Rotterdam Film Festival Awards

Several films which premiered at Sundance -- Soldier Jane (ISA: Premium Films), Fat Shaker, What They Don’t Talk About When They Talk About Love, Stoker (Fox and Fox Searchlight) and Il Futuro (ISA: Visit Films) -- have gone on to take awards at the recently wrapped International Film Festival Rotterdam.

And the winners are…  

Hivos Tiger Awards
The three winners of the equal Hivos Tiger Awards 2013 are:

• My Dog Killer (Môj pes Killer) (ISA: M-APPEAL) by Mira Fornay (Slovakia/Czech Republic, 2013). An unflinching study of a troubled teen in small-town Slovakia, the film was praised by its jury for 'showing a very strong subject from the inside'
• Soldate Jeannette (Soldier Jane) (ISA: Premium Films) by Daniel Hoesl (Austria, 2012). A provocative portrait of two women from different ends of the social spectrum, Hoesl's debut feature was commended for it 'strong imagery and visual power.'
• Fat Shaker (Larzanandeye charbi) by Mohammad Shirvani (Iran, 2013). Shirvani's drama about a stern patriarch was, the jury stated, 'a fascinating story with superb characters.'  Apparently the film’s showing in the West has caused some problems at home.  See Indiewire story here.

The jury of the 2013 Hivos Tiger Awards Competition (prize €15.000) consisted of distinguished Iranian actress Fatemeh Motamedarya; Russian scriptwriter and filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa; Dutch filmmaker Kees Hin; José Luis Cienfuegos, artistic director of the Seville European Film Festival (Spain) and Chinese visual artist and filmmaker Ai Weiwei(who was not be able to attend the festival and commented on his jury duty in a prerecorded video message). They made their announcement of the winners at the Awards Ceremony in Rotterdam.

The winners of the NETPAC, FIPRESCI and KNF awards were also announced. Two of the winners were supported by the Hubert Bals Fund, and one was a CineMart project.

NETPAC Award
The NETPAC Jury (Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema) awards the best Asian film in IFFR 2013 official selection. The winner of the NETPAC Award 2013 is What They Don't Talk About When They Talk About Love (Indonesia, 2013).  It also had received money earlier from the Hubert Bals Fund.

FIPRESCI Award
The winner of the Rotterdam FIPRESCI Award 2013 (see photo on this page for selected jury members) is The Fifth Gospel of Kaspar Hauser by Alberto Gracia (Spain, 2013)

The Big Screen Award
Introduced this year, the Big Screen Award Competition aims to support the distribution of films in Dutch cinemas. The IFFR named Pretty Butterflies (Bellas mariposas) by Salvatore Mereu (Italy, 2012) as winner of its new Big Screen Award Competition. The film follows a day in the life of a young Sardinian girl. 

KNF Award
The Dutch Circle of Film Critics (KNF) Jury award – chosen from the ten films in The Big Screen Award Competition – went to The Future (Il futuro) by Alicia Scherson (Chile/Germany/Italy/Spain, 2013).