In late December, the 2024 International Film Festival of Rotterdam (IFFR) shared the titles of many of the works selected for its 53rd edition. Among the films selected for the Tiger Short Competition are two made by Cuban directors: Azul Pandora [Blue Pandora] by Alán González, and La historia se escribe de noche [History is Written at Night] by Alejandro Alonso Estrella. Other shorts include Bonnarien (French Guiana) and The Gap (Curaçao). Among the feature films, we find Aire [Just Breathe] by Dominican filmmaker Leticia Tonos Paniagua. Related to the Caribbean, we also find Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich’s The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire (United States, 2023).
On Wednesday, January 10, 2024, the IFFR will announce the full festival program, including the daily schedule.
Here are descriptions from the IFFR site:
Aire: Just Breathe (Leticia Tonos Paniagua, Dominican Republic, 2024): In a world devastated by chemical warfare, with a dwindling human population that beckons the spectre of its extinction, a lone scientist plans to ensure a future. In seeking an antidote to the sterility that has blighted the last vestiges of the male human population, conservation biologist Tania, in tandem with Vida, an artificial intelligence system, has found a symbiotic relationship. The arrival of Azarias, a mysterious and troubled traveller, disrupts the solitary environment Tania has built. But as the two become more relaxed in each other’s presence, Vida feels her own relationship with Tania – and by turn her sense of belonging – is threatened.
Writer, director and producer Leticia Tonos Paniagua’s strikingly beautiful fifth feature eschews effects-laden cinema in favour of a more intimate probe into the nature of human existence. The interplay between the three characters, ably performed by Sophie Gaëlle, Jalsen Santana and Paz Vega, as the voice of Vida, becomes a study of loneliness – particularly in our technology-driven, post-lockdown world where industrialised society has driven nature towards the precipice. The sci-fi genre has been considered rare in Caribbean cinema, making Paniagua’s intelligent film all the more precious. – Vanja Kaludjercic
Azul Pandora (Alán González, Cuba, 2024):The white teenager Roy regularly shows up at the doorstep of Pandora, a middle-aged Black transgender woman, in an attempt to convince her of how much he’s in love with her. She wants to stay out of trouble and is reluctant because of past experiences with men that weren’t willing to commit. An interaction that transcends itself in a subtle yet poignant way, in which thoughts not uttered live in the smallest gesture or the exchange of a glance. – Loes van Keulen
Ballad of Suzanne Césaire, The (Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich, United States, 2023): A writer, teacher, feminist activist, pioneer of Afro-Surrealism and key member of the Négritude movement, Martinique-born Suzanne Césaire was a trailblazer who deserves greater attention and credit than she has ever received. Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich’s fascination with her subject is seen in the research that went into the making of this film – including hours of audio interviews with Césaire’s living children and family. But this is no mere biopic. Instead, Césaire’s life is presented through an investigation by a group of filmmakers keen to grapple with the writer’s life and legacy. Shifting between present and past, blurring the lines between the imagined and the biographical, the film homes in on Zita Hanrot’s character, an actress and new mother haunted by voices as she prepares to play Césaire.
Hunt-Ehrlich, an artist and filmmaker renowned for delving into the inner worlds of Black women, delivers an absorbing exploration of a figure side-lined, if not completely erased, by history. The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire profits from Hunt-Ehrlich’s fragmentary approach, acknowledging that the complexity of her character demands more than conventional hagiography. Noting how her husband Aimé’s success in the political sphere eclipsed her achievements, the film aims to reassert her place as a radical voice and visionary. – Vanja Kaludjercic
Bonnarien (Adiel Goliot, French Guiana, 2023): Bonnarien is Mauricette’s surname, it means ‘no good’ in English and she’s determined to change it. A slam poet during her free time, Mauricette understands the potential words possess to inflict great harm. She decides to use her craft to free herself from a colonial name that was imposed onto her ancestors and in doing so, heal long-standing generational trauma. Set in French Guiana, Bonnarien is Adiel Goliot’s first fiction short. With a stellar cast and performance, Goliot’s tender film finds power in reclamation. – Lyse Ishimwe Nsengiyumva
Gap, The (Helen Anna Flanagan, Curaçao, 2024): Imagine finding a cryptic message in a bottle washed ashore. What would you write back? Jane and Rey take a crack at it in this playful short film, developed with students at Instituto Buena Bista on the island of Curaçao. For these queer protagonists, the situation allows them to reflect on identity and framing – how a choice of words can always change one’s perception. It results in a sun-kissed and colourful film poem that explores the subjectivity of language and images. – Hugo Emmerzael
History is Written at Night (Alejandro Alonso Estrella, Cuba, 2024): A masterclass in mood, the film plunges us into the darkness of the blackouts that ripple across Cuba. In the murk of shadow, the flickering of fire beckons stories from realms beyond the reach of light. Electricity cuts have revived a protest movement dormant since the revolution, one demanding that power be restored. – Cristina Kolozsváry-Kiss
For more information, see https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2024/a-z and https://iffr.com/en
For more on the two Cuban films, see https://www.cubacine.cult.cu/es/articulo/el-sentido-de-hacer-cine-es-que-la-obra-llegue-su-publico
[Shown above, a screen shot of Azul Pandora.]
In late December, the 2024 International Film Festival of Rotterdam (IFFR) shared the titles of many of the works selected for its 53rd edition. Among the films selected for the Tiger Short Competition are two made by Cuban directors: Azul Pandora [Blue Pandora] by Alán González, and La historia se escribe de noche [History is
