Ard Vijn here with what I assume to be the last article concerning this year’s IFFR, and it’s an interview.

While its world premiere was at the International Film Festival Rotterdam last January, Jeff Pickett’s “The Skyjacker” will soon be shown on US soil: the North American premiere is set to take place in less than three weeks at the Atlanta Film Festival.

“The Skyjacker” is a movie loosely based on an incident which happened in the early seventies: a man aboard a passenger airliner claimed to have a bomb in his hand luggage. He demanded a parachute and 200.000 dollars. After receiving both at an inbetween stop he jumped from the plane in mid-flight (of course with parachute and the money), never to be heard from again. His name is assumed to be D. B. Cooper and he has become a bit of a legend.

Funnily enough Jeff Pickett told me this incident is currently back in the news, because the FBI is researching the recently found remains of a parachute which might be the one Cooper used during the crime.

In my review I was anything but kind about his movie, but Jeff was very nice about that.
So what do you ask a director whose first movie you just roasted?

Read on...

Continue Reading "IFFR 2008: Interview with “The Skyjacker” actor / writer / director JEFF PICKETT"...

Ard Vijn here, with an introduction for the next interview.

Missing “Flower in the Pocket” has been my biggest regret at this year’s International Film Festival Rotterdam, especially since Peter van der Lugt (GhibliWorld.com) and I kept running into writer/director Liew Seng Tat. We even got a chance to interview him!

Now I would have loved to participate in interviewing Liew Seng Tat, but fate had its way of making me miss every single screening of “Flower in the Pocket” prior to the meeting.
And I didn’t want to bother the man with made-up questions while I hadn’t even seen his film (I did stick around to take the pictures though...)

But thankfully Peter had managed to see it and he had several questions prepared. Liew Seng Tat had just had a very successful week in Rotterdam: he received the Prince Claus grant which is a financial injection for producing his next feature, and Peter caught up with Mr. Liew the morning after “Flower in the Pocket” had won the Tiger Award…


Read on after the break.

Continue Reading "IFFR 2008: Interview with “Flower in the pocket” writer / director LIEW SENG TAT"...

Shortly after Peter van der Lugt (from GhibliWorld.com) and I saw Lee Kang-Sheng‘s new movie “Help me, Eros” we actually got an opportunity to speak with the man himself.

Which is a weird experience to be honest: first we see movie posters for “Help me, Eros” everywhere in Rotterdam (featuring a naked Lee Kang-Sheng with hemp leaves painted on him, having graphic sex with an angel), then we see him larger than life on the big screen in a very explicit role, next we’re shaking hands with him.

Bizarre…

And “Help me, Eros” isn’t exactly the easiest of films to talk about. It’s great for discussing with other movie fans, make no mistake, but to ask specifics from its creator is something else.
For example, it’s easy to say “Dude, did you see that threesome?” to a friend.
It’s a lot less easy to ask “So ehm… why did you put in a threesome?” to the person who acted, wrote and directed that scene.

Thankfully we didn’t need to worry about questions becoming too embarrassing, as Mr. Lee was very candid and willing to fill in any blanks.

Read on after the break!

Continue Reading "IFFR 2008: Interview with “Help Me, Eros” actor / writer / director LEE KANG-SHENG"...

It’s always worth it to check the KPN Audience Awards list at the website of the International Film Festival Rotterdam. “Persepolis” may have been the expected winner but the number two was a surprise: a Brazilian / Italian co-production named “Estômago - A Gastronomic Story” which got an average rating of 4.5 out of 5.
When combined with the on-line audience award it ended even higher than “Persepolis”, so this was definitely a crowdpleaser!

It describes the rise of an idiot with a talent for haute cuisine cooking, and in a very original touch it tells the same story twice with the same protagonist: once in prison and once as a flashback in the free world. It is an odd hybrid which can best be described as “Ratatouille” (yes, the Pixar movie) meets “Carandiru” (yes, the Brazilian prison drama).

This film is one of those happy discoveries you can only have at a film festival. A sexy mix of comedy, good food and violence, Marcos Jorge’s film actually made me hungry while watching it.

More after the break…

Continue Reading "IFFR 2008: ESTÔMAGO (A GASTRONOMIC STORY) Review"...

Earlier we reported about Cédric Anger’s first feature “Le Tueur” (The Killer), stating that France currently releases its fair share of tough genre movies and that this one looked to be loaded with guns and drugs.

