Rutger Wolfson
photo: Bram Belloni
Meant to be A strong showing for Dutch cinema and a major new prize are among the new features of IFFR 2013. Festival director Rutger Wolfson talks to Edward Lawrenson
“Very ready, yes”, says Rutger Wolfson, director of the Rotterdam International Film Festival, when asked about the organisation’s preparedness for this 42nd edition. You’d expect Wolfson to put on a good show, speaking, as he is, to the Daily Tiger just a day ahead of opening night. But the confidence seems genuine. “I think we have a very strong and balanced programme”, says Wolfson, now in his sixth year in charge. “We have great guests coming, and organisation-wise things are going very smoothly; there have been no technical screw ups.” Dutch focus
Wolfson is especially bullish about the strong showing of cinema from the Netherlands. Two of the Tiger competition films – The Resurrection of a Bastard and Silent Ones – are Dutch, and local titles feature through the rest of the programme. As Geoffrey Macnab points out on page 3, the festival’s renewed focus on Dutch cinema comes at a difficult time for the industry, with state support for the sector due to fall in 2013 in response to the ongoing economic crisis. “We realised the festival could play an important a role for the Dutch industry”, says Wolfson. “A lot of big international industry professionals and press will see Dutch films, so they get a lot of attention. The
Dutch media are interested in it too.” The fact that there are so many interesting films from the Netherlands emerging right now is, Wolfson says, a trend IFFR is ready to exploit. “You have to be lucky enough that films are available; and this year there was a lot of choice. There were really strong films. We’re happy that we can bring all these films into the programme: it’s almost like it was meant to be.” IFFR’s renewed emphasis on Dutch cinema is, Wolfson argues, part of wider debate around the future of government support of the industry. “The money available for supporting Dutch productions is going down. Luckily there will be a parliamentary summit this February to look into things like introducing a tax shelters, and I’m very happy our showcase of Dutch films will re-emphasize the argument.” Will Wolfson or any other IFFR figure be at the summit? “No, but the Minister of Culture is attending the festival,” Wolfson says. “And I’m sure we’ll have a chat with her.” Eyes on the prize
This attention to the practicalities of supporting original talent lies behind the introduction of a new prize at IFFR this year. Alongside the festival’s long-standing Tiger competition strand, it is launching The Big Screen Award Competition and the KNF Award, in both of which ten titles will compete for guaranteed distribution throughout the Benelux (an initiative the festival is running in cooperation with Amstelfilm). “The reality of distribution at the moment is pretty grim”, says Wolfson. “There are fantastic films being
made that never get theatrical release.” Wolfson continues: “We wanted a prize that would really support our effort to get films into cinemas.” Selected from titles in Bright Future (dedicated to original work from newcomers) and Spectrum (for more established talent), the new competitive strands allow the festival to recognise films ineligible for the Hivos Tiger awards (devoted to debut and second features). “There are really great films by directors like David Verbeek or Alicia Scherson that can’t be in the Hivos Tiger Awards Competition because they’ve already had films in that strand”, Wolfson points out. “We want to have beautiful new films and we want to make them visible, and that’s always the good thing about a prize: there’s the prize itself, which is distribution, but it also gives your film more attention.” In addition, IFFR is also partnering with digital film distributor Under the Milky Way to make available favourite titles from from past editions in a dedicated ‘IFFR room’ on iTunes. New titles screening in Bright Future and Spectrum will also be added to this room (itunes.com/iffr) throughout the year. Dream ticket
The reduced distribution opportunities for the kind of cultural cinema IFFR supports – which has led to the creation of these initiatives – is a consequence of the continued economic crisis. Another consequence is a slight drop last year in audience visits to the festival. “We had 274,000 visits,” says Wolfson – a figure most other festival directors can only dream of, but one that
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does represent a fall from previous editions. It’s comparable with other cultural organisations during the recession, says Wolfson. IFFR is also making changes to its ticketing options, introducing an €18 voucher that provides visitors with reduced admission rates. “There’s a really important group,” says Wolfson on the findings of recent research into IFFR visitor profiles, “who watch around six or seven titles. They are really important to us because they are very loyal visitors and they are really important to the atmosphere of the festival because they are film-lovers. We wanted to give that group the opportunity to buy more tickets.” High standing
With funding cuts from the national and the city government due to come into effect in 2014, the importance of ticket sales to the IFFR’s budget remains high (the budget currently stands at €7.3 million). “We’ve been dealing with this since the crisis began in 2008;” says Wolfson, “we rely heavily on admissions and our partners, so government support is only part of our income.” “We’re already spending time on finding new partners and developing new initiatives – we’re pretty good at it”, Wolfson adds. Additionally, IFFR’s high standing among its large public audience, Wolfson suggests, helps protect it from overly severe cuts: “We have such a large audience who really support us; people care about the festival. I’m pretty confident we won’t have to make any compromises to the programme next year.”