The International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) has revealed the competition line-ups for its 55th edition, running from January 29-February 8 next year. Festival director Vanja Kaludjercic hosted a live-streamed press conference this morning, where she unveiled and gave short descriptions for the 12 films each making up the Tiger and Big Screen competition slates.

The international spread of the Tiger Competition is immediately noteworthy. New Georgian cinema at A-list festivals often stands out, and the Caucasus nation is represented by Supporting Role, the new film by Ana Urushadze after her Locarno and Sarajevo winner Scary Mother [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Ana Urushadze
scheda film]. A meaty character study running 139 minutes, the film follows a faded Georgian film star (Dato Bakhtadze, in a self-reflexive role) granted a second chance after he auditions for a debut feature from an up-and-coming female director. The European contingent is rounded off by A Messy Tribute to Motherly Love by British filmmaker Dan Geesin, A Fading Man by Germany’s Welf Reinhart and La belle année by Sweden’s Angelica Ruffier, as well as co-productions Variations on a Theme by Jason Jacobs and Devon Delmar and Unerasable!, a film signed by a filmmaker under the pseudonym Socrates Saint-Wulfstan Drakos.

The section boasts a large presence of films from the Global South, and independent works sitting alongside co-productions covering many borders, as well as a US indie not fitting the market-ready Sundance mould, a genre with a great history at Rotterdam. Charlotte Glynn’s The Gymnast takes up the mantle this year, a 1993-set film starring newcomer Britney Wheeler as a young gymnast aiming to compete in the Olympics.

This year’s jury for the Tiger Award includes Iranian actress Soheila Golestani, Brazilian director Marcelo Gomes, Greek-French actress and director Ariane Labed, BFI London Film Festival director Kristy Matheson and Croatian author and critic Jurica Pavičić.

The Big Screen Competition, focusing on more commercially appealing titles, features talent in front and behind the camera already well-known to festival audiences. Itonje Søimer Guttormsen’s Butterfly stars Renate Reinsve as one of two half-sisters who grow up as the only resident children at an all-inclusive resort on Gran Canaria; 25 years later, they reunite on the island following the death of their mother. Søimer Guttormsen’s previous feature Gritt [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Itonje Søimer Guttormsen
scheda film] also launched at Rotterdam in 2021, inaugurating a successful festival run. Projecto Global, the new film by Portugal’s Ivo M Ferreira (Letters from War [+leggi anche:
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Q&A: Ivo M. Ferreira
scheda film]), made the cut, as well as the first directorial effort by actress Marijana Janković, Home, and titles from the UK’s Sean Dunn (The Fall of Sir Douglas Weatherford), Poland’s Łukasz Ronduda (Tell Me What You Feel), Belgium’s Volkan Üce (2m²) and Algeria’s Malek Bensmail (The Arab).

The section is rounded off by films from South America and Asia, including Isabel Sandoval’s “romantic noir” Moonglow, her follow-up to Lingua Franca, in which the Filipina director herself stars as a police officer in 1970’s Manila, who when faced with the corruption around her, decides to commit a heist. The section will be judged by Sara Ishaq, Loes Luca, Chris Oosterom, Mila Schlingemann and Jan-Willem van Ewijk.

The opening night film is the innovative literary adaptation Providence and the Guitar by Portugal’s João Nicolau (Technoboss [+leggi anche:
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intervista: João Nicolau
scheda film]); Rémi Bezançon’s crime comedy Bazaar takes the closing night slot. Kaludjercic’s announcement also highlighted the Displacement Film Fund, which the festival has been launching with some fanfare this past year, in collaboration with UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Cate Blanchett. Mohammad Rasoulof, Mo Harawe and Maryna Er Gorbach are among the first directors to have shorts funded by the programme.

The competition titles announced:

Tiger Competition

A Messy Tribute to Motherly Love - Dan Geesin (Netherlands/Germany/Belgium)
The Gymnast - Charlotte Glynn (USA)
Variations on a Theme - Jason Jacobs & Devon Delmar (South Africa/Netherlands/Qatar)
O profeta - Ique Langa (Mozambique/South Africa/Qatar)
Yellow Cake - Tiago Melo (Brazil)
Roid - Mejbaur Rahman Sumon (Bangladesh)
A Fading Man - Welf Reinhart (Germany)
La belle année - Angelica Ruffier (Sweden/Norway)
Unerasable! - Socrates Saint-Wulfstan Drakos (Belgium/Thailand/Sweden)
My Semba - Hugo Salvaterra (Angola)
Nangong Cheng - Shao Pan (China)
Supporting Role - Ana Urushadze (Georgia/Estonia/Turkey/Switzerland/USA)

Big Screen Competition

The Arab - Malek Bensmail (Algeria/France/Switzerland/UAE/Belgium)
Talking to a Stranger - Adrián García Bogliano (Mexico)
The Fall of Sir Douglas Weatherford - Sean Dunn (UK)
Projecto Global - Ivo M. Ferreira (Portugal/Luxembourg)
Home - Marijana Janković (Denmark/Serbia)
Tell Me What You Feel - Łukasz Ronduda (Poland)
Moonglow - Isabel Sandoval (Philippines/Taiwan/Japan)
Master - Rezwan Shahriar Sumit (Bangladesh)
Butterfly - Itonje Søimer Guttormsen (Norway/Sweden/UK/Germany)
2m² - Volkan Üce (Belgium/Germany/Turkey)
Now I Met Her - Xiao Luxi (China)
Cyclone - Philip Yung (Hong Kong)