Rotterdam Movie Pageant Unveils 2023 Competitors – The Hollywood Reporter

The International Movie Pageant Rotterdam (IFFR) on Monday unveiled its full line for its 2023 occasion.

After two all-virtual festivals, the IFFR is lastly returning in-person fest, working January 25-February 5 within the Dutch port metropolis. Rotterdam is without doubt one of the final main festivals to return post-pandemic, its 2022 occasion having been pressured to go online-only on the final minute when Dutch authorities imposed a brand new lockdown in December final 12 months, simply weeks earlier than the IFFR kicked off.

The ensuing income shortfall —closed theatres equals zero ticket gross sales —meant IFFR needed to slash its price range, reducing 15 p.c of its workers and restructuring.

Pageant director Vanja Kaludjercic, who runs the IFFR along with managing director Marjan van der Haar, advised The Hollywood Reporter the cuts had been made “as a way to keep away from having to make huge adjustments to the pageant.” The 2023 version, nonetheless, will likely be considerably smaller than the pre-pandemic variations, with round 20 p.c fewer movies.

“However we nonetheless have 430 movies in this system, together with shorts, with greater than 200 world premieres,” notes Kaludjercic, “so we’re nonetheless very huge.”

The 2023 IFFR will open with the world premiere of Munch, an experimental biopic of tortured Norwegian painter Edvard Munch —he of the enduring “The Scream” —from self-taught filmmaker Henrik Martin Dahlsbakken (Returning House, Possession). The characteristic, produced by The Movie Firm with backing by Scandinavian streamer Viaplay and regional fund Filminvest, tells Munch’s story in 4 interlocking chapters, every written by a distinct screenwriter —Fredrik Høyer, Mattis Herman Nyquist, Gine Cornelia Pedersen and Eivind Sæther—and every that includes a distinct actor enjoying Munch at ages 21 (Alfred Ekker Strande), 30 (Mattis Herman Nyquist), 45 (Ola G. Furuseth) and 80 (Anne Krigsvoll).

All India Rank, a coming-of-age story from director Varun Grover, will shut the 2023 IFFR on February 5.

The IFFR’s principal Tiger Competitors line-up will contains Thiiird, a thriller drama out of Lebanon from award-winning documentarian Karim Kassem, which makes use of the metaphor of a automobile mechanic to discover the harm desperately needing restore completed to his nation and its folks; the Swedish autobiographical documentary drama 100 Seasons, wherein dancer Giovanni Bucchieri explores 25 years of affection, success and failure; and Playland, a intentionally camp and kitschy drama from U.S. director Georden West, which imagines a time-bending evening in Boston’s oldest and most infamous homosexual bar.

Within the Huge Display part, meant to focus on works for a broader viewers or from extra established administrators, IFFR 2023 will characteristic One Win from Korean director Shin Yeon-Shick, an inspirational sports activities drama that includes Parasite star Track Kang-ho because the unsuccessful coach of a girls’s volleyball crew; the Danish psychological drama Copenhagen Does Not Exist from director Martin Skovbjerg from a screenplay by Worst Particular person within the World author/director Eskil Vogt; and Luka, the newest from Belgian-U.S. director Jessica Woodworth, a recent adaptation of Dino Buzzati’s basic novel The Tartar Steppe.

For Kaludjercic, who took over in 2020, this upcoming IFFR would be the first actual take a look at of her stewardship. Her renewed deal with “discovery”, on administrators and movies from outdoors the thematic, regional or style mainstream, will likely be on full show.

“We’ve got movies from the Center East and Africa, from Morocco, from Lebanon, from Iran, from Tunisia,” she notes, “Asian cinema has at all times been a spotlight at IFFR however we want to develop and diversify our focus.”

In its Shiny Future program, devoted to younger and rising expertise, IFFR beforehand introduced two world premieres: Nearly Solely a Slight Catastrophe, a deadpan dramedy from Turkish director Umut Subasi, and Whispering Mountains, a satirical drama director Jagath Manuwarna which appears to be like at what occurs when a supernatural virus spreads throughout Sri Lanka.

Rotterdam’s Limelight part, that includes artwork home highlights of the previous 12 months, will embrace such pageant favorites as Alice Diop’s Saint Omer, Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun, EO from Poland’s Jerzy Skolimowski, Jafar Panahi’s autobiographical Iranian drama No Bears, and Conflict Pony from administrators Riley Keough and Gina Gammell.

The 2023 Robby Müller Award, offered in honor of the late Dutch cinematographer, of Paris, Texas, 24-Hour Social gathering Folks and Breaking the Waves, amongst others, will likely be awarded to French lenser Hélène Louvart, whose work contains such options as By no means Not often Generally At all times, The Misplaced Daughter, Completely happy as Lazzaro and The Wonders.

Oscar-winning director, and Turner Prize-winning visible artist Steve McQueen will even attend IFFR 2023, to current Sunshine State, an paintings initially commissioned for the pageant’s fiftieth anniversary in 2021 that may now be correctly displayed on the Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen exhibition area in Rotterdam, with the official opening on January 26.

The work, McQueen’s first main paintings since his “12 months 3” fee for the Tate Britain in 2019, is a two-channel video projection proven on either side of two screens, which opens with footage of a burning solar and contains photos from the 1927 characteristic movie The Jazz Singer, a movie famed as the primary “talkie” in cinema historical past that’s additionally notorious for the efficiency of Al Jolson in blackface.

IFFR 2023 will even see the in-person return of Rotterdam’s famed co-production market, which is able to rejoice its fortieth version from Jan. 29-Feb. 1 with one-on-one conferences and networking periods between unbiased producers, financiers and distributors.