Rotterdam’s International Film Festival – 500 movies, 2,500 guests and 300,000 tickets on sale – is all about numbers. The Netherlands’ biggest film festival though isn’t about box-office hits but about the ‘better kind of film’.

Every year, the International Film Festival Rotterdam offers a range of feature films, documentaries and shorts, and even filmic experiments outside the bounds of the cinema. Movies from all over the world are entered for the festival, with many of them getting their world premieres at Rotterdam.

Interest
The French film 38 Témoins (38 Witnesses) made by Lucas Belvaux is opening the festival and has attracted a lot of attention, as has this year’s closing film, Daniel Nettheim’s The Hunter.

Interest is also centred on the 15 feature films which have been shortlisted for one of the three Tiger Awards on offer this year. Plus, there are films by new directors from Iceland, South Korea, Brazil, Chile, Serbia, Thailand, Greece, Taiwan/Burma, China, Poland, Russia, Turkey, Germany... and also the Netherlands. There are also special Tiger Awards for short films.

Backers
Some of the movies have received support from the Hubert Bals Fund, which helps "ground-breaking and talented" film-makers from developing countries. All the film-makers involved in the festival are invited to a meeting set up with potential financial backers.

Some enthusiasts are in the cinema for 10 hours a day during the festival, and still find the time to attend sessions with the film-makers after the showings. The festival brings many visitors to the city, making the centre of Rotterdam noticeably busier than normal.

IFFR index of films by continent

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