The International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) has unveiled a first selection of 10 feature titles locked to world premiere in the Bright Future and Harbour sidebars of its 56th edition in early 2027.
The Harbour sidebar, inspired by Rotterdam’s port city identity and “offering a safe haven” to contemporary filmmakers pushing cinematic boundaries, welcomes back a trio of directors with IFFR connections.
Angolan director Kiluanji Kia Henda, who previously attended with Short Profile in 2020 and commissioned performance Resetting Birds’ Memories in 2021, returns with Karl Marx, Luanda (scroll down for synopses)
Cypriot filmmaker Kyros Papavassiliou returns with Yiannis, following his 2015 IFFR Tiger Competition selection for Impressions of a Drowned Man. Additionally, Hong Kong director Rita Hui Nga Shu is back, following the premiere of Decameron in 2021, with The Lapse.
IFFR newcomers in the Harbour selection include Malaysian filmmaker siblings Iskander and Feisal Azizuddin with comedy cannibal horror Ali and Ben’s Spicy Meats, and Omer Shamir with intimate docu-portrait Waiting Room.
First titles for Bright Future, focused on emerging talents, Ben Hicks’s Kids Go Free made over 15 years across three countries; director Parbat Chapagai’s stylised Dostoevsky adaptation Portrait of a Young Criminal, Lucila Las Heras’s dark fairy tale The Muglur, Mohamed El Zayat’s ensemble dramedy In The Name of Galeela and Ali Bakhtiari documentary Tehran The Obscure Atelier of Desire.
“These first ten films already offer a glimpse of that incredible range, from the playful and provocative to the intimate and politically urgent,” said Vanja Kaludjercic, Festival Director at IFFR. “Cinema is at its most exciting when it challenges our expectations, when filmmakers find new ways to express experiences, contradictions and realities that resist easy answers.”
IFFR 2027 Artwork
Alongside the first film announcements, IFFR also unveiled its 2027 festival campaign, developed in collaboration with Rotterdam design studio 75B and echoing IFFR’s interest in artists finding new forms to express the experience of the world around them
“We wanted our campaign for 2027 to reflect that same spirit of artistic freedom and curiosity. A reminder that there is no single way of looking at the world, and that there is always more to discover in how others see it,” said Kaludjercic.
Previous titles in Bright Future from IFFR’s 2026 edition include: Ah Girl (IFFR’s Youth Jury Award and TIFF 2026), Let Them Be Seen (BFI London Film Festival 2026), while notable 2026 Harbourt titles include James J. Robinson’s debut First Light, Australia’s Academy Award Entry for Best International Feature Film at the 99th Academy Awards in 2027.
IFFR’s 56th edition will run from January 28 to February 7 2027. The complete lineup will be unveiled on 16 December 2026.
Details of the first selections (synopses provided by IFFR)
BRIGHT FUTURE
THE MUGLUR
Director: Lucila Las Heras
Mexico, Argentina
Struggling to write a fantasy novel under the thumb of her alcoholic father, Aurora makes a Faustian bargain with a strange creature: the Muglur. But what price will it ask of her? The answer will be found at the dark heart of this claustrophobic fairy tale.
IN THE NAME OF GALEELA
Director: Mohamed El Zayat
Egypt
When money for a pilgrimage to Mecca is stolen, a young man’s community comes together to convince his blind grandmother that she’s still going. Egyptian filmmaker Mohamed El Zayat asks us how far we’ll go for someone we love in his endlessly creative debut feature.
KIDS GO FREE
United States, Taiwan, Japan
A taste for worldly adventures can bring passionate love and the thrill of the unknown, as well as niggling questions about economic security and one’s future. Told through a kaleidoscopic structure and a humanist lens over 15 years, Ben Hicks’ debut feature tackles these concerns in a miraculous manner.
PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG CRIMINAL
Director: Parbat Chapagai
United States, Nepal
David, a destitute tutor, develops an attachment to teenage sex worker Sonya. Wishing to save her from the spiritual squalor of their surroundings, David resolves to kill his rich employer. A stark, psychologically vivid adaptation of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment set in small-town Nepal.
HARBOUR
KARL MARX, LUANDA
Director: Kiluanji Kia Henda
Angola, Portugal
Kiluanji Kia Henda’s satirical future history of Angola imagines that the nation renews itself as a Marxist state. Via time-travelling love story and bold Afro-sci-fi-spaghetti-Western, we are reminded of a rare basic truth: in the forest, political doctrines do not help the rain fall.
ALI AND BEN’S SPICY MEATS
Director: Feisal Azizuddin, Iskander Azizuddin
Malaysia
Ali and Ben, broke buddies running a failing pickle business, stumble upon a magic recipe made from human meat. When their overnight success attracts the suspicion of a local politician, the friends must do what it takes to protect their nascent empire in this zany horror-comedy.
WAITING ROOM (World Premiere)
Director: Omer Shamir
France
Fleeing from Khan Younis, award-winning Palestinian photojournalist Mohammed Zaanoun moves his immediate family to safety in Egypt, unsure of what’s to come. Filmmaker and activist Omer Shamir paints a moving documentary portrait of this family, in their exile home, across one year.
THE LAPSE (World Premiere)
Director: Rita Hui Nga Shu
Taiwan, United Kingdom
Hong Kong filmmaker and artist Rita Hui Nga Shu layers life, declassified governmental documents and her AI-cloned voice to open a dialogue between the promises on paper and the reality of life for Hong Kongers. An uncompromising, impactful and radically human film-essay.
TEHRAN THE OBSCURE ATELIER OF DESIRE (World Premiere)
Director: Ali Bakhtiari
Iran
A contemporary documentary portrait of artists in their studios across Tehran. They return to unfinished canvases, abandoned experiments and sketches of future projects. They scrape, paint, sculpt and listen intently to music, while outside, the threat of war looms.
YIANNIS (World Premiere)
Director: Kyros Papavassiliou
Cyprus, Greece
When his father’s body vanishes from the morgue, a Cypriot teenager and his mother cross into the occupied north to find Yiannis, a bird psychologist from his father’s past. Kyros Papavassiliou turns a missing-body mystery into a dreamlike journey through grief on a divided island rarely seen on screen.
