The Film Verdict: Rotterdam Festival Day 3 Jan 28, 2023

International Film Festival Rotterdam

IFFR REVIEW DAILY BIRDLAND

trenchant with the poetic and mystical. The spite and intrigue of family dynasty melodrama is a suspenseful hook, and is elevated by a wider cosmic perspective of esoteric connections, significances and signs, and the unstoppable forces of social revolution.

VERDICT: Revolution is coming in this intricate, densely layered vision of the burning of a forest and the girl who harnesses the technology of dissent.

Carmen Gray, January 26, 2023

A fire blazes through the forest and lights up the night sky around El Mansouria, the homestead near Tangier of the wealthy Bechtani clan. It’s not initially clear who set it, but the family suspects that it is the work of Bab

Al Sama, an unscrupulous real estate developer intent on turning the land into a profitable construction zone, despite the ecological consequences.

Birdland, screening in the Tiger

Competition at Rotterdam, is the second feature-length fiction film of Moroccan director Leila Kilani, who more than a decade ago made Sur la Planche (2011), about women in Tangier factories trying to supplement their meagre incomes, and has made a number of documentaries about poverty, state violence and dissidence. Her latest film is an intricately woven vision of collapse and regeneration that blends the politically

We see this enchanting and cursed world through the spectacled eyes (and the live-streamed footage she shoots on her phone, when it takes over the frame) of the youngest Bechtani, Lina (Ifham Mathet). She is rebellious like her father Anis (Mustafa Shimdat). He has blocked the family’s attempt to sell the estate, resorting to North African “habous” law, according to which he can stipulate his share must be put to good social use through a charitable foundation. He does not want to see the land taken from the slum-dwellers down the hill, or from the birds, who share just as much right to remain there as anyone. The impoverished locals have lived there for forty years, but do not possess ownership papers and the targeting of their very existence for erasure by corporate greed may be the final straw before they rise up.

Full Review

Stephen Dalton, January 27, 2023

A troubled young couple take a hazardous detour off grid, literally and metaphorically, in Danish director Karoline Lyngbye’s highly assured debut feature Superposition. A twist-heavy thriller that flirts with familiar psycho-horror tropes while still treating its audience like intelligent adults, this mindbending exercise in Nordic Noir makes its festival debut in Rotterdam this week, with domestic theatrical release scheduled for March. Positive festival reviews, fan-friendly genre elements and superior Scandi production values should all boost its international prospects.

horror plot, albeit clothed in more high-calibre visuals than usual.

Arty Copenhagen

thirtysomethings Stine (Marie Bach Hansen) and Teit (Mikkel Boe Følsgaard), together with their young son Nemo (Mihlo Olsen), arrive at a deluxe lakeside holiday cabin in a remote corner of Sweden to begin a year-long hibernation project disconnected from phone, internet or neighbours. Writer Stine plans to use this hardcore retreat to finish her debut novel while Teit is turning their lifestyle experiment into a weekly podcast, posting the USB files back to Denmark from a nearby rural mailbox.

Teit views these confessional interviews as an opportunity for raw, soul-searching therapy sessions with his wife. Stine is less convinced, calling their getaway “spoiled escapism” and the podcast “the most narcissistic premise ever”. Her mockery is affectionate, but edged with a bitterness that deepens with each passing day. It soon emerges that Stine is still wounded by Teit’s historic infidelity, which helps explain the pair’s current emotional and sexual estrangement, and also their attempts to rekindle the relationship in this radical new setting.

Just when it appears to be preparing a scalding critique of smug bourgeois privilege in the tradition of Ruben Östlund or Michael Haneke, Superposition takes a disorienting metaphysical left turn. Stine and Teit become aware of other people staying on the other side of the lake, despite assurances from the cabin owner of their total isolation. After a suspenseful build-up of creepy near-misses, plus a genuinely nerve-jangling scene in which Nemo goes missing (and credit to Lyngbye here for resisting the temptation to add a “finding Nemo” joke), the couple experience a shock revelation: the strangers across the water are their exact doppelgängers, with the same lives and marital tensions. Full Review

VERDICT: An isolated Danish family encounter spooky doubles of themselves in this haunting, twist-heavy thriller from first-time feature director Karoline Lyngbye.

TFV Opens the Doors to Young Critics

2023 will mark the 24th edition of the IFFR

A truly time-honored program, the Rotterdam Film Festival’s Trainee Project for Young Film

Critics is now in its 24th year. Five talented and highly motivated film critics under 30, all coming from countries outside the Netherlands, will be given the

chance to get acquainted with the festival and its selection of world cinema. To celebrate and affirm these objectives, and maybe give participants a little push along the way, The Film Verdict will publish brief reviews written by the five critics in the TFV festival dailies.

This year’s writers are Alonso Aguillar from Costa Rica, Madeleine Collier from the U.S., Lukasz Mankowski from Poland, Kyrylo Pyshchykov from Ukraine and Ren Scateni from the U.K.

The Trainee Project for Young Film (Continues next page)

Alonso Aguillar

Lukasz Mankowski

Madeleine Collier Ren Scateni Kyrylo Pyshchykov

YOUNG CRITICS (Continued)

Critics was created in 1998, motivated by the fact that young and upcoming film critics have few opportunities to explore the full range of cinema presented at festivals like IFFR. The main objectives of the Trainee Project are the active support of film criticism, the promotion of coverage on independent filmmaking, and assisting talented young film critics in developing their careers.

