After making ten trips to TIFF, I thought I’d gotten pretty good at navigating a massive film program, but International Film Festival Rotterdam is something else entirely. If we count shorts individually, IFFR must be showing more than 400 films over the next ten days, and unlike Toronto, which is a marketplace as much as a festival, the vast majority of the films in Rotterdam’s program have exceedingly limited commercial opportunities. In other words, even with the proliferation of streaming video and other small-scale distribution channels, next week will likely be my only chance to see many of these films.
The following is my first pass at a schedule. I’m splitting my time between auteur films that I’m eager to see on a big screen (Hard to be a God, Jealousy, What now? Remind me), experimental shorts programs, the Nils Malmros retrospective, and an assortment of other things that caught my eye.
Friday, 1/24
- Sentimental Education (Júlio Bressane)
- Short Films I (Heinz Emigholz)
- Shorts: Drive with Care (Kevin Jerome Everson, Joel Wanek, et al.)
- Tonight and the People (Neil Baloufa)
- Shorts: Vertical Cinema
Saturday, 1/25
- Love is the Perfect Crime (Arnaud Larrieu, Jean-Marie Larrieu)
- Shorts: Silver (Eve Heller, Charlotte Pryce, et al.)
- Shorts: Epilogues (Phil Solomon, Andrew Lampert, Nicolas Provost, et al.)
- Eden (Elise DuRant)
- Hard to be a God (Alexei German)
- Shorts: Two Grand Pianos (Lav Diaz, Kobayashi Masahiro)
Sunday, 1/26
- How to Disappear Completely (Raya Martin)
- Mr X (Tessa Louise-Salomé)
- Shorts: Jodie Mack
- Shorts: Resonating Spaces (Robert Beavers, Nick Collins, John Price, et al.)
Monday, 1/27
- Letters from the South (Tsai Ming-liang, et al.)
- Shorts: Before We Forget (Ben Russell, Dora García)
- Oilfields Mines Hurricanes (Fabian Altenried)
- Shattering Shadow (Alain-Pascal Housiaux, Patrick Dechesne)
- Head and Hands: My Black Angel (Aïda Ruilova) – OR – Bella Vista (Vera Brunner-Sung)
Tuesday, 1/28
- Prophecy. Pasolini’s Africa (Gianni Borgna, Enrico Menduni)
- Jealousy (Philippe Garrel)
- What now? Remind me (Joaquim Pinto)
- Tree of Knowledge (Nils Malmros)
- Christmas by Your Friends & Lars Ole 5.C (Nils Malmros)
Wednesday, 1/29
- The Invisible Life (Vítor Gonçalves)
- Night Moves (Kelly Reichardt)
- Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch) – OR – Boys (Nils Malmros)
- Mouton (Marianne Pistone, Gilles Deroo)
- Beauty and the Beast (Nils Malmros)
Thursday, 1/30
- Århus by Night (Nils Milmros)