What to see at the 2020 International Film… | Little White Lies

Festivals

What to see at the 2020 Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val Rotterdam

20 Dec 2019

Words by Max Copeman

Two shirtless men standing in tall grass against a hazy sky.
Two shirtless men standing in tall grass against a hazy sky.
The Nether­lands’ pre­mier cel­e­bra­tion of cin­e­ma returns in Jan­u­ary with a new-look programme.

Boast­ing a wealth of intrigu­ing titles from four con­ti­nents, the line­up for next month’s Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val Rot­ter­dam (IFFR) has arrived, and we’re excit­ed to say we’ll be cov­er­ing it.

Now in its 49th year, the Nether­lands’ pre­mier cel­e­bra­tion of cin­e­ma will be opened by João Nuno Pinto’s sec­ond fea­ture Mos­qui­to, which fol­lows a 17-year-old Por­tuguese sol­dier lost in the African wilder­ness dur­ing World War One.

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This is the final fes­ti­val under cur­rent direc­tor, Bero Bey­er, who hands over to Van­ja Kalud­jer­cic next year for the festival’s 50th edi­tion. Marielle Heller’s Tom Han­ks-star­ring A Beau­ti­ful Day in the Neigh­bor­hood will add a dash of Hol­ly­wood-heavy­weight main­stream to pro­ceed­ings as the fest’s clos­ing film, but that’s not to say that the IFFR will be with­out its usu­al flavour of small­er, dar­ing titles.

Take a look at the line­up for the Tiger Com­pe­ti­tion, for exam­ple. Shengze Zhu’s Present.Perfect got the gong last time and con­tenders next year will range from Jorge Thie­len Armand’s Venezue­lan jun­gle dra­ma La for­t­aleza to Arun Karthick’s Tamil dra­ma, Nasir.

Part of the festival’s Voic­es side­bar, open­er Mos­qui­to is just one of nine films – five of which world pre­mieres – vying for the prize in the Big Screen Com­pe­ti­tion. These include queer dra­ma El cazador from Argen­tine Mar­co Berg­er, and Eden, the first fea­ture since 2010 from Hun­gar­i­an film­mak­er Ágnes Koc­sis. Else­where British direc­tor Thomas Clay also adds to the line­up with his Shrop­shire-set folk hor­ror tale, Fan­ny Lye Deliver’d.

Fif­teen fea­ture debuts will also com­prise the Bright Future Com­pe­ti­tion, and on paper an entic­ing prospect is Gillian Wal­lace Horvat’s psy­cho­log­i­cal dra­ma I Blame Soci­ety, a title almost as punchy as her short films Whiskey Fist and Kiss Kiss Fingerbang.

With some­thing for every­one, there’s also a screen­ing of David Cronenberg’s cult clas­sic Crash, with Howard Shore’s score per­formed by none oth­er than the Rot­ter­dam Phil­har­mon­ic Orchestra.

The fes­ti­val dates from 22 Jan­u­ary to 2 Feb­ru­ary and we’ll be pro­vid­ing pod­casts, reviews and direc­tor inter­views straight from Hol­land to sat­is­fy all your Dutch film fes­ti­val-relat­ed needs.

For more info vis­it iffr​.com

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