International Film Festival Rotterdam

Spectrum

The Spectrum section shows films by experienced directors and maestros of artistic and experimental cinema, offering a diverse and rich range of global perspectives. The 2014 line up comprises sixty-nine films in total, including fifteen world premieres, seven international premieres and seven European premieres. Spectrum includes three films supported by the Hubert Bals Fund.

Five Spectrum films were selected for the Big Screen Award Competition. Among these, world premieres of See No Evil by Dutch documentarymaker Jos de Putter, a contained yet pointy satire on three retired apes looking back on their relationships with humans; and Oxana Bychkova’s (Russia) Another Year, written by Natalia Meschaninova and Lubov Mulmenko (authors of the Tiger Award nominated The Hope Factory).

Ai Weiwei (China) premieres his latest documentary Ai Weiwei's Appeal ¥15,220,910.50, meticulously reconstructing and rebuting his controversial arrest for tax evasion by the Chinese authorities. Yang Heng (Tiger Award nominee in 2009 with Sun Spots), one of the most gifted filmmakers of his generation of Chinese independent filmmakers, premieres his new HBF supported film Lake August in Rotterdam.

South America is well represented with several world premieres in Spectrum this year. Argentinian director Rodrigo Moreno (of the impressive El Custodio) brings his latest film Reimon to Rotterdam, supported by the Hubert Bals Fund and nominated for the Big Screen Award. Peruvian/Dutch co-production Back to the Temple of the Sun by Marco Pando is a experimental road movie in the trails of comic book hero Tintin. Italian writer and filmmaker Aurelio Grimaldi also went to South America for The Blood is Hot in Bahia, a love story set in the poor neighbourhoods of Salvador de Bahia.

World premieres in Spectrum also include some wildly experimental and couragiously political films like the Hubert Bals Fund supported EDSA XXX: Nothing Ever Changes in the Ever-Changing Republic of Ek-Ek-Ek by Khavn (Philippines) and Supernatural by Thunska Pansittivorakul (Thailand) that seems to predict the present political turmoils in Bangkok.