7/1/2015 - The International Film Festival Rotterdam unveils its full line-up for the Hivos Tiger Awards Competition

The International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) has confirmed its line-up for the Hivos Tiger Awards Competition of this year's 44th edition. It is made up of thirteen projects, all by first and second time feature filmmakers from across the world competing for three prizes of 15,000 euro each, a prize that will be awarded by the Festival's five Tiger jury members.
 
This jury is comprised of acclaimed stage and screen actress Johanna ter Steege, director of the Filmoteca Espanola Jose Maria Prado Garcia, filmmaker Rolf de Heer, award winning Japanese producer Shozo Ichiyama and former Tiger Award winning director Maja Milos.
 
On making the announcement Festival director Rutger Wolfson commented “We are thrilled to be welcoming such talented young filmmakers to present their films here at IFFR. They demonstrate an ever developing cinematic language, dealing with increasingly difficult but relevant subject matter in a consistently meaningful way. We are honoured that so many will be seen here by an audience for the very first time within the Hivos Tiger Awards Competition which epitomizes IFFR’s dedication to bringing great films from all over the world to a wide audience.”
 
Among previous winners of the Hivos Tiger Awards, which was first established in 1995, are such celebrated works as Following by Christopher Nolan (1999), Changing Destiny by Daniele Gaglianone (2005), Old Joy by Kelly Reichardt (2006) and Finisterrae by Sergio Caballero (2011). Last year's winning films were Anatomy of a Paper Clip by Ikeda Akira, Something Must Break by Ester Martin Bergsmark and Han Gong-ju by Lee Su-jin.
Here is the complete list of this year's Hivos Tiger Awards competition selection and their respective official festival synopsys.
 
 
ABOVE AND BELOW by Nicolas Steiner (Switzerland/Germany) – International Premiere
Above and Below is a rough and rhythmic roller coaster ride seating five survivors in their daily hustle through an apocalyptic world. A mind-blowing, cinematic exploration of contemporary existence in the US.
 
ANOTHER TRIP TO THE MOON by Ismail Basbeth (Indonesia) – World Premiere
The magical surrealist journey of Asa, daughter of a shaman, who confronts her own mother, fighting for her own life and freedom.
 
BRIDGEND by Jeppe Rønde (Denmark) – World Premiere
Over a 5-year period in Bridgend in Wales, 79 people, many of them teenagers, committed suicide without leaving any clue as to why. This is the starting point for this mysterious social drama. Hannah Murray convinces as the 'new girl in town' in Danish Rønde’s feature debut.
 
GLUCKAUF by Remy van Heugten (The Netherlands) – World Premiere
Social drama about the oppressive relationship between a father and a son who, as modern outlaws, struggle to survive in the depleted Dutch province of Limburg.
 
HARUKO’S PARANORMAL LABORATORY by Lisa Takeba (Japan) – World Premiere
Haruko is a girl who prefers to cuddle up to her old-fashioned TV set. In this wondrous story, a television can transform into a man: and this is by no means the end of the strange cheerfulness.
 
IMPRESSIONS OF A DROWNED MAN by Kyros Papavassiliou (Cyprus/Greece/Slovenia) – World Premiere
A man who doesn’t know who he is meets his former love. She tells him he is a famous poet, Kostas Karyotakis, who killed himself in 1928. Every year he returns on the anniversary of his death.
 
LA MUJER DE LOS PERROS (DOG LADY) by Laura Citarella & Verónica Llinás (Argentina) – World Premiere
The protagonist of Dog Lady is a woman (Llinás) who lives in a poor area with a pack of dogs, in a house like so many other humble shacks in the urban sprawl of Greater Buenos Aires. 
 
NORFOLK by Martin Radich (United Kingdom) – World Premiere
As a man's unspeakable past starts to catch up with him, two very different worlds collide and he is finally forced to confront what is right and what is wrong in order to protect his family's future.
 
LA OBRA DEL SIGLO (WORK OF THE CENTURY) by Carlos Quintela (Cuba/Argentina/Germany) – World Premiere
Three Cuban men, obliged by circumstance to live together under the same roof, pass their days in the ElectroNuclear City.
 
PARABELLUM by Lukas Valenta Rinner (Argentina/Austria/Uruguay) – World Premiere
In the company of housewives, professionals and a retired tennis instructor, Hernán is part of a middle-class community that is preparing for the eventual arrival of the end of the world at a holiday resort in the marshy Tigre delta.
 
TIRED MOONLIGHT by Britni West (USA) – International Premiere
Combustible dreams fail to ignite as lonely, middle-aged, Dawn is confronted by lost love in a glorified-pit-stop town.
 
VANISHING POINT by Jakrawal Nilthamrong (Thailand) – World Premiere
A drama depicting life in different paths. As two men delve deep down in search for what could heal their pains, through the path of imagination, they see themselves in each other.
 
VIDEOPHILIA (AND OTHER VIRAL SYNDROMES) by Juan Daniel Fernández Molero (Peru) – World Premiere
Internet cafés and slackers, not-so-innocent schoolgirls and amateur porn using Google Glass: things in Lima, the Peruvian capital, are pretty similar to contemporary reality, virtual or otherwise, in the rest of the world. Cinema meets digital psychedelia.