Well… that last part is not quite true.
It does have a gun and some drugs in it, but don’t go in expecting a “Dobermann"-esque action film. Instead it’s a sedate character drama with some nice twists, and which focuses on the relationship between a businessman and the hitman hired to kill him.

Read on after the break…

Continue Reading "IFFR 2008: LE TUEUR Review"...

Ardvark here, this is the Twitch website and, even though I still have to post some reviews and interviews, another International Film Festival Rotterdam has passed.
So something would be seriously amiss if we wouldn’t have a recap from our loyal reader/contributor Peter Cornelissen (aka. “Petcor80” in the forum).

Astonishingly, while our areas of interest definitely overlap our movielists do not share even a single title this year. And we didn’t do this on purpose!
I already wondered why I hadn’t run into him but it just shows how large this festival is, with 250 features and 650 shorts…

So without further ado heeeeeeere’s Peter!!


”The IFFR 2008 – a report by Peter Cornelissen

It was a strange year for the IFFR and me. The festival had a new director, continuing financial problems took some toll, the selection of films didn’t look that exciting for a lot of people as there wasn’t a massive rush for tickets as per usual (although in the end of course a lot of screenings were sold out) and then there was a personal thing that made me almost miss the festival entirely, but in the end I was able to roam around in Rotterdam for three days and see more than a third of what I had originally planned.

(more after the break! AV)

Continue Reading "IFFR 2008 Wrap Up"...

Confession time:
The last 20 minutes of this movie I watched with fingers in my ears and peeping through my eyelashes, determined not to jump out of my seat like the directors had already managed a couple of times before…
For “[°REC]” must be one of the best seat-jumpers ever made, undoubtedly amongst the cleverest and funniest films in this years’ festival! I’ve never before seen a press audience move and giggle (nervously) this much during a movie.

By now you’ve probably heard about this one already: like “Cloverfield”, “[°REC]” follows the “Blair Witch” modus operandi of being a found tape.
But instead of a seemingly endless stretch of forest the camera crew now finds itself confined within a small apartment complex, where they encounter…

...well…

...either zombies or people suffering from the worst possible case of Tonsillitis!

Read on after the break…

Continue Reading "IFFR 2008: [●REC] Review"...

Actor / writer / director Lee Kang-Sheng must have mixed feelings about Rotterdam. His first movie “The Missing” won a Tiger Award in 2004, but when he went to the Cinemart part of the festival to try and get funding for his next movie, he didn’t get any!

And now that he’s finally finished his next film (with a Taiwanese government grant), “Help Me, Eros” is being hailed at this year’s festival as “a striking film by a striking moviemaker”.
Oh well, art is art and business is business and apparently it’s never sure the twain shall meet, not even at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.

Although I could see this as not being the easiest of sales. “Help me, Eros” is a somber movie telling the last part of a stock-trader’s downfall. It focuses on the man’s desperate clinging to the few luxuries he has left while he drags himself through every day on a diet of sex, soft-drugs and fantasies about the girl at the other end of the suicide-helpline.

It’s also partially autobiographical, describing an episode of Lee Kang-Sheng’s life of which he has no fond memories but found plenty of demons to exorcise.
Read on after the break…

Continue Reading "IFFR 2008: HELP ME, EROS Review"...

One of the many world-premieres at this year’s International Film Festival Rotterdam was “The Skyjacker”.
It’s the first feature of writer / director / actor Jeff Pickett and I had never heard of him, so I didn’t know what to expect.

All I knew was that the story was inspired by the famous “Dan Cooper” incident in 1971, when a man claiming to have a bomb on him asked for money and a parachute, got both at an inbetween stop, jumped off the plane in mid-air and was never found.

As crimes go this one was remarkably non-violent (the passengers never knew what happened until they had already left the plane). It was also successful, with the FBI still having to concede that they haven’t the foggiest where this man went.

Other than that the movie was a complete question mark when I took my seat.
Now, having seen it, the movie is still a question mark for me. As is its audience rating of 3.19 (out of 5) which I consider to be VERY generous.

Ouch! Read on after the break…

Continue Reading "IFFR 2008: THE SKYJACKER Review"...

Last night at the close of the 37th International Film Festival Rotterdam “Persepolis” won the KPN Audience Award. The audience gave it an whopping rating, with an average of 4.60 out of 5.

You can see the whole list on the IFFR website.

Rutger Hauer presented the award together with a cheque worth 7500 Euro. Filmmakers Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud weren’t there but Rutger quipped that ‘the other Rutger’ (festival director Rutger Wolfson) would make sure the money would reach them.

