the conclusion of the 28th Netherlands Film Festival, which pulled in a record number of 145,000 visitors. The NOFF and Festival TV ...
Media education is a hot topic within national governments and educational institutions alike. Big words like new citizenship, empowerment and media literacy are used to convince us of its necessity. But what do filmmakers have to say? Until now they have remained surprisingly silent on the subject. During the upcoming International Film Festival Rotterdam, the international conference ‘How to Stimulate Filmsense(s)’, taking place on Wednesday January 30, 2008 is the place for them to speak ...
Rutger Wolfson director for the 2008 edition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam The Board of the International Film Festival Rotterdam has appointed Rutger Wolfson as director to arrange the organisation and artistic substance for the 2008 festival edition. He will assume this function part time and stay on in his present function as director of De Vleeshal, a centre for contemporary art in Middelburg, The Netherlands. The festival board has also appointed Stef Fleischeuer for the sa...
During the IFFR 2007 Awards Ceremony on Friday, February 2, 2007 in Concert and Congress Centre ‘de Doelen’ in Rotterdam, the winning films of the 36th International Film Festival Rotterdam were announced. The three VPRO Tiger Awards were granted to the Hubert Bals Fund supported Love Conquers All by Tan Chui Mui (Malaysia), The Unpolished (Die Unerzogenen) by Pia Marais (Germany) and, ex aequo, to Bog of Beasts (Baixio das bestas) by Claudio Assis (Brazil) and AFR by Morten Hartz Kaplers (D...
The 35th International Film Festival Rotterdam attracted the same number of visitors as in 2005. The organisation registered 358,000 admissions to its films, exhibitions, debates, talkshows and other festival events. The festival closed on Sunday, 5 February 2006, with the Volkskrantdag. Together with the Holland Festival, the festival is organising a summer edition from Thursday 15 through Sunday 18 June 2006. The 36th International Film Festival Rotterdam will take place from Wednesday 24 Janu...
Hubert Bals Fund Conference on training next generation of filmmaking voicesOn Sunday 29th January 2006, the International Film Festival Rotterdam will organize a Hubert Bals Fund Conference in Rotterdam entitled “Raising Voices.” Representatives from training organizations from around the world will come together to discuss the design of training programs that will stimulate the next generation of culturally distinctive and authentic filmmaking voices.The conference will examine the questio...
Shoot Me : takes place from 27 to 30 October, The Hague, The Netherlands Shoot Me is a new independent film festival in The Hague that offers a chance to young filmmakers, both local and international, to show their films to a large public. Because of the increased use of new technology such as the Internet, digital recording and editing, creating your own film is within the reach of a growing number of people. Everybody can tell his or her story. Unfortunately, these films often don’t reach ...
Fourteen films selected for Rotterdam's VPRO Tiger Awards CompetitionThe International Film Festival Rotterdam has selected fourteen films for the VPRO Tiger Awards Competition of its 34th edition which will open next January 26. The Competition line up counts four world premieres, four international premieres and four European premieres. Three titles were supported by the IFFR's Hubert Bals Fund and one title was previously selected as CineMart Project. Three competition titles have been acquir...
For its returning section of tribute programmes, the International Film Festival Rotterdam (Jan 26 - Feb 6, 2005) has selected Albanese, Paris based artist Anri Sala as Artist in Focus. A choice of new and older video based works by Sala will be presented in Museum Boijmans and in several IFFR programme sections. The 2005 edition of IFFR's section Exploding Cinema focuses on sound in relation to cinema but also other art forms. Subtitled Sound Check, the section consists of a film programme, sev...
33rd International Film Festival RotterdamJanuary 21 - February 1, 2004Giordana's LA MEGLIO GIOVENTÙ grabs KPN Audience AwardClosing up February 1, 2004, the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) has equalled its 2003 attendance record of 355.000 visits to its films, exhibitions, debates and talkshows. Among the nearly 2,500 IFFR 2004 festival guests, the attendance of filmmakers Takeshi Kitano, Catherine Breillat and legendary footballer Johan Cruijff (subject of the Dutch documentary J...
IFFR 2004 will screen the world premiere of famous French director Catherine Breillat's ANATOMY OF HELL (ANATOMIE DE L'ENFER) just prior to its release in France. This film is one of the highlights in a series of premieres of the upcoming Rotterdam edition. IFFR also announces the first seven titles selected for the 2004 VPRO Tiger Awards Competition. Two more filmmakers are honoured with a 'Filmmaker in Focus' programme: Ken Jacobs (USA) and Tunde Kelani (Nigeria).The following seven titles are...