An evocative film about visually impaired characters, What They Don’t Talk About When They Talk About Love, bagged the NETPAC Award for Best Asian Film at the 42nd International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), which ended February 3, 2013.
Helmed by young director, Mouly Surya, the Indonesian film was cited “for its appeal to the senses in evoking the textures and rhythms of the emerging Southeast Asian cinema.” This second feature was also Indonesia’s first entry at the Sundance.
The festival bestowed its top Hivos Tiger Awards to My Dog Killer by Mira Fornay (Slovakia/Czech Republic), Soldier Jane by Daniel Hoesl (Austria) and Fat Shaker by Mohammad Shirvani (Iran). Each filmmaker received a prize of €15,000 for their innovative works.
Pretty Butterflies by Salvatore Mereu, a coming-of-age tale set in Sardinia, was this year’s Big Screen Award winner. This new competition section, which is overseen by a jury of young Dutch cinephiles, awards the winner with a Benelux distribution deal.
Another project realized through the Hubert Bals Fund was the UPC Audience Award winner, Matterhorn, a tragi-comic character study of a lonely widower by debuting Dutch filmmaker, Diederik Ebbinge.
Other winners include The Fifth Gospel of Kasper Hauser by Spanish helmer, Alberto Garcia (Rotterdam FIPRESCI Award), and Futureby Chilean filmmaker, Alicia Scherson (KNF Award by the Dutch Circle of Film Critics).
This festival edition proved to be a remarkable year for female directors like Surya, Fornay and Scherson. Haifaa Al Mansour, regarded as the first woman filmmaker from Saudi Arabia, also received the Diographte Award for Wadjda. The film depicted the emblematic struggle of a young girl fighting to get a new bicycle in a conservative society.
This year’s festival was also marked with a particularly strong Asian presence. With two main competition entries from Thailand, diverse selections from Indonesia and the Philippines, world premieres of notable titles from Korea, Japan and China, plus a special focus of the art cinemas of Iran, festival programmer, Gertjan Zuilhof noted “how Asia continues to be a source for new titles for the IFFR”.
Signalling the start of the major festival season in Europe, Rotterdam had come to be an apt platform to launch new Asian titles this side of the globe. The relatively sparse representation from Asia in this year’s Berlinale, underscored Rotterdam’s continuing thrust and its thriving film market, CineMart.
During its awards ceremony, controversial Chinese artist/activist Ai Weiwei, congratulated the night’s winners with an inspiring message from the jury broadcast via Skype.
It all redounds to a vibrant and diverse edition despite the lingering global financial crisis. With the impact of budgetary cuts threatening next year’s event, festival co-directors, Rutger Wolfson and Janneke Staarink, opined how the IFFR has continually illustrated the long-term value of culture and “meaningful connections” across the globe.
The writer, Ed Lejano (Philippines) was the Chairperson of the NETPAC Jury, together with Ji Hoon Jo (South Korea) and Massoud Bakhshi (Iran).
by Ed Lejano