Bright Future and Spectrum premieres announced

Rotterdam's Bright Future and Spectrum sections provide both an overview as well as an update of contemporary world cinema. Having been brought together by IFFR's team of programmers, each selecting adventurous, important and fresh titles from their research territories, the sections provide the filmmakers and producers the opportunity to present their works to a dedicated festival audience and attending film professionals. Both sections combined contain thirty-seven world premieres, and thirty-four international and European premieres.
(See full list of premieres in Bright Future and Spectrum online).

Bright Future
Comprising sixty-three films in total, the selection of Bright Future 2014 includes twenty-two world premieres, and twenty international and European premieres. All are first or second features from young and upcoming filmmakers from around the globe. The Bright Future section includes five films supported by the Hubert Bals fund. The FIPRESCI jury at Rotterdam awards one of the films with a world premiere.

Five films from Bright Future will compete in the Big Screen Award Competition. Among these, world premieres La distancia by Tiger Award 2011 winner Sergio Caballero (Spain), a surreal thriller featuring three telepathic dwarfs; and Riad Sattouf’s (France) second feature after Les beaux gosses, Jacky au royaume des filles starring Charlotte Gainsbourg.

Supported by the Hubert Bals Fund, Las voces is the first solo-feature by Carlos Armella (Mexico), who co-directed Toro negro with Pedro Gonzalez-Rubio. Elisa Miller, former Tiger nominee from Mexico, presents an intimate portrait of visual artist Sarah Lucas, About Sarah. Rosendo Ruiz' (Argentina) engaging and revealing romantic-comedy-meets-film-culture-essay Tres D looks set for a healthy festival career, as does The Iranian Film by Moroccan director Yassine el Idrissi.

Also premiering at the festival are Camilo Cavalcante's (Brazil) eagerly awaited first feature drama The History of Eternity, and The Songs of Rice by Uruphong Raksasad (Thailand), whose critically acclaimed Agrarian Utopia screened at IFFR 2009. After his festival hit Burrowing, Henrik Helström (Sweden) presents his second feature The Quiet Roar about a dying woman who revisits her past through an LSD-trip. Vera Brunner-Sung (USA) presents her first feature Bella Vista, set in small town in Montana; and Whitney Horn and Lev Kalman re-evaluate 1990’s Gen X slacker hedonism from the nineties in L for Leisure.

Like every year, Bright Future also presents some highlights from recent international festivals, such as Of Horses and Men, Mouton, Rigor Mortis, Blue Ruin, Trap Street and Love Steaks.

Spectrum
The Spectrum section shows films by experienced directors and maestros of artistic and experimental cinema, offering a diverse and rich range of global perspectives. The 2014 line up comprises sixty-nine films in total, including fifteen world premieres, and fourteen international and European premieres. Spectrum includes three films supported by the Hubert Bals Fund.

Five Spectrum films were selected for the Big Screen Award Competition. Among these, world premieres of See No Evil by Dutch documentarymaker Jos de Putter, a contained yet pointy satire on three retired apes looking back on their relationships with humans; and Oxana Bychkova's (Russia) Another Year, written by Natalia Meschaninova and Lubov Mulmenko (authors of the Tiger Award nominated The Hope Factory).

Ai Weiwei (China) premieres his latest documentary Ai Weiwei's Appeal ¥15,220,910.50, meticulously reconstructing and rebuting his controversial arrest for tax evasion by the Chinese authorities. Yang Heng (Tiger Award nominee in 2009 with Sun Spots), one of the most gifted filmmakers of his generation of Chinese independent filmmakers, premieres his new HBF supported film Lake August in Rotterdam.

South America is well represented with several world premieres in Spectrum this year. Argentinian director Rodrigo Moreno (of the impressive El Custodio) brings his latest film Reimon to Rotterdam, supported by the Hubert Bals Fund and nominated for the Big Screen Award. Peruvian/Dutch co-production Back to the Temple of the Sun by Marco Pando is a experimental road movie in the trails of comic book hero Tintin. Italian writer and filmmaker Aurelio Grimaldi also went to South America for The Blood is Hot in Bahia, a love story set in the poor neighbourhoods of Salvador de Bahia.

World premieres in Spectrum also include some wildly experimental and couragiously political films like the Hubert Bals Fund supported EDSA XXX: Nothing Ever Changes in the Ever-Changing Republic of Ek-Ek-Ek by Khavn (Philippines) and Supernatural by Thunska Pansittivorakul (Thailand) that seems to predict the present political turmoils in Bangkok.

For more information please contact the IFFR Press Office, Nancy van Oorschot / Mieke van der Linden / Isabelle de Klein, [email protected], +31 10 8909090.