Yahoo Lifestyle International Film Festival Rotterdam Unveils Opening & Closing Films, Competition Juries For 2025
The 54th edition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) will open with the world premiere of dark comedy Fabula from Dutch filmmaker Michiel ten Horn and close with historical epic This City Is a Battlefield from Indonesian director Mouly Surya.
With the festival taking place from January 30 to February 9 next year, IFFR also unveiled its jury line-ups across its three Competition strands: the Tiger Competition, the Tiger Short Competition and the Big Screen competition.
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The Tiger Competition Jury will be made up of Yuki Aditya, Soheila Golestani, Winnie Lau, Peter Strickland and Andrea Luka Zimmerman.
Angela Haardt, Frank Sweeney and Yaoting Zhang will form the Tiger Short Competition Jury.
The Big Screen competition Jury will comprise of Bero Beyer, Sara Rajaei, Dewi Reijs, Digna Sinke and Jia Zhao.
Fabula, co-produced in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany, follows Jos, a provincial criminal grappling with personal and professional failures. As his life spirals out of control after a disastrous drug deal, Jos is consumed by the question: “Who or what is punishing me?”
The film stars Fedja van Huêt, Anniek Pheifer, comedian Sezgin Güleç, Michiel Kerbosch, Georg Friedrich and David Kross.
Director Michiel ten Horn’s debut feature, The Deflowering of Eva van End premiered in Toronto and played in Rotterdam, and he also recently directed the family feature, Hotel Sinestra (2023).
Surya’s This City Is a Battlefield is a co-production between Indonesia, the Netherlands, Singapore, France, Norway, Philippines and Cambodia, and was also supported by IFFR’s Hubert Bals Fund.
Recreating life in Jakarta under colonial occupation, the film is set during Indonesia’s fight for independence in 1946 and stars Chicco Jerikho, Ariel Tatum and Jerome Kurnia. This City Is a Battlefield is adapted from Indonesian author Mochtar Lubis’ novel, A Road with No End.
Surya is known for her female-led Asian genre films, including Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts and Netflix’s Trigger Warning, starring Jessica Alba.
This City Is a Battlefield is co-produced with Volya Film, alongside Cinesurya, Starvision and Kaninga Pictures.
“With this year’s Opening and Closing films we celebrate two filmmakers who each bring a distinctive approach to storytelling and demonstrate the capacity to effortlessly move between popular and personal,” said Vanja Kaludjercic, IFFR’s Festival Director. “Michiel ten Horn is an acclaimed Dutch director, and we are honoured to host the world premiere of his latest work Fabula, a spirited mix of comedy, fantasy, crime, and folklore centred around a band of misfits set against the backdrop of the southern Netherlands.
“Mouly Surya is a powerhouse filmmaker, and This City Is a Battlefield is no less than a masterclass in filmmaking, combining the grandeur of a war epic with the intimacy of a personal drama. This Indonesian-Dutch co-production reveals the impact of war on ordinary people, carrying deep cultural and cinematic resonance,” added Kaludjercic.
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