Festivals: IFFR
Rotterdam 2026 Review: FISH, FISTS AND AMBERGRIS Hits All Of Its Targets
The International Film Festival Rotterdam doesn't just do the no-budget debuts of beginning directors, it also allows glimpses of what is hot in other countries. This is the festival where we got introduced to the Korean classics of the past...
Rotterdam 2026 Review: MURDER IN THE BUILDING, Funny Hitchcockian Shenanigans
Time flies when you're having fun, and that saying applies to the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Last Saturday there was the screening of the closing film already, the world première of Rémi Bezançon's Le Crime du 3e Étage, to be...
Rotterdam 2026 Review: MI AMOR
The International Film Festival Rotterdam is host to many beginning directors, but that doesn't mean there are no regular returning guests. Writer, director and actor Guillaume Nicloux has visited the festival several times in the past 30 years, and for...
Rotterdam 2026 Review: ROID, An Ode to the Bengali Landscape and Its Cinema
Director Mejbaur Rahman Sumon's evocative tale from the Bengali countryside about love and fate, echoing the freshness of Satyajit Ray's cinema.
Rotterdam 2026 Review: TALKING TO A STRANGER Shows A Grief, Scarier Than Ghosts
We have been fans of director Adrián García Bogliano ever since his films Cold Sweat (reviewed here) and Here Comes the Devil (reviewed here), so we consider it good news when a new film by him comes out. Yesterday, the...
Rotterdam 2026 Review: THE NIGHT Holds Horrors And Wonders
The International Film Festival Rotterdam has started its 2026 edition. And even though the festival slants towards arthouse as always, there are plenty of genre films to enjoy as well. Case in point: Paul Urkijo Alijo's Gaua a.k.a. The Night,...
BOWELS OF HELL: Blue Finch Films Boards Sales On Rotterdam Selected Horror-Comedy
Ah, toilet humor. It exists both as a description of a type of humor, and currently it has served as a setting and location for a growing crop of movies within the horror genre (Scared Shitless, Holy Shit!, and Flush). ...
SICKO Official Trailer: Kazakh Thriller Heads to IFFR With a Sales Agent
A cash-strapped couple hatch a plan to solve their money troubles, but soon become embroiled in a toxic web of social media, violent criminality, and spiralling greed.
Rotterdam 2025 Interview: Toshiaki Toyoda
At the beginning of the year, at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, I interviewed Toshiaki Toyoda about his film Transcending Dimensions, which premiered at the festival. But life got in the way, because as they say, life is what happens...
Rotterdam 2025 Review: THREE DAYS OF FISH Proves You Can Never Go Home Again
Peter Hoogendoorn debuted very strongly almost ten years ago with Tussen 10 en 12 (Between 10 and 12), a rigidly structured movie set in a limited time-space. In it, a family one by one get told bad news by two...
Rotterdam 2025 Review: VIDEOHEAVEN, Alex Ross Perry's Juggernaut Essay About Video-stores
Alex Ross Perry's new film is a video-essay in the style of Thom Andersen's seminal Los Angeles Plays Itself, in that it focuses on a place and location, and explores this place solely through deep analysis of footage from films...
Rotterdam 2025 Interview: RAINS OVER BABEL Director Gala del Sol Talks Mythic Worldbuilding, Queer Programming, Personal Healing
Gala del Sol, a visionary Spanish-Colombian debut director, talks fresh world building and personal healing.
Rotterdam 2025: What The Audiences Liked Best
Three weeks ago, Rotterdam wrapped up its International Film Festival, and a few days after that they published the final results of their audience ratings, which is always a highlight for me. As the saying goes, everybody is a critic,...
Rotterdam Video Interview: ME, MARYAM, THE CHILDREN AND 26 OTHERS Blurs Boundaries Between Fiction And Reality
What happens when the boundaries between fiction and reality blur, not only on screen, but also during filmmaking itself? In Fiction & Reality – Vice Versa, journalist and filmmaker Ronald Glasbergen sits down with Iranian director Farshad Hashemi, actress and...
Rotterdam 2025 Review: MEMOIR OF A SNAIL Gets You, Pacing Be Damned
Back in 2009 we were treated to one of the best films ever made about autism, and it was, surprise surprise, an animated puppet feature. That was Mary and Max, directed by Adam Elliot, who had previously won an Academy...
Rotterdam 2025 Review: I'M STILL HERE Will Not Fade From Your Memory
In 1970, Brazil was suffering under a military dictatorship. Political opponents and critics were arrested, tortured and murdered. As much as 20,000 people were "disappeared" under the regime. One of them was Rubens Pavia, an architect who had been a...
Rotterdam 2025 Review: ACTS OF LOVE Attempts to Unearth the Repressed Past
Jeppe Rønde's family drama tackles memory, trauma, and transgression in a small New Age Christian community.
Rotterdam 2025 Review: FIUME O MORTE!, Playful Croatian Psychogeographic Docudrama About Nationalism
Igor Bezinović's hybrid docudrama tackles Gabriele D'Annunzio's 1919 occupation of Fiume, engaging locals in site-specific meta-textual reenactments.
Rotterdam 2025 Interview: YASUKO, SONGS OF DAYS PAST Director Negishi Kichitaro Talks Taisho Entanglements, Roman Porno, Creating Chemistry
A legendary director of Roman Porno and period dramas discusses his IFFR-premiering return to the director's chair.
Rotterdam 2025 Review: TRANSCENDING DIMENSIONS Sees Toshiaki Toyoda Play the Hits
In the Q&A after Transcending Dimensions, Toyoda mentioned that this might be his last feature film, as he felt like he transcended himself with this film. What does a transcendent Toyoda-film look like? As usually loud, violent and surreal,...
