Dutch Films In Competition At IFFR
Feast*) by Tim Leyendekker is selected for the prestigious Tiger Competition and will celebrate its world premiere at Rotterdam. Feast is Tim Leyendekker's debut feature and is produced by seriousFilm. The film deconstructs a very controversial court case: in 2007 in Groningen, a city in The Netherlands, drugged guests were injected with HIV-positive blood during sex parties.
Two Dutch shorts will world premiere in the Ammodo Tiger Short Competition: There Is a Ghost in Me by Mateo Vega and The Hole's Journey by Ghita Skali.
Experimental short There Is a Ghost in Me is an attempt at mourning both personal and political futures that never arrived, organised around a broad interpretation of the trope of the ghost. It shows depersonalised figures, urban ruins, consuming fires and microscopic images of decaying bodily matter - set to a poem that shifts between Spanish and Dutch.
The Hole's Journey is a creative documentary that shows the hollow in the floor parquet in the director's office of a Dutch art institution. The hollow is cut, used as a prop and then send to an expropriated land in Morocco. The hollow's journey tickle power dynamics and agency in precise contexts with humor.
Furthermore, Rotterdam's Limelight section includes the world premieres of Dutch feature films Dead & Beautiful*) and Mitra*).
Dead & Beautiful by David Verbeek, produced by Lemming Film (NL) in co-production with House on Fire (TW), revolves around a group of nouveau-riche youngsters transformed into vampires after a wild night out. Bewildered at first, the group realises they feel even stronger, more attractive and more invincible than ever before. As they strain to make sense of their new situation, they lose themselves in a twisted game, taking their new vampire skills onto the streets (sales: Indie Sales).
Director Kaweh Modiri's sophomore feature Mitra, produced by BALDR Film, tells the story of Haleh, who, thirty-seven years after her daughter Mitra was killed in Iran, fled the country to start a new life in the Netherlands, eventually becoming a renowned academic. But her peaceful existence is shaken by the arrival of a woman she believes may be the traitor responsible for Mitra's death (international sales: Nine Film).
Also part of Limelight is Quo Vadis, Aida?*) by Jasmila Žbanić, which was previously selected for both Venice and Toronto and is co-produced by Amsterdam-based N279 Entertainment.
IFFR will be staged in two parts this year: the first, in a hybrid format, taking place Feb. 1-7, and the second, scheduled to be a physical event, June 2-6. The films selected for the June programme have not been announced yet.
*) supported by the Netherlands Film Fund
For more information:
International Film Festival Rotterdam: https://iffr.com/
Source: SEE NL