52nd International Film Festival Rotterdam

25 January - 5 February 2023

Rotterdam, 3 February 2023

International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) announces the competition winners for its 52nd edition. During the IFFR Awards Ceremony on Friday 3 February, the festival revealed its main competition winners in the Tiger and Big Screen competitions, as well as the winners of the FIPRESCI, NETPAC, and KNF Awards. 

IFFR 2023 Tiger Competition winners and IFFR Board of Directors

The festival’s platform for emerging film talent and IFFR’s flagship Tiger Competition presented a selection of 16 titles for the 2023 edition. The jury granted three prizes: the Tiger Award, worth €40,000, and two Special Jury Awards, worth €10,000 each.

The Tiger Competition Jury consisted of Sabrina Baracetti, Lav Diaz, Anisia Uzeyman, Christine Vachon and Alonso Díaz de la Vega.

They gave the Tiger Award to Le spectre de Boko Haram by Cyrielle Raingou (Cameroon, France), calling it “a story that centres on its filmmakers’ patient and honest gaze on the hovering presence of violence, seen through the eyes of innocents.” 

They gave a Special Jury Award to Munnel by Visakesa Chandrasekaram (Sri Lanka) describing it as “a great simple story about a young man caught between revolution and authoritarianism.”

They also gave a Special Jury Award to New Strains by Artemis Shaw and Prashanth Kamalakanthan (USA) which they described as “an original vision of life during the pandemic with the actors/directors putting themselves on the line to tell a harrowing and hilarious story of confinement.”

Still from the film Le spectre de Boko Haram

The Big Screen Competition presented a selection of 16 titles, bridging the gap between popular, classic and arthouse cinema. A jury of film fans granted the VPRO Big Screen Award. The winning film receives a guaranteed theatrical release in the Netherlands and will be broadcast on Dutch TV by VPRO and NPO. The award is accompanied by a €30,000 prize, shared equally between the filmmaker and the distributor who will release the film.

Endless Borders by Abbas Amini (Germany, Czech Republic, Iran) wins the VPRO Big Screen Award 2023. 

The jury stated: “The minimalist scenography and the effective use of silences enhance the focus on the unspoken dynamics within the community. The underlying current of tension, due to the harrowing situation in which the main characters find themselves, keeps you engaged throughout the whole film. We hope that the viewers will gain a deeper understanding of the complexity of making choices in difficult situations.”

The jury consisted of Heike Bluthardt, Wayne de Boer, Didi van der Burg, Annelies van den Houten and Han Nguyen. 

Still from the film Endless Borders

A jury of international film journalists from the Fédération Internationale de la Presse Cinématographique awarded the FIPRESCI Award to their standout Tiger Competition title. 

The FIPRESCI Award 2023 went to La Palisiada by Philip Sotnychenko (Ukraine).

The jury was Dunja Bialas, Monica Delgado, Francisco Ferreira, Serhii Ksaverov and Boaz van Luijk. 

Read the jury report here.

Still from the film La Palisiada

The NETPAC Award is awarded to the best Asian feature film by a jury from the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema.

Whispering Mountains by Jagath Manuwarna (Sri Lanka) wins the NETPAC Award 2023.

The jury was Roger Garcia, Bradley Lieuw and Italo Spinelli.

Read the jury report here.

Still from the film Whispering Mountains

A jury from the Kring van Nederlandse Filmjournalisten (Circle of Dutch Film Journalists) selected their highlight from the Ammodo Tiger Short Competition for the KNF award. 

The KNF Award 2023 went to: Aqueronte by Manuel Muñoz Rivas (Spain)

The jury was Basje Boer, Ard Vijn and Kaj van Zoelen.

Read the jury report here.

Still from the film Aqueronte

The winning films from the Ammodo Tiger Short Competition were announced at a dedicated ceremony on Sunday 29 January. They are: Natureza Humana by Mónica Lima (Portugal, Germany), Tito by Kervens Jimenez (Haiti) and Taylor McIntosh (Haiti) and What the Soil Remembers by José Cardoso (South Africa, Ecuador). The three titles receive equal Ammodo Tiger Short Awards, each worth €5,000.

Read more here.

Stills from the films Natureza Humana, Titio, What the Soil Remembers

The fourth annual Robby Müller Award was received by Hélène Louvart. The Robby Müller Award honours an ‘image maker’ (director of photography, filmmaker or visual artist), in the spirit of the late Dutch cinematographer Robby Müller. The Award is a collaboration between IFFR, the Netherlands Society of Cinematographers (NSC) and Andrea Müller-Schirmer, Robby Müller’s wife.

Hélène Louvart received the Robby Müller Award 2023.

Read more here.

Hélène Louvart during her IFFR Talk

The Audience Award and the IFFR Youth Jury Award will be announced on Sunday with the festival’s close.