Given the fast-changing and often challenging independent film space, the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) and its IFFR Pro arm are constantly looking to evolve to meet the needs of creatives.
The co-production market Cinemart has lined up a selection of 21 feature projects for its 43rd edition, running Feb. 1-4, and 10 projects for its Darkroom works-in-progress platform. In addition, immersive media projects at Rotterdam will, for the first time, be presented under the banner Lightroom, which will bring together all XR, VR and interactive projects.
In another innovation, six of the CineMart titles have been selected for the inaugural CineMart x HBF strand, a curated lineup of projects previously awarded development support by IFFR’s Hubert Bals Fund (HBF). Plus, this year’s edition will feature a pilot of “Safe Harbour,” a new market initiative targeting stateless and at-risk filmmakers that is designed “to uplift projects in development from emerging filmmakers who have experienced displacement or forced migration and who face limited access to professional networks, funding pathways and development opportunities.“
The 55th edition of IFFR is taking place Jan. 29-Feb. 8. “Balancing breakthrough talent and celebrated auteurs at the height of their careers, this year’s selections underline CineMart’s role as a place where discovery and established filmmaking meet,” said Marten Rabarts, head of IFFR Pro, about the lineup of his second year in charge of the industry section. “The urgency is palpable: from stories grappling with war and displacement to narratives exploring climate change, queerness and the struggle to define and preserve identities in turbulent times, all amongst bold cinematic creativity and forays into genres including sci-fi, horror and musical.”
THR talked to Rabarts and Tamara Tatishvili, the head of the Hubert Bals Fund, which supports “groundbreaking film projects in every stage of the production process, working especially with filmmakers from countries where local film funding and infrastructure is lacking or restrictive.” They shared a preview of what’s new this year, challenges for funding indie movies, the presence of U.S. films at the Rotterdam market and fest, and the need to support emerging voices that may otherwise not be heard, especially in politically charged times.
Curiosity, risk-taking and an openness for new voices and creative forms are qualities that Rotterdam has a strong reputation for. “We’re absolutely in the business of discovery and raising voices, but also particularly focusing on parts of the world, of communities that might not otherwise have a spotlight put on them,” says Rabarts. “That’s very much the DNA of Rotterdam.”
The same is true for a focus on building a community of filmmakers and cinema lovers. “We are doing the inaugural HBF Reunion this year, which will bring up to 30 filmmakers together on Feb. 2 for an informal get-together and a little bit of a celebratory moment,” Tatishvili tells THR. Sandra den Hamer, director of the Netherlands Film Fund, who was behind the establishment of the fund, will be part of the event, as will be such Hubert Bals Fund filmmaker alumni as Lucrecia Martel, whose Landmarks will screen in IFFR’s Harbour program, and Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s Cannes Critics’ Week winner A Useful Ghost.
Across all Rotterdam events and organizations, the focus is on bringing people together. “We don’t create barriers for people to find each other,” she highlights. “We definitely want to have as few barriers as possible” to allow creatives to find collaborators and partners.
Enabling such a community is particularly key at a time when filmmakers look for support in a poltically charged and chaotic world. Entering last year’s 2025 edition, his first in charge of IFFR Pro, Rabarts highlighted that “the world’s on fire, and we need to hear from filmmakers telling us what that heat feels like in their part of the world.” Describing how, and if, the state of the world has changed over the past year, Rabarts tells THR: “Unfortunately, in the past 12 months, the flames have only gotten higher, and the heat is higher.”
Financing movies also hasn’t gotten any easier. “In terms of how you fund a film these days, as resources are retracting, we’ve seen the growth of multiple partner co-productions,” he mentions. Some film teams are coming to the market with six partners already in place and a need for further funding participants, he explains.
