Totes Adorbs ♥ Hurricane by Miss Revolutionary Idol Berserker

47st International Film Festival Rotterdam

24 January- 4 February 2018

Rotterdam, 19 December 2017

Maximalism to the max!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) presents the first line-up of Maximum Overdrive, its theme programme celebrating the renaissance of delirious 90s aesthetics in today’s astonishing array of pop-culture mash-ups. The programme is a mix of contemporary feature films, short films, performances, installations and most importantly: everything in between. Among it all the world premiere of the overwhelming performance piece Totes Adorbs ♥ Hurricane by Japanese group Miss Revolutionary Idol Berserker.

The group was founded by former underground pop idol Toco Nikaido. Totes Adorbs ♥ Hurricane is both an homage to and a critique of the Japanese culture of super fandom and the obsessive world of J-Pop, in which crazed fans unashamedly idolise their heroes. 20 performers sing and dance with never-subsiding intensity, delivering 40 minutes of bombastic, perfectly choreographed pop-cultural chaos – a confetti and prop-filled storm that shatters the boundary between audience and performers.

Of course Maximum Overdrive also boasts several world premieres in film, such as Canadian The Goose by Mike Maryniuk, in which a mute man-child goes on a psychedelic journey to escape small-town bravado and find his voice; and the Swedish mid-length film Swedish Candy, Some Violence and a Bit of Cat by Ester Martin Bergsmark, a violent yet cute candy-filled 40-minute rollercoaster.

Clockwise: Night Is Short, Walk On Girl; The Goose; The Eyeslicer; Snowy Bing Bongs Across the North Star Combat Zone

IFFR also hosts a ten-episode marathon screening of the brain-melting independent series The Eyeslicer, which brings together a new generation of alternative American filmmakers. One-hour episodes play like kaleidoscopic mixtapes form a liquid, uninterrupted whole. Throughout the festival you are welcome to immerse yourself in an installation version of The Eyeslicer at Het Nieuwe Instituut, in a special 90s-themed hangout with arcades, bean bag chairs, slouchy couches, graffiti, board games and VHS tapes lying all over the place. On 1 February 2018, a special edition of Thursday Night Live! will be organised in Maximum Overdrive style, in collaboration with Het Nieuwe Instituut and the HipHopHuis.

And there are still more frenetic mind-benders in Maximum Overdrive. The mid-length film Snowy Bing Bongs Across the North Star Combat Zone by Rachel Wolther and Alex H. Fischer can be described as part psychotropic performance art spectacle, part absurdist sketch show; Team Hurricane by Danish filmmaker Annika Berg is a punk chick flick about radical girls in a regular world; and Night Is Short, Walk On Girl by Japanese filmmaker Yuasa Masaaki is a hallucinatory anime quest for a cherished book.

Totes Adorbs ♥ Hurricane is made possible by Rotterdam Partners and the city of Rotterdam. Tickets are available here.

More titles in the Maximum Overdrive programme will be announced at the beginning of January.