Rotterdam 2018 Lineup
The International Film Festival Rotterdam has been rolling out the lineup for its 2018 edition (January 24 through February 4) in quick spurts over the past few weeks, and it’s far from complete. But there’s already more than enough to shout about, so here’s an entry on what we know so far, and of course, we’ll be updating it as more titles are announced.
Update, 1/17: The full program, schedule and all, is now live.
Before delving into the IFFR 2018 program proper—which, by the way, features the world premiere of Jan Švankmajer’s Insect (image above)—let’s have a look at this year’s CineMart, the festival’s co-production market, offering “filmmakers and producers the opportunity to present their new project to film professionals in order to take the next step in its creative development and financing.” This year’s promising selection of sixteen projects:
- Check Me in Another Place by Matt Porterfield (Putty Hill,I Used to Be Darker,Sollers Point)
- Disco Afrika, a first feature by Luck Razanajaona
- Electrocute by Gastón Solnicki (Kékszakállú)
- Medusa by Anita Rocha da Silveira (Kill Me Please)
- Mitra by Kaweh Modiri (Bodkin Raswas)
- Mon légionnaire by Rachel Lang (Baden Baden)
- Moonblood by Jesper Dalgaard
- Nathan Won’t Ride by Dean Loxton
- Ô mon amour by Jean-Gabriel Périot
- Qaim Deen by Gurvinder Singh
- Sagres by Lovisa Sirén
- Sleepwalk by Ricardo Silva
- To Live to Sing by Johnny Ma (Old Stone)
- Waterwolf by Ann-Julie Vervaeke
- When My Life Was My Life by Carolina Markowicz
- A White, White Day by Hlynur Pálmason (Winter Brothers)
Bright Future
Bright Future is “the festival’s home for up-and-coming filmmakers with a unique style and vision,” and includes the main competition of IFFR, the Hivos Tiger Competition.
Hivos Tiger Competition 2018
Seven world premieres and one international premiere:
Djon África, João Miller Guerra and Filipa Reis, “the playful odyssey of a twenty-five-year-old Portuguese Rastafarian in search of his father and his own identity.”
I Have a Date with Spring, Baek Seungbin, “a mysterious black comedy in which a filmmaker struggles with a script revolving around the hypothetical question of what to do on your last day on earth.”
Nervous Translation, Shireen Seno, “a sparkling and at times surreal film which quietly shows the politically unstable climate of the Philippines in 1987 as seen through the dreamy eyes of an eight-year-old girl.”
Piercing, Nicolas Pesce, the international premiere, “a playful psycho thriller in which a sadomasochistic game of cat-and-mouse unfolds between a man and the call girl he planned to murder.”
Possessed, Metahaven and Rob Schröder, “reflects on the ways humans obsessively search for connections in a digital age.”
The Reports on Sarah and Saleem, Muayad Alayan, “a story of the impossible affair between a Jewish woman and a Palestinian man which attracts the attention of security services.”
Sultry, Marina Meliande, a “combination of social realist drama and body horror” that “recounts the struggle of a young lawyer in the oppressive heat of Rio de Janeiro against the all-encompassing influence of the Olympic Games on the city.”
The Widowed Witch, Cai Chengjie, “a complete re-edit of the award-winning Chinese film Shaman and wryly details the life of an unfortunate woman who suddenly seems to possess magical powers.”
Bright Future Competition
La fleurière (The Flower Shop), Ruben Desiere, international premiere. From the festival: “In the back room of a flower shop, Tomi, Rasto and Mižu are digging a tunnel to break into the safe of the National Bank. After heavy rainfalls, the underground maze gets submerged by water and they must interrupt their work.”
Guarda in alto (Look Up), Fulvio Risoleo, international premiere.
My Friend the Polish Girl, Ewa Banaszkiewicz, world premiere. A “cinematic culture clash between an American filmmaker starting out in London and a Polish actress.”
Rabot, Christina Vandekerckhove, international premiere. The “story of a social housing block on the brink of demolition, and winner of the audience award at Film Fest Gent.”
Respeto, Alberto Monteras II, international premiere.
The Return, Malene Choi Jensen, world premiere.
Windspiel, Peyman Ghalambor, world premiere. It’s “about a thirteen-year-old kid who makes his escape from a children’s home in Brandenburg.”
On January 5, the IFFR added these titles to the Bright Future Competition:
August at Akiko's, Christopher Makoto Yogi, world premiere. Musician Alex Zhang Hungtai returns to Hawai‘i after years abroad. His search for home and roots intensifies when he forms a bond with local kupuna Akiko.
