Formosa Beach (Julia de Simone, 2024)

More than 35 years ago, the late Huub Bals—creator and director of International Film Festival Rotterdam—began setting up what was then known as the Tarkovsky Fund, a body intended to support filmmakers in the developing world.  Following his death, the fund was renamed the Hubert Bals Fund, or HBF, and since its launch it has assisted in the production of countless critical hits, including Memoria, Monos and Japón.  Both IFFR and the HBF are involved in Julia de Simone's long-gestating feature debut Formosa Beach: an HBF grant was awarded to the project way back in 2014, with the finished film premiering at IFFR 2024.

Formosa Beach examines, inter alia, colonial history in Brazil, as seen through the eyes of Brazilian native de Simone, and the resulting film is a languid reflection on the vagaries of both time and memory.  The temporally fragmented narrative of Formosa Beach follows the journey of Muanza (Lucília Raimundo), a woman trafficked from the Kingdom of Kongo to Rio de Janeiro (while the Portuguese influence in Kongo was intricately linked with commerce, religion and politics, it was slavery that left an indelible mark).  In Brazil, Muanza meets fellow slave Kieza (Samira Carvalho), with whom she plots an escape.

The now-defunct Kingdom of Kongo encompassed parts of several present-day countries (Angola, DR Congo, Congo-Brazzaville, and Gabon); established in the late 14th century, the kingdom was a centralised state with a sophisticated governmental structure, and its wealth was mostly founded on nefarious trades (ivory, slaves).  Many Kongolese people like Muanza were forcibly taken to Brazil, where, despite the brutal conditions they had to endure, they contributed significantly to the country's culture; indeed, the influence of the Kongolese can be seen in several aspects of contemporary Brazilian life, including music and cuisine.

Julia de Simone's dedication to examining the legacies of slavery and colonialism—and their impact on current society—is obvious in a film in which the two strong, stoic protagonists are boxed in to both their environment and the film's Academy ratio.  Formosa Beach's back-and-forth narrative and critique of European imperialism combine in a way that recalls Bertrand Bonello's unsettling Zombi Child, an altogether more sophisticated picture.  De Simone's ambitious film is better in idea than execution: it works well enough as an aesthetically pleasing mood piece, yet its story feels both underpowered and undertold.

Darren Arnold

Images: BFI

BFI Flare: The Broken R (Ricardo Ruales Eguiguren, 2025)

Ricardo Ruales Eguiguren's documentary The Broken R (Spanish: Rotacismo), which screens on Saturday as part of BFI Flare, was made with the backing of International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam's Bertha Fund (IBF).  The IBF should not be confused with IFF Rotterdam's Hubert Bals Fund (HBF), even though both schemes serve much the same purpose: to support emerging filmmakers in territories—such as parts of Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America—where local film infrastructure is lacking.  Receiving IBF funding precludes a project from benefitting from the HBF's support, and vice versa.

The Broken R is an intimate self-portrait of its Ecuadorian director, who, like his father, was born with Treacher Collins syndrome (TCS).  TCS is a rare genetic condition that affects the development of the bones and soft tissues of the face, often causing underdeveloped cheekbones, a small jaw and chin, downward‑slanting eyes, and abnormalities of the ears, sometimes with cleft palate and dental issues.  It commonly leads to conductive hearing loss, although intelligence is usually normal and life expectancy is typically not reduced.  Diagnosis is based on characteristic facial features, imaging, and sometimes genetic testing.

Treatment is tailored to the individual, which in Ricardo’s case has meant undergoing a number of gruelling surgeries, including complex dental procedures.  The film’s title refers to Ricardo’s longstanding difficulty in pronouncing the “r” sound (the blunter original title translates as “rhotacism”), which led him to avoid using words containing that letter and often resulted in others not catching his name correctly.  Speech therapy eventually resolved this issue for Ricardo, who notes that his father—also called Ricardo—is serenely accepting of life with TCS in a way that contrasts sharply with the filmmaker's outlook.

Which is not to say that TCS has got the better of Ricardo: he graduated from university in Ecuador before heading to Spain to undertake a master’s degree.  He's an honest, engaging narrator, and he is refreshingly open about his own perceived hang‑ups in the face of his parents’ pragmatism.  The Broken R highlights a generational divide, detailing the differing worldviews of Ricardo and his equally likeable father—a man who refuses to overthink life's problems.  Via a mix of film, digital, and VHS, Ricardo Ruales Eguiguren has created a deeply personal work, one whose impact is truly felt in the hours and days after viewing.

