Proyecto Fantasma by Roberto Doveris
The International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) has announced the lineup for its 51st edition, including ten films by Latin American or Caribbean directors that together represent Paraguay, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Brazil, Haiti and Costa Rica.
The festival, whose full lineup was unveiled this past Friday, will run as a virtual festival on IFFR.com from January 26 to February 6 for the second year in a row due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Up until three weeks ago, the festival had been planning to take place in person under strict health and safety rules set by the Netherlands’ Institute for Public Health and Environment, but the recent surge in cases has forced the festival to go digital once again as the Dutch government works to curb the rise of the Omicron variant of COVID-19.
Festival director Vanja Kaludjercic also revealed that the lockdown in the Netherlands had enforced some changes in previously announced elements of the program, but nevertheless reassured that the festival has curated a strong online selection.
Seven of the ten Latin American and Caribbean films will screen in competitive categories, three having been selected in the Tiger Competition for emerging talent and four in the Ammodo Tiger Short Competition for shorts.
Among fourteen titles selected for the Tiger Competition, Paraguayan director Paz Encina will be presenting her latest narrative feature EAMI, a co-production between Paraguay, Germany, Argentina, Netherlands, France, and the United States. After having immersed herself in indigenous mythologies of the Paraguayan Chaco, Encina has made a dreamy, magic-realist film about a little girl called Eami. After her village is destroyed and her community disintegrates, Eami wanders the rainforest. She will have to live outside the rainforest, just like the coñone (literally: ‘the insensitive’). Encina turns her final wander into an experience for all the senses, with enchanting images and a powerful sound mix.
Also competing for the Tiger Award is Malintzin 17 by the late Mexican director Eugenio Polgovsky and his sister Mara Polgovsky. Edited posthumously by Mara, Malintzin 17 was filmed from the window of the filmmaker's apartment in Mexico City and portrays two parallel expressions of parental care, intertwining the filmmaker's gaze with that of his daughter as they witness the birth of an Inca pigeon. Mara Polgovksy found the material after her brother’s sudden death in 2017 at the age of 40 and carefully edited it into an observational and philosophical documentary that delicately reflects on the way nature is forced to adapt to the ever-expanding anthropocene. Chilean director Roberto Doveris will also be presenting his film Proyecto Fantasma, which follows a young actor going through a difficult period in his life in which a ghost, on top of other problems, won’t leave him alone.
Mexican director Tatiana Huezo’s critically-acclaimed Prayers for the Stolen / Noche de fuego will play as part of the Harbour Main Programme for daring contemporary cinema alongside Swedish-Costa Rican director Nathalie Álvarez’s most recent feature Clara Sola, while Haitian director Gessica Généus’ fiction debut Freda will represent the Caribbean nation in the Bright Future Main Programme.
In the Ammodo Tiger Short Competition, Brazilian filmmakers Cesar Gananian and Cassiana Der Haroutiounian — both of Armenian descent — investigate the 2018 Velvet Revolution in Armenia in their short film Chants from a Holy Book. Through a series of five chants, they attempt to unravel the threads that weave together spontaneous moments of revolutionary activity.
Also in competition for the Ammodo Tiger Award is Chilean filmmaker Diego Escobar with his short film El nombre de las cosas, Colombian director Juanita Onzaga with her sci-fi futurist short Tomorrow Is a Water Palace, and German / Brazilian quartet Arne Hector, Luciana Mazeto, Vinícius Lopes, and Minze Tummescheit with their experimental social issue short urban solutions.