IFFR aims at making the selected young writers an integral part of the festival, where they participate in the delivery of festival dailies as a team, hosted by the IFFR Press Office and the

festival editorial staff. The program provides unique insight into festival coverage, with a full press accreditation and the support of the IFFR editorial team. Participants cover all the programs on offer at IFFR, ranging from films by well-known arthouse auteurs to experimental gems; from art installations and expanded cinema to talks and film industry conferences. A full festival schedule is created especially for them, attending workshops and expert sessions hosted by industry professionals, journalists and eminent critics, who this year include TFV’s critic and the director of the upcoming Alpha Film Festival, Ben Nicholson.

Other workshops will be led by industry professionals Bart Versteirt, Dana Linssen and Jan Pieter Ekker. The expert sessions are hosted by Neil Young (Screen Daily), Anna Smith (Girls on Film podcast), Rafa Sales Ross (Freelance film journalist), Monique Levine (DDA pr agency), Yoanna Pavlova (Festivalists & YFC alumnus) and Evgeny Gusyatinskiy (IFFR programmer & YFC alumnus).

Participants of this edition's Young Film Critics join Jan Pieter Ekker and Dana Linsen at the IFFR Talk: Critics Choice on Monday, January 30.

DRAWING LOTS

Rotterdam, is the fifth feature of the late Zaza Khalvashi, a Georgian filmmaker whose previous work includes the haunting and evocative Namme (2017), about a daughter guarding a healing water against corporate interests. The mysteries of Drawing Lots are more prosaic and worldly.

VERDICT: The black-humoured snapshot of a disorderly Georgian seaside community where love and crime bring scant reward.

Carmen Gray, January 27, 2023

In a yard under a tree in the city of Batumi, a coastal resort on the Black Sea, neighbours gather around a table as numbers are called out in their favoured game of chance. It’s a way to pass the time and challenge fickle fate, and a rare stroke of luck is the only way to beat the grind. Drawing Lots, which has its world premiere in the Big Screen Competition at

Writer-director Khalvashi passed away in 2020 before he could see the film fully finished, adding another twist of sadness to its vision of a universe prone to throw a proverbial joker in at inopportune moments to disrupt dreams and best-laid plans. His daughter Tamta Khalvashi stepped in to lead the project to completion posthumously, sharing co-director credit. The result is a snapshot, in a minor key of deadpan humour and gentle melancholy, of a disorderly seaside community where love and crime are irresistible compulsions bearing scant rewards. The film, elegantly lensed in a black-and-white that offsets lives of chaos and indignity, should have no trouble picking up festival slots due to its appealing wry wit and gentle, downbeat humanity.

Full Review

73rd Berlinale Announces Competition Titles

SOMEDAY WE’LL TELL EACH OTHER EVERYTHING

Directed by Emily Atef

SUZUME

Directed by Makoto Shinkai

Bad Living

The Berlin Film Festival has announced the first of their films in competition. Final selection will be announced February 7.

20,000 SPECIES OF BEES

Directed by Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren

AFIRE

Directed by Christian Petzold

BAD LIVING

Directed by Joao Canijo

DISCO BOY (FR-IT-POL-BEL)

Directed by Giacomo Abbruzzese

INGEBORG BACHMANN – JOURNEY INTO THE DESERT

Directed by Margarethe Von Trotta

LIMBO

Directed by Ivan Sen

MANODROME

Directed by John Trengove

MUSIC

Directed by Angela Schanelec

ON THE ADAMANT

Directed by Nicolas Philibert

PAST LIVES

Directed by Celine Song

TILL THE END OF THE NIGHT

Directed by Christoph Hochhäusler

The Plough

Directed by Philippe Garrel

Dutch Films at Berlinale

Creo announces the shortlist for the first edition of the Sony Future Filmmaker Awards.

With over 4,000 films by more than 3,000 filmmakers in 140 countries. 30 films have been shortlisted in six categories: Filmmaker Fiction; Filmmaker Non-Fiction; Filmmaker Environment; Student Filmmaker Fiction; Student Filmmaker NonFiction; and Future Format.

The six winners will be announced on February 22, 2023 during a blacktie awards ceremony followed by an exclusive three-day industry immersion experience led by Sony Pictures executives for all the winning and shortlisted filmmakers. The six winners will also be rewarded with cash prizes and a range of Sony’s Digital Imaging equipment.

Fiction Filmmakers Short List:

THE SHADOWLESS TOWER

Directed by Zhang Lu

THE SURVIVAL OF KINDNESS

Directed by Rolf de Heer

TOTEM

Directed by Lila Avilés

Berlinale runs Feb 16 – 26 For more information, click here

Saul Abraham (UK), ENJOY

Dumas Haddad (UK), FLOWERS

Dan Thorburn (UK), SALT WATER TOWN

Joy Webster (Canada), MENACE

Ka Ki Wong (Hong Kong), FIRE ROOM

For complete short list Click here

Totem

Ingeborg Bachmann – Journey Into The Desert

MORE FILMS AT IFFR

VERDICT: Charlotte Wells combines great performances, poetic visuals and bittersweet personal memories in this dazzling debut.

VERDICT: Debut director Thomas Hardiman's single-shot murder mystery is a dazzling high-energy catwalk show of spiky comedy, fluid camerawork and fabulous hair.

PRETTY RED DRESS

Pretty Red Dress

VERDICT: In this vibrant debut feature from Dionne Edwards, a troubled London family learn to express their true selves with a little help from Tina Turner and a fabulous frock.

Pastel

EMU Films

Teng Teng Films