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International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) will debut 14 feature works in its main competition and host on-stage talks with Cate Blanchett and Cheryl Dunye during its upcoming 54th edition, which runs 30 January – 9 February 2025.

The festival announced its competition lineups and talks this morning during a presser.

IFFR’s main Tiger Competition comes with a €40,000 cash prize. The festival also hands out two Special Jury Awards worth €10,000 each. The films selected this year include Im Haus meiner Eltern by Tim Ellric, Bad Girl by Varsha Bharath, and Guo Ran by Li Dongmei. Scroll down for the full list of titles. The Tiger Competition Jury will feature Yuki Aditya, Soheila Golestani, Winnie Lau, Peter Strickland, and Andrea Luka Zimmerman.

The headline guests of the festival’s talks lineup are Cate Blanchett and Guy Maddin, who will discuss their collaboration on Rumours. Also set for discussions in Rotterdam are DoP Lol Crawley and American...

The 54th International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) will begin on January 30 and run until February 9. This year’s festival will feature various films emphasizing emerging talents and well-known artists worldwide.

Festival Director Vanja Kaludjercic expressed enthusiasm for this year’s topic, noting, “Since our first festival in 1972, IFFR has been a space for bold creativity, where the unexpected finds a home, and cinema in all of its splendor is celebrated.” The festival strives to offer a vibrant arena for new filmmaking, with three competitive divisions reflecting the experimental essence of modern cinema.

The Talks program is a prominent part of IFFR. Highlights include a unique conversation between Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett and filmmaker Guy Maddin. The two will discuss their recent collaboration on “Rumours” and the importance of creative relationships and short films.

Additional speakers include renowned cinematographer Lol Crawley, who will receive the Robby Müller Award and share insights from his work.

The International Film Festival Rotterdam revealed the lineups of its Tiger, Big Screen and Tiger Short competition sections Tuesday, and the first tranche of speakers for the Talks program, who include Cate Blanchett and Guy Maddin.

Following their recent collaboration on “Rumours,” Blanchett and Maddin will come together for “an expansive dialogue about creative collaboration, the role of film festivals, and the enduring power of the short film form,” IFFR said.

IFFR will also welcome Robby Müller Award recipient Lol Crawley, in conversation with writer and film critic Peter Bradshaw to discuss his cinematography, including his work on “The Brutalist” and other highlights from his career.

Filmmaker Alex Ross Perry, known for Locarno’s “Listen Up Philip,” Toronto’s “Her Smell” and Sundance’s “Golden Exits,” will talk about his documentary “Videoheaven,” part of the Focus program “Hold Video in Your Hands,” celebrating the community spirit of VHS culture. Perry...

The International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) unveiled its 2025 Big Screen and Tiger Short competitive sections on Tuesday. Typical for Rotterdam, the selection is truly global, with films traversing from Montenegro to Malaysia, and from Congo to India.

The Big Screen Competition, which features films that bridge arthouse and popular cinema, features highlights including The Assistant from Polish directors Anka and Wilhelm Sasnal, whose It Looks Pretty from a Distance was in Rotterdam’s Tiger competition in 2012, Albert Oehlen’s Bad Painter starring Udo Kier, and the Japanese drama Yasuko, Songs of Days Past from director Negishi Kichitaro.

Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett and Canadian avant-garde filmmaker Guy Maddin will attend IFFR 2025 as part of the festival’s IFFR Talks lineup, to discuss their recent collaboration on Maddin’s Rumours. Other IFFR talks include a conversation with The Brutalist cinematographer Lol Crawley — winner of the IFFR’s Robby Müller lifetime achievement award — and...

International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) has unveiled the Tiger and Big Screen competition line-ups for its 54th edition which takes place from January 30 – February 9.

The Tiger Competition, which showcases emerging voices from across the globe, has 14 world premieres spanning Montenegro to Malaysia and Congo to India. IFFR said one of the Tiger titles will be revealed closer to the festival due to sensitivities surrounding its release. Another 20 titles play in IFFR’s Tiger Short Competition.

The competition includes Julian Chou’s Blind Love, which recently won the Screenplay Award at Taiwan’s Golden Horse Film Project Promotion (Fpp) project market.

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...