Still from Rafiki

48th International Film Festival Rotterdam

23 January - 3 February 2019

Rotterdam, 7 November 2018

The 48th edition of International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) is coming up. As programme preparations are in full swing, the festival is announcing the first 26 confirmed titles, including new work by Claire Denis, Jia Zhangke and Garin Nugroho. IFFR 2019 will take place from 23 January to 3 February 2019.

IFFR celebrates film art from all over the world and presents its programme within four sections, each with its own distinct character: Bright Future (including the Tiger Competition and the Ammodo Tiger Short Competition), Voices, Deep Focus and Perspectives. Short films are strongly represented throughout all sections.

Festival director Bero Beyer: “We’re delighted to present an appealing and rich first selection of titles to screen at our upcoming festival. There are names we’ve seen before in Rotterdam, and ones that are brand new. Together they exemplify the type of bold and daring cinema we like to celebrate at IFFR.”

The confirmed titles include the world premiere of Simona Kostova’s Dreissig and the international premiere of Fabienne Godet’s Nos vies formidables. Other filmmakers on the selection list so far are Nadine Labaki with her new film Capernaum and Khalik Allah with his Black Mother, a piercing reflection on Jamaican identity which won the Yellow Robin Award at Curaçao IFFR in April 2018. 

BNK48: Girls Don’t Cry, a European premiere, is a remarkable documentary feature by Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit chronicling the intense lives of a group of pop singers living together in Bangkok. And with I diari di Angela – Noi due cineasti Yervant Gianikian has created a moving portrait of his partner in cinema Angela Ricci Lucchi, who passed away in 2018.

Still from Capernaum

Three of the films selected so far received support from IFFR’s Hubert Bals Fund (HBF) in previous years: The Day I Lost My Shadow by Soudade Kaadan and Rafiki by Wanuri Kahiu in 2016, The Load by Ognjen Glavonić in 2013.

Black Mother, Khalik Allah, 2018, Jamaica/USA

Core of the World, Natalia Meshchaninova, 2018, Russia/Lithuania

The Day I Lost My Shadow, Soudade Kaadan, 2018, Lebanon (supported by HBF in 2016)

Dreissig/Thirty, Simona Kostova, 2019, Germany, world premiere 

The Load, Ognjen Glavonić, 2018, Serbia/France/Croatia/Iran/Qatar (supported by HBF in 2013)

Long Day's Journey Into Night, Bi Gan, 2018, China/France

The Proposal, Jill Magid, 2018, USA

BNK48: Girls Don't Cry, Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit, 2018, Thailand, European premiere 

Knife + Heart, Yann Gonzalez, 2018, France/Mexico

Memories of My Body, Garin Nugroho, 2018, Indonesia

The Mountain, Rick Alverson, 2018, USA

Nos vies formidables/Our Wonderful Lives, Fabienne Godet, 2018, France, international premiere 

Tel Aviv on Fire, Sameh Zoabi, 2018, Israel/France/Luxembourg/Belgium

Ash Is Purest White, Jia Zhangke, 2018, China/France

Camino, een feature-length selfie, Martin de Vries, 2019, Netherlands, world premiere

Capernaum, Nadine Labaki, 2018, Lebanon

Leto/Summer, Kirill Serebrennikov, 2018, Russia/France

Rafiki, Wanuri Kahiu, 2018, Kenya/South Africa (supported by HBF in 2016)

High Life, Claire Denis, 2018, Germany/France/USA/United Kingdom/Poland

I diari di Angela – Noi due cineasti, Yervant Gianikian, 2018, Italy

Anteu, João Vladimiro, 2018, Portugal/France

Lost Tune, Reetu Sattar, 2019, Bangladesh, world premiere

Primeiro ato/First Act, Matheus Parizi, 2019, Brazil, world premiere

Pwdre Ser (the rot of stars), Charlotte Pryce, 2019, USA, world premiere 

Salt, Pepper to Taste, Teymur Hajiyev, 2019, Azerbaijan, world premiere 

Van ver staat het stil/Still from afar, Eva van Tongeren, 2018, Belgium, international premiere

Festival director Bero Beyer recently introduced our four programme sections