Darren Arnold

Images: BFI / Festival Scope

International Film Festival Rotterdam (29/1/26–8/2/26)

IFFR 2026 will open with the world premiere of Providence and the Guitar by João Nicolau.  Inspired by a short novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, the film follows Leon and Elvira, two performers trying to keep their stage careers afloat.  Providence and the Guitar also marks the acting debut of Salvador Sobral, one of Portugal's most beloved musicians and the winner of Eurovision 2017.  The festival will close with the world premiere of Rémi Bezançon's crime comedy Bazaar (Murder in the Building), starring Laetitia Casta, Gilles Lellouche and Guillaume Gallienne.  The film follows an enthusiastic Hitchcock scholar who becomes convinced that the neighbour across the courtyard has murdered his wife.

At the heart of IFFR, the Tiger Competition showcases emerging voices from across the globe, with 12 world premieres from filmmakers who reshape the familiar from within, adjusting perspectives to reveal what often goes unnoticed.  The 12 titles in the Big Screen Competition—which is dedicated to supporting the distribution of nominated films in the Netherlands—examine how lives are shaped by inherited stories, with many of the films revisiting the past to understand its pull on the present.  The winning filmmaker(s) will be awarded €15,000 in prize money; additionally, IFFR offers €15,000 to the Dutch distributor that acquires the winning film's distribution rights, incentivising local distribution.

The Displacement Film Fund was established to champion and fund the work of displaced filmmakers, or filmmakers with a proven track record in creating authentic storytelling on the experiences of displaced people.  An initiative spearheaded by actor, producer and UNHCR Global Goodwill Ambassador, Cate Blanchett, the pilot scheme was announced at the 2025 edition of the festival and the Hubert Bals Fund is the Management Partner.  Five short film production grants of €100,000 each were bestowed to Maryna Er Gorbach (Ukraine), Mo Harawe (Somalia-Austria), Hasan Kattan (Syria), Mohammad Rasoulof (Iran) and Shahrbanoo Sadat (Afghanistan), who will premiere their completed works at IFFR 2026.

Vanja Kaludjercic, Festival Director at IFFR, said: "The 2026 edition of IFFR unites new voices and returning artists whose works explore belonging, reinvention, humour, fear, beauty and the persistent human effort to understand our place in a changing world.  We're also delighted the festival will open with João Nicolau's Providence and the Guitar—a generous and witty film which places the present alongside echoes of the past—while Rémi Bezançon's Bazaar (Murder in the Building) will close the festival with style, intelligence and a sense of fun.  Across the programme, we hope every audience member will find a film that speaks to them—or challenges them—in a meaningful way.”

Source: IFFR

Images: THE PR FACTORY / Carole Bethuel

Cannes Film Festival 2025: IFFR-Backed Selections

A spread of films and talent presented at IFF Rotterdam's CineMart and backed by the Hubert Bals Fund are once again a fixture of the Cannes lineup in 2025. Catalan filmmaker Carla Simón brings her family trilogy to a close with Romería, a moving story of love, yearning and family anguish, this time through an adolescent lens as orphan Marina travels to meet her grandparents in Spain. Erige Sehiri's second feature Promised Sky focuses on a pastor whose home becomes a refuge for Naney, a young mother seeking a better future, and Jolie, a strong-willed student, before an orphan girl arrives and tests their solidarity.

Italian-American filmmaker duo Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis continue their investigation into the legends and myths of Italian folklore with the surrealist Italy-set Western Testa o croce? (Heads or Tails?). The name derives from a bet between Buffalo Bill’s American cowboys (who visited Italy with their Wild West Show in 1890) and Italian cowboys over which team was better at taming wild horses. The film follows two young lovers on the run, played by rising French star Nadia Tereszkiewicz (Red Island) and Italy’s Alessandro Borghi (The Eight Mountains), with John C. Reilly co-starring as Buffalo Bill.

