Chinese filmmaker Zheng Lu Xinyuan’s The Cloud In Her Room was presented with the Tiger Award at the close of the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR, January 22-February 2).
The five-person jury, which included Palestinian filmmaker Hany Abu-Assad, said it was “unanimously impressed by the innovative personal language, which coherently succeeds through various approaches and forms in conveying subjectivity and duality, and in exploring the fantasy of cinema.”
Meanwhile, the Special Jury Award was presented to South Korean filmmaker Kim Yonghoon for Beasts Clawing At Straws. The jury stated: “With the Special Jury Award we want to acknowledge a strong first film which is resolutely inscribed in an existing genre but demonstrates undeniable craftsmanship – from the screenplay to the performance to the temporal flexibility of structure – and engages with the current disparity of class.”
The Tiger Award is IFFR’s most prestigious award and includes a prize of €40,000 to be divided between filmmaker and producer, while the Special Jury Award comes with a prize of €10,000.
In other sections of the festival, the black-and-white version of Korean filmmaker Bong Joon Ho’s Oscar hopeful Parasite was the audience favourite and was presented with the BankGiro Loterij Audience Award. The VPRO Big Screen Award went to A Perfectly Normal Family by Danish filmmaker Malou Reymann.
Moving On by South Korea’s Yoon Dan-bi won the Bright Future Award for best feature film debut. The Bright Future Competition jury also gave a special mention to Isabella Rinaldi, Cristina Hanes and Arya Rothe for their Indian film A Rifle And A Bag.
The FIPRESCI Award went to Only You Alone by Chinese filmmaker Zhou Zhou, while the KNF Award, presented by the Circle of Dutch Film Journalists, went to Janis Rafa’s Netherlands-Greek co-production Kala Azar.
Tiger Competition-selected title Nasir, directed by India’s Arun Karthick, won the NETPAC Award for best Asian film premiering at the festival.