The International Film Festival Rotterdam has announced their 2016 lineup with no shortage of Latin American films. Of the eight films competing for the Hivos Tiger Award three are Latin American titles. Festival director Bero Beyer states that the Hivos Tiger Award seeks to, “offer the most innovative, original and challenging works.” All three films will be world premieres.
Felipe Guerrero’s Oscuro Animal (pictured left) is a production from Colombia, Argentina, The Netherlands, Germany and Greece. It tells the story of three women forced to flee their homes in a war torn region of Colombia.
La última tierra / The Last Land by Pablo Lamar hails from Paraguay, The Netherlands, Chile and Qatar. It tells the story of an elderly couple who have lived their lives on an isolated hill. Evangelina’s life has slowly been fading away, finally leaving Amancio utterly alone.
From Brazil and Portugal is Marília Rocha’s A Cidades Onde Envelheço / Where I Grow Old (pictured right). The film follows the daily life of a Portuguese 25 year-old who restarts life in Brazil.
The Bright Future main programme aims to highlight original, up-and-coming directors. Of the thirteen films competing for the Award four make their way from Latin America. Ana Cristina Barragán’s Ecuadorian-Mexican-Greek production, Alba, tells the story of an 11 year-old, who has to move to her estranged father’s when her mother has to be taken to the hospital.
Brazilian Animal político by Tião follows a cow who tries to convince herself she’s happy. One night as she experiences deep feelings of loneliness she decides to begin a journey of enlightenment.
From Mexico is Pacífico by Fernanda Romandía which centers around the characters involved in the construction of a house designed by architect Tadao Ando on the beaches of Puerto Escondido, Mexico.
Brazilian director Bernardo Britto is premiering Jacqueline (Argentine) (pictured left), his American production about a young French woman contacts a filmmaker to follow her whistleblowing activities from her remote, self-imposed political asylum in Argentina.
Tenemos la carne (pictured right) is a Mexican-French production by Emiliano Rocha Minter. After wandering a ruined city for years, two siblings find their way into one of the last remaining buildings. Inside, they find a man who will make them a dangerous offer.
Also premiering in the Bright Future programme is Mexican filmmaker Elisa Miller’s El placer es mío. Miller (Vete más lejos, Alicia) returns to fiction with this powerful drama about two lovebirds who take refuge in the apparent tranquility of his father’s country house. The Argentine film Las lindas by Melisa Liebenthal is a playful autobiographical reconstruction of young filmmaker Melisa Liebenthal coming of age, in which she tries to unravel some essential questions of life.
Two Latin American films are participating in the Highlights from 2015: the Argentinean film Toponimia by Jony Perel, the celebrated structural documentary on four villages in northern Argentina; the Puerto Rican film Las vacas con gafas by Alex Santiago Pérez, a lonely, eccentric painter is suffering from an illness that will turn him blind.
IFFR will take place January 27 - February 7, 2016 in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
