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IFFR 2016

IFFR: What’s in store for the upcoming edition

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- UPDATE: The Dutch festival is organising its programme around four new sections, and is reinforcing cooperation with public broadcaster VPRO for the Big Screen Award. IFFR Live unveils first titles

IFFR: What’s in store for the upcoming edition

UPDATE: The second edition of IFFR Live will offer a series of screenings of five films during the gathering, to be broadcast simultaneously to cinemas and VoD platforms across Europe. The first films selected are Leyla Bouzid's As I Open My Eyes [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Leyla Bouzid
film profile
]
, Antoine Cuypers' Prejudice [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Antoine Cuypers
film profile
]
and Paula Ortiz's The Bride [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Paula Ortiz
film profile
]
— and the remaining two titles will be announced shortly.

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The 45th edition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) will kick off in two months’ time, and the Netherlands’ most highly renowned film showcase is slowly beginning to unveil what’s in store for next year.

Firstly, the organisers have announced that the programme will be grouped into four new sections: Bright Future (incorporating the festival's flagship Hivos Tiger Awards Competition), Voices (made up of new works by mostly established filmmakers with distinctive voices), Deep Focus (which provides a context for interpreting historical works, enabling audiences to rediscover classics, for instance) and Perspectives (the Critics’ Choice, where film journalists select movies they consider essential at IFFR, and provide their own context for and criticism of these titles, is part of this section).

Furthermore, it has also been announced that IFFR and public broadcaster VPRO are intensifying their cooperation via the Big Screen Award, which is worth a total of €30,000. This consists of advertising costs for a theatrical release, the sale of the TV rights to NPO (the Dutch public broadcasting system) and an amount for the filmmaker.

More specifically, this competition will consist of a selection of eight films shown as international premieres at IFFR, set to be judged by a jury made up of audience members, who will decide which movie will be presented to wider audiences. The winner will get theatrical distribution in the Netherlands and will be acquired by NPO for broadcast on VPRO. There is also a cash prize for the winning director.

According to IFFR festival director Bero Beyer, "The Big Screen Award was created two years ago from the desire on the part of IFFR to increase the audience's voice in relation to a festival film, while at the same time providing an opportunity to present the movie to a wider audience outside of the festival. The cooperation with VPRO and NPO makes this possible on several levels: concrete, financial, but most assuredly also practical. This partnership is guaranteed to help the winning film to find a wider audience. We are therefore proud to rename this award the VPRO Big Screen Award."

The upcoming IFFR will unspool between 27 January and 7 February 2016. 

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