Cate Blanchett is launching a new Fund for Filmmakers Fund at the IFFR

For a moment the International Film Festival Rotterdam looked like that Van Berlin or Toronto, where it is very common that movie stars come to present a film in their jeans. Or in the case of Cate Blanchett, because it was she, a short and a long film. And, the main reason for her visit: the launch of a fund to give fled filmmakers the opportunity to incorporate their experiences in a short film. Blanchett, known for the Saffic romance Carolconductor drama Tár and the new Apple TV+thriller Disclaimeris not only one of the most daring and versatile actors of our time. She also makes time for her work ‘Goodwill Ambassador’ of UN refugee organization UNHCR, which, among others, supports the Hubert Bals Fonds of the IFFR and the Rotterdam foundation Droom en Daad, the new ‘Displacement Film Fund’. During the Cannes Film Festival, the five directors will be announced in May, each receiving 100,000 euros for a short production. The intention is that the films will premiere during IFFR 2026.

Blanchett said during the presentation: “It is a very turbulent time in which spectators are hungry to consume stories in many different ways. The film industry is in many ways in a free fall and that is an opportunity to transform itself into something exciting. ”

Later in the day there were rows of fans with signature booklets on the Rotterdam Black Loper and the old Luxor was sold out for the Dutch premiere of G7-Satire to the NOK Rumorsof which it is not yet known whether it will be shown further in the Netherlands. In this she plays the German Chancellor who during a mysterious wipeout In which the peats from their graves crawl an erotic liaison with the Prime Minister of Canada. There are more strange things in that horror comedy that premiered last year at the Cannes film festival. Director Guy Maddin is a veteran in Rotterdam. The Canadian already had a retrospective at the festival in 2003. In 2009, together with Isabella Rossellini, he made the IFFR Send Me To The ‘Lectric Chair That at the time during the festival in a permanent projection on the then Robeco building on the Coolsingel.

Asked for their first meeting, Blanchett and Maddin told before the film that the Sparks-Clip ‘The Girl is Crying in Her Latte’, in which Blanchett performs a Lijp dance in a canary yellow suit. Later, later, in a tightly directed conversation about their work and their collaboration with the managing director of the IFFR, Clare Stewart, she added that it was actually a matter of it from the outset that she wanted to work with him: “If someone of The caliber Maddin you call, then you do not choose based on a script or an idea, but on the basis of someone’s work. Although I had the idea that we would turn in his garage in Winnipeg, but then we were suddenly in a park in Budapest. ” She refers to the Quirky short films that Maddin often produces with a team of faithful in his own studio.

The Sparks-Clip ‘The Girl is Crying in Her Latte’

“That Oscar is shocked by her”

That was not a courtesy or bluff. There was a clip shown in which Blanchett, together with Tár director Todd Field, selects films in the pantry of the Cinephile Criterion collection, which releases DVDs and operates its own streaming canal in the US. These films are very popular among film lovers, because they give a glimpse into the taste of makers. Blanchett picked Maddins My Winnipeg (2007) Van de Plank, an imaginary documentary fantasy about sleeping walkers in Maddin’s hometown Winnipeg.

Maddin, asked what films he would have taken from the chameleontic, fearless and in her role choice never the easiest way to take into account: “Suppose Criterion had already released Cate’s work …” He parodies the typical way in which their choices in the closet justify: “Oh, look Notes on a scandal. Cate is great in that movie. She plays a teacher at a high school who enters into a relationship with one of her students and Judi Dench becomes very jealous. And Tárof course … that Oscar is shocked by her. “

The room shouts. It is the only time that the title is mentioned of the immensely popular psychological puzzle self -movie in which Blanchett plays a conductor who is accused of cross -border behavior and for which she received the acting prize in Venice. Maddin continues: “And what is this? Manifestoin which she does play a dozen different characters. And what do we have here? A box set with its plays! ”

“I never thought I could work in the film world. Fortunately I was in the theater and women certainly had a limited expiration date in the film industry, “Blanchett recalls its entrance to the film world. In 1998 she broke through with the costume drama nominated for seven Oscars Elizabethand then every next artistic step made more curious. Maddin called Manifesto (2015) From the German visual artist Julian Rosefeldt and her love for experimental film not for nothing. The film showed on thirteen screens was at the time at the Holland Festival, and shows her in all her versatility. “Moreover,” she says, “nowadays you no longer know how people will watch your film. On their phone, in small pieces. While people who go to spatial film work have the peace to commit themselves to that work a little longer. ”

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