Jury’s award films from the IFFR 2011 program Tiger Awards go to South Korea, Spain and Thailand

40th International Film Festival Rotterdam
January 26 – February 6, 2011

PRESS RELEASE February 4, 2011

During the IFFR 2010 Awards Ceremony on Friday, February 4, 2011 in the Oude Luxor Theater, the winning films of the 40th International Film Festival Rotterdam were announced. The Tiger Awards Ceremony included a solo performance by Sonic Youth-front man Lee Ranaldo, member of the Tiger Awards Jury.

The three Tiger Awards were granted to feature débuts The Journals of Musan by Park Jung-Bum (South Korea), Finisterrae by Sergio Caballero (Spain, 2010) and Hubert Bals Fund supported film Eternity by Sivaroj Kongsakul (Thailand, 2010).

On the occasion of IFFR’s 40th jubilee edition, the one-off and shared Return of the Tiger Award went to Oki’s Movie by Hong Sang-Soo (South Korea) and Club Zeus by David Verbeek (Netherlands/China).

On Saturday February 5th, the IFFR 2011 UPC Audience Award and the Dioraphte Award for Best Hubert Bals Fund Supported Film will be announced.

Tiger Awards
Fourteen first or second films competed in the 2011 Tiger Awards Competition. The Jury consisted of Lucrecia Martel, filmmaker, scriptwriter and film producer (Argentina); Sandra den Hamer, director of the EYE Film Institute Netherlands and former IFFR director; filmmaker Andrei Ujica (Romania); Wisit Sasanatieng, filmmaker (Thailand) and Lee Ranaldo, vocalist, guitarist, composer and co-founder of noise rock band Sonic Youth (USA). Each Tiger Award comes with a prize of Euro 15,000 for the filmmaker.

This edition, the Tiger Awards Competition is supported by the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds.

The jury statements on the Tiger Award winning films:

Finisterrae by Sergio Caballero (Spain, 2010)
‘The outsider in this competition. Searching for the boundaries in this festival, for the edgy, the off-beat. Best animal performances in a film. The ghost of this competition.’

Eternity by Sivaroj Kongsakul (Thailand, 2010)
‘With a great sense of cinematic duration, this film builds its own universe, finding its own pacing, so consistently, to tell its particular story. A film that seems on the surface to be about death but which is really about love, a beautiful and delicate love story.’
Eternity is supported by IFFR’s Hubert Bals Fund.

The Journals of Musan by Park Jung-Bum (South Korea, 2010)
‘A strongly constructed narrative. A survivor’s story. Throughout the film the character, immersed in an ethical disorientation, keeps a constant demeanor. A mature debut film for a new director. This social drama provides us with another dimension or perspective on the Korean situation.’

Return of the Tiger Award
The Return of the Tiger program will be accompanied by a one-off award, the Return of the Tiger Award. The fifteen directors of the fourteen films competing in the Tiger Awards Competition 2011 were asked to decide together on the winner of this unique award, worth € 5,000.
The program and the Return of the Tiger Award are intended as a gesture of appreciation towards those filmmakers who have taken the first steps of their careers on the international stage at the Rotterdam festival, and as a token of the festival’s ongoing support for these filmmakers.

The joint decision resulted in a shared Return of the Tiger Award for:

Oki’s Movie by Hong Sang-Soo (South Korea, 2010) and Club Zeus by David Verbeek (Netherlands/China, 2011)

Hong Sang-Soo won a Tiger Award in 1997 for his feature debut The Day a Pig Fell Into the Well. David Verbeek’s second feature film Shanghai Trance was nominated for a Tiger Award in 2008. Club Zeus will be released April/May 2011 in Dutch art houses by Cinema Delicatessen.

NETPAC Award
The NETPAC Jury (Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema), consisting of Jury Chair Ratna Sarumpaet (Indonesa), Katayoon Shababi (Iran, Director Sheherazad Media International) and Zhang Xian-min (China, a.o. Director of the Indie Cinema Fund) decided to give two films the NETPAC Award 2011 for Best Asian film in the IFFR 2011:

Black Blood by Zhang Miaoyan (China/France, 2011)
‘A simple and at the same time powerful film, complete in its details, that brings you to the world in which people live by themselves.’
Black Blood is supported by the Hubert Bals Fund.

The Day I Disappeared by Atousa Bandeh Ghiasabadi (Netherlands/Iran, 2011)
‘The visual and sonic poetry recalls us the best that cinema can offer. Contemplative and shining.’

FIPRESCI Award
The Jury of the international association of film critics FIPRESCI (Fédération Internationale de la Presse Cinématographique), consisting of Jury Chair Chris Fujiwara (Japan, Insanemute.com), Christoph Huber (Austria, Die Presse), Adrian Martin (Australia, a.o. LOLA and Rouge.com), Charles Tesson (France, Cahiers du cinéma) and Ronald Rovers (de Filmkrant) gives the Rotterdam FIPRESCI Award 2011 to:

The Journals of Musan by Park Jung-Bum (South Korea, 2010)
‘The FIPRESCI jury gives its award to a film that vividly portrays the experience of an outsider. The film is organic and all of a piece, showing confident, accomplished filmmaking.’