Renowned Japanese filmmaker Koji Fukada has made a number of highly acclaimed features across the last fifteen years dealing with “domestic disequilibrium”, including Harmonium (2016)—which won the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at Cannes—A Girl Missing (2019), The Real Thing (2020) and Love Life (2022). Inspired by real cases in Japan, his latest, Love on Trial, follows Mai, a rising J-Pop idol whose big break is threatened when she falls in love, violating the “no love” clause in her contract. The project was presented at CineMart in 2022, where it picked up the IFFR Young Selectors Award.

March is mourning his wife Nat—who has recently passed away due to dust pollution—when he discovers her spirit has returned by possessing the vacuum cleaner. So begins the premise of Thai filmmaker Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s unique, playful, genre-mixing debut A Useful Ghost. Boonbunchachoke’s short Red Aninsri; Or, Tiptoeing on the Still Trembling Berlin Wall won the Junior Jury award at Locarno in 2020. A Useful Ghost was supported by the HBF+Europe: Minority Co-production Support scheme in 2023, where it received €60,000 of production financing.

Source: IFFR

Images: THE PR FACTORY / MK2

IFFR 2025: Competition Lineups Announced

IFF Rotterdam today revealed the lineup of films selected across the Tiger, Big Screen and Tiger Short competitions at the festival’s upcoming 54th edition. At the heart of the festival, the Tiger Competition showcases emerging voices from across the globe, with 14 world premieres exploring personal stories and profound connections to history, identity, and place—spanning Montenegro to Malaysia and Congo to India. The 14 titles in the Big Screen Competition bridge the gap between arthouse and popular cinema through genre-blurring stories of rebellion, tradition and expression, covering territories from Lithuania to Japan and the Netherlands to Argentina. The 20 titles in the Tiger Short Competition represent the most exciting and refreshing film art of today, featuring a Slovenian climate sci-fi, a re-appropriation of Myanmarese government broadcasts, and a Georgian photomontage.

Additionally, the first names in IFFR’s 2025 Talks lineup are also confirmed. Leading the programme are Cate Blanchett and Guy Maddin, who, following their recent collaboration on Rumours, will come together for an expansive dialogue about creative collaboration, the role of film festivals, and the enduring power of the short film form. IFFR will also welcome Lol Crawley to discuss his acclaimed cinematography, and Alex Ross Perry will talk about his documentary Videoheaven, part of a Focus programme celebrating the community spirit of VHS culture. As previously announced, the festival will open with Fabula, a compelling dark comedy from the award-winning Dutch director and screenwriter Michiel ten Horn, and close with the ambitious historical epic This City Is a Battlefield from Indonesian filmmaker Mouly Surya, which was also supported by IFFR’s Hubert Bals Fund.

Source: IFFR

Images: BFI

IFFR: Hubert Bals Fund Announces New Projects

International Film Festival Rotterdam's Hubert Bals Fund has selected 12 feature films to each receive a Development Support grant of €10,000. Diverse yet united in their common effort to remain vocal, the filmmakers of this funding wave extend across a variety of unique and creative styles. Tamara Tatishvili, Head of the HBF said: "This wave of grant recipient filmmakers each come from a different context but share a common approach—they do not remain silent or give in to despair amid the challenges of our current times. Instead they stay active, speak up, and make their voices heard through their stories and artistry. The filmmakers selected for the grants are just a fraction of those who submitted for consideration, making this an incredibly challenging round".

Brazilian filmmaker Lillah Halla is one of a number of filmmakers with an IFFR history who are supported in this round of funding. Her new project Colhões de Ouro is a dark musical comedy centring on Krista Bomb, an 85-year-old radical who plans to infiltrate and destroy a hyper-masculine cult to save her son. Kenyan filmmaker Angela Wanjiku Wamai's epic neo-Western Enkop (The Soil) sets the story of 55-year-old Lorna Marwa on the dusty expanses of Kenya's volatile ranch land. Kiss Wagon (pictured above) director Midhun Murali's next project, MTV i.e. Mars to Venus, is a similarly inventive feature that combines four different genres. Muayad Alayan's Conversation with the Sea follows a Palestinian man from Jerusalem who is ordered by an Israeli court to pay a debt owed by his late son.

