International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) will celebrate the careers of four radical filmmakers and visual artists at its 52nd edition. Hungarian filmmaker Judit Elek, Japanese animator Yuasa Masaaki, American interdisciplinary artist Stanya Kahn and the long-running Bay Area expanded cinema project arc will all be placed in the spotlight with Focus programmes and Talks at IFFR 2023. The first titles in Harbour, the festival’s largest and broadest programme, are also announced.
Festival director Vanja Kaludjercic: “Our Focus programmes are a chance for us to celebrate the work of filmmakers whose remarkable careers haven’t always been given the attention they deserve. As always we’re committed to looking into unlikely spheres, be it rural documentaries from 1970s People’s Hungary, performance-based expanded cinema or wild free-form Japanese anime. The unexpected always shines brightly at IFFR.”
IFFR announces the world premieres of three titles in its newest programme Harbour. Dutch visual artist and musician Dick Verdult embraces excess and bad taste in his darkly comedic take on the super-wealthy, Als uw gat maar lacht. Reality, hallucination, fantasy and terror blur in Alien Food by Italian filmmaker Giorgio Cugno, who plays his own lead character in a stark window into psychosis. An ex-special forces soldier will stop at nothing to protect his daughter in the latest thriller from John Swab, Little Dixie.
Acclaimed Japanese director Kawase Naomi was commissioned to make an official film for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. From 5,000 hours of footage, Kawase produced an extraordinary documentary, divided into two sides. Official Film of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 Side B has its international premiere at IFFR, turning its attention to the event organisers, workers, politicians and protestors. Also having its international premiere in Harbour is Masoud Kimiai’s Killing a Traitor, set against the turbulent streets of 1950s Iran.
Further titles in the Harbour programme will be unveiled in the coming weeks.
IFFR is honoured to present a vast retrospective of Hungarian filmmaker and writer Judit Elek, whose career deserves its long-awaited moment in the spotlight. Elek’s work often touches on issues of political oppression and Jewishness, varying between compassion, tenderness and fury. The programme includes the harsh and unsparing look at a dying relationship Maybe Tomorrow (1980), the sarcastic historical allegory Martinovics (1981) and the Holocaust anchored documentary portrait Elie Wiesel Goes Home (1996). Elek will be present to launch and sign copies of a publication on her life and career, specially commissioned by IFFR.
A selection of films and episodic series make up a Focus programme on the critically acclaimed Japanese animator and filmmaker Yuasa Masaaki, who will also be in Rotterdam for an IFFR Talk. Alongside a selection of his characteristic wild free-form works, IFFR 2023 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.
A Focus programme is dedicated to the widely-exhibited American interdisciplinary artist and 2012 Guggenheim Fellow Stanya Kahn, featuring the international premiere of So Low You Can’t Get Over It (2022) in which animated paintings manifest uncertainty. She often collaborates with performers, visual artists and choreographers – such as with the artist Llyn Foulkes on Happy Song for You (2011). Kahn will discuss her work at an IFFR Talk.
IFFR presents a rare profile of the single channel and performance-based expanded cinema project arc, with many works including multiple projectors and live accompanying scores. arc is the creation of San Francisco experimental art scene mainstay tooth, who also runs the Black Hole Cinematheque and the celluloid-only film festival Light Field, and will be present for an IFFR Talk.
Read more about the Focus programmes here.
IFFR Talks are an opportunity to see the craft of filmmaking from a unique and masterly vantage point – offering new perspectives and insights from selected filmmakers and visual artists. The full lineup of all the IFFR Talks will be confirmed following the IFFR 2023 Press Conference on December 19.
First confirmed lineup:
IFFR 2023 Full program can be found here.
—
Deed News website:
http://www.deed.news/
Deed News publication on Google News:
http://news.google.com/publications/CAAqBwgKMPPbsQswgPfIAw/
Deed News on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/DeedNews
Deed News on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/DeedNewsAgency
Deed News company page on LinkedIn:
http://www.linkedin.com/company/deed-news
Deed News on Instagram:
http://www.instagram.com/deed.news/
Deed News channel on Vimeo:
http://vimeo.com/channels/filmfestivalnews/
Deed News channel on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/@deednews
This post was last modified on November 11, 2022 9:39 pm
Earlier this evening, the IDFA Forum Awards were announced in Felix Meritis. Kani Lapuerta's project Niñxs won the IDFA Forum Award for Best Pitch, Alison O'Daniel's The Tuba Thieves took home the IDFA Forum Award for…
BUFF Studios releases the trailer of ABSOLUTELY MARVELLOUS, the directorial debut of Emmanuel Anyiam-Osigwe, the award-winning founder and former director of the British Urban Film Festival, ahead of UK premiere.
First Films is a new film festival dedicated to introducing Sydney audiences to daring debut works from emerging directors. Programmed by film curator Paul Struthers, FIRST FILMS aims to challenge,…
FANMI by Co-directors Sandrine Brodeur-Desrosiers and Carmine Pierre-Dufour has qualified to be considered for the 2023 Oscars®.
The British Urban Film Festival has unveiled the full list of nominations for the BUFF Awards 2022.
ANIMAL by Cyril Dion (France) has won this year's Young Audience Award 2022! The winner has been revealed during the online award ceremony on Sunday evening in Erfurt (Germany), hosted…
Winterthur International Short Film Festival (Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur), which is the Switzerland's most significant short film festival, has revealed the full list of award winners for 2022.
Director Mat Sheldon’s BAFTA-qualified short film THE ELECTRICITY IN ME is a visceral and intimate portrait of his Canadian birth mother, whom he never directly knew as she gave him…
Nuhash Humayun's multi-OSCAR®-qualified film MOSHARI has received Vimeo Staff Pick. MOSHARI was awarded two Oscar®-qualifying awards at Atlanta Film Festival and Short Shorts & Asia, in addition to winning the…
Leave a Reply