The FIPRESCI Jury chose the winner among the fourteen films selected for the Tiger Awards Competition 2011.

KNF Award
The Jury of the circle of Dutch film journalists KNF (Kring van Nederlandse Filmjournalisten), consisting of Jury Chair Jeroen Stout (NTR), Dana Linssen (de Filmkrant), Gawie Keijzer (De Groene), Clementine van Wijngaarden (VARAgids) and Laura van Zuijlen (Limboland), has given the KNF Award to:

Winter Vacation by Li Hongqi (China, 2010)
‘In reviewing the films eligible for this prize, the jury of the Dutch Film Critics have been pleasantly surprised by the apparent ending of the reign of realism in art house cinema. During the last couple of years this style has become increasingly contrived, rather like a cheap trick. But during this festival poetry has come to the fore once more, for instance in F.J. Ossangs lyrical, self-conscious Dharma Guns and David Dusa's haunting Fleurs du Mal. And poetry is also central to the winner of the Dutch Film Critics award. It is a film that is sober in its imagery, but by using sound, dialogue, rhythm in the montage and humour in the script the film that the director has crafted finally transcends reality and turns the boring daily routine of a small Mongolian town into something astonishingly beautiful.’

Winter Vacation is supported by IFFR’s Hubert Bals Fund.

The KNF Jury has chosen its winner among films in Rotterdam 2011 official selection that have not yet been acquired for Dutch distribution. To the KNF Award a grant is attached for subtitling the film, sponsored by Holland Subtitling. The Award of the KNF is meant to promote the acquisition for distribution within The Netherlands.

Tiger Awards for Short Films, EFA Nomination and New Arrivals Award
Monday January 31, Nicolas Provost’s Stardust (Belgium), Nathaniel Dorsky’s Pastourelle (USA) and Natasha Mendonca’s Jan Villa (USA/India) were awarded the three equal Rotterdam Tiger Awards for Short Films 2011. Alberto De Michele’s I Lupi (The Wolves, Italy) took the Rotterdam Short Film Nomination for the European Film Awards 2011. The New Arrivals Award went to Silent Things by Rob Brown (UK).

The seventh Rotterdam Tiger Awards Competition for Short Films comprises twenty-eight films, ranging in length from six to fifty-two minutes. For its Jury the IFFR welcomed Fiona Tan, an artist known for her audiovisual installations, films and photographic works (The Netherlands), Anocha Suwichakornpong, filmmaker and Tiger Award winner for Mundane History (Thailand) and Thom Andersen, filmmaker, film critic and lecturer (USA). The Jury handed out the three equal Tiger Awards for Short Film (3,000 Euros) to the winning filmmakers during the VPRO Late Night Talk Show in Rotterdam.

The Rotterdam Tiger Awards Competition for Short Films is supported by the City Marketing Office Rotterdam.

MovieSquad Award
Les amours imaginaires (Xavier Dolan, Canada, 2010) has won the MovieSquad IFFR Award, which was announced by the young people’s jury of the International Film Festival Rotterdam February 3 during the MovieSquad Award Ceremony. Dolan won the same Award last year for his debut film J’ai tué ma mere.
The MovieSquad jury consisted of 5 members aged 15 to 18 years: Rutger van Loo (16), Johann Schuur (18), Joren Molter (17), Eveline de Haan (15) and Wouter van der Vaart (17). The MovieSquad Award includes € 2,000 to spend on the promotion of the film among young people in the Netherlands. Besides this the film has a chance to be programmed in one of the film educational programmes of EYE.

MovieSquad IFFR is an initiative of EYE Film Institute Netherlands in cooperation with the International Film Festival Rotterdam.

ARTE France Cinéma and Eurimages Awards
The 28th CineMart, co-production market of the International Film Festival Rotterdam concluded today, Wednesday February 2 in Rotterdam, with the announcement of the two awards for best CineMart Projects 2011 as chosen by the Jury consisting of Rémi Burah (General Secretary of ARTE France Cinéma), Peter Gustaffson (Swedish Television and Board Member of Eurimages) and Susanne Marian (Essential Filmproduktion, Germany). Touch Me Not by Adina Pintilie (Romania/France) wins the Arte France Cinéma Award and Kid by Fien Troch (Belgium/Netherlands) takes the Eurimages Award. The Jury gave a Special Mention to A Spell to Ward of the Darkness by Ben Russell & Ben Rivers (Germany/France).

(End of press release)

Notes to the Editor, not for publication:

IFFR 2011 film information, search by film title:
http://www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com/professionals/programme/film_titles_az/

IFFR 2011 film stills of all festival films:
http://www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com/professionals/press/film-stills-2011-downloads/

Press information IFFR:
IFFR Press Office, Bert-Jan Zoet or Nancy van Oorschot
[email protected], +31 10 8909090