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.
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:
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.
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.”
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.”
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.
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.”
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.”
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.”
Glimpse, Artur Zmijewski, a “silent, black and white 16mm film offering views of refugee camps, filmed at Berlin’s Tempelhof encampment and in the Calais jungle in France.”
with history in a room filled with people with funny names 4, Korakrit Arunanondchai.
The Worldly Cave, Zhou Tao.
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.”
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