Dutch filmmaker Michiel ten Horn’s Fabula will open the 2025 International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) on January 30, while Indonesian filmmak
Dutch filmmaker Michiel ten Horn’s Fabula will open the 2025 International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) on January 30, while Indonesian filmmaker Mouly Surya’s historical epic This City Is A Battlefield will close the event on February 9.
Fabula is a obscure comedy about a provincial criminal grappling with personal and professional failures, starring Fedja van Huet, Anniek Pheifer, Sezgin Gulec, Michiel Kerbosch, Georg Friedrich, and David Kross. It is a co-production between the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany. Michiel most recently directed the family feature Hotel Sinestra in 2023.
Surya’s This City is a Battlefield is set in 1946 during Indonesia’s fight for independence. Chicco Jerikho, Ariel Tatum and Jerome Kurnia star in the film that recreates life in Jakarta under colonial occupation.
Supported during development by IFFR’s Hubert Bals Fund, This City Is A Battlefield is produced by Cinesurya, Starvision and Kaninga Pictures, in co-production with Indonesia, the Netherlands, Singapore, France, Norway, Philippines and Cambodia.
“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, festival director at IFFR.
”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,” Kaludjercic,continued. ”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.”
Competition juries
The Tiger Competition Jury will comprise Jakarta filmmaker Yuki Aditya, Iranian filmmaker Soheila Golestani, inventive producer Winnie Lau, UK filmmaker Peter Strickland and Jarman Award-winning filmmaker Andrea Luka Zimmerman.
Dutch producer Bero Beyer, Iranian-Dutch video artist and filmmaker Sara Rajaei, Dutch-Indonesian filmmaker and actress Dewi Reijs, Dutch filmmaker, producer and screenwriter Digna Sinke and award-winning documentarian Chinese-Dutch producer Jia Zhao will all sit on the Big Screen Competition jury.
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