46th International Film Festival Rotterdam

25 January – 5 February 2017

Rotterdam, 29 December 2016

Every year International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) examines relevant societal themes with films, debates, special guests and side programmes. This year, the themed programmes for 2017 have been combined into the Perspectives section. With Parallax Views the festival will present an up-to-the-minute programme that will study polarisation in contemporary society.

At the tipping point of multiple political shifts, the world seems more divided and polarised than ever. The growing visibility of fault-lines in our societies, as well as the increasingly toxic discourse that plagues the 24-hour media cycles, inspired IFFR to highlight works that address these issues with urgency, creating new lines of sight and engagement. These films can be found throughout IFFR’s 2017 programme. Everyone views the same situation from different perspectives. Parallax Views is IFFR's agenda-setting platform where filmmakers, artists, thinkers, journalists and the public are invited to discuss the current shifts and fractures, as they are represented in films featured throughout the festival programme. The programme will also feature masterclasses and talks.

Alongside the Parallax Views programme, the Perspectives section will bring together four different programmes that were developed to highlight and examine current fault lines irrevocably linked to IFFR 2017’s theme.

These programmes are:

As Punk turned forty years old, the idea of youth bringing disorder and/or enlightenment to society through radical means has taken on new forms. A Band Apart considers small utopias and the shock and awe method utilised when splinter groups come together to challenge or destroy the establishment. Whether that be terrorism, sects, politics or music, the methods used are clearly different than forty years ago. The programme will screen modern films that have the same same raw and angry energy, as joining a group of radicals feels like joining a rock band, and tell the stories of outsiders who provoke the establishment. One of the films is Nocturama (France/Germany/Belgium, 2016) by filmmaker Bertrand Bonello in which a group of radical millennials try to bomb Paris. In Generatie B (Belgium, 2016) directed by Pieter Van Hees, Belgian young people respond to life during economic crisis without hope of employment in an entirely different way. They are angry as well, but humour is their main weapon.

Nocturama; Generatie B.

Many democratic societies are facing the implications of the cultural divide and emerging racism. In film history there is no other movement that has been investigating and addressing these issues as thoroughly as black cinema. Filmmakers throughout the African diaspora have been commenting on this divide, since the birth of cinema up until this very day. In Black Rebels IFFR presents films about and predominantly by black people resisting this divide. The program features Dutch and European premières and classics in all genres. There is plenty of variety from feature films, short films, drama, (music) documentaries to experimental films, science fiction and video art. Barry Jenkins, the director of Moonlight will give a masterclass, Keith Piper and Tirzo Martha will be exhibiting art installations and there will be various talks with filmmakers. The Black Rebels programme will also host a vibrant four-hour talk show, Minding the Gap, that will not only discuss the cultural divide, but also the rich influence of black culture on the arts. The talk show will feature guests including prominent director Charles Burnett of the L.A. Rebellion film movement.

Moonlight

In the 1970s, France’s most successful cinematic products were its socially-committed political thrillers. This French style of crime cinema has made a monumental comeback over the past decade. The films in the Criss-Cross programme depict France as a battlefield: the police and organised crime skirmish in every major city, serial killers are a metaphor for a society on the verge of dissolution and the bourgeois family has become a prison that requires constant negotiation between prisoners and guards. The programme will open with the world premiere of Éric Valette’s Le serpent aux mille coupures (France, 2017) adaptation of the eponymous novel by successful author-scriptwriter DOA that deals with racism and terrorism in France’s countryside. The programme will screen work by France’s new generation of genre directors from Mathieu Kassovitz (L'ordre et la morale; 2011) via Olivier Marchal (36 Quai des Orfèvres; 2004) to Fred Cavayé (Mea Culpa; 2014) and Julien Leclercq (Braqueurs; 2015). Criss-Cross will also lend a voice to more left-wing filmmakers with a slightly different take on these things, such as Olivier Masset-Depasse (Sanctuaire; 2015). These works by their very nature attempt to bridge the cultural and political divide through entertaining as well as enlightening narratives aimed at a general audience. A reminder of the fact that cinema is still capable of analysing – and sometimes even changing – the world we live in.

