IFFR 2025: Competition Lineups Announced

IFF Rotterdam today revealed the lineup of films selected across the Tiger, Big Screen and Tiger Short competitions at the festival’s upcoming 54th edition. At the heart of the festival, the Tiger Competition showcases emerging voices from across the globe, with 14 world premieres exploring personal stories and profound connections to history, identity, and place—spanning Montenegro to Malaysia and Congo to India. The 14 titles in the Big Screen Competition bridge the gap between arthouse and popular cinema through genre-blurring stories of rebellion, tradition and expression, covering territories from Lithuania to Japan and the Netherlands to Argentina. The 20 titles in the Tiger Short Competition represent the most exciting and refreshing film art of today, featuring a Slovenian climate sci-fi, a re-appropriation of Myanmarese government broadcasts, and a Georgian photomontage.

Additionally, the first names in IFFR’s 2025 Talks lineup are also confirmed. Leading the programme are Cate Blanchett and Guy Maddin, who, following their recent collaboration on Rumours, will come together for an expansive dialogue about creative collaboration, the role of film festivals, and the enduring power of the short film form. IFFR will also welcome Lol Crawley to discuss his acclaimed cinematography, and Alex Ross Perry will talk about his documentary Videoheaven, part of a Focus programme celebrating the community spirit of VHS culture. As previously announced, the festival will open with Fabula, a compelling dark comedy from the award-winning Dutch director and screenwriter Michiel ten Horn, and close with the ambitious historical epic This City Is a Battlefield from Indonesian filmmaker Mouly Surya, which was also supported by IFFR’s Hubert Bals Fund.

Source: IFFR

Images: BFI

Flow (Gints Zilbalodis, 2024)

With roots dating back to the 1930s, Latvian animation has greatly evolved in the decades since, employing a wide range of techniques and styles that reflect the country's cultural heritage.  The earliest examples of Latvian animation saw several pioneers, including woodcut artist Oļģerts Ābelīte and newspaper cartoonist Ernests Rirdāns, experimenting with various forms of storytelling.  Today, Latvian animators generally subscribe to the auteur theory, in which filmmakers are recognised for their unique voices and signatures; one such director is Gints Zilbalodis, who made his feature debut with 2019's Away.

Zilbalodis' new film Flow, which opens in Dutch cinemas on Boxing Day, marks a significant milestone in animated cinema—Latvian or otherwise.  Penned by the director alongside producer Matīss Kaža, this wordless film follows the journey of a saucer-eyed cat who, after a cataclysmic flood, finds itself on a boat with a range of other animals—including a lemur, a capybara and a golden retriever.  Together, the group must navigate this watery, hostile environment, a challenge that forces them to learn to work as a team.  This setup allows Zilbalodis plenty of scope to explore themes such as survival, friendship and adaptation.

This collaborative spirit is reflected in the production of the pan-European Flow, which was made with support from various funding bodies, with the film's audio post-production work being completed in Belgium.  Flow's great success at the 2024 Annecy International Animation Film Festival, where it won the Jury, Audience, Best Original Music and Gan Foundation awards, is a marker of its affecting story and top-drawer animation.  The film crystallises some of life's most essential elements, and its ability to convey complex emotions without relying on sentimentality—or even dialogue—is wholly admirable.

As the film limbers up for its theatrical release in the Netherlands, it provides a reminder that animation is not confined to children's entertainment but is rather an exceptionally powerful medium for storytelling, one that can move people of all ages; Flow's universality is enhanced by the complete absence of a language barrier.  At no point does the film explicitly attribute its subject matter to climate change—a point that is self-evident—which is testament to its sophistication.  Flow's narrative and emotional depth set it apart from every other animated film released this year; do not miss this instant classic.

Darren Arnold

Images: BFI / Charades

Small Hours of the Night (Daniel Hui, 2024)

Daniel Hui's fourth feature Small Hours of the Night—which screened at the most recent edition of the London Film Festival—received its world premiere at this year's International Film Festival Rotterdam, where it played in the Harbour strand alongside the likes of Michael Gitlin's The Night Visitors, NZ coming-of-age tale (and festival opener) Head South, Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo's horror The Soul Eater, and Damien Hauser's After the Long Rains.  The last of these films joined the 16mm-shot Small Hours of the Night at this year's LFF, but while the IFFR saw these two titles as stablemates (in the admittedly wide-ranging Harbour), the LFF placed the films in separate strands, with After the Long Rains assigned to Journey and Small Hours of the Night occupying a berth in Experimenta.

Inspired by the tombstone trial of Tan Chay Wa, Hui's film is a 60s-set two-hander that pits Irfan Kasban's nameless interrogator against Vicki Yang's Vicki.  As per the title, much of Small Hours of the Night appears to take place over the course of one long, dark night as the official quizzes his prisoner on various incidents, some of which are actually from the future.  For Small Hours of the Night is a film in which time is slippery, à la the work of Alain Resnais, and in one sequence—as impressive as it is eerie—Vicki watches a clock face on which the minutes tick by as normal, yet the date changes every few seconds.  The interrogator seems not entirely unsympathetic towards Vicki—think O'Brien's relationship with Winston in Orwell's 1984 (a tale set just one year on from Tan's trial).  

Small Hours of the Night is perhaps one of the more accessible examples of experimental cinema, but it's still a demanding film, one that requires much patience and attention.  While both of the actors put in strong performances, plenty is asked of them; the story largely unfolds in a single location, and Hui's dialogue isn't always able to keep the odd lull at bay.  The film invites us to read around what it presents; for example, it's fairly clear that Yang is playing a composite character, but what isn't obvious is that several figures from the tombstone trial have been incorporated into this persona.  Despite its aura of disconnect and frequent temporal shifts, those who stay the course will be rewarded by this haunting film, whose cathartic conclusion proves that even the darkest night is followed by dawn.  

Darren Arnold

Images: BFI