Exciting edition ahead at International Film Festival Rotterdam

The official selection of International Film Festival Rotterdam includes several new films by our artists and other exciting picks. The festival will be held from January 25 – February 4 2024 in The Netherlands.

Feature-length films

Jenni Luhta’s and Lauri Luhta’s feature-length film Moses (2024) will have its world premiere in the festival’s main competition, Tiger competition. Consisting of impressively staged tableaux, the film leans into Freud’s final years.

Jenni Luhta & Lauri Luhta: Moses (2024)

Screenings of Moses

  • Friday Jan 26 11:15 KINO 3 – For professionals
  • Saturday Jan 27 17:30 Pathé 2 – with Q&A
  • Monday Jan 29 09:15 Pathé 2 – with Q&A
  • Tuesday Jan 30 13:30 LantarenVenster 2

Mika Taanila’s feature-length film Failed Emptiness (2024) will have its world premiere in the Harbour section. The film, photographed with a black-and-white thermal camera, is a collaboration with the master of laconic and uncanny poetry and prose, Harry Salmenniemi.

Mika Taanila: Failed Emptiness (2024)

Screenings of Failed Emptiness:

  • Saturday Jan 27 20:30 Pathé 2 – with Q&A
  • Sunday Jan 28 15:45 Pathé 7 – with Q&A
  • Saturday Feb 3 18:00 Pathé 3

Produced by Helsinki-based Kenno Filmi, François Yazbeck’s debut feature Nécrose will have its world premiere in the Bright Future strand. Lebanese filmmaker presents a piercing, highly personal portrait of his homeland, particularly the city of Beirut.

François Yazbeck: Nécrose (2024)

Screenings of Nécrose:

  • Sunday Jan 28 20:00 LantarenVenster 5 – with Q&A
  • Tuesday Jan 30 17:15 Cinema 3 – with Q&A
  • Thursday Feb 1 16:15 Pathé 6

Short and mid-length films

Elli Vuorinen’s Flower Show (2024) will have its world premiere in Tiger Short Competition 3. The hand-drawn animation explores the underlying fabric of our society.

Elli Vuorinen: Flower Show (2024)

Screenings of Tiger Short Competition 3

  • Friday Jan 26 20:45 Pathé 3 – with Q&A (sold out)
  • Saturday Jan 27 13:00 Pathé 6 (sold out)
  • Thursday Feb 1 12:00 KINO 4

Mox Mäkelä’s new mid-length film Petticoat Fire (2024) will have its world premiere in Tiger Short Competition 4. The film is an intuitive stream of thoughts, pictures and feelings expressing the protagonist’s deep pain at the mistreatment of our planet.

Mox Mäkelä: Petticoat Fire (2024)

Screenings of Tiger Short Competition 4:

  • Friday Jan 26 18:30 Pathé 3 – with Q&A
  • Saturday Jan 27 15:30 Pathé 6 – with Q&A
  • Friday Feb 2 15:30 KINO 3

The film version of Samira Elagoz’s and Z Walsh’s You can’t get what you want but you can get me (2024) will have its festival world premiere in the short & mid-length screening Big Time Sensuality. A series of photos and screenshots tell the story of how Samira Elagoz and Z Walsh, two transmasculine artists, fall passionately in love with each other. 

Samira Elagoz & Z Walsh: You can’t get what you want but you can get me (2024)

Screenings of Big Time Sensuality:

  • Saturday Jan 27 20:30 KINO 3 – with Q&A (sold out)
  • Sunday Jan 28 11:30 LantarenVenster 6 – with Q&A (sold out)
  • Thursday Feb 1 14:00 Cinerama 3

DINAMO and Cinema Regained

AV-arkki will present three works in the DINAMO programme. The theme of this year’s screenings is Information/Disinformation. Hanna Maria Anttila, the director of AV-arkki, will attend the screenings and annual meeting of DINAMO, the Distribution Network of Artists’ Moving Image Organizations.

Erkki Kurenniemi: The Punched Tape of Life (1964)

Erkki Kurenniemi’s The Punched Tape of Life (1964) will be screened in DINAMO: Information on Friday, January 26, at 18:45 in KINO 4. In this prophetic montage, set to electronic music, Kurenniemi intercuts early computerised work systems with glimpses of people frolicking in nature. Tuomas A. Laitinen’s Dossier of Tentacular (2018) will be screened in DINAMO: Disinformation on Saturday, January 27, at 13:30 in KINO 4 (the screening is sold out). A dense, tantalising work explores the mechanisms of knowledge production.

Tuomas A. Laitinen: Dossier of Tentacular (2018)

In addition to two screenings, the DINAMO programme includes this year also an installation extension. AV-arkki’s contribution to the selection is Hanna Saarikoski’s See Paris and Die (2012), where the artist spent four days in Paris keeping her eyes shut the whole time during this performance. The installation selection will be on display in OX.Space, Joey Ramone and De Doelen Festival Centre.

Hanna Saarikoski: See Paris and Die (2012)

The Cinema Regained strand includes this year a real element of mystery and surprise related to the history of Finnish experimental film. In the 1970s, a young Finnish expat Kai Oka made experimental films as part of his film studies in Montréal. Never shown before in public, three of these films – Before and After Zeno (1978), Blue Green (1974), and Oblivion Way (1974) – will finally have their world premiere at IFF Rotterdam, in the screening A Flight of Films. The screening takes place on Monday, January 29, at 12:15, and on Wednesday, January 31, at 13:00 in KINO 4.

Kai Oka: Oblivion Way (1974)

Featured image: Samira Elagoz & Z Walsh: You can’t get what you want but you can get me (2024)


International Film Festival Rotterdam, January 25 – February 4 2024, The Netherlands

More information: IFFR


AV-arkki has promoted and distributed Finnish media art since 1989. AV-arkki’s promotional efforts have made the artists’ participation in this event possible. If you want to hear the latest news from our distribution, subscribe to our newsletter!