Azougue Nazaré (Azougue Nazareth), Tiago Melo, world premiere. In the sugarcane country of North East Brazil, where Evangelicalism is on the rise, people start to disappear and other strange things start to happen as Maracatu carnival season gets underway.
The Bangle Seller, Ere Gowda, world premiere. In a small Indian village, Kempanna and his wife Saubaghya are unable to conceive. A scandal seems imminent.
Counting Tiles, Cynthia Choucair, world premiere. A group of clowns travel to the Greek island of Lesvos on a mission to bring laughter to the many people escaping war in February 2016.
Ella und Nell (Ella & Nell), Aline Chukwuedo, world premiere. Ella and Nell used to be best friends. Now grown apart and in their forties, they set out on a hike in order to reconnect. The mood changes as old wounds are reopened.
The Heart, Fanni Metelius, world premiere. Mika and Tesfay. She’s a photographer. He’s a musician. Both are up-and-coming. The first true romance. But an invisible conflict, an unnameable shame, stirs between their sheets.
Impermanence, Zeng Zeng, world premiere. Fate brings together three fascinating lost souls—a monk with a sack of money, an innkeeper with a heavy conscience and a father who’s lost his son—in young Chinese director Zeng Zeng’s mysterious tale of guilt, punishment and ambiguous redemption.
Poisonous Roses, Ahmed Fawzi Saleh, world premiere. Saqr dreams of a life beyond his tannery job in the slums, but his love for the sister he would leave behind keeps him tied there.
Their Remaining Journey, John Clang, world premiere. A tale of reincarnation unfolds through the stories of a dead actress, an ex-mistress and an unfaithful husband, somewhere between New York and Singapore.
La torre (Tower), Sebastián Múnera, world premiere. On March 17, 2004, an explosive device was activated at the Piloto Public Library in Medellín, where much of the photographic archive of Colombian history is kept. A photograph is the only evidence of this barbarism.
Los vagos (Bums), Gustavo Biazzi, international premiere. High school sweethearts Ernesto and Paula return to their hometown, Misiones, for the summer. Ernesto’s rekindled friendship with los vagos (‘the bums’) triggers upheaval for the pair.
Bright Future Premieres
All You Can Eat Buddha, Ian Lagarde, European premiere. “In this phantasmagoric black comedy, the feature-length directorial debut of Ian Lagarde, a man's mysterious appetite and supernatural powers gradually lead to apocalypse in an all-inclusive resort in the Caribbean.”
Azougue Nazaré (Azougue Nazareth), Tiago Melo, world premiere. It “dives deep into the mysterious and colorful sugarcane universe of rural Brazil.”
Inferninho (My Own Private Hell), Guto Parente and Pedro Diógenes, world premiere.
Mama, Jin Xingzheng, international premiere.
Ordinary Time, Susana Nobre, world premiere. It “scrutinizes the calm rhythm of daily life of young parents by zooming in on many moments that are, well, completely ordinary.”
On January 5, the IFFR added these Bright Future premieres:
Ambiguous Places, Ikeda Akira, international premiere. A series of odd and mysterious dramas unfolds against ordinary backdrops in this new film from Tiger Award winner Ikeda.
Blockage, Mohsen Gharaei, European premiere. Fired from his job at the municipality for making deals on the side, Ghasem is forced to make changes. While is he making plans for his wife's inheritance, a completely new opportunity arises.
La estrella errante (Wandering Star), Alberto Gracia, world premiere. The punk band Los Fiambres released one cult album in 1984. More than thirty years later, their lead singer, Rober Perdut, wanders around his Galician hometown in this sensory, melancholic film.
Hit the Night, Jeong Gayoung, international premiere. Under the pretense of research, Ga-yeong pries into the personal and sexual life of a new acquaintance. Despite having a girlfriend, the acquaintance willingly participates. Is he unaware of her desire, or just impressed by her line of questioning?
Inferninho (My Own Private Hell), Guto Parente and Pedro Diógenes, world premiere. In a bar called Inferninho, the staff dream of escape. A handsome sailor with a dream of finding home arrives.
Jonaki, Aditya Vikram Sengupta, world premiere. While Jonaki, an 80-year-old woman, searches for love in a strange world of decaying memories, her lover, now old and grey, returns to a world she is leaving behind.
The Pain of Others, Penny Lane, world premiere. A found-footage documentary about Morgellons, a mysterious illness whose sufferers say they have parasites under the skin and a host of other bizarre symptoms that could be taken from a horror film.
