November 2012
March 2012
February 2012
IFFR 2012
#IFFR film 11: I Wish / 奇跡 (JP): 5/5. Saved the best for last, my fave this year! Another beautiful Kore-eda film, w/ nice Quruli soundtrack
#IFFR film 10: Un nuage dans un verre d'eau (Srinath C. Samarasinghe, FR): 3/5
#IFFR film 9: King Curling (Ole Endresen, Norway): 4/5 http://youtu.be/t8NH77CS2V4
#IFFR film 8: Kotoko (Shinya Tsukamoto, JP): 3/5. Oef oef.. even bijkomen met clipje van Cocco in vrolijker tijden: http://youtu.be/SNk9x5oN3_A
RT @mahieu: ..Adobe Air (AS3) app.. op Mac Mini's :) Data komt van 1 server die alle netwerken afscant (php + alle api's) #IFFR #dashboard
"Rotterdam -12°" het is zo koud, temperatuur past niet meer netjes in #IFFR dashboard design
RT @xiffy: Dag kitty http://twitpic.com/8ey536
#IFFR film 7: L'ultimo Terrestre (Gianni Pacinotti, Italy): 4/5
vraag me af waar het grote #IFFR dashboard in geprogrammeerd is / op draait... #rondehoekjes
January 2012
RT @ikreis: Wil iemand even zijn jas komen afgeven bij de garderobe van de schouwburg? Ik verveel me. #IFFR #vrijwilliger
still six #IFFR films to go: L'ultimo Terrestre, Kotoko, King Curling, Miss Bala, Un nuage dans un verre d'eau, I Wish (Kore-eda!)
#IFFR film 6: Tokyo Playboy Club (Yosuke Okuda, JP): 4/5
actor Merijn de Jong and director Fow Pyng Hu of "Nick"
damaged beschadigd kaputt in De Doelen
Masahiro Kobayashi, director of Women on the Edge, on the roof of De Doelen
#IFFR film 5: Nick (Fow Pyng Hu, NL): 4/5. Bonus point for dogs running in the rain ♥
#IFFR film 4: Egg and Stone / 鶏蛋和石頭 (Huang Ji, China): 3/5
#IFFR film 3: A Simple Life / 桃姐 (Ann Hui, Hong Kong): 4/5
#IFFR 2012: beetje Wordfeuden moet kunnen tijdens het wachten
Yoni Brook and Musa Syeed, cinematographer and director of Valley of Saints
IFFR 2012 Big Talk with Miike Takashi
#IFFR film 2: Ace Attorney (Miike Takashi, JP): 3/5
August 2011
singing along to @bruce_peninsula again. #SmallTownMurderSongs #IFFR
April 2011
at @ImagineAFFF to see one of my missed @IFFR films, Takashi Miike's "13 Assassins"
February 2011
faves of my 19 #IFFR 2011 films: Cirkus Columbia, PinoySunday, 22Mei, Illégal, SmallTownMurderSongs, The Days After, Tuesday After Christmas
#IFFR film 19: Water Hands: 2.5/5: lovely footage of photogenic natural/urban landscapes, but a bit too slow to enjoy as 3rd film of the day
#IFFR film 18: 22 Mei (Koen Mortier, BE): 4/5. original, intense, gritty, surreal, moving, even a bit funny
#IFFR film 17: The Journals of Musan (Park Jung-Bum, KR): 3.5/5
#IFFR film 16: Kaidan (2nd viewing). Had to go see this one again and witness the presence of all 4 directors! http://flic.kr/p/9fcDas
#IFFR film 15: Tuesday, after Christmas (Radu Muntean, Romania): 4/5. filled with amazing 10-minute-long single-shot scenes
Ochiai, Lee Sang-Il, Tsukamoto, Kore-eda @ Kaidan screening: http://flic.kr/p/9fcDas #iffr
IFFR 2011
#IFFR film 14: Illégal (Olivier Masset-Depasse, BE): 4.5/5. Intense, moving, wow. followed by nice q&a w/director in @LantarenVenster lobby
#IFFR film 13: Pinoy Sunday (Ho Wi-ding, TW): 4.5/5. fun fun fun! a film that you leave whistling or singing
RT @frenchy_rjp: #IFFR2011 #IFFR @milo - you're famous! Check today's Daily Tiger p7..
zaal 1 in nieuwe Lantaren/Venster ruikt lekker naar nieuw hout. #iffr
#IFFR film 12: Cirkus Columbia (Danis Tanovic): 5/5! my fave so far, great film by director of No Man's Land
#IFFR film 11: Outrage (Takeshi Kitano, JP): 3.5/5
January 2011
#IFFR film 10: Characters (Son Kwang-Ju): 3/5. original, perhaps too abstract/meta story in gorgeously composed HD shots. world premiere!
