51st International Film Festival Rotterdam

01/26/2022

Festival Reviews

The Dream and the Radio

The Dream and the Radio

Canadian filmmakers Renaud Després-Larose and Ana Tapia Rousiouk pay tribute to Stan Brakhage, Guy Debord, Jean-Luc Godard and Pedro Costa in an intriguing experimental exercise looking at the history of cinema and old-school political activism.

To Love Again

To Love Again

The vestiges of politically-instigated past trauma come back to trouble an older couple in their second marriage as they begin ruminating on their demise in Gao Linyang’s subtly crafted, detail and performance driven feature debut.

Drifting Petals

Drifting Petals

The history of Hong Kong and its seething democratic movements is interwoven with a cryptic ghost story in Clara Law’s challenging film about memory and political struggle.

Singing in the Wilderness

Singing in the Wilderness

A bittersweet chronicle of Miao farmers who form a Christian choir in the remote mountains in China, and who are recruited to perform nationally while gradually losing their lands, autonomy, and identity.

Achrome

Achrome

An innocent farm boy experiences first-hand the horrors of the Nazi occupation of the Baltic states when he becomes a collaborator in Maria Ignatenko’s sensitive but over-aestheticized reflection on war.

Assault

Assault

Kazakh director Adilkhan Yerzhanov finds tragicomic humour in Assault, a bleakly stylish thriller about a snowbound high school under terrorist attack.

Give Me Pity!

Give Me Pity!

Amanda Kramer recreates a 1970s-style variety TV special to comment on a certain kind of diva celebrity, but the results are tediously self-indulgent, clueless about camp affect, and open to claims of disingenuousness.

My Emptiness and I

My Emptiness and I

This fictionalized portrait of a trans woman’s emotional journey towards selfhood tries to cover too many bases in the psychological process, but Raphaëlle Perez’s sympathetic performance and the film’s overall sensitivity make up for some of its flaws.

Phantom Project

Phantom Project

A pleasant though minor queer-skewed indie slice-of-life look at Millenials in Chile, using a ghost device as a way of concretizing the niggling concerns within a struggling actor’s subconscious.

Awards Corner

Rotterdam

  • Tiger Award 2022 for
    Eami (Paraguay)
    Director: Paz Encina
  • Tiger Competition Special Jury Award for
    Excess Will Save Us (France)
    Director: Morgane Dziurla-Petit
  • Tiger Competition Special Jury Award for
    To Love Again (China)
    Director: Gao Linyang
  • VPRO Big Screen Award for
    Kung Fu Zohra (France)
    Director: Mabrouk El Mechri
  • Ammodo Tiger Short Award for
    Becoming Male in the Middle Ages (Portugal)
    Director: Pedro Neves Marques
  • Ammodo Tiger Short Award for
    Nazarbazi: The Play of Glances (Iran)
    Director: Maryam Tafakory
  • Ammodo Tiger Short Award for
    Nosferasta: First Bite (USA)
    Director: Bayley Sweitzer
  • FIPRESCI Award for
    To Love Again (China)
    Director: Gao Linyang