The winner wasn’t really a surprise: ever since its first showing it was number one in the polls. And last Thursday it already won the MovieSquad Award (worth another 2000 Euro), which is the festival award granted by a jury of youths.

This year at the International Film Festival Rotterdam we poor otaku faced a dearth of Japanese anime: there really was only one title which qualified as such. Thankfully that was “Appleseed: Ex Machina” and it turned out to be both good and spectacular, earning its audience rating of 4.0 (out of 5).

After introducing ourselves and the obligatory three seconds of uneasy silence we launched straight into question one…

Read on after the break!

Continue Reading "IFFR 2008: Interview with “Appleseed: Ex Machina” director ARAMAKI SHINJI"...

“I need a bodyguard now. I came with a flower in the pocket, and I leave with a tiger in the pocket!”

Malaysian filmmaker Liew Seng Tat’s exact words after his debut feature film, Flower In The Pocket, was announced as one of three winners of the VPRO Tiger Awards at the 37th International Film Festival Rotterdam. The other two winning films are Aditya Assarat’s drama about the tsunami tragedy, Wonderful Town; and Omar Shargawi’s Go With Peace Jamil.

This year’s jury consisted of Singapore filmmaker Royston Tan, Russian actress and filmmaker Renata Litvinova, former deputy director of the Filmmuseum of Amsterdam Rieks Hadders, deputy director of the Locarno festival Tiziana Finzi, and Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi.

Wonderful Town was awarded for its “fresh perspective ... and unconventional ending”, Flower for its “excellent visual expression”, and Go With Peace for its “strong directing and acting work.”

A haunted house. An African immigrant. A traditional Malaysian village. Sounds like fun!

That’s the premise for Liew Seng Tat’s next feature film, In What City Does It Live?, which has just been awarded the Prince Claus Film Fund grant of Euro15,000. He describes the story as a “humorous approach to superstition and racism in a small Muslim village.” The fund is aimed at encouraging filmmaking in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Liew Seng Tat is probably the brightest new star of the Malaysian independent scene. His Flower In The Pocket won the top prize in Pusan and is currently in the VPRO Tiger Awards competition in Rotterdam. In the photo are Liew and producer Michelle Lo at the 25th CINEMART awards night.

Ardvark here: this is a review for a movie I missed. I’m talking about Paul Krik’s “Able Danger”, a satirical thriller about a spoof conspiracy. Sounds like fun!

But the one slot in my schedule where I was able to plan it in suddenly closed and I had to “abort mission”. A pity as this was a world premiere AND programmed into my favorite part of the festival: “Rotterdämmerung”, where the horror, anime and sci-fi films reside.

Thankfully I’m not the only person in Rotterdam, so a friend of mine was kind enough to step in and write us all a review!

May I introduce to you Kees Geuze, a friend with whom I’ve been visiting the International Film Festival Rotterdam every year, since, like, forever.

The stage is all yours, Kees!
And damn, it seems like I indeed missed something...



“Last night I watched “Able Danger” which had it world premiere at the IFFR just the night before. I went into the theater expecting a political pamphlet played by some left wing activists, but instead I saw a very well made film noir movie about a 9/11 conspiracy theory.

The title of the film refers to the Able Danger project which was an US army project that used advanced technology and data analysis to identify Al Qaeda members around the world. It is claimed that this program identified four of the hijackers from the 9/11 planes but the government refused to arrest these people and ordered the destruction of all data concerning this investigation.

(continued after the break)

Continue Reading "IFFR 2008: ABLE DANGER Review"...

Ardvark here, with a review by GhibliWorld.com’s Peter van der Lugt, animation expert extraordinaire.

Especially for Twitch he converts his festival experiences into text. And lo and behold, this time it’s about an animated feature!


“Has the organization of the International Film Festival Rotterdam been feeling down? Not only is this year’s festival logo and poster all black and white, in the field of animation it has lost its color as well. Well, literally and in terms of quantity that is.

Luckily, all isn’t bad at all, as quality wise things are quite colorful. Japanese animation fans can get their fix with Aramaki Shinji’s entertaining Appleseed Ex Machina. Furthermore, the critically acclaimed Persepolis forms another must-see, as in the Netherlands it hadn’t been screened yet (by the way it’s currently topping this year’s KPN Audience Award). And to already end the list is another very interesting animation piece called “Fear(s) of the Dark” (original title: Peur(s) du Noir).

Read on after the break…

Continue Reading "IFFR 2008: FEAR(S) OF THE DARK Review"...