Christopher Murray's Piedras gigantes tells the story of the archaeologist Katherine Routledge arriving on Easter Island in 1914. In Una Gunjak's road movie How Melissa Blew a Fuse, Melissa steals €200k from her workplace in Germany, buys a car, puts on music and heads towards her home town in Bosnia. Indonesian filmmaker Kamila Andini is supported for Four Seasons in Java, about a woman's journey to find peace after being wrongly convicted of murdering a young man. The short Notes of a Crocodile by Cambodian filmmaker Daphne Xu is now the basis for a feature of the same name; the HBF backs this docufiction hybrid project, which weaves myth, queer desire and politics against the Chinese development of a canal project in Cambodia.

Belarus is the setting for a dark sci-fi comedy touching on the immigrant experience in Darya Zhuk's Exactly What It Seems. In Falso positivo, Theo Montoya approaches the 'false positives' murders in Colombia, where civilians were killed by the military and falsely passed off as enemy combatants, to sculpt a narrative on the falsification of reality. Georgian filmmaker Elene Mikaberidze's documentary Blueberry Dreams (pictured above) had its world premiere earlier this year, and she's supported for her debut fiction feature Le goût de la pêche, which focuses on a young woman caught in escalating geopolitical tensions. Kasım Ördek's feature debut Goodbye for Now follows Sevgi, who is drawn into a dangerous search after her mother's mysterious disappearance.

Source: IFFR

Images: Festival Scope

HBF+Europe: Post-production Support Grants Announced

International Film Festival Rotterdam's Hubert Bals Fund has announced the four projects each awarded a grant of €60,000 through the HBF+Europe: Post-production Support scheme. The awards, sponsored by Creative Europe MEDIA, offer support for the final stages of European co-productions with filmmakers from regions where the Hubert Bals Fund targets its support. Filmmakers from Georgia, Nepal, Peru and South Africa are supported through co-producers in Luxembourg, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands respectively. The diverse projects range from a 16mm inquiry into coloniality to a revenge noir.

Georgian filmmaker Rati Oneli’s feature fiction debut Wild Dogs Don’t Bite follows his observational documentary on a derelict mining town City of the Sun, which premiered in the Berlinale Forum in 2017. Dealing in the winners and losers of post-Soviet Georgia, the film is a noir-inspired revenge thriller. Nepalese filmmaker Sahara Sharma’s film My Share of the Sky is a search for the elusive dream of home in a patriarchal society, as a young woman grapples with uncertainty on the eve of her wedding. Sharma was the first female director to open the Kathmandu IMFF with her debut Chasing Rainbows.

The selection moves into the realm of experimental storytelling with Estados generales by Peruvian filmmaker Mauricio Freyre, whose current project is a 16mm film that reimagines the voyage of a parcel of seeds from Madrid back to the place where they were picked in Peru. Fresh from the premiere of their Afrikaans-language drama Carissa in Venice earlier this year, Devon Delmar and Jason Jacobs are supported for Variations on a Theme. Like the former, the project is rooted in the rural experience, blending the magical world and the mundane on the margins between fiction and documentary.

Source/image: IFFR

IFF Rotterdam: New Head of IFFR Pro Appointed

IFF Rotterdam has appointed Marten Rabarts to the position of Head of IFFR Pro, effective immediately. Recently, Rabarts served as Festival Director at the New Zealand IFF. His extensive global career also has significant legacy in the Netherlands, both as Head of EYE International (now SeeNL)—where he was responsible for the promotion of Dutch film and film culture worldwide—and as Artistic Director of the ground-breaking development centre Binger Filmlab in Amsterdam. Rabarts will work closely with IFFR’s Festival Director, Vanja Kaludjercic, and Chief of Content, Melissa van der Schoor.

As Head of IFFR Pro, Rabarts will play a crucial role in building this sustainable programme, developing and implementing IFFR’s industry strategy, establishing new partnerships and delivering the festival’s industry programmes. IFFR will also feature an industry day dedicated to the Dutch film ecosystem. Another key focus for the upcoming edition is the Darkroom, IFFR Pro’s programme of work-in-progress screenings that takes place during CineMart. The projects presented are either supported by the Hubert Bals Fund or formerly presented at CineMart—bolstering support of projects across their lifecycle.

