“The Widowed Witch” wins top prize at 47th IFFR

The 47th edition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam awarded Chinese director Cai Chengjie's “The Widowed Witch” its top prize, the Hivos Tiger Award, in a gala award ceremony on Friday evening. “The Reports on Sarah and Saleem”, a gutsy Palestinian film by Muayad Alayan took back two awards, as did Gustav Möller's “The Guilty”.

“The Reports on Sarah and Saleem” won a special jury award for its screenwriter Rami Alayan, as well as the Hubert Bals Fund audience award, an audience-voted award for films supported by the festival's Hubert Bals Fund. “The Guilty” was crowned the most popular film of the festival as it won the IFFR Audience Award, as well as the IFFR Youth Jury Award, an initiative of IFFR to engage and involve children and youth into the festival.

The Bright Future Award went to Tiago Melo from Brazil for “Azougue Nazaré”, while the VPRO Big Screen Award went to “Nina” by Olga Chajdas, ensuring its Dutch TV and theatrical distribution.

Two new awards introduced this year – the Found Footage Award and the Voices Short Audience Award – went to “Newsreel 63 – The Train of Shadows” by Nika Autor and “Joy in People” by Oscar Hudson respectively.

In congratulating all winners, Festival Director Bero Beyer said: “We're very happy that the strong winners represent the bold spirit of the festival's entire programming. They are filmmakers, both emerging and established, who use their talent to deliver a new view on our world. As diverse as they are, there seems to be a common thread: the beautiful and human thread of cinema!”

Two awards from critics' organisations were presented at the ceremony. The FIPRESCI Award (which this writer was a jury member of) went to “Balekempa” by emerging Indian director Ere Gowda, while the KNF Award, given by the Circle of Dutch Film Journalists, was won by “Zama” by Lucrecia Martel. “Nervous Translation” by Shireen Seno won the NETPAC Award for best Asian film.

IFFR – one of the largest cultural events in the Netherlands, and one of the biggest audience-oriented film festivals in the world – came to a close yesterday after 12 days of cinematic celebrations - featuring a fantastic line-up of fiction and documentary features, short films, exhibitions, performances, masterclasses and talk shows, along with industry activities including CineMart, BoostNL and Propellor initiatives, Hubert Bals Fund and Rotterdam Lab.

The Daily Star's Fahmim Ferdous is covering this year's International Film Festival Rotterdam as a participant of its Young Film Critics Programme.