L'ordre et la morale; Le serpent aux mille coupures

Since 1917, the year in which the British government’s Balfour declaration laid the groundwork for what would become Israel, the Palestinian territories have been an example of major social and political divisions. A highlighted fault line on the globe. Picture Palestine presents a visual journey through Palestinian cinema that depicts the tragedies, dreams, absurdity and hope tied to the Palestinian plight. In spite of the lack of equipment and funds, Palestine has developed its own cinematic subculture since the 1960s. From militant 1970’s films and stories from the occupied territories to contemporary experimental short films and science fiction. The programme will feature historic and new material that combines aesthetics, media, politics and contemporary art both in and outside the occupied territories. The exceptional Perpetual Recurrences (Reem Shilleh, 2016) that provides a crash course in Palestine’s cinematic representation over the past forty years, will have its European premiere. Other films confirmed include the short film Like Twenty Impossibles by Annemarie Jacir (Palestine, 2003) and the creative documentary A Magical Substance Flows into Me (Palestine, 2015) by Jumana Manna.

Like Twenty Impossibles; A Magical Substance Flows into Me

An overview of the titles confirmed for the Perspectives section will be provided below.

Perspectives’ complete line-up as well as the guests, speakers and Parallax Views masterclasses will be announced in mid-January 2017.

Premieres

Generatie B, Joost Vandecasteele & Pieter Van Hees, Belgium, TV series, world premiere

HAMSTERs, Martine Doyen, Belgium, world premiere

Japanese Girls Never Die, Matsui Daigo, Japan, European premiere

Scumbag, Mars Roberge, USA, world premiere

Confirmed titles

Alipato: The Very Brief Life of an Ember, Khavn, Philippines

Maudite Poutine, Karl Lemieux, Canada

nirvanna the band the show, Matt Johnson & Jay McCarrol, Canada, TV series

Nocturama, Bertrand Bonello, France/Germany/Belgium

A Taste of Ink, Morgan Simon, France 

Premieres

Bayard & Me, Matt Wolf, USA, short film, international premiere

Identification, Mike Hoolboom, Canada/USA, world premiere

Improvement Association, Kevin Jerome Everson, USA, short film, world premiere

Kbela, Yasmin Thayná, Brazil, short film, European premiere

They Charge for the Sun, Terence Nance, USA, short film, international premiere

Confirmed titles

195 Lewis, Chanelle Aponte Pearson, USA, TV series

Baldwin's Nigger, Horace Ove, UK

Chlorophyl, Barry Jenkins, USA, short film

Fonko, Lars Lovén, Lamin Daniel Jadama & Göran Hugo Olsson, Germany/Sweden

The Golden Chain, Ezra Claytan Daniels & Adebukola Bodunrin, USA, short film

Hustlers Convention, Mike Todd, USA

Kindah, Ephraim Asili, USA/Jamaica, short film

Loving, Jeff Nichols, UK/USA

Medicine for Melancholy, Barry Jenkins, USA

Moonlight, Barry Jenkins, USA

Rebirth of a Nation, Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky, USA

Reluctantly Queer, Akosua Adoma Owusu, Ghana/USA, short film

Robot Bodies, Keith Piper, installation

Testament of Hope and Faith, Tirzo Martha, installation

Twilight City, Reece Auguiste, Canada 

Premieres

Le serpent aux milles coupures, Éric Valette, France, world premiere

Confirmed titles

36 Quai des Orfèvres, Olivier Marchal, France

Un affaire d'état, Éric Valette, France

Agents secrets, Frédéric Schoendoerffer, France/Italy/Spain

Braqueurs, Julien Leclercq, France

Mea Culpa, Fred Cavayé, France

L'ordre et la morale, Mathieu Kassovitz, France 

Premieres

Perpetual Recurrences, Reem Shilleh, Palestine, European premiere

Confirmed titles

20 Handshakes for Peace, Mahdi Fleifel, Germany/Palestine, short film

And Yet My Mask Is Powerful, Ruanne Abou-Rahme & Basel Abbas, Palestine, short film

A Boy, a Wall and a Donkey, Hany Abu-Assad, Netherlands, short film

Flower Seller, Ihab Jadallah, France/Palestine/UK, short film

In the Future They Ate from the Finest Porcelain, Larissa Sansour, Palestine/UK/Denmark/Qatar, short film

Introduction to the End of an Argument, Elia Suleiman & Jayce Salloum, Palestine

Like Twenty Impossibles, Annemarie Jacir, Palestina, short film

A Magical Substance flows into Me, Jumana Manna, Palestine/UK/Germany

One Minute, Dina Nasar, Jordan/Belgium, short film

The Pessoptimist, Mirna Bamieh, Palestine, short film