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IFFR 2019

Exploring the main sections of the 48th IFFR

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- IFFR director Bero Beyer guides us through the programme of the festival’s upcoming edition

Exploring the main sections of the 48th IFFR
Bangla by Phaim Bhuiyan

Bero Beyer, the director of International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), has offered Cineuropa a wide-ranging walkthrough of the four main sections, Bright Future, Voices, Deep Focus, and Perspectives, that make up the 48th IFFR (23 January-3 February). According to Beyer, the full programme of more than 500 works of all durations, from four-minute shorts to 14-hour epics, has been divided into these four distinct sections, each with its own feel, tone and curatorial line (and, in the catalogue, its own colour as well).

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Bright Future (see the news) includes 55 features and 100 shorts as well as ten mid-length films. This section is all about discovery and emerging talents who push the boundaries of cinema. It’s where audiences will find the Tiger Competition (see the news), with a line-up of eight brand-new features by directors who dare to break new ground through their form and style. From the powerful No coração do mundo from Brazil to the mesmerising Present.Perfect. from China, all of these films tackle their respective themes in their very own, unique way. The Tiger Shorts competition includes more than 20 shorts that really push the boundary of form. About 20 movies in Bright Future’s main programme are eligible for the Bright Future Award, which is given out to the best debut feature having its world or international premiere at IFFR.

In Voices, with almost 90 features and over 30 narrative shorts, we find filmmakers who often harness the narrative power of cinema to connect with an audience using their own distinctive and often confident tone of voice. The Big Screen Competition features a line-up of eight titles, and a jury of five film lovers will decide which movie will win a guaranteed release in the Netherlands. This competition gets more and more exciting every year, with remarkable premieres like X&Y [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Anna Odell
film profile
]
by Anna OdellHail Satan? by Penny Lane and Bangla [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
 by Phaim Bhuiyan from Italy. Incidentally, this was where the hit film The Guilty [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Gustav Möller
film profile
]
 premiered last year.

In the main programme, there are world premieres of titles like Beats [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Brian Welsh, about the illegal rave scene in Scotland in the 1990s, as well as avant-premieres of films that will go on general release in the Netherlands later in the year, like Vox LuxClimax [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Souheila Yacoub
film profile
]
and A Private War [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
. Furthermore, Voices includes music documentaries in the Scopitone programme, plus films that bend and expand the limits of genre in Rotterdämmerung – not only horror flicks and thrillers, but also the very telling documentary Romantic Comedy by Elizabeth Sankey.

In Deep Focus (see the news), the festival turns its attention to signature filmmakers whose oeuvre is somehow always part of their new work, like Carlos Reygadas and Claire Denis – who will both incidentally be leading master classes. Also, there will be Deep Focus retrospectives on the schedule for Portuguese form pioneer Edgar Pêra, magic-lantern virtuosa Charlotte Pryce and US artist Cauleen Smith.

This is the section that offers a much broader overview of what cinema is, and Beyer believes the visual arts are very much part of the world of cinema, and vice versa. So, in the sophomore edition of Frameworks (which last year featured SLEEPCINEMAHOTEL by Apichatapong Weerasethakul), two established names from the art world will present new works in installation form, and it will also introduce two new artists who have only just popped up on the radar. Thus there will be an installation version of Jean-Luc Godard’s The Image Book [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
in the Atlanta Hotel, and renowned artist Philippe Parreno will be bringing the white cube installation No more reality to the Pathé multiplex theatre. The “acolytes” they will be introducing are Fabrice Aragno and Asad Raza. Also, there will be an exhibition with a dozen new works by artists that have been inspired by the Kodak Carousel projector, called Black-out.

Finally, the Perspectives programme ties in with the thematic approach of the festival: relevant social and political issues, as seen through cinema. This relates directly to the gathering’s campaign – the living image; how do we view and spy on each other? What is the power of silence? How does the changing context or reiteration of a work create a new piece? Are memes art, and how do social media influence the way we delve into narratives? And what makes Afro-Brazilian cinema stand out?

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