Yo, también and Soul Boy win audience awards; public and industry attendance up

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

PRESS RELEASE

· Yo, tambien and Soul Boy take audience awards in Rotterdam
· Audience and industry attendance up

On Saturday evening, 6 February, the audience awards were announced in the Grand Auditorium of the Doelen in Rotterdam. The IFFR 2010 Audience Award of € 7,500 went to Spanish film Yo, Tambien by Alvaro Pastor & Antonio Naharro. The Dioraphte Award for Hubert Bals Fund film held in highest regard went to the film Soul Boy by the Kenyan film maker Hawa Essuman, produced by Tom Tykwer.

The IFFR counted 353,000 visitors to the films, exhibitions, live shows and events, including the 8,000 film lovers who attend the fully booked Volkskrant day on Sunday 7 February. The 40th International Film Festival Rotterdam will take place from Wednesday 26 January to Sunday 6 February 2011.

Yo, tambien was most highly regarded by festival audiences, beating at the last minute Swiss documentary Die Frau mit dem 5 Elephanten (The Woman with the 5 Elephants) by Vadim Jendreyko and Golden Lion-winner Lebanon by Samuel Maoz. Yo, tambien, in which a graduate with Down's syndrome falls in love with a colleague, is one of the most surprising films of the last year with two spectacularly good protagonists. Other festival favourites were topical documentary Russian Lessons by Olga Konskaya & Andrei Nekrasov, Canadian talent Jacob Tierney’s The Trotsky, Francis Ford Coppola’s Tetro and VPRO Tiger Award winner Alamar by Pedro Gonzalez-Rubio.

Soul Boy by Hawa Essuman was given the Dioraphte Award (€10,000) by the festival audience for the most highly regarded film made with a contribution from the Hubert Bals Fund. Soul Boy follows Abila (14) who lives in one of the most miserable slums in Africa. His girlfriend Shiku belongs to a different tribe, as the result of which he is not really allowed to fraternize with her. And then one drunken night his father gambled away his own soul. With support from Tom Tykwer, the Kenyan film maker Hawa Essuman turned it into a sparkling film.

Friday evening February 5, Rotterdam’s top prizes, the three VPRO Tiger Awards, went to the Hubert Bals Fund supported films Agua fría de mar (Cold Water of the Sea) by Paz Fábrega (Costa Rica) and Mundane History (Jao nok krajok) by Anocha Suwichakornpong (Thailand), and to Alamar (To the Sea) by Pedro Gonzalez-Rubio (Mexico). The FIPRESCI awarded Let Each One Go Where He May by Ben Russell (USA/Suriname), the NETPAC Jury winner was Moscow by Whang Cheol-Mean (South Korea) and the KNF gave top honours to Rigoberto Perezcano’s Norteado (Northless).

With audience figures slightly up and with a significant increase in filmmakers’ and industry professionals attendance, IFFR Festival Director Rutger Wolfson said about this edition in the festival newspaper Daily Tiger: “Solidarity has been the watchword as filmmakers, film-goers and industry delegates have come to Rotterdam in vast numbers for a festival celebrating cinema at its most innovative.”

Among nearly 400 filmmakers in attendance, the International Film Festival Rotterdam welcomed prominent directors Yoshida Kiju accompanied by his wife, actress Okada Mariko, Tsai Ming-liang (Visage), François Ozon (Le refuge), Kore-Eda Hirokazu accompanied by art designer Taneda Yohei (Air Doll), Nicolas Winding Refn (Valhalla Rising), György Pálfi (I’m Not Your Friend), Bruno Dumont (Hadewijch), Jessica Hausner (Lourdes), Harmony Korine (Trash Humpers), Pedro Costa (Ne change rien), Samuel Maoz (Lebanon) and Sai Yoichi (Rotterdam 2010 Filmmaker in Focus).

The IFFR extended its already broad spectrum of support to film makers. The online Cinema Reloaded initiative, which encourages festival-goers and film lovers worldwide to ‘become a producer’ by buying coins to invest in three shorts has made a promising start. The second half of the festival saw the launch of IFFR 2010’s extensive focus on African cinema. The IFFR’s Hubert Bals Fund plans to strengthen yet further its ties with Africa, by organizing, in close collaboration with IDFA’s Jan Vrijman Fund, a showcase of ten HBF and JVF supported films from Africa in ten African film festivals. The Kino Climates conference brought representatives of small independent cinemas together for the first time. March 3-9, fourteen films from the VPRO Tiger Awards Competition and five short films from the Tiger Awards Competition of Short Films screen in NYC’s BAMcinématek. Following their premieres in Rotterdam, many films will find their way to festivals worldwide.
Wolfson underlines the importance of Rotterdam for the industry: “We have a very, very high profile. The industry knows that Rotterdam offers outstanding possibilities to launch adventurous and innovative cinema, either in CineMart or when it is finished as a premiere.”

Also in the Daily Tiger, CineMart Manager Marit van den Elshout reflected on the event’s continuing importance as a key facilitator within the finance of global independent cinema: “Last year CineMart played out against a mood of depression, but now the market was extremely active. We received great feedback about the selection and all of the thirty-three projects had a very impressive schedule of meetings. With a 20% increase of CineMart participants on 2009, Van den Elshout observes that delegates came well-prepared for a more targeted assessment of the market offerings and expressed satisfaction with a Rotterdam Lab programme that is now considered a staple of the Rotterdam and CineMart experience.


39th International Film Festival Rotterdam in figures:

Total number of visits: 353,000 (2009: 341,000)

Total number of unique visitors to festival website: 290,000 (2009: 292,000)
Page views during festival period: 3,125,000 (2009: 2,600,000)

Number of festival guests: 2,602 (2009: 2,128)
Number of festival guests from The Netherlands: 829 (2009: 710)
Number of international festival guests: 1773 (2009: 1418)

Number of attending filmmakers, visual and performing artists: 393 (2009: 295)

Total number of journalists: 384 (2009: 357)
Total number of international journalists: 164 (2009: 149)
Total number of journalists from the Netherlands: 220 (2009: 208)

Total number of CineMart guests: 890 (2009: 790)
Total number of international CineMart guests: 769 (2009: 605)
Total number of CineMart guests from The Netherlands: 221 (2009: 185)

(end of press release)

Notes to the Editor (not for publication)

Film information, search by film title:
http://www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com/professionals/programme/film_titles_az/

Hi res downloads of film stills:
http://www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com/professionals/press/film-stills-2010-downloads/

IFFR press office (Bert-Jan Zoet or Nancy van Oorschot)
[email protected], +31 10 890 90 90

www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com