BAMcinématek and International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) announced the full lineup and schedule for Rotterdam @ BAM today, a total of fourteen features and a shorts program showcasing IFFR’s competition films—the VPRO Tiger Awards—taking place from March 3—9, 2010.International Film Festival Rotterdam, one of the largest and most influential international film festivals, focuses on independent, innovative, and experimental cinema from all over the world. This seven-day showcase at BAMcinématek will mark the New York premieresof almost all of the films, with some also making their U.S. and North American premieres, directly after screening in official competition during the 39th IFFR, January 27—February 7, 2010 in Rotterdam. The VPRO Tiger Awards competition awards three prizes from a
slate of new films by first- or second-time filmmakers and many directors from the competition lineup will be present for Q&As; following the screenings. Rotterdam @ BAM marks the first transatlantic collaboration of its kind—between a European festival and an American film venue and continues BAMcinématek’s tradition of partnership, following in the footsteps of both Sundance Institute at BAM and Directors’ Fortnight at 40. With press and industry screenings of all the films, the series will provide stateside exposure to the whole slate, by inviting journalists, critics, distributors, sales agents and various New York film professionals, and providing a unique spotlight for this work.Florence Almozini, BAMcinématek’s Program Director called the collaboration “A huge honor… To work with a festival like Rotterdam, which is known for their bold artistic vision, and to present these films and filmmakers in New York is a privilege for us and an extraordinary opportunity for the film audiences here.” Rutger Wolfson, Festival Director of the IFFR, added “We are very glad to start this wonderful collaboration with BAMcinématek. It gives filmmakers from our Tiger Awards Competition the opportunity to present their work to audiences that will appreciate it as well as to meet with industry professionals that might take their films even further. We consider the VPRO Tiger Awards Competition to be the heart of the Rotterdam Film Festival, reuniting each year the most promising and most interesting among the world’s emerging filmmaking talent.” Ferdinand Dorsman of the Cultural Services in the USA / Consulate General of the Netherlands in New York states “Partnering with BAM to bring the International Film Festival Rotterdam to the United States is a dream we had for a long time and a great opportunity for New Yorkers to see the best from Rotterdam without the travel.”
Rotterdam @ BAM opens on Wednesday, March 3 at 7:30pm with the U.S premiere of the narrative feature debut by documentarian Pedro González-Rubio. Alamar (2009) is an intimate portrait of the last days of a father and son together on holiday on the Chinchorro reef off the Mexican coast, with the boy discovering his father’s land before he is sent off to live with his mother in Rome. Daniel Kasman of The Auteurs calls it “a sojourn of a film, getting the simplicity and details of a wonderful but limited experience down to their most honest, most untroubled, most tender, and often most beautiful essences.” Skirting both fiction and documentary and stunningly shot (often underwater) by González- Rubio himself, Alamar was produced by Jaime Romandia (Carlos Reygadas’ Silent Light, Battle in
Heaven, and Japón; and Amat Escalante’s Los bastardos and Sangre) and follows González-Rubio’s debut, the documentary Toro Negro. The special invitation-only opening night screening will be followed by a reception for filmmakers, festival organizers, and industry professionals. There will be an encore screening of the film on Thursday, March 4 at 9:15pm. Alamar will open theatrically on Wednesday July 14, 2010 at Film Forum, distributed through Film Movement.
For more information on the films and the line up of the festival, please visit: http://www.bam.org/view.aspx?pid=1948