Permanent Green Light, Dennis Cooper and Zac Farley, world premiere. A young disabled guy wants to explode in public. He's not suicidal or an extremist, he's purely interested in this act's effect. That he'll die is unimportant, he just doesn't want people to misinterpret the event.
Sol alegria, Tavinho Teixeira, world premiere. An eccentric family on a mission travel through dictatorial Brazil to save humanity from annihilation. Cheerfully nihilistic film trip takes us past a colorful parade of sailors, whores, generals, corrupt priests and trigger-happy nuns.
YEAH, Suzuki Yohei, world premiere. A young woman, Ako, wanders around a sparsely populated housing estate in a rural city, Mito, where she spends her time speaking to objects and plants.
Confirmed for Bright Future
3/4 (Three Quarters), Ilian Metev.
Cocote, Nelson Carlo De Los Santos Arias.
Les garçons sauvages (The Wild Boys), Bertrand Mandico. “At the beginning of the 20th century on the island of La Réunion, five adolescents of good family, enamored with the occult, commit a savage crime. A Dutch Captain takes them in charge for a repressive cruise on a haunted, dilapidated sailboat. Exhausted by the methods of the Captain, the five boys prepare for mutiny. Their port of call is a supernatural island with luxuriant vegetation and bewitching powers.”
Gutland, Govinda Van Maele. “Upon first impression,” writes Alysia Urrutia for Cinema Scope, “Gutland seems like a rustic but warm film about life in the European countryside; its assured cinematography equally sensitive to the particularities of 35mm when shooting the vast and shimmering wheat fields as it is in its dim but sultry domestic spaces. Yet little by little, the film’s air of social realism is distorted with touches of surrealism.”
El hombre que cuida (The Watchman), Alejandro Andújar.
Life and Nothing More, Antonio Méndez Esparza.
Meteors, Gürcan Keltek.
Milla, Valérie Massadian.
The Nothing Factory, Pedro Pinho.
Resurrection, Kristof Hoornaert.
Soldiers. Story from Ferentari, Ivana Mladenovic.
Sweating the Small Stuff, Ninomiya Ryutaro.
Tesnota (Closeness), Kantemir Balagov.
Two titles added on January 5:
The Gulf, Emre Yeksan. Leaving behind a ruined career and a bitter divorce, Selim returns to his hometown, Izmir. While wandering the city he runs into an old friend and finds himself gradually drawn into a new world.
Those Who Are Fine, Cyril Schäublin. Using skills gained working in a call center, Alice makes a sinister income posing as the granddaughter of Zurich's many lonely grandmothers.
Voices
Anna’s War, by Alexey Fedorchenko (Silent Souls), “tells of the atrocities of the Holocaust through the experiences of a six year old called Anna. Amid the mass coordinated execution of Jewish people, her parents were killed. Anna miraculously survived because her mother covered the little girl’s body with her own. Anna doesn’t just survive but somehow holds onto her humanity. Many factors helped her picking up the pieces: memories from her past life, swept away by war, the cultural foundations laid by her parents and one friend who saved her from loneliness.” European premiere.
Birds Are Singing in Kigali, Joanna Kos-Krauze and Krzysztof Krauze.
The Bold, the Corrupt and the Beautiful, Yang Ya-Che.
The Florida Project, Sean Baker.
Gangway to a Future, René Hazekamp, “in which a trawler from Rotterdam tries to face up to the humanitarian refugee drama in the Mediterranean Sea.”
Have You Seen the Listers?, Eddie Martin.
The Hungry Lion, Takaomi Ogata.
Latifa: A Fighting Heart, Olivier Peyon and Cyril Brody.
Lorello and Brunello, Jacopo Quadri, a “Tuscany-set documentary.”
Loveling, Gustavo Pizzi.
Outrage Coda, Takeshi Kitano.
Pororoca, Constantin Popescu. “Cristina and Tudor Ionescu have founded a happy family with their two children Maria (5) and Ilie (7). Tudor works for a phone company and Cristina’s an accountant. They're in their thirties and live in a nice apartment in a Romanian town. They live the life of an ordinary couple with young children. One Sunday morning, when Tudor takes the kids to the park, Maria disappears. Their lives abruptly change forever. Main actor Bogdan Dumitrache won the award for Best Actor at the San Sebastian film festival.”
The Shape of Water, Guillermo del Toro.
