In an online press conference hosted this morning by festival director Vanja Kaludjercic, International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) unveiled its Tiger Competition and Big Screen Competition line-ups, with the 14 titles in each spanning emerging voices from across the globe. Kicking off the year’s elite festival calendar, the Dutch event will celebrate its 54th edition, taking place from 30 January-9 February 2025.

Unlike previous years, regular festival watchers may not recognise the filmmakers in this year’s Tiger Competition, yet its multi-continental selection is encouraging, with Southeastern Europe and East Asia well represented. The festival describes the 14 world premieres as “exploring personal stories and profound connections to history, identity and place”, with one title still to be announced owing to “sensitivities surrounding its release”. Among them are Stefan Djordjevic’s Wind, Talk to Me [+lire aussi :
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fiche film], whose arresting key image can be seen above; and Varsha Bharath’s Bad Girl, continuing India’s run of high-profile festival appearances. The films will compete for the Tiger Award, worth €40,000, and two Special Jury Awards, worth €10,000 each.

The Big Screen Competition is dedicated to paving the way for its titles to secure distribution in the Netherlands, and showcases movies with popular and traditional arthouse appeal. In the festival’s words, the section’s 14 titles express “genre-blurring stories of rebellion, tradition and expression, covering territories from Lithuania to Japan and the Netherlands to Argentina”. Again, the global spread is large, with two films by acclaimed painters immediately catching the eye: these are The Assistant [+lire aussi :
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Several world premieres in Harbour and Limelight are important to note, whose directors have won critical acclaim and wide distribution in the past few years: these are Lois Patiño’s Ariel [+lire aussi :
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interview : Lois Patiño
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interview : Lois Patiño
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interview : Jaime Rosales
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fiche film]; Courtney Stephens and Michael Almereyda’s John Lilly and the Earth Coincidence Control Office; Wei Shujun’s I Dreamed a Dream, coming after his Cannes 2023 Un Certain Regard selection Only the River Flows was a major box-office hit at home; and Alex Ross Perry’s Videoheaven, an epic celebration of US VHS culture, with a voice-over from Maya Hawke.

The IFFR Talks line-up also whets the appetite, with Cate Blanchett joining Guy Maddin on stage after premiering their very funny political satire Rumours [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] last year; their conversation will broach the subjects of creative collaboration, film-festival culture as a whole, and the short-film form. Lol Crawley will receive the Robby Müller Award after his sublime VistaVision work in The Brutalist [+lire aussi :
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The festival’s two feature competition line-ups are as follows:

Tiger Competition

First Person Plural [+lire aussi :
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interview : Sandro Aguilar
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The Tree of Authenticity [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] - Sammy Baloji (Democratic Republic of Congo/Belgium)
Vitrival – The Most Beautiful Village in the World [+lire aussi :
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interview : Noëlle Bastin, Baptiste Bo…
fiche film] - Noëlle Bastin, Baptiste Bogaert (Belgium)
Fiume o morte! [+lire aussi :
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Bad Girl - Varsha Bharath (India)
Blind Love - Julian Chou (Taiwan)
La gran historia de la filosofía occidental - Aria Covamonas (Mexico)
Wind, Talk to Me [+lire aussi :
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Guo Ran - Li Dongmei (China)
Im Haus meiner Eltern [+lire aussi :
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interview : Tim Ellrich
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Perla [+lire aussi :
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interview : Alexandra Makarová
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Tears in Kuala Lumpur - Ridhwan Saidi (Malaysia)
Wondrous Is the Silence of My Master [+lire aussi :
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interview : Ivan Salatić
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Big Screen Competition

Back to the Family [+lire aussi :
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Raptures [+lire aussi :
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Gowok: Javanese Kamasutra - Hanung Bramantyo (Indonesia)
White roses, fall! [+lire aussi :
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Our Father - The Last Days of a Dictator [+lire aussi :
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interview : José Filipe Costa
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Orenda [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] - Pirjo Honkasalo (Finland/Estonia/Sweden)
Yasuko, Songs of Days Past - Negishi Kichitaro (Japan)
The Puppet’s Tale - Suman Mukhopadhyay (India)
Bad Painter [+lire aussi :
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interview : Albert Oehlen
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Macai - Sun-J Perumal (Malaysia)
The Rhine Gold [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] - Lorenzo Pullega (Italy)
Idyllic [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] - Aaron Rookus (Netherlands/Belgium/Estonia)
The Assistant [+lire aussi :
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interview : Wilhelm Sasnal
fiche film] - Wilhelm Sasnal, Anka Sasnal (Poland/UK)
Soft Leaves [+lire aussi :
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interview : Miwako Van Weyenberg
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