Rotterdam Film Festival IFFR 2026 Sets Lineup, Tiger Competition

The International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) has unveiled the main Tiger competition lineup and Big Screen competition program for its 2026 edition. The titles revealed on Tuesday include new movies from the U.S., China, Portugal, and many other parts of the world. 

IFFR organizers also revealed that the fest will open with the world premiere of the Portuguese feature Providence and the Guitar by João Nicolau. The closing film will be the world premiere of crime comedy Bazaar (Murder in the Building) from French filmmaker Rémi Bezançon.

Inspired by a short novel by Robert Louis Stevenson (Treasure Island, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde), Providence and the Guitar follows Leon and Elvira, two performers trying to keep their stage careers afloat. The movie marks the acting debut of Portuguese singer Salvador Sobral, the winner of the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest.

Starring Laetitia Casta, Gilles Lellouche and Guillaume Gallienne, Bazaar follows an enthusiastic Hitchcock scholar who becomes convinced that the neighbor across the courtyard has murdered his wife. “With her husband, a successful thriller novelist, she launches an investigation that is by turns risky, absurd and revealing,” according to a synopsis.

“The 2026 edition of IFFR unites new voices and returning artists whose works explore belonging, reinvention, humor, fear, beauty, and the persistent human effort to understand our place in a changing world,” said Vanja Kaludjercic, festival director at IFFR. “Today’s announcement spotlights the competitions – the beating heart of the festival – with an array of titles that speak to our mission of audience discovery and championing filmmakers forging new paths in cinema.”

IFFR’s Tiger Competition is designed to showcase emerging voices from across the globe, with 12 world premieres from filmmakers “who reshape the familiar from within, adjusting perspectives to reveal what often goes unnoticed,” organizers said.

Among the films is The Gymnast, the debut feature from U.S. director Charlotte Glynn. Set in Pittsburgh in 1993, newcomer Britney Wheeler stars as a young gymnast with Olympic dreams, with Ethan Embry playing her single father, focused on his daughter’s gymnastics career.

“The 12 titles in the Big Screen Competition examine how lives are shaped by inherited stories, with many of the films revisiting the past – personal, political or historic – to understand its pull on the present,” IFFR organizers also said on Tuesday.

The 55th edition of the Dutch fest runs Jan. 29-Feb. 8.

Here is a look at the IFFR 2026 lineups for the fest’s Tiger Competition and Big Screen Competition, as well as the Tiger Short Competition and the IFFR’s Displacement Film Fund projects, which were both also unveiled on Tuesday.

Tiger Competition

La belle année, director Angelica Ruffier (Sweden, Norway)
A Fading Man, dir. Welf Reinhart (Germany)
The Gymnast, dir. Charlotte Glynn (United States)
A Messy Tribute to Motherly Love, dir. Dan Geesin (Netherlands, Germany, Belgium)
My Semba, dir. Hugo Salvaterra (Angola)
Nangong Cheng, dir. Shao Pan (China)
O profeta, dir. Ique Langa (Mozambique, South Africa, Qatar)
Roid, dir. Mejbaur Rahman Sumon (Bangladesh)
Supporting Role, dir Ana Urushadze (Georgia, Estonia, Turkey, Switzerland, United States)
Unerasable!, dir. Socrates Saint-Wulfstan Drakos (Belgium, Thailand, Sweden)
Variations on a Theme, dir. Jason Jacobs, Devon Delmar (South Africa, Netherlands, Qatar)
Yellow Cake, dir. Tiago Melo (Brazil)

Big Screen Competition

2m², director Volkan Üce (Belgium, Germany, Turkey)
The Arab, dir. Malek Bensmail (Algeria, France, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, Belgium)
Butterfly, dir. Itonje Søimer Guttormsen (Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom, Germany)
Cyclone, dir. Philip Yung (Hong Kong)
The Fall of Sir Douglas Weatherford, dir. Sean Dunn (United Kingdom)
Home, dir. Marijana Janković (Denmark, Serbia)
Master, dir. Rezwan Shahriar Sumit (Bangladesh)
Moonglow, dir. Isabel Sandoval (Philippines, Taiwan, Japan)
Now I Met Her, dir Xiao Luxi (China)
Projecto Global, dir. Ivo M. Ferreira (Portugal, Luxembourg)
Talking to a Stranger, dir. Adrián García Bogliano (Mexico)
Tell Me What You Feel, dir. Łukasz Ronduda (Poland)

Tiger Short Competition

A donde nos lleva la fe de José Gerónimo, director Juliano Kunert (Dominican Republic)
Acid City, dir. Jack Wedge, Will Freudenheim (United States)
The Apple Doesn’t Fall…, dir. Dean Wei (China)
Body, remember…, dir. Matthew Berka (United Kingdom)
CUL-DE-SAC !, dir. Clyde Gates, Gabriel Sanson (Belgium, France)
Deep Cobalt, dir. Petna Ndaliko Katondolo (Congo, Democratic Republic, United States)
DISSONANCE, dir. Jordan Strafer (Germany) *World Premiere (Festival)
Domestic Demon, dir. Anahid Yahjian (United States, Portugal)
Futuros luminosos, dir. Ismael García Ramírez (Colombia)
Golden Island, dir. Arief Budiman (Indonesia, Singapore)
Home is where the heart is, dir. Timothée Engasser (France)
I am a River, dir. Heidi Piiroinen (Finland, France)
Last Shot, dir. Parham Rahimzadeh (Netherlands)
like moths to light, dir. Gala Hernández López (Spain, Italy, France)
Mirror Martyr Mirror Moon, dir. Jesse Jones (Ireland)
The Next World, dir. Grau Del Grau (United States)
Objet d’énigme, dir. Chiara Caterina (Italy, Belgium)
Orla, dir. Marie Lukáčová (Czech Republic, Slovakia)
RELUCESCO, dir. Shannon Lynn Harris (Canada)
The Second Skin, dir. Mariia Lapidus (United States, Mexico)
Smriti~, dir. Shahi A J (India)
The Tragic Movement of the Spheres, dir. Simon Rieth (France)

Displacement Film Fund

Allies in Exile, director Hasan Kattan (United Kingdom)
Rotation, dir. Maryna Er Gorbach (Ukraine, Turkey)
Sense of Water, dir. Mohammad Rasoulof (Iran, Germany)
Super Afghan Gym, dir. Shahrbanoo Sadat (Germany)
Whispers of a Burning Scent, dir. Mo Harawe (Somalia, Austria, Germany)