Silent Mist, Zhang Miaoyan. “Mysterious incidents occur in the darkness of the night, in a peaceful canal town in Southern China. A rapist lurks in the shadows of the night, hiding in the mist, searching for a prey. Schoolgirl Li is his first victim. Meanwhile, a young couple tries to make a living with their tiny street restaurant. While the rapist operates under the cover of the mist, a fat, wealthy and influential businessman openly pollutes their lives with fear and uncertainty. The villagers seem unable to cope with both the open and the hidden dangers they all face from their morally corrupted compatriots.” European premiere.
Western, Valeska Grisebach.
SIGNATURES
A “section for new work by established film auteurs and festival veterans.”
Asino, Anatoly Vasiliev, “a film deeply rooted in ancient mythological tales in which donkeys are observed as human beings.”
The Bottomless Bag by Rustam Khamdamov “is inspired by Akutagawa Ryūnosuke's famous story-within-a-story In a Grove.”
Insect by Jan Švankmajer “has both animated and acted segments and is based on the satirical misanthropic play Pictures from the Insects’ Life written by the Brothers Čapek in 1921. In the film, amateur actors rehearse for the play’s second act, but as they slowly become one with the characters they start to experience frightening transformations. Švankmajer spent seven years on the preparation for this film, which was partly paid for through crowdfunding and which was selected for IFFR’s CineMart in 2011.”
Lek and the Dogs, Andrew Kötting, “based on the true story of Ivan Mishukov, who walked out of his Moscow apartment and spent two years living with dogs in the city streets.”
Lover for a Day, Philippe Garrel.
Mrs. Fang, Wang Bing.
Readers by James Benning is “composed of just four shots to create portraits of four people reading quietly to themselves, while simultaneously serving as a mirror for the viewers, who sit in parallel stillness.”
La telenovela errante (The Wandering Soap Opera) by Valeria Sarmiento and Raúl Ruiz “plays with the idea that the abundance of soap operas is slowly infecting Chilean reality.”
Additions:
9 doigts (9 Fingers), F.J. Ossang.
Good Luck, Ben Russell.
Hanagatami, Obayashi Nobuhiko (House), “a highly stylized anti-war film about a group of teenagers caught in the chaos of an impending World War II.” See Mark Schilling’s review for the Japan Times.
Ifigenia in Aulide (Iphigenia in Aulis), Tonino De Bernardi, “in which he ties the classic Euripides play to daily life and current affairs.”
Jeannette, Bruno Dumont.
Radiance, Naomi Kawase.
Such a Morning, Amar Kanwar, “a cinema of affect at its most seductive” (Colin Perry,Art Agenda).
O termómetro de Galileu (Galileo’s Thermometer), Teresa Villaverde, who “spent a summer with Italian filmmaker and IFFR veteran Tonino de Bernardi, resulting in a sublime homage to the art of living, and living for art.”
Big Screen Competition
An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn, Jim Hosking. European premiere. With Aubrey Plaza “as a woman whose unsatisfactory marriage is shaken when she sees a performance piece by a mysterious man from her past.”
Father to Son, Hsiao Ya-chuan. World premiere. A “story of reconciliation in which a sixty-year-old man goes to Japan to look for his father who abandoned him when he was ten.”
The Guilty, Gustav Möller. European premiere. It “revolves around one emergency phone call – an initially disinterested police officer quickly jumps into action when he hears a woman being kidnapped.”
An Impossibly Small Object, David Verbeek. World premiere. “In this meditative film, Verbeek himself plays a Dutch photographer transfixed by a picture he took of a girl in a Taiwanese parking lot.”
Night Comes On, Jordana Spiro. International premiere. It’s “about an eighteen-year-old woman who takes her 10-year-old sister on a journey that could destroy their futures.”
Nina, Olga Chajdas. World premiere. A “couple’s love is tested as they struggle to find a surrogate mother for their child.”
Pity, Babis Makridis. European premiere. It’s “about a man with such need for pity he’s willing to do absolutely anything to get it from others.”
Tiempo compartido, Sebastián Hofmann. European premiere. “This satire follows the struggle of two paranoid men against the ever-smiling staff of an all-inclusive resort.
Deep Focus
The Bottomless Bag, Rustam Khamdamov. A bit more in this one, also screening in the Signatures program: It “takes place during the times of Tsar Alexander II. A lady-in-waiting is telling the prince in his palace a metaphysical fairytale, set in the 13th century and revolving around the mysterious murder of the Tsar’s son in the forest. The characters in the fable—witnesses to this violent crime—narrate different versions of the events, shedding light on what really happened.”
