International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) 2025 unveiled the first selections for the Short & Mid-Length strand including ten world premieres and two international premieres.
The queerly theatrical work of US-based artist, writer and filmmaker Matthew Lax and the critical approach to the lingering shadows of colonialism and dictatorship presented by Indonesian and Amsterdam-based visual artist and researcher Timoteus Anggawan Kusno will be showcased in two new shorts Focus programs at IFFR 2025.
Matthew Lax’s distinct dialectical approach queers interpretations of varied subjects, including archival texts, animal behaviour and power dynamics through performance and documentary. Working with actors and non-actors, Lax’s films prioritize critical discourse and community building which further question meaning and interpretation. Under the Focus program, two of Lax’s works will have their world premieres: A Tired Dog Is a Good Dog, Part Two and Gay Men’s Book Club.
Timoteus Anggawan Kusno works with archival material, installations, performance and institutional interventions. He has been blending the boundaries between fiction, memory and history. By questioning the making of historical narratives and exploring the shadows left behind by coloniality, his work exposes narratives that have been left unseen or unheard. The program will include the world premieres of Fever Dream and Unreleased, and will contain, among other works, his recent film Tunggang Langgang. The focus program marks Kusno’s return to IFFR, following the screening of his work Dear Shadow, My Old Friend in 2024.
In the Short & Mid-Length program, the festival welcomes back several returning filmmakers including Lipika Singh Darai with a world premiere of B and S, an exploration of the friendship between two trans women; Nuno Boaventura Miranda presents The Last Harvest, following three characters navigating life in Lisbon’s Cape Verdean community; and Brazilian filmmaker Pethrus Tibúrcio,presents their debut short Tell Her What Happened to Me.
Andrew Norman Wilson returns with Silvesterchlausen, on a mysterious tradition of the same name that takes place every New Year’s Eve in Switzerland’s Appenzell; Stefan Ivančić presents the world premiere of Upon Sunrise, a piercing portrait of a single mother in Serbia; Helena Wittmann returns with the world premiere of A Thousand Waves Away; and Rajee Samarasinghe will world premiere You’re a Shadow, a portrait of an exorcist in Sri Lanka, alongside his feature in the Bright Future program, Your Touch Makes Others Invisible.
Nigerian-British artist and filmmaker Jenn Nkiru returns to IFFR with the international premiere of The Great North, a meditative film about Manchester, UK. Also hailing from Manchester is filmmaker Hope Strickland, who presents the world premiere of a river holds a perfect memory, tracing the interrelation of water, memory and labour between the UK and Jamaica.
My Brother, My Brother will have its world premiere: an autofiction animation by Berlin-based Egyptian filmmaker Abdelrahman Dnewar and his late brother Saad Dnewar; Ulu Braun presents the world premiere of Gerhard, an AI-produced biopic on the artist Gerhard Richter; and New York writer and filmmaker Eliza Barry Callahan presents the world premiere of The Non-Actor, featuring Maya Hawke.