21 short films are selected for the Ammodo Tiger Short Competition at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) with the jury consisting of Nathanja van Dijk, Safia Benhaim and Greg de Cuir Jr.
The selection is made up of work by newcomers as well as filmmakers who have longer histories with the festival. Among the films by IFFR regulars are Mahdi Fleifel’s 3 Logical Exits, Laure Prouvost’s They Parlaient Idéale, and Erik van Lieshout’s Beer, which was borne out of him winning the Heineken Prize for Art.
In addition, Wong Ping presents Wong Ping’s Fables 2, the sequel to his 2019 Ammodo Tiger Short Award-winning film, and Ben Rivers competes with Look Then Below. Next to appearing in competition with her new short film Aggregate States of Matters, Italian artist Rosa Barba is also part of IFFR’s Frameworks programme.
Other familiar names in contemporary art include Ismaïl Bahri with Apparition, Michael Portnoy with Progressive Touch and Thao Nguyen Phan with Becoming Alluvium.
French filmmaker Isabel Pagliai is making her IFFR debut with the only mid-length in competition, the 47-minute film Tendre, and Ana Vaz is selected with Apiyemiyekî?. Melisa Liebenthal, whose feature film Las lindas won the Bright Future Award at IFFR 2016 and who received HBF support in 2017, presents her short film ;Aquí y allá. Chinese filmmaker Lei Lei’s A Bright Summer Diary is also selected. His upcoming feature-length Ningdu previously featured at CineMart 2017 and received HBF support in the same year.
The jury for the Ammodo Tiger Short Competition consists of the recently appointed director of Kunsthal Rotterdam Nathanja van Dijk, French filmmaker and previous Tiger Award for Short Films winner Safia Benhaim (La fièvre, IFFR 2014), and Los Angeles-born, Belgrade-based film curator and writer Greg de Cuir Jr.
Brazilian filmmaker Leonardo Mouramateus has also been selected for the Ammodo Tiger Short Competition, with A chuva acalanta a dor. Next to showing this competition film, IFFR 2020 dedicates a Short Profile to Mouramateus in the festival’s Deep Focus section, showing his earlier and recent short films. At 28 years of age, the Fortaleza-born filmmaker has established a strong personal style, always searching for new forms of narrative cinema and often chronicling big-city life in Brazil in unexpected ways.
Films in Ammodo Tiger Short Competition 2020
3 Logical Exits, Mahdi Fleifel, 2020, Denmark/UK/Lebanon, world premiere
Aggregate States of Matters, Rosa Barba, 2019, Peru/Germany, world premiere (festival)
Apiyemiyekî?, Ana Vaz, 2020, France/Netherlands, world premiere
Apparition, Ismaïl Bahri, 2019, France, world premiere (festival)
Aquí y allá, Melisa Liebenthal, 2020, France/Argentina, world premiere
Becoming Alluvium, Thao Nguyen Phan, 2019, Vietnam/Spain, world premiere (festival)
Beer, Erik van Lieshout, 2019, Netherlands, world premiere (festival)
A Bright Summer Diary, Lei Lei, 2020, USA, world premiere
A chuva acalanta a dor, Leonardo Mouramateus, 2020, Portugal/Brazil, world premiere
Communicating Vessels, Maïder Fortuné/Annie MacDonell, 2020, Canada, world premiere
The Eyes of Summer, Rajee Samarasinghe, 2019, Sri Lanka/USA, international premiere
Look Then Below, Ben Rivers, 2019, UK, world premiere (festival)
The Lost Procession, Bani Abidi, 2019, United Arab Emirates/Germany/Pakistan, world premiere (festival)
the names have changed, including my own and truths have been altered, Onyeka Igwe, 2019, UK, international premiere
Progressive Touch, Michael Portnoy, 2019, Austria/Netherlands/USA, international premiere
Sayōnara, William Andreas Wivel, 2019, Denmark, international premiere
Sun Dog, Dorian Jespers, 2019, Belgium, world premiere
Tendre, Isabel Pagliai, 2020, France, world premiere
They Parlaient Idéale, Laure Prouvost, 2019, France/Belgium/Italy, world premiere (festival)
Tyrant Star, Diane Severin Nguyen, 2019, Vietnam, international premiere
Wong Ping’s Fables 2, Wong Ping, 2019, Hong Kong, European premiere