Mrs. Fang, Wang Bing.
Marquis de Wavrin, du manoir à la jungle, Grace Winter and Luc Plantier. “A documentary research essay that invites us to discover the strange path led by the explorer-ethnographer Marquis de Wavrin, who in the 1920s and 1930s made ethnographic films in several Latin American countries. Thanks to the preservation of this film heritage at the Royal Film Archive of Belgium, we follow the Marquis de Wavrin as a defender and friend of the Upper Amazon Indians and as a filmmaker at heart.”
Retrospectives
“José Celestino Campusano, a unique filmmaker still largely unknown outside his home country, is the ultimate insider when it comes to portraying the conflicts and contradictions of the working class in Argentina today.”
Brooklyn Experience (2018), world premiere.
El azote (2017), international premiere.
El sacrificio de Nehuén Puyelli (2016).
El arrullo de la araña (2015).
Placer y martirio (2015).
El perro Molina (2014).
Fantasmas de la ruta (2013).
Fango (2012).
Vikingo (2009).
Vil romance (2008).
Legión – Tribus urbanas motorizadas (2006).
“Artur Żmijewski is the thought-provoking Polish artist whose film and video work forces us to confront unsettling contemporary issues.”
Realism (2017).
The Collection: Katarzyna (2016).
The Collection: Roman (2016).
Creation in Cooperation (2014).
Cookbook (2013).
Glory to the Academy (2013).
The Making Of (2013).
Blindly (2010).
Following Bauhaus (2010).
Habana Libre (2010).
Sculpture Plein-air. Swiecie 2009 (2009).
Them (2007).
Pole in a Closet (2006).
Rendez-vous (2004).
Karolina (2001).
Out for a Walk (2001).
Singing Lesson 1 (2001).
KR WP (2000).
An Eye for an Eye (1998).
Limelight
Films that, “unlike most of the titles that screen at IFFR, will go on to be seen in cinemas in the Netherlands after the festival.”
Beast, Michael Pearce.
Dorst, Saskia Diesing. A “restless, impulsive young woman Coco (Van ‘t Laar) suddenly runs into her mother Elisabeth [Simone Kleinsma], who has led a pleasantly predictable life since the departure of her husband and daughter twenty years ago. When Elisabeth casually reveals that she is terminally ill, Coco sees a new purpose in her life: to care for her mother until the bitter end. Coco yearns for recognition, while Elisabeth masks her resistance—and so these two flawed characters pass through a series of tragicomic situations, in spite of their good intentions.” World premiere.
The Florida Project, Sean Baker.
Hannah, Andrea Pallaoro.
I, Tonya, Craig Gillespie.
A Man of Integrity, Mohammad Rasoulof.
Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts, Mouly Surya.
Radiance, Naomi Kawase.
The Rider, Chloé Zhao.
Sweet Country, Warwick Thornton.
IFFR Live
“Over three days, more than forty participating cinemas will screen several films from a line-up of six titles, creating many ancillary festivals around the world.”
Blue My Mind, Lisa Brühlmann. It’s about a fifteen-year-old girl “who plunges into a wild teenage existence after moving to a new town—until her body begins to change in odd ways.”
La Holandesa, Marleen Jonkman. Rifka Lodeizen plays “a woman whose dream of becoming a mother goes unfulfilled.”
Pin Cushion, Deborah Haywood. An “all-girl gothic fairy tale set in the British working-class suburbs, starring Joanna Scanlan and Lily Newmark.”
Shorts and Mid-Length Films
I Have Nothing to Say, Ying Liang. “The Chinese police visits head-teacher Chen at home. Her daughter, a dissident filmmaker, living in Hong Kong, plans yet another critical film about China, colonising the small autonomous territory. The state authorities demand that she travels to her daughter to stop the film project.”
Ammodo Tiger Short Competition
Absent Wound (2017), directed by Maryam Tafakory, international premiere.
Between Relating and Use (2018), Nazlı Dinçel, world premier
The Craft (2017), Monira Al Qadiri.
Dangerous on the Way (2018), Mel O'Callaghan, world premiere.
The Drift (2018), Maeve Brennan, world premiere.
Eight Images from the Life of Nastya Sokolova (2018), Alina Kotova and Vladlena Sandu, world premiere.
Glimpse (2018), Artur Żmijewski, world premiere.
Interregnum (2017), Adrian Paci.
Je suis un monstre (I Am a Monster, 2017), Tanguy De Donder, international premiere.
Maskirovka (2018), Tobias Zielony, world premiere.