Vanja Kaludjercic, Festival Director at IFFR, said: "Marten has an incredible track record in both developing and implementing industry programmes and in elevating Dutch film culture on the global stage—making him the ideal person to spearhead and revitalise our industry offering. His strategic, entrepreneurial and curatorial vision is unparalleled and we are very proud to have him joining the team. IFFR has a history of trailblazing in artistic selection but also through creating vital spaces for the industry to meet and collaborate—and we look forward to building on that in our upcoming edition together".

The 54th edition of IFFR will take place from 30 January–9 February 2025, with the IFFR Pro Days running between 31 January–5 February 2025.

Source/image: IFFR

IFFR: Hubert Bals Fund Announces HBF+Europe Titles

The Hubert Bals Fund (HBF) of International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) has announced the ten co-productions awarded €60,000 each through its HBF+Europe support schemes, with eight supported for co-production and two for post-production. The selection comes with a strong commitment to emerging talent, supporting a majority of first or second time feature filmmakers and covering a wide geographical spread, with filmmakers from Singapore, Turkey, Lebanon, Chile, Tunisia, Mexico and Argentina. 

Tamara Tatishvili, Head of the HBF: “While demonstrating an impressive range of artistic approaches, all the projects in this selection call for the need to make our world a better place. Each production team follows a complex path to bring projects to fruition, and in cases like the two supported projects from Argentina, these funds will prove crucial to realising ambitious, artistically driven work. I am proud to make the HBF part of these strong collaborative efforts between international producers and selected filmmakers.”

The topic of migration is present throughout the selection, notably in Love Conquers All; Marie & Jolie similarly deals with movements of people. Bruno Santamaría presents a 90s-set story in Seis meses en el edificio rosa con azul; another period tale is Hijas únicas. The ghosts of the Paraguay War haunt the community in El mundo es nuestro. Olivia tackles the theme of disappearance; Agora is the second project supported for post-production. One of the eight projects selected for Co-production Support must remain anonymous.

Two of the projects selected are Netherlands co-productions, both debut features. As Shadows Fade by Turkish filmmaker Burcu Aykar is a poetic, multilayered narrative that deals with queer issues and women’s liberation in 1990s Turkey, and is co-produced by Amsterdam’s Isabella Films. Set in an all-girls school in Singapore, Amoeba by Siyou Tan is supported for the third time by the HBF, following development and NFF+HBF funding, and is co-produced with Rotterdam’s Volya Films. 

Source/images: IFFR

IFFR: Hubert Bals Fund Announces New Projects

The Hubert Bals Fund (HBF) of International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) has chosen ten feature film projects to each be awarded a grant of €10,000 under its Script and Project Development Support scheme. A committee of international industry experts selected the projects from more than 760 applications. Tamara Tatishvili, incoming Head of the Hubert Bals Fund: "In these complex times, when uncertainty seems to reign, the significance of impactful storytelling becomes even more pronounced. In the midst of a fiercely competitive round and guided by the diligent efforts of the HBF selection committees, I am delighted to extend a hand of companionship to the creative teams that’s about more than just financial backing". 

Vanja Kaludjercic, IFFR Festival Director: "The Hubert Bals Fund remains a steadfast ally for emerging talent and a vital tool in championing storytelling worldwide. It's truly encouraging to find both new faces and familiar filmmakers who've previously showcased their work at the festival among our selections. We take immense pride in supporting their creative journeys". Two projects from the African continent are supported: Afronauts, about the true but forgotten events of the Zambian space programme, is the first feature by Ghanaian filmmaker Nuotama Frances Bodomo; and Senegalese-French filmmaker Katy Léna Ndiaye turns from the past to the shocking present with her debut fiction feature Lënd, in which rising waters threaten the lives of the residents of a fishing neighbourhood.

The Sea Is Calm Tonight is self-taught Vietnamese filmmaker Le Bao's follow-up to the Berlinale Encounters jury prize-winning Taste (2021). Mimicking the flows between the more than seven thousand islands that make up the Philippines, Martika Ramirez Escobar follows Leonor Will Never Die (2022) with Daughters of the Sea. Ana Elena Tejera’s Corte Culebra addresses the ancestral trauma of the communities displaced on Gatun Lake, the artificial heart of the Panama Canal. Another of the filmmakers in the selection to have screened their work at IFFR is Shengze Zhu, whose Present.Perfect. competed in the Tiger Competition at IFFR 2019. Her fiction debut A Distant House Smokes on the Horizon will explore the violence of the everyday with the recent phenomenon of juvenile murder cases in China.