What are some of the regional trends at the 2026 CineMart? “We’ve seen a resurgence of films coming to us out of Asia,” including co-productions under the Asian Film Alliance Network (AFAN), whose secretary general, producer Lorna Tee, is a lead mentor of Rotterdam’s Creators Lab, says Rabarts. AFAN, which encourages partnerships between Asian national film bodies, has led to co-productions that “still need to supplement their funding by bringing them to Europe,” he explains.
Another trend that Rabarts highlights is “a return of the independent Americans,” noting that U.S. indie cinema success was “really built on the strength of some of those talents.” He notes that in some past years, the likes of Todd Haynes, Christine Vachon, James Schamus and Kelly Reichardt were all bringing their projects to Rotterdam’s CineMart. “That was at a time where the NEA [National Endowment of the Arts] funding was under threat [from a] Conservative government, so the indie Americans were coming to Europe,” Rabarts explains. Under the second Trump White House, “this, of course, is now happening again.”
Last year, the Rotterdam market attracted such indie filmmakers as U.S. creative Cheryl Dunye. “She is a very well-known African-American, lesbian filmmaker, but needed to bring her project to us to find support, because she wasn’t finding it in the U.S.,” the IFFR Pro boss tells THR. “This year, we have a duo of young African American filmmakers who are based in L.A. who have two production companies supporting them. One is Donald Glover’s company, and one is Riley Keough’s company. So I’m seeing a return to form of the North American indies that are understanding that there’s a safe place for them in Europe where their voices can be not only heard, but also supported.”
The project he refers to is The Dispute by debut U.S. directors Andrea Ellsworth and Kasey Elise Walker, acquired by Keough’s Felix Culpa and Donald Glover’s Gilga for feature development. The project is, in a CineMart communication, described as an “audacious urban comedy.”
Beyond community and solidarity, flexibility is something that Tatishvili calls key for her work with the HBF, and not only the work of the Displacement Film Fund that it launched together with Cate Blanchett last year, with the first five films created with grants from the fund, including one from Mohammad Rasoulof, screening at Rotterdam this year. “We really need to show flexibility when supporting people, because in so many cases, they emerge from very vulnerable contexts,” Tatishvili explains. “They might have an amazingly creative proposal, but that doesn’t mean that they can always talk about it very openly where they live or reside. So in my daily work, it’s a very regular occurrence, sadly, that people need to be incognito, out of safety considerations. That is in the DNA of HBF, because the world is, on a daily basis, getting … worse and worse, and our support really goes to these places and people who feel that.”
Safe Harbour is a new program that complements the work of the HBF and other Rotterdam initiatives, particular the Displacement Film Fund. “We are providing a CinemaMart platform for four projects in this inaugural year for filmmakers who are displaced,” says Rabarts. “The idea behind this is that when you apply to any of the big co-production markets, there are certain benchmarks of eligibility, including [a certain percentage of] funding from your home territory, and all those things that are automatic barriers for people who are dealing with displacement in one way or another,” he explains to THR. “So we wanted to drop those barriers and create a platform where the talent can stand tall with their story and start to draw towards them things that they may not otherwise have easy access to. This platform is for emerging filmmakers, and we have projects from a Syrian filmmaker, from a team in Gaza who are Palestinian, a Sudanese filmmaker, and a filmmaker from Myanmar.”
Rabarts highlights that “we have different degrees of displacement, with some of the filmmakers having a residence position in Europe, but they don’t have that full access. Or in the case of the the team from Gaza, one filmmaker is still there shooting the documentary, while the creative partner is in Egypt and is able to attend.” Meanwhile, the Sudanese team “traveled from Sudan, out of the war zone, across Africa, and they’re currently in Kigali, in Rwanda,” he adds.
Tatishvili concludes that it’s not only important to get films from displaced or usually unheard creatives made, but also seen. “It’s a reality that funding is challenging. The political context of the world is not supporting it either,” she says. “So, now it’s more vital than ever that films are [made], and not just that, but that the films are really watched. Films must get a chance to land with audiences and trigger critical thinking. I’m a big believer in that.”
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