Night Is Short, Walk On Girl by Yuasa Masaaki

51st International Film Festival Rotterdam

26 January – 6 February 2022

Rotterdam, 8 December 2021

Short & Mid-length titles and Robby Müller Award recipient also announced

International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) announces three focus programmes for its 51st edition dedicated to distinguished filmmakers Amanda Kramer, Qiu Jiongjiong and Yuasa Masaaki. The festival also reveals the explorative Short & Mid-length Film programme, including Short Profiles on visual artist Stanya Kahn and Bay Area art scene mainstay tooth. Also revealed: visionary Thai cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom to receive the third annual Robby Müller Award and the jury for the Ammodo Tiger Short Competition.

IFFR 2022 will take place from 26 January to 6 February in Rotterdam. The festival continues to place paramount importance on the health and safety of all visitors and aligns with the guidance of the Netherlands’ Institute for Public Health and Environment (the RIVM).

Festival director Vanja Kaludjercic: “We are closely monitoring the developments in the Netherlands and already anticipate that the circumstances as well as the governmental restrictions put in place to combat the current wave of Covid-19 will impact the shape of IFFR 2022. How exactly our festival will be adapted is something which our entire team is working on right now and we will be able to share more at our press conference on Friday 7 January. At this stage, we confirm IFFR Pro Days events CineMart and Rotterdam Lab will take place online. In spite of these continuous challenges, we carry on adapting an exciting programme for our film loving community.”

IFFR 2022 presents three retrospective programmes, dedicated to genre-defying filmmakers whose distinguished careers have left their mark on global cinema. The Focus: Amanda Kramer programme features eight film works from the American filmmaker, musician and author known for films featuring wild aesthetics and bold performances that grapple with the unreality of life. IFFR will mark the world premiere of two feature films: In Please Baby Please, which stars Andrea Riseborough, Harry Melling and Demi Moore, a 1950s bohemian couple who finds their sexuality and senses awakened after they encounter a reckless street gang. Give Me Pity! presents a young performer giving the show of her life in a VHS-style TV-special disco dream.

Bark, Amanda Kramer, 2016, United States

Give Me Pity!, Amanda Kramer, 2022, United States, world premiere

Intervene, Amanda Kramer, 2018, United States, European premiere

Ladyworld, Amanda Kramer, 2018, United States

Paris Window, Amanda Kramer, 2018, United States, European premiere

Please Baby Please, Amanda Kramer, 2022, United States, world premiere

Requests, Amanda Kramer, 2017, United States, international premiere

Sin Ultra, Amanda Kramer, 2019, United States

Film stills: Ladyworld and Give Me Pity!

Focus: Qiu Jiongjiong presents one of China’s most innovative artists and filmmakers with a series of films and an exhibition. Intimate memory and national history resonate in Qiu’s baroque rhapsodies of music and design. Six of his films are presented, including his latest masterwork A New Old Play. Its overview of China from the 1930s to the 1980s, filtered through the semi-fictionalised life of a Sichuan opera star, won the Special Jury Prize at the 74th Locarno Film Festival; the film was supported in development by IFFR’s Hubert Bals Fund. The accompanying exhibition Qiu Jiongjiong: A Play with Paintings, Drawings and Manuscripts displays different stages of Qiu’s creative process.

Madame, Qiu Jiongjiong, 2010, China, European premiere

The Moon Palace, Qiu Jiongjiong, 2007, China, international premiere

My Mother’s Rhapsody, Qiu Jiongjiong, 2011, China

A New Old Play, Qiu Jiongjiong, 2021, China

Ode to Joy, Qiu Jiongjiong, 2008, China

Portrait of Mr. Huang, Qiu Jiongjiong, 2009, China

Film still: A New Old Play

Focus: Yuasa Masaaki presents a selection of films and episodic series by the critically acclaimed Japanese animator and filmmaker. Alongside a selection of his characteristic wild free-form works, IFFR 2022 will show Yuasa’s charming fairytale Ride Your Wave and his latest work INU-OH– an anime rock opera about friendship and the power of sincere art, that premiered at Venice Film Festival in 2021.

INU-OH, Yuasa Masaaki, 2021, Japan/China

Night Is Short, Walk On Girl, Yuasa Masaaki, 2017, Japan

Ride Your Wave, Yuasa Masaaki, 2019, Japan

Read more on the focus programmes here

Thai cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom will receive the third Robby Müller Award. Awarded in collaboration with the Netherlands Society of Cinematographers (NSC) and Andrea Müller-Schirmer, Robby Müller’s wife, the award annually honours an outstanding ‘image maker’ in the spirit of the late Dutch cinematographer. Mukdeeprom is renowned for collaborating with Apichatpong Weerasethakul, whose latest film Memoria will screen at IFFR. He also worked with celebrated international filmmakers such as Miguel Gomes (Arabian Nights) and Luca Guadagnino (Call Me by Your Name), amongst others.

The Short & Mid-length Film programme offers a unique showcase of films under 63 minutes with a focus on Artists’ Moving Image, Stories and Mid-length titles. The Artists’ Moving Image section includes the world premiere of The Worm by British artist Ed Atkins. The Stories section presents Swedish filmmaker Philip Ullman’s What Dying Feels Like. The programme also confirms Mid-length films, including the world premieres of Spiegl by Dutch filmmaker Vita Soul Wilmering and How to Improve the World by Vietnamese filmmaker Nguyen Trinh Thi.

Clockwise: The Worm, How to Improve the World, What Dying Feels Like, Spiegl

The selection also features two Short Profiles, dedicated to Stanya Kahn and tooth. Six works by the widely-exhibited American interdisciplinary artist and 2012 Guggenheim Fellow are presented in Short Profile: Stanya Kahn, including 2021’s So Low You Can’t Get Over It, in which animated paintings manifest uncertainty. Short Profile: tooth presents a mainstay in the San Francisco experimental art scene whose work has rarely been seen outside of the Bay Area enclave and is often performance-based extended cinema with multiple projectors and live accompanying scores. IFFR presents a rare profile of their work, including two 2021 productions, katabasis and the 2x16mm performance work infinite column.

Read more on the Short & Mid-length Film selection here

IFFR confirms the jury for the Ammodo Tiger Short Competition will consist of London-based scholar and critic Erika Balsom, film and video artist Stanya Kahn, and filmmaker, artist and head of the master’s programme at the Netherlands Film Academy Nduka Mntambo. The jury will determine which three titles will receive three equal Ammodo Tiger Short Awards, each worth €5,000.

IFFR Pro Days events CineMart and Rotterdam Lab will now take place online, for which a dedicated announcement will be published on 16 December. This will include details regarding services and accreditation for industry guests at IFFR 2022, as well as the complete CineMart selection. The full IFFR 2022 programme will be announced during our press conference, now scheduled to take place on 7 January 2022.

Click here to access the film stills