Lipika Singh Darai’s short Night and Fear was in competition at IFFR 2023, and her feature debut Birdwoman will be produced in the language of the Ho indigenous community from Odisha in India. Egyptian filmmaker Nada Riyadh’s feature fiction debut Moonblind will be rooted in an arena of traditional Egyptian healing rituals. With I Recognized Him by His Hands, Omer Capoglu presents a humorous but heartfelt take on the Turkish culture around martyrdom. Fantasma Neon sees Brazilian filmmaker Leonardo Martinelli take on the gig economy in musical style, protesting against the anonymising and casualisation of labour by making the delivery drivers in his film the loudest they can be, singing and dancing in the streets. The film is the follow-up to the short of the same name.

Source/images: IFFR

LFF 2023: Tótem / Hoeba!

More than three decades ago, Hubert Bals—the late creator and director of International Film Festival Rotterdam—established a fund to support filmmakers in the developing world, who Bals felt were capable of producing great cinema if given the right resources.  Since its inception, the Hubert Bals Fund, or HBF, has assisted in the production of countless critically-lauded films, including Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Memoria, Ciro Guerra's outstanding Embrace of the Serpent, and Carlos Reygadas' Battle in Heaven.  Both IFFR and the HBF have a hand in Lila Avilés Tótem, the director's eagerly awaited follow-up to her 2018 feature debut The Chambermaid, which that was selected as Mexico's entry for Best International Feature Film at the 2019 Oscars; while The Chambermaid ultimately failed to land a nomination, the acclaim undoubtedly helped Avilés secure support from the HBF for her latest feature.

Tótem was one of three HBF-backed projects from Latin America to play at this year's Berlinale—where it won the Ecumenical Jury Prize for best film in competition—and it continues to make its way around the world's film festivals with a stop at the BFI London Film Festival, where it screens today in NFT3.  Huub Bals was a firm believer in Latin American filmmakers, and Tótem is a fairly typical example of the sort of cinema the region has been producing under the auspices of the HBF.  Just as the bulk of The Chambermaid's drama unfolded in a single interior location—in that case, a luxury hotel—Tótem centres on a family home, as several generations come together to organise a surprise party.  The celebration is for the 40th birthday of Tonatiuh (Mateo García Elizondo, co-writer of the excellent Desierto), a painter dying of terminal cancer.  Such is Tonatiuh's condition, it is likely that this birthday will be his last.         

Tonatiuh himself is nowhere to be seen for a large chunk of the film, with Avilés instead choosing to focus on other family members, particularly Tonatiuh's seven-year-old daughter Sol (Naíma Sentíes).  Given the amount of people involved—it appears most, if not all, of Tonatiuh's extended family is squeezed into his house for this occasion—some bickering is inevitable, and indeed without it the film would be robbed of much of its dramatic impetus.  Tonatiuh's psychotherapist father Roberto (Alberto Amador) is himself a cancer survivor and, despite remaining largely on the periphery of the preparations, he's a notable presence here, with his sober, cranky demeanour betraying the burden of a parent who will almost certainly outlive their child.  Tótem is a somewhat immaculate work, one that is both lovingly filmed and beautifully acted, yet it never quite delivers the emotional wallop its setup promises.

 

Dutch short Hoeba! (English: Hooba!) is set several thousand years BC in Drenthe, where primeval life in the province—long before cities Assen and Emmen were ever though of—is proving tough for its inhabitants, who lack both food and shelter; while attempting to construct the latter, the former proves most distracting for a small group of primitive men, whose building work comes to an abrupt, calamitous halt as their attention turns to a mischievous rabbit.  Sem Assink's charming, funny and colourful film—a dialogue-free affair which lasts for just a little over two minutes—is bound to get a fine reception when it plays as one of eight titles included in the LFF's Animated Shorts for Younger Audiences, which screens at the festival on Sunday, October 15.   