#IFFR film 9: The High Life (Zhao Dayong, CN): 3/5. photogenic urban rooftops and streets, poetry-writing prison guards, nice
#IFFR film 8: Oki's Movie (KR): 3.5/5. seeing any new Hong Sang-soo film always makes me understand his previous ones slightly better
#IFFR film 7: Somewhere (Sofia Coppola, US): 3.5/5. nice to hear some Phoenix music in the soundtrack
#IFFR film 6: Kaidan Horror Classics (JP): 4/5. long sit, was worth it for the final short, Kore-eda's moving and beautiful "The Days After"
#IFFR film 5: Zebraman 2 (Takashi Miike, JP): 3/5
day off from #IFFR today, continuing tomorrow with Zebraman 2, Kaidan, Somewhere and Oki's Movie
#IFFR film 4: Pure Asia (Katashima Ikki, JP): 3/5. tasty b/w shots, unfortunate silly ending
#IFFR film 3: South Asian Shorts: SolaceOfLoneliness: 3.5/5. fine poetic collection of indian/pakistani/srilankan shorts by young directors
#IFFR film 2: Small Town Murder Songs (Ed Gass-Donnelly): 4/5. Great lead performance by Peter Stormare, awesome music by Bruce Peninsula
#IFFR film 1: el invierno de los raros (Rodrigo Guerrero, Argentina): 3/5
RT @AFFR: You can do many movies at the # IFFR 2011. A few tips from the AFFR for architects and planners. http://bit.ly/hkBR7k
deel je #IFFR agenda: klik "deel mijn agenda" op http://iffr.nl/nl/myiffr/?t=agenda , mail jezelf, klik Koop Tickets in mail, kopieer url
#IFFR zin in 13 Assassins, EssentialKilling, Headshots, Kaidan, Zaborgar, King's Speech, Oki's Movie, Outrage, Parked, Somewhere, Tiger Eyes
niet lang hoeven zoeken naar VK #iffr bijlage zoals sommige mensen op twitter, maar fijn weer kunnen ophalen bij m'n vaste bron, m'n ouders
weer fijn films omcirkelen in volkskrant #iffr bijlage
February 2010
IFFR 2010 various photos
IFFR film 23 (final): Les Barons (Ben Yadir Nabil, Belgium): 4/5
A perfect film to end my festival experience with. Some forced drama, but consistently very funny, through the credits even.
IFFR film 22: Symbol (Matsumoto Hitoshi, Japan): 4/5
The most original film I've seen in a long time. Even more surreal than Matsumoto's previous film Big Man Japan,
and a lot more enjoyable and moving.
IFFR film 21: Police, Adjective (Corneliu Porumboiu, Romania): 3/5
Seemingly boring at first, but saved by some brilliant and long single-shot dialogs on language and meaning of words.
IFFR film 20: Visage (Taiwan/France): 3.5/5
Not as impressive as 2007's I Don't Want To Sleep Alone, but Tsai Ming-liang + Lee Kang-sheng = always good. I wish I could have also caught the Déjà passer series of Taiwanese short films, which featured works by/with both of them.
IFFR film 19: Café Noir / 카페 느와르 (Jung Sung-Il, South Korea): 4/5
Wow, very long at over 3 hours (they even included a 15 minute break in the middle which is rare for a festival showing), but quite something special, especially for those well versed in Korean films. Luckily the second half was even better than the first. An interesting mix of styles, switching from colour to b/w for some scenes etc. And I've never seen the city of Seoul itself used as a character quite as beautifully like this, with long single-take shots where the camera just glides along the streets or river for minutes and minutes.
Also: it wasn't until the credits that I realized one of the characters that looked so familiar to me was played by indie music star Yozoh! The little keyboard she continuously carried on her back should have been a hint, I suppose.
IFFR film 18: My Daughter (Charlotte Lay Kuen Lim, Malaysia): 2.5/5
IFFR film 16: Eighteen / 회오리 바람 (Jang Kun-Jae, South Korea): 3.5/5
IFFR film 15: Twisted Roots / Väärät Juuret (Finland): 4/5
Another one of my favourites of this year. Colourful family story, in pretty Finnish winter scenes that (as explained by director Saara Saarela during the Q&A) had to be shot quickly during the 2.5 hours of daylight available each day. Nice soundtrack too.
IFFR film 14: Nymph / นางไม้ (Thailand): 3/5
Dreamy atmospheric Pen-Ek Ratanaruang treatise on the dangers of extra-marital treehugging.
