IFFR launches new initiative Cinema Reloaded

39th International Film Festival Rotterdam
January 27 – February 7, 2010

PRESS RELEASE December 3, 2009

Rotterdam launches new initiative Cinema Reloaded

The International Film Festival Rotterdam launches an ambitious experiment in film-making in the digital era: ‘Cinema Reloaded’ allows filmmakers to directly connect with film lovers in order to finance and distribute their projects through combined online crowd sourcing and crowd funding. The participating directors are Alexis Dos Santos (UK/Argentina), Ho Yuhang (Malaysia) and Pipilotti Rist (Switzerland).

The ideas and goals of Cinema Reloaded will be reflected and developed through the three-part program section ‘Re: Reloaded’ during the 39th International Film Festival Rotterdam. Along with Cinema Reloaded, the IFFR launches its own YouTube channel with films supported by the festival’s Hubert Bals Fund, short films from previous festival editions and, during the festival period, a choice of films in official selection.

Cinema Reloaded
The first part of the ‘Cinema Reloaded’-project is to seek finance for the films through the festival’s loyal supporters and film lovers around the world in a crowd-funding plan coordinated through the dedicated web site www.cinemareloaded.com.

The films will begin shooting when a minimum level of finance is reached. Payments will take the form of “coins” to be invested in an individual project. Once production has begun, backers will be able to track their chosen project, talk to other investors and to interact with the film-maker. For the film-maker, this will be an opportunity to experiment with different ways to collaborate with audiences. The films will be premiered at the 2011 festival and will then be distributed online to various platforms. Details will be announced in February.

Cinema Reloaded will be accompanied by a year-long discussion and debate on the issues raised by the experiment, at the festival itself and online at the main festival website. The film-makers will also blog on the progress of their projects.

“Cinema Reloaded is a bold, practical experiment that aims to test some of the opportunities of this rapidly changing time for film,” said Rotterdam director Rutger Wolfson, “This is not about finding the definitive business model but about trying to understand how the closer interaction between film-maker and audience, enabled by the internet, can benefit the whole of cinema.”

“Rotterdam’s close relationship with some of the world’s most adventurous film-makers, coupled with our discerning and open-minded audience, puts us in a unique position to make this project work. At the end of the process, we will hopefully have three great films but we will certainly produce essential lessons for everyone interested in the future of cinema.”


Re: Reloaded, a festival program within IFFR 2010’s Signals section
During the 39th IFFR, the program ‘Re: Reloaded’, part of main festival section Signals, connects to and develops the ideas and mission of IFFR’s Cinema Reloaded. Re: Reloaded consists of three parts:

1. Back to the Future?
Cinema is constantly stimulated and challenged by the introduction of new media and technologies. The advent of television, for example, both triggered the (re)introduction of 3D and Cinemascope in the 50s in Hollywood and creatively nurtured the French Nouvelle Vague. It also paved the way for modern Japanese cinema in the 60s when studios took drastic measures to fight the box office setback.

A festival program of about 12 films screened within the IFFR 2010’s Signals section, Back to the Future? serves as background to Cinema Reloaded and looks at how cinema has constantly adapted and reinvented itself in the past - and what this means for its future.

Back to the Future?, curated by IFFR programmer Chinlin Hsieh, will include: DIAL M FOR MURDER, the one and only film shot in 3D by Hitchcock in 1954 at a time when 3D was considered the solution to the box office drop caused by TV. The film will be presented in its rarely seen 3D format during the festival; GOOD FOR NOTHING by Yoshida Kiju, one of the key figures of the Japanese New Wave who was offered a directorial début "thanks" to the menace of television; BIKINI BEACH, the biggest drive-in hit of the 1960s produced by Roger Corman who discovered teenagers as whole new audience for cinema and ANOTHER GIRL ANOTHER PLANET (1992) by Michael Almereyda who chose to experiment with Pixelvision, a precursor of DV camcorders which democratized filmmaking in the 90s. The programme will close with a feature film entirely shot with a mobile phone in the 2000s, the title and the full lineup of the programme will be announced soon.

2. Kino Climates
The diversity and number of films and videos being made today is probably unique in the history of cinema. At the same time, the number of independent cinemas has steadily decreased with film festivals often filling the gap.

The film exhibition scene is increasingly polarized between multiplexes on one side, and commercially well-established art-houses on the other. Between them micro, small or medium large venues often struggle to survive. These small venues, in close contact with their local film scenes, are often the only alternative to film festivals for showing films which otherwise are kept in the locket. As a complement to Cinema Reloaded, Kino Climates looks at the future of theatrical distribution of independent and art films.

Reflecting the map of what is the independent cinema-exhibition scene in Europe, the 39th International Film Festival Rotterdam organises ‘Kino Climates’ from January 30 to February 2: the first ever meeting organized in Europe of small and medium scale independent cinemas. More than 30 venues will gather in Rotterdam to discuss what can be a future from them.

Each night during the four-day Kino Climates, the participants propose a lively mix of films and performances. The Kino Climates evening sessions will certainly be an appointment not to be missed by filmmakers attending the festival who are eager to find alternative spaces where to screen their films.

Kino Climates will be organised by Katia Rossini of Cinema Nova (Brussels) in close collaboration with the IFFR.

3. Break Even Store
During the festival period only, IFFR opens the concept store Break Even within festival centre ‘de Doelen’. A pocket version of a film festival, Break Even comments on economic challenges of the new online film distribution formats. In this virtual realm, shared experience is mostly imaginary and non-physical. Break Even acts as meeting place, live performance location and sells a specialist and mostly unique range of films and related cinematic items.

Break Even is developed and curated by IFFR programmer Edwin Carels.


IFFR’s YouTube channel
Along with the introduction of Cinema Reloaded, the International Film Festival Rotterdam launches its YouTube channel www.youtube.com/iffrotterdam, With this channel the IFFR offers the film makers it supports and champions the opportunity to take their work to the largest possible online audience. The channel contains a selection of feature films supported by the Hubert Bals Fund, as well as a series of short films that have not yet found distribution.

During the 39th IFFR, this YouTube channel will feature a selection out of the official IFFR program, as well as trailers and video documentation of festival events. Revenues out of the channel will benefit the film makers.

Some of the films now available on www.youtube.com/iffrotterdam are: TATTOO by Wang Liren (China, 2009), screened in the Bright Future section of IFFR 2009; DOES IT HURT – THE FIRST BALKAN DOGMA by Aneta Lesnikovska (Macedonia, 2007), screened in VPRO Tiger Awards Competition 2007 and STRIZH by Abai Kulbai (Kazakhstan, 2007), screened in VPRO Tiger Awards Competition 2008.


(end of press release)

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