Darren Arnold

Images: BFI

IFF Rotterdam: New Head of HBF Appointed

International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) has appointed Tamara Tatishvili as the new Head of the Hubert Bals Fund (HBF), the festival’s global film fund. Tatishvili has extensive experience across many areas of the international film industry as a strategy consultant, leader, producer and programmer. Amongst a host of notable positions, Tatishvili worked for several years as Director of the Georgian National Film Center and is currently Head of Studies at MEDICI, a training and exchange forum for senior decision makers of international public film funds. She will take up the position heading the Hubert Bals Fund following the departure of its previous Head, Bianca Taal. Also comprising the HBF team are Manager Jeske van der Slikke who will shortly be taking maternity leave and Coordinator Ayumi Filippone, who takes over until March 2024 in Van der Slikke’s absence. 

Tamara Tatishvili, incoming Head of the HBF said: “I'm thrilled to start a new chapter in my career, building on the HBF's long-standing legacy of championing global storytellers who boldly push cinematic boundaries within challenging contexts and environments. Throughout my career, I've seen first-hand the profound impact of strategic funding in regions with limited resources and restricted creative freedoms. I’m looking forward to ensuring HBF continues to amplify the voices of filmmakers whilst sharpening its focus on supporting inclusive narratives that can captivate and provoke.” Vanja Kaludjercic, IFFR's Festival Director said: "We are delighted to announce that Tamara Tatishvili has been appointed as the new Head of the HBF. Her expertise will undoubtedly play a pivotal role in strengthening the HBF's position and driving its development in the years ahead."

Source/images: IFFR

Prayers for the Stolen (Tatiana Huezo, 2021)

Utrecht native Huub Bals may be best known as the creator and director of the International Film Festival Rotterdam, but right up until his premature death—aged just 51—he worked hard to set up what was then known as the Tarkovsky Fund; following his death, the fund would take on its creator's name as it sprang into action to aid filmmakers in the developing world.  Bals firmly believed that, with the necessary support, many fine films would come from outside of Western Europe and coastal North America; he also held forthright views on the quality of Dutch and American movies, and felt that great cinema was more likely to come from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe.  For more than 30 years, the Hubert Bals Fund has assisted in the production of numerous prestigious, well-received titles, including Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Cemetery of Splendour, Alejandro Landes' Monos, and Carlos Reygadas' Japón.  

One of the fund's most recent beneficiaries is Tatiana Huezo's Mexico-set feature debut Prayers for the Stolen, which plays today at the London Film Festival.  An adaptation of Jennifer Clement's eponymous novel, Huezo's film focuses on a rural mountain community under the thumb of the cartels; here, forced disappearances are a regular occurrence, and the frequent, ominous rumble of 4x4 vehicles headed for the village instils fear among the residents—particularly those who have young daughters.  Should the day arrive when the cartel's footsoldiers come calling, village girl Ana (played by Ana Cristina Ordóñez González and Marya Membreño) has a contingency plan in place: a concealed, child-sized hole in the garden.  As the film begins, Ana is shown being helped into this space by her mother, and it soon transpires that this is a drill the two will need to carry out fairly regularly if Ana is to remain out of harm's reach.

Just as the roar of SUVs is rightly feared, so is the drone of the helicopters that haphazardly spray a noxious substance on the nearby fields; it is in these pastures that many of the villagers eke out a living by collecting poppy sap, which is later used to make heroin.  It's clear that several girls have already been taken from the village, and when Ana visits a hairdresser for a radical cut—on the pretext of preventing lice—it's chillingly clear that a boyish look may go some way towards keeping the local girls off the gang's radar.  The entire community lives under the Damoclean sword of the cartel, and a meeting at the local school reveals how staff there are forced to abandon their pupils at short notice; while the parents clearly want this sympathetic and well-liked teacher to stay, it's equally obvious that everyone in the room knows the penalty for defying orders.

Much if not all of Prayers for the Stolen's tension comes from wondering how the seemingly inevitable abduction attempt is going to play out; from the outset—and in line with the principle of Chekhov's gun—it's a given that Ana will eventually have to climb into that cramped burrow in her garden, but not knowing what will happen when she's in there is precisely what keeps us hooked.  It's a brooding, lyrical film, one that occasionally sees childhood innocence transcend the brutal violence of the criminal gangs, and the two young actresses who portray Ana at different stages of her life give fine, authentic performances.  While the futility of taking on the cartel is plain to see, there are several moments when the sense of oppression is supplanted by the quotidian, which might suggest that normality isn't necessarily a thing of the past.  One suspects that Huub Bals would highly approve of this subtle, confident work, which serves as further proof of the ongoing value of his filmmaker fund.   