Mirage My Bros (2017), Diogo Baldaia, international premiere.
Momentum 142310 (2018), Manuel Knapp, world premiere.
more than everything (2018), Rainer Kohlberger, world premiere.
Mountain Plain Mountain (2018), Araki Yu and Daniel Jacoby, world premiere.
Outpost (2018), Wim Catrysse, world premiere.
Painting with History in a Room Filled with People with Funny Names 4 (2018), Korakrit Arunanondchai, world premiere.
The Remembered Film (2018), Isabelle Tollenaere, world premiere.
Rose Gold (2017), Sara Cwynar, European premiere.
Tree Identification for Beginners (2018), Yto Barrada, world premiere.
View from Above (2018), Hiwa K, world premiere.
WHAT'S THE DAMAGE (2017), Heather Phillipson.
The Worldly Cave (2017), Zhou Tao, European premiere. Zhou will also be “celebrated within the context of Deep Focus Short with a profile program comprised of his cinematic videos, several of which will be presented outside of the gallery context for their first time.”
Curtain Call
The program “will investigate the consequences of ever-advancing technology and our human obsession with progress. . . . Among the confirmed artworks are virtual reality installation Orbital Vanitas by Shaun Gladwell and VR-collective BADFAITH, a spin-off installation of the final scene of documentary Homo Sapiens by Nikolaus Geyrhalter, Fallen Astronaut by Paul van Hoeydonck and Shelter #6 by Sarah van Sonsbeeck.”
Art Directions
Journey to Russia (1989-2017), Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi, an attempt to “recover the history of the Russian avant-garde of the 1920s and 1930s.”
Plot Points by Nicolas Provost, “a continuing sequence of the audiovisual work.”
Realism, Artur Zmijewski, “challenges our conceptions of disability.”
Frameworks
New work by Grant Award Winners Pathompon Tesprateep (Endless, Nameless), a Bangkok-based filmmaker, and Grada Kilomba, a Berlin-based interdisciplinary artist.
And then there’s SLEEPCINEMAHOTEL, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s one-off project, “where sleep and film, ghosts and imagination, the past and the present collide.”
Maximum Overdrive
Rotterdam’s introducing a new program, Maximum Overdrive, “celebrating the renaissance of delirious 90s aesthetics in today’s astonishing array of pop culture mash-ups. The program is a mix of contemporary feature films, short films, performances, installations and most importantly: everything in between.”
A highlight will be Totes Adorbs ❤ Hurricane by Japanese group Miss Revolutionary Idol Berserker. “Twenty performers sing and dance with never-subsiding intensity, delivering forty minutes of bombastic, perfectly choreographed pop-cultural chaos.”
“IFFR also hosts a ten-episode marathon screening of the brain-melting independent series The Eyeslicer, which brings together a new generation of alternative American filmmakers. One-hour episodes play like kaleidoscopic mixtapes form a liquid, uninterrupted whole.”
Films
Annika Berg’s Team Hurricane, “a punk chick flick about radical girls in a regular world.”
Ester Martin Bergsmark’s Swedish Candy, Some Violence and a Bit of Cat, “a violent yet cute candy-filled forty-minute rollercoaster.”
Rachel Wolther and Alex H. Fischer’s Snowy Bing Bongs Across the North Star Combat Zone, “part psychotropic performance art spectacle, part absurdist sketch show.”
Mike Maryniuk’s The Goose, “in which a mute man-child goes on a psychedelic journey to escape small-town bravado and find his voice.”
Masaaki Yuasa’s Night Is Short, Walk on Girl, “a hallucinatory anime quest for a cherished book.”
Special Events
The IFFR will present Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra performing Jonny Greenwood’s score live. And Anderson will be there.
This year’s edition will open with the world premiere of Jesper Ganslandt’s Jimmie and close with Armando Iannucci’s The Death of Stalin. “The cast of Jimmie lends the film an interesting extra dimension: Ganslandt himself plays the father, with Ganslandt’s own son Hunter playing four-year-old Jimmie. Together, they embark on a journey through Europe that challenges our preconceptions in an unexpected way. According to producer Hedvig Lundgren: ‘the film shows that a child’s universe is both very small and bigger than an adult can imagine.’”
There’ll be masterclasses and talks with the likes of Lucrecia Martel, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Valeska Grisebach, Jan Švankmajer, Paul Schrader, Sean Baker, Armando Iannucci, Charlotte Rampling, Alfredo Jaar, Robert Schwentke, José Campusano, and more.
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