During World Cinema Amsterdam, you will have the chance to meet inspirational filmmakers from all over the world and watch their latest amazing works.
Opening & closing
The sixth edition of World Cinema Amsterdam kicks off on Friday, 14 August. This time, the festival opens with a very special drama: IXCANUL by Guatemalan director Jayro Bustamante, who will be present at the screening. Bustamante’s debut film has been described as “hypnotically beautiful” by Variety and attracted a great deal of attention from the international press when it premiered at this year's Berlinale (where it won the prestigious Alfred Bauer Prize). Ten days later, on Saturday 22 August, the festival will close with the Dutch premiere of the Golden Palm winner from the last Cannes film festival: DHEEPAN by Jacques Audiard.
The other titles in competition at World Cinema Amsterdam are: THE BODA BODA THIEVES by Ugandan film collective Yes! That’s Us; CABALLOS by young Cuban filmmaker Fabián Suárez (world premiere); MUSTANG by Turkish actress and director Deniz Gamze Ergüven; from South Africa, NECKTIE YOUTH by young filmmaker Sibs Shongwe-La Mer; Kore-Eda Hirokazu’s latest OUR LITTLE SISTER; Brazilian film QUE HORAS ELA VOLTA? by Anna Muylaert, and REFUGIADO by Argentine film director Diego Lerman.
Awards
The festival will award two prizes during its sixth edition. All the competition films are eligible to win the World Cinema Amsterdam Jury Award, and then there’s the World Cinema Amsterdam Audience Award, decided by votes cast by the audiences.
Please note: all audience members giving their e-mail addresses on the voting slips will be entered into a raffle for a Shoestring travel voucher worth € 1,000.
Jury