Part of the IFFR 2020 trailer. Check out the full trailer here.

49th International Film Festival Rotterdam

22 January – 2 February 2020

Rotterdam, 4 December 2019

For the 49th edition, the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) campaign plays with the most basic elements that make up film. A set of primary colours, a flicker of light meeting darkness, a chemical drip on a strip of film – elements that, when combined with talented determination, can create infinite forms of cinematic experience.

Festival Director Bero Beyer: “IFFR’s 2020 campaign forms the last chapter in a series that spanned four years. First we introduced Planet IFFR as a place of connection. Then we met its inhabitants: humans with the gift of abstract thought. And last year we explored their wide-ranging emotions (‘feel IFFR’). This year, we embrace the act of artistic cinematic expression itself: capturing light and darkness, balancing stillness and movement, using pixels and gradients to create form, story and meaning. We marvel at how these basic elements eventually result in a seemingly infinite diversity of expression.”

The campaign was designed by Rotterdam-based agency 75B, the creators of the iconic IFFR logo in 2009.

Festival poster images IFFR 2020 campaign

The campaign story also extends to a number of online and offline channels that IFFR develops to engage its audiences and to communicate its extensive programme. The anticipated outdoor campaign will launch at the end of this year, and the official IFFR 2020 posters are available to pre-order from the IFFR shop, where festival merchandise will follow. 

On IFFR.com, the festival invites audiences to interact with the lineup and in a number of ways – users can save personal favourites on their account, discover new films in a fun way with the IFFR Film Finder tool (available from 18 December, and can also be found in the IFFR app) and explore the programme visually using IFFR Your Tab, a browser extension for Chrome and Firefox. 

Online and offline efforts around the campaign and film programme engage and guide audiences in the run-up to the 49th edition of IFFR, which takes place from 22 January to 2 February 2020.