In a few days the entire programme of the 2008 IFFR will be announced. All the premieres are already known and amongst them is the World premiere of “Låt den rätte komma in” aka Let the Right one In http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1139797/ , based on this best selling vampire novel http://www.amazon.co.uk/Let-Right-John-Ajvide-Lindqvist/dp/1847242960/ref=pd_sbs_b_img_2 ,sounds very interesting to me. There wasn’t much else I spotted amogst the premieres that got me excited… maybe Oretachi no Sekai (This World is Ours) by Nakajima Ryo which has it’s European premiere at the festival

the entire list of prenmieres http://www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com/ned/iffr_2008/premieres.aspx

Dammit Peter, you just beat me to posting this!
If I hadn’t had to go to the dentist… 

Did you see any other titles or directors in this list that are something to look out for?
I am still waiting for the confirmation of a lot of titles on my want list… maybe the financial problems of the festival are impacting the selection this year, or maybe they like to surprise everyone at the last minute

OK, surprises so far:
Bad:
-No Miike Takashi (???)
-No Vexille
Good:
-Once again, both “Glory to the Filmmaker” and “Dainipponjin” get to duke it out on a festival.
-Wisit Sasanatieng’s “The Unseeable”
-Barbet Schroeder’s “L’ Avocat de la Terreur”

Vexille is selected for the AFFF later this year.

few bummers here also. No Harmony Korine, while the main theme of the festival is “free radicals” ... mind boggling!! I was also looking forward to a small retrospective of Coen brothers movies so I could experience the glory of the Big Lebowski in the cinema again… no such luck. It is being screened for students, but not in the regular programme.

Also no “Banishment”... but that was to be expected…

what we do get is a screening of Phase IV (I knew this already, but still great news!!)
Sad Vacation from Shinji Aoyama, the new Bela Tarr, Sokurov and Kitano movies and lots of other potentially great movies!!

Weeeee!

Got my press-card today, and a bag full of books… man, this festival sure does look good from this side of the mirror!

It’s also the reason I haven’t written my schedule here yet: as press you can decide on each day which press screenings you want to see, or which next day’s public screenings you want free tickets.

Nice! This means I can hunt for titles with the highest audience appreciation (listed daily), and see potential festival winners I may have overlooked at the start…

OK, saw Cargo 200 and Appleseed Ex Machina yesterday night. Reviews are up (yawn!).

Normally I’d have a schedule posted but now that I’ve got a press-card I can pick and choose at will. And so I change what I want to see a lot, based on what I hear!

I’ll hit the town in a moment, and have still to decide what to see. There are two premieres that don’t interest me and two films I really want to see, but have already been reviewed last year when they were on other festivals…

What to do?

Have fun, that’s what I’ll do!