Half and Morphia while helping put together last year’s Red Westerns retro- spective. But Wolfson is confident IFFR’s new Eastern European expert Evgeny Gusyatinskiy will have no problem step- ping into her shoes. He describes the Moscow-based Gusyatinskiy as “ridicu- lously young and very, very talented”. Promoted from within is Inge de


Leeuw, who programmed last year’s film and fashion sidebar Out Of Fashion and is now selecting films from English- speaking territories. Bianca Taal, a former head of the festival’s Hubert Bals Fund, has taken over Middle Eastern programming for the 2012 edition. Displaying its populist credentials


and willingness to foreground intelligent genre fare, the festival’s The Mouth Of Garbage programme will show features and shorts from Sao Paulo. This will include some hardcore pornography, albeit in the shape of films that have a subversive, political edge. Wolfson expects Rotterdam’s


‘Tiger screenings are always sold out. Audience and industry are really interested to see what


we’ve found’ Rutger Wolfson, IFFR


famously broad-minded audiences to take such screenings in their stride. “It will be clear what they are going to see. In general, our audience is pretty well prepared for stuff like that,” he says. Alongside the Brazilian films, the fes-


tival’s other themed programmes include Power Cut Middle East, which will showcase recent films from the region with an emphasis on Syria and Egypt. Michel Gondry will be in town to


present his interactive installation Home Movie Factory, which will give festival- goers the chance to make their own short film in less than three hours. There will also be a special tribute to


Raul Ruiz, the great Chilean film-maker who died last year and who enjoyed a long-standing link to the festival. One perennial criticism of Rotterdam’s


flagship Tiger competition, open to first or second-time feature directors, is that it rarely identifies films which go on to secure mainstream distribution. Wolfson counters this by pointing to last year’s


selection which included discoveries such as The Journals Of Musan and Finis- terrae. He also notes that with interna- tional arthouse distribution in the doldrums, the best chance to be seen for many of the strongest new films is on the festival circuit. “Tiger screenings are always sold


out,” says Wolfson. “That underlines that audience and industry are really inter- ested to see what we’ve found.” A film that wins a Tiger may not be


bought by distributors all round the world, but Wolfson insists it will be noticed. His mission is to make clear how expansive Rotterdam’s reach really is. “Many people that know us, even stake- holders and politicians, know only part of us,” he says. “For example, they know the audience part of the festival. The fact we’re such a big industry festival is some- thing they don’t experience at first hand… Yes, we’re the biggest cultural event in the Netherlands but we also play an important part in the film industry.” n


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