Impermanence by Zeng Zeng

47st International Film Festival Rotterdam

24 January- 4 February 2018

Rotterdam, 5 January 2018

International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) announces all the titles selected for its Bright Future Main Programme dedicated to young, emerging film talent. The 48 feature films offer a wide variety of subject matter and origin, seen through the eyes of daring filmmakers with a fresh, clear style and vision. Within this line-up, all feature-length film debuts that are a world or international premiere in Rotterdam are eligible for the Bright Future Award, worth €10,000.

Many of them are world premieres. In Impermanence by young Chinese filmmaker Zeng Zeng, three fascinating lost souls – a monk, an innkeeper and a father who has lost his son – are brought together by fate. The German film Ella und Nell by Aline Chukwuedo follows two Berlin women on a hike in the woods. August at Akiko’s is Christopher Makoto Yogi’s dreamy debut about a musician who returns to Hawaii trying to find his ‘ha’`– the spirit that links him to his birthplace.

Other nominated world premieres include the harrowing Counting Tiles by Lebanese filmmaker Cynthia Choucair, following a group of clowns who set off for the island of Lesbos to deliver laughter to refugees; The Heart by Swedish filmmaker Fanni Metelius about an invisible conflict stirring between the sheets of two lovers (“If you love me then fuck me!”); and the Egyptian film Poisonous Roses by Ahmed Fawzi Saleh, in which a young man dreams of a life beyond his tannery job in the slums. Also in competition: Argentinian filmmaker Gustavo Biazzi’s charming and melancholy coming-of-ager Los vagos.

Clockwise: Ella und Nell, August at Akiko's, The Heart, Permanent Green Light

Other world premieres in the Bright Future Main Programme include YEAH by Japanese filmmaker Suzuki Yohei; Jonaki by celebrated Indian filmmaker 

Aditya Vikram Sengupta, whose Labour of Love screened at IFFR 2015; 

Permanent Green Light by Dennis Cooper and Zac Farley, about a teenager obsessed with the idea of blowing himself up in public; and La estrella errante by Spanish filmmaker Alberto Gracia about the wandering front man of a Galician underground punk band. Gracia won the FIPRESCI Award with his feature debut 

The Fifth Gospel of Kaspar Hauser at IFFR 2013.

Clockwise: Los Vagos, YEAH, La estrella errante, Counting Tiles

This year’s jury for the Bright Future Award consists of the Artistic Director of Netia Off Camera Ania Trzebiatowska, Rotterdam filmmaker and editor Nathalie Alonse Casale and Grasshopper Films distributor Ryan Krivoshey from New York. The award will be presented during the awards ceremony on Friday 2 February.

For all new titles in the Bright Future Main Programme, including those nominated for the Bright Future Award, click here. For an overview of previously announced titles click here.