IFFR managing director Janneke Staarink speaks to Nick Cunningham about the inaugural Curaçao IFFR
Curaçao IFFR is a collaboration between Rotterdam and the Caribbean island’s Fundashon Bon Intenshon foundation, and will run March 29 – April 1 2012. The new festival will comprise a programme of 20 to 25 films culled from this and previous IFFRs. A key aim of the new yearly set-up is to create an industry hub for filmmakers and financiers from the Caribbean/Latin American region. The current agreement runs for three years, to 2014.
Plans to launch the new festival developed quickly after the foundation contacted Rotterdam management after the IFFR 2011. “Within a couple of months, they convinced us that co-operation with them would be a good idea,” Staarink points out. “The people of Curaçao are film lovers, but they are only used to seeing big blockbusters from the US. The Fundashon wants to bring art film to the island.”
The initiative is fully financed out of Curaçao (the foundation is the lead sponsor of IFFR 2012), with IFFR lending technical support as well as a bespoke programme. “It took some time to figure out the best way to co-operate, but we will do the programming and they will organise the festival. We will not produce it. But we are really close to their organisation and we will advise them on everything – website, ticket sales, the whole thing.”
IFFR will present a roundtable session this week between Hubert Bals/CineMart staff, representatives from the foundation and industry representatives from the region. “We will discuss what can be done at Curaçao that would be helpful for the local industry, what the filmmakers need over there and what the can festival can do to offer extra support,” Staarink stresses. Discussions will continue during the Curaçao event itself.
Curaçao IFFR will follow hot on the heels of the Curaçao North Sea Jazz Festival (second edition September 2011), also sponsored by the Fundashon Bon Intenshon. Other Dutch interests of the foundation include former sponsorship of Dutch premier league football club NEC (3 years to 2011) and current lead sponsorship of the Sparta-Feyenoord baseball team.
The jazz festival sparked a considerable spike in tourism numbers on the island, the Fundashon’s representative in the Netherlands, Michael Elias, points out. He maintains, however, that servicing the local community is as much of a concern as increasing tourism during the Curaçao IFFR. He is, for example, helping to organise a short film competition for Curaçao residents (aged 14-30) in advance of the event, the prize being a visit to Rotterdam 2013. “We will reach mostly the local Curaçao population during the festival, but with the IFFR and their advertising and their capacity in Holland and beyond, we will reach other people. We won’t expect massive numbers of visitors to come to Curaçao immediately – this is our first edition – but I think we’ll be very strongly established after 10 editions.”