IFFR 2024 was like eating in a star restaurant – in the middle of a renovation

The 53rd edition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam opened and closed on a very sweet note this year. The opening film on Thursday January 25, Head South, was a charming coming-of-age comedy about a boy desperately trying to break into Christchurch’s punk scene. The closing film, last Saturday, La Luna, was even sweeter: a liberated woman opens a lingerie shop in a small, strictly Muslim Malaysian village; ruled with the heavy theological hand of village leader Tok Hassan. The clothes bring fun back to the village – scarlet laces wake up the slumbering libido. And it gives women more power. Win-win, right? Not if you ask Tok Hassan. Funny, cute, chaste. Visitors left satisfied and unchallenged.

It is often the case that film festivals open and close with few challenging films. But this year, the festival’s bookends were more accessible than ever. A fact that fitted perfectly with a ‘new’, smaller IFFR.

“We had become too big,” festival director Vanja Kaludjercic told the crowd before the start of the festival. A.D. Until 2020, almost six hundred films were on the program every year for twelve days of the festival. Now there are ‘only’ 424, for eleven days.

A forced choice. The festival had to make significant cuts. The pandemic was a financial blow. And even after that, the visitors did not return: with 283,000 visitors, 48,000 fewer people came in 2023 than a year earlier. In 2024, this will lead to a shrunken budget: almost ten million, about 10 percent damage.

Not much festival feeling

It was noticeable almost constantly. Mainly in the atmosphere. There were hardly any parties around the festival. The closing party was not euphoric, but a bit deserted and dead – without the pinball machines and cocktails of previous years. Interviews with makers often felt awkward and sometimes even amateurish. In addition to IFFR films, cinemas also showed other films this year, which had an impact on the festival feeling. And IFFR’s own ‘living room’ and press center were moved this year to the lobby of the De Doelen concert hall. The festival felt displaced.

Attract new audiences

But the new IFFR was not only less, it was also different. The festival focused more than ever on attracting new audiences. Like the opening and closing films, the selection was more accessible than in previous years. There were a lot of sentimental, and easy genre films – highly entertaining, but fleeting. The style of the festival was younger and hipper. And the guests were bigger than ever. Crowd pleasers, such as Sandra Hüller (Anatomy of the chute), the European actress of the moment, and Blondie singer Debbie Harry. Although the latter’s talk was so confusing and cliché that visitors left the room disappointed. But hey, that also has its charm – when do you get disappointed by such a big star?

The focus on crowd-pullers has risks – ‘accessible to everyone’ quickly becomes ‘special to no one’. But it turned out well. The programmers peppered the selection with artistic challenges (Schirkoa: In Lies we Trust), cult hypes (Krazy House) and films like the top-heavy GreenBorder: Agnieszka Dutch border policy drama about a Syrian family that wants to go to Sweden via Belarus and Poland. Holland is now being muddied by Polish politicians and threatened online, but she won the audience award at the IFFR on Saturday.

Diving board

The program was balanced: suitable for both cinephiles and day trippers. And yet the festival felt a bit awkward at times. IFFR 2024 proved to be a festival in transition. Accessible films and big names should make the festival more attractive to the general public, without the festival losing its status as a ‘filmmakers’ festival’. IFFR is also traditionally a place where filmmakers meet friends and colleagues, and can speak freely without the cameras, red carpets and distribution markets of the larger festivals. It is also a springboard, where the directors of the future make their debut when they are no one yet. Yorgos Lanthimos walked around with it Dogtooth (2009), Amat Escalante was there with his first films, now he is a regular in Cannes and Venice.

It sometimes felt as if the festival played a double role – public festival and filmmaker festival. As with the prices. The Tiger Award, the grand prize worth 40,000 euros, went to Rei, the longest film of the festival (189 minutes), about the relationship between someone from Tokyo and a deaf landscape photographer. The artistic puzzle Kiss Wagon, an absurdist, political animation thriller from India, won a Special Jury Award (10,000 euros). There was hardly any positive talk about the films during the festival. That felt strange at the awards ceremony: as if you were at the awards ceremony of a parallel festival.

That will be a challenge for the coming years: becoming more modern, hipper and more accessible, without losing its own identity. 2024 was a good start. Visitors were satisfied. And, a spokesperson said, there were (relatively) more visitors this year than in 2023. Let’s hope that a little more atmosphere can be financed next year. IFFR 2024 was like eating in a star restaurant that is in the middle of a renovation.