Darren Arnold

Images: BFI / Film Servis Festival Karlovy Vary

Sick, Sick, Sick (Alice Furtado, 2019)

The HBF-supported Dutch coproduction Sick, Sick, Sick, by Brazilian director Alice Furtado, will have its World Premiere at the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs (Directors' Fortnight) in Cannes. It is her feature debut as director. Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1987, Alice Furtado graduated in cinema at Universidade Federal Fluminense (Brazil), and post graduated at Le Fresnoy (France). She directed the short films Duelo Antes Da Noite (2010) and La Grenouille et Dieu (2013). As an editor, she worked in Eduardo Williams' first feature El Auge del Humano, and Os Sonâmbulos, by Thiago Mata Machado.

"Sick, Sick, Sick (Sem Seu Sangue) is a film about love and its destabilizing potential. Love that puts the mechanic, productive functioning of routine to test. It is also a film about desire, this strong and passionate feeling that can motivate people to be better than they ever thought they could be, but that can also lead to doom. These two feelings, love and desire, walk hand in hand as a double edge sword. They enhance each other but can also be a very destructive (and yet, powerful) combination." - Alice Furtado

Synopsis: Silvia is an introspective young girl who is not interested in the daily routine between family and school. Everything abruptly changes when Artur arrives unexpectedly in her class, after being banned from several other schools. Silvia is amazed by the vitality of the boy, who actually suffers from a serious illness - hemophilia. The two immerse themselves in an intense and brief coexistence, interrupted by an accident in which Artur bleeds to death. Silvia gets sick and sees her life turn into a strange nightmare. The mourning gradually becomes an obsession, and obsession becomes a goal - Silvia will do anything to bring him back to life.

Source/images: THE PR FACTORY

Rafiki (Wanuri Kahiu, 2018)

The Netherlands Film Fund and the Hubert Bals Fund both have a hand in Rafiki, which screens at the London Film Festival today and tomorrow.  While its intentions are sound, unfortunately this year's BFI Flare Special Presentation is at best a serviceable drama which, even at well under 90 minutes, stretches out its thin and overly familiar story.  A bit more urgency would have been welcomed in a film which features some appealing performances, yet doesn't really give its actors enough to do.  The lively opening credits signal a fun, vibrant piece of work, but it doesn't take long for the film to run out of steam.

Kena and Ziki are two young women who start the film on very opposite sides: their politician fathers are running against each other in an upcoming election, although the film, surprisingly, doesn't delve into the dads' political stances .  The girls seem most wary of each other, and the situation escalates when Ziki and a couple of her friends tear down some posters promoting Kena's father.  Things rapidly mellow when the politicians' daughters get together over a drink and, upon realising that talking to each other is actually good fun, hostilities come to an abrupt end.  So far, it's engaging stuff, but the film soon becomes a bit of a slog as it essays the subsequent story of Ziki and Kena, with every development telegraphed way in advance.  The two leads are quite good, but it all feels too underpowered to really resonate in the manner clearly intended by director Wanuri Kahiu.  This is a pity, as there's obviously the kernel of a good idea here which never really evolves into anything very meaningful.

Where Rafiki (translated as 'friend' in the opening titles) really does succeed, however, is in its capturing of the atmosphere of the Nairobi neighbourhood in which it's set.  The shots of the bustling, colourful streets make for fascinating viewing, yet all too often we're pulled away from this interesting milieu, which proves most frustrating; Kahiu has an obvious knack for capturing the sights and sounds of the Kenyan capital, and it's a shame that this couldn't be channelled into something more productive.  The film does have something important to say about attitudes in present-day Kenya (it was initially banned in its home country), but it's too simplistic to have much of an effect, and when a message is wrapped this clumsily it will struggle to travel very far.  Thus, Rafiki stands as a squandered opportunity, although its cast and crew may well have better work than this in them; a degree of talent is clearly evident here.  But what we have this time around, unfortunately, is a film which deserves your goodwill but not your time.

Darren Arnold

Images: image.net