The 41st edition of the Rotterdam International Film Festival (IFFR) kicks off in the port city on Wednesday, with a special focus on China including works by controversial artist Ai Weiwei.

The IFFR focuses on independent, innovative and experimental cinema, video and media art. Seventeen people attended IFFR’s first edition, in 1972. This year more than 300,000 visitors and 2,500 professional guests are expected.
‘IFFR is the largest international film festival in The Netherlands and the biggest ticketed cultural event of the country. It has grown into one the largest audience and industry-driven film festivals in the world, and belongs to the top three in Europe along with Berlin and Venice,’ says IFFR spokeswoman Nancy van Oorschot.

Tiger awards
This year 15 films from three continents will compete in the Tiger Award Competition, the centrepiece of the festival. ‘The Tiger awards are the heart of the festival. This competition – like the festival itself – focuses on the filmmaker. Both the competition and the IFFR also have an extremely broad international orientation.’ says IFFR’s director, Rutger Wolfson.
The festival’s broad scope on is reflected in the diversity of genres, topics and countries of origin, in particular, the long tradition of screening independently made feature films, shorts and documentaries from China.
This year, twenty recent documentaries and art films be shown in the section Hidden Histories which focus on an unseen side of life in modern China. The ‘hidden’ aspect applies to the films themselves, as screening and distributing them is often difficult due to political censorship. It is also often difficult for filmmakers to find funding for their projects.
People
As part of this the festival will also showing works by conceptual artist and dissident Ai Weiwei: six social documentaries and four documentary art videos.
Ai Weiwei was invited to Rotterdam for the festival, but he is currently under house arrest. ‘Halfway next year he will be put on trial and until that time he is under special surveillance,’ says IFFR’s programmer Gertjan Zuilhof in magazine Filmkrant.
‘He’s not even allowed to leave his house, let alone the country. We haven’t tried to get special permission from the authorities. That might not do his case any good either.’
Road movie
Ai Weiwei’s art documentary Beijing 2003 is the longest film ever shown at the IFFR, featuring a 150 hours drive down every street inside Peking’s ring road. Other films, like Disturbing the Peace, So Sorry and One Recluse focus on China’s corrupt justice system.
The China programme also includes work by Xu Tong who is at his third festival with Shattered an account of the life of a retired railway worker named Tang, who goes to visit his daughter, Caifeng. She owns a brothel and is involved in illegal mining practices. She is a symbol of the new China while her father comes from a totally different world.
Hidden Histories will also be showing Bachelor Mountain, a new documentary film by Yu Guangyi and a sequel to his 2009 Survival Song. The film was made in the north of China and provides an intimate portrait of San Liangzi and his unshared love for Wang Meizi, the only unmarried woman in that far away area.
The festival kicks of with the French film 38 Temoins. The Tiger Awards Winners will be announced on February 3 and the IFFR last until February 5.