International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) has announced the first titles in its selection for the Voices section at IFFR 2017. In Voices – one of the festival’s four programme sections – IFFR shows films driven by their story or theme, many of which are by established directors with a distinct, assured voice. IFFR will announce the nominees for the Big Screen Competition and the rest of the Voices selection in early January.
Alongside this main programme, Voices is made up of the programme elements Limelight, Scopitone and IFFR Live.
In Voices, IFFR presents a harvest of interesting recent films – future arthouse cinema classics. Hakim Belabbes’ Sweat Rain (Morocco, 2016), about a man who will do anything to keep his family’s land, will have its European première in Rotterdam. Belabbes, originally a documentary maker, retains his poetic style in this fiction film. New Wave director Amir Muhammad made Voyage to Terengganu (Malaysia, 2016) – an at times surreal portrayal of colourful characters from Terengganu in East Malaysia – with Badrul Hisham Ismail. Filmmaker Milagros Mumenthaler also returns to IFFR with her playful family drama La idea de un lago (Switzerland/Argentina/Qatar, 2016), in which photographer Inès wants to know the identity of her vanished father but has only an old photograph to go on. Alongside fiction films, series will also be shown. These include the Swedish/French series Midnight Sun (2016) – a dark new mystery from the makers of The Bridge.
The Voices main programme also includes the Big Screen Competition. The eight titles nominated for the VPRO Big Screen Award will be announced in early January.
The Limelight programme section gives an overview of international award winners, festival favourites and remarkable films that will screen in Dutch cinemas after the festival. For example, the poetic, committed documentary Burma Storybook (the Netherlands, 2017) by filmmaker Petr Lom will have its world première this edition. With the award-winning Sieranevada, Cristi Puiu has created an impressive, darkly comical sketch of the family and friends of a person who has died, meeting for a dinner. A whirlwind of themes, frustrations and arguments tears through the apartment where the film is set. The Hubert Bals Fund supported the mystical Wolf and Sheep (Afghanistan, 2016) by filmmaker Shahrbanoo Sadat, which deals with old traditions, customs and stories that are still a vital component of a small shepherding community in the mountains of Afghanistan.
The Scopitone programme (admission free) shows remarkable music documentaries in the Kleine Zaal of the Rotterdam Schouwburg. The fifth edition of this series of film will again be introduced by music connoisseur and film collector Fenno Werkman, and includes the documentaries Blackhearts (Norway, 2016) and Cairo Jazzman(Germany, 2017).
IFFR announced the first five titles of IFFR Live, which screens film premières in Rotterdam simultaneously in dozens of cinemas elsewhere in the world, in mid-December. The programme is now complete – the sixth and final title is Prevenge (GB, 2016) by Alice Lowe, the directorial debut from the British actress and screenwriter. A humorous, feminist horror film about a pregnant widow who loses herself in a bloody string of murders on behalf of her unborn child.
An overview of the titles already confirmed for the Voices section is given below. The rest of the selection, as well as the Big Screen Competition titles, will be announced early in January.
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