International Film Festival Rotterdam has revealed the first wave of world premieres for its 56th edition, which runs from Jan. 28-Feb. 7. The 10 titles will screen as part of the festival’s Bright Future and Harbour sections. The Harbour strand includes several films by filmmakers whose work previously featured at the festival.
These include Kiluanji Kia Henda, who returns with “Karl Marx, Luanda,” following his commissioned performance “Resetting Birds’ Memories” in 2021, and Kyros Papavassiliou returns with “Yiannis,” following his 2015 IFFR Tiger Competition selection for “Impressions of a Drowned Man.” Additionally, Rita Hui Nga Shu returns to IFFR, following the premiere of “Decameron” in 2021, with “The Lapse.” Alongside these returning filmmakers, the Harbour selection introduces fresh voices, including filmmaker siblings Iskander and Feisal Azizuddin with their comedy cannibal horror “Ali and Ben’s Spicy Meats” and Omer Shamir with intimate documentary portrait “Waiting Room.” Bright Future presents a selection of feature-length debuts, whose subjects range from claustrophobic fairy tales to tragic personal experiences and an adaptation of Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment.” In the selection are four debut filmmakers who bring “markedly different approaches to storytelling,” the festival said. These include the Ben Hicks with “Kids Go Free,” made over 15 years across three countries, Parbat Chapagai with stylized Dostoevsky adaptation “Portrait of a Young Criminal,” Lucila Las Heras with the dark fairy tale “The Muglur” and Mohamed El Zayat with Egyptian ensemble dramedy “In the Name of Galeela.” Additionally, Ali Bakhtiari brings documentary “Tehran the Obscure Atelier of Desire.” Vanja Kaludjercic, festival director at IFFR, said: “Cinema is at its most exciting when it challenges our expectations, when filmmakers find new ways to express experiences, contradictions and realities that resist easy answers. These first 10 films already offer a glimpse of that incredible range, from the playful and provocative to the intimate and politically urgent.” The complete program for IFFR’s 56th edition will be launched on Dec. 16.
The first selections across Bright Future and Harbour are as follows: BRIGHT FUTURE“The Muglur” (world premiere)Director: Lucila Las HerasMexico, ArgentinaStruggling to write a fantasy novel under the thumb of her alcoholic father, Aurora makes a Faustian pact with a strange creature: the Muglur. But what price will it ask of her? The answer will be found at the dark heart of this claustrophobic fairy tale.
Egyptian filmmaker Mohamed El Zayat asks us how far we’ll go for someone we love in his “endlessly creative” debut feature. Told through a kaleidoscopic structure and a humanist lens over 15 years, Ben Hicks’ debut feature “tackles these concerns in a miraculous manner,” IFFR says. Wishing to save her from the spiritual squalor of their surroundings, David resolves to kill his rich employer.
A stark, psychologically vivid adaptation of Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” set in small-town Nepal. HARBOUR“Karl Marx, Luanda” (world premiere)Director: Kiluanji Kia HendaAngola, PortugalKiluanji Kia Henda’s satirical future history of Angola imagines that the nation renews itself as a Marxist state. Via time-travelling love story and Afro sci-fi-spaghetti western, we discover that in the forest, political doctrines don’t help the rain to fall.
When their overnight success attracts the suspicion of a local politician, the friends must do what it takes to protect their nascent empire in this zany horror-comedy. Filmmaker and activist Omer Shamir paints a moving documentary portrait of the family in their exile home across a year. An “uncompromising, impactful and radically human film-essay,” says the festival.
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