Actualités

Croatian director Igor Bezinović’s documentary Fiume o Morte! exploring the complex figure of Italian poet and playwright Gabriele D’Annunzio has won the top Tiger Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR).

The film also won the Fipresci Award for standout film in the main Tiger Competition.

Mixing dramatic reconstruction and documentary, the feature explores D’Annunzio’s attempts to annex the city of Fiume (now Rijeka in Croatia) to Italy in the aftermath of the First World War, as a result of his outrage at the outcome of the Paris Peace Conference, which proposed handing the city to Yugoslavia.

Rotterdam 2025 winners

The Tiger Competition Jury consisted of Yuki Aditya, Winnie Lau, Peter Strickland, and Andrea Luka Zimmerman. The Jury also initially included Soheila Golestani (The Seed of the Sacred Fig), but she was prevented from leaving Iran due to a travel ban.

“This is a film where people...

Igor Bezinović’s Croatian docu-dramaFiume O Morte!has won the Tiger award of the 2025International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR).

IFFR’s Tiger competition celebrates up-and-coming filmmakers, with a €40,000 prize. Fiume O Morte! also won the Fipresci award.

Bezinović’s Croatia-Italy-Slovenia co-production is set in his home city once known as Fiume, now Rijeka in Croatia. The area has been laid claim to by a variety of nations since the First World War. It fuses documentary with dramatic reconstructions, from the help of locals, to interrogate the city’s past and present.

The jury said: “While it is a playful and mischievous film,...

Igor Bezinović’s hybrid documentary “Fiume o morte!” was awarded the Tiger Award, the top prize of the International Film Festival Rotterdam worth €40,000, on Friday evening. Bezinović’s film captures the spirit of Italian poet, playwright, journalist, aristocrat and army officer Gabriele D’Annunzio — who in 1919 occupied the city of Fiume — through dramatic reconstruction and documentary interludes.

In their statement, the Tiger jury said: “At times of the rise of ultra-nationalism within a contemporary European context, the film playfully grapples with the past not as a closed chapter, but as a living reality. Unless we engage the past as a living present it will insist in ways that are not only a warning for the future, but threaten the very possibility of equitable co-existence and a life livable for not only those that have recourse to assert power.”

“Recourse to ultra nationalism, and even fascism, resides in the core of national identity,...

The 54th edition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) will open with the world premiere of dark comedy Fabula from Dutch filmmaker Michiel ten Horn and close with historical epic This City Is a Battlefield from Indonesian director Mouly Surya.

With the festival taking place from January 30 to February 9 next year, IFFR also unveiled its jury line-ups across its three Competition strands: the Tiger Competition, the Tiger Short Competition and the Big Screen competition.

The Tiger Competition Jury will be made up of Yuki Aditya, Soheila Golestani, Winnie Lau, Peter Strickland and Andrea Luka Zimmerman.

Angela Haardt, Frank Sweeney and Yaoting Zhang will form the Tiger Short Competition Jury.

The Big Screen competition Jury will comprise of Bero Beyer, Sara Rajaei, Dewi Reijs, Digna Sinke and Jia Zhao.

Fabula, co-produced in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany, follows Jos, a provincial criminal grappling with personal and professional failures. As his...

Dutch filmmaker Michiel ten Horn’s Fabula will open the 2025 International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) on January 30, while Indonesian filmmaker Mouly Surya’s historical epic This City Is A Battlefield will close the event on February 9.

Fabula is a dark comedy about a provincial criminal grappling with personal and professional failures, starring Fedja van Huet, Anniek Pheifer, Sezgin Gulec, Michiel Kerbosch, Georg Friedrich, and David Kross. It is a co-production between the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany. Michiel most recently directed the family feature Hotel Sinestra in 2023.

Surya’s This City is a Battlefield is set in 1946 during Indonesia’s fight for independence.