IFFR film 13: Ante / Karera (Adolfo B. Alix Jr., Philippines): 2/5
IFFR film 12: Toad's Oil / ガマの油 (Japan): 4.5/5
My favourite film of IFFR 2010. Wonderful directorial debut (and starring role) by one of my favourite actors, Kôji Yakusho. A funny colourful moving story, in some parts reminiscent of the surrealness/sensibility of Taste of Tea. Also a nice role for Satomi Kobayashi of Megane / Kamome Diner.
IFFR film 11: All That I Love / Wszystko co kocham (Jacek Borcuch, Poland): 4/5
After this very enjoyable film that I chose mostly as a schedule filler, an extra surprise was to see that the director and part of the cast had arrived in Rotterdam just in time to do a fun Q&A afterwards. Always quite special to suddenly see the real actors walk out in front after having just watched them on the big screen.
IFFR film 10: Where Is Africa: Concert 1 - Opening Night
One animated short from 1966, followed by two silent films (one from 2010, one from 1927) accompanied by excellent live music!
IFFR film 9: Trash Humpers (US): 3/5
Crazy ugly funny repetitive VHS weirdness from Harmony Korine. The funny stories and voicemail messages shared beforehand were a nice treat. Lots of walk-outs during the film itself though. I laughed a lot, but can imagine it was a real rough film to get through for those audience members that went in without any idea of what to expect :)
IFFR film 7: Adrift / Chơi vơi (Vietnam): 3/5
In my experience Vietnamese films are some of the most photogenic films in the world, this one certainly was too. Had to run to another film afterwards so I missed the Q&A with director Bui Thac Chuyen (who also directed Living in Fear, which I saw at IFFR 2007).
IFFR film 6: Susa / სუსა (Rusudan Pirveli, Georgia): 3.5/5
Strikingly gritty landscapes. Also, I learned the Georgian alphabet is really pretty.
January 2010
IFFR film 5: Autumn Adagio (JP): 4/5
This one caught my eye because of having seen director Inoue Tsuki's fun quirky short film Woman Who Is Beating The Earth at last year's festival. Great soundtrack and piano performances by musician/actress Shibakusa Rei.
IFFR film 4: A Grammar For Listening (Parts 1-3): 3.5/5
Not so much a film, just a series of dreamy wonderful sound/sightscapes, the kind that make me want to go out and shoot some macro/bokeh photos. Followed by insightful Q&A with director Luke Fowler.
IFFR film 3: Running Turtle / 거북이 달린다 (Lee Yeon-woo, South Korea): 3.5/5.
Lots of fun this one, like a non-gloomy version of last year's excellent The Chaser (starring the same actor even).
IFFR film 2: Air Doll / 空気人形 (Hirokazu Kore-eda, Japan): 4/5
Though the half hour pre-Air Doll interview turned out to be a bit boring, it was still pretty cool to see master director Kore-eda (Still Walking, Nobody Knows, After Life) in person. And the film itself was beautiful, as expected. Including a small role for prolific actor Susumu Terajima who I have gotten used to seeing appear in at least one japanese film each festival.
May 2009
IFFR 2009 swag
One of my favourite things about film festivals is collecting various posters, flyers and booklets for movies and festivals from all over the world. Here's my loot from the International Film Festival Rotterdam earlier this year! The big items are A4-size.
February 2008
my IFFR 2008 log
Seen at the International Filmfestival Rotterdam this year (in descending chronological order, rated x out of 5):
- Sad Vacation: 4/5
- Any film with Asano Tadanobu is always worth seeing.
- Persepolis: 4/5
- Beautiful animation, funny and moving. Though I feel I would have liked the version with the original french dialog better than this english dub.
- Japanese 8mm Kicks Ass Beautiful
- Real Dreams
- The Darjeeling Limited: 5/5
- Just wonderful. First Wes Anderson film I actually saw on the big screen. And biiig it was, being Pathé 1.
- Black Snow: 3/5
- Chinese film from 1989 starring a very young Jiang Wen. The overdubbed dialog and cheesily translated subtitles kinda distracted from the okay story. Nice to see the Q&A with director Xie Fei afterwards.
- Of Monster Mode: 4/5
- Entertaining Japanese silliness.
- Magnus: 4/5
- Probably the first Estonian film I've ever seen. From the description I was expecting something bleak and depressing, but it turned out to be very funny at times. Beautiful visuals and landscapes throughout.
- Only Child, Upward, Downward, Forward, Backward, Rightward and Leftward: 2/5
- I noticed quite a few walk-outs during this one, a weird and uneventful story full of strange dialogs, in other words: a perfect filmfestival film to start off with :)
January 2008
IFFR 2008
January 2007
luxor
audience exiting the theater after seeing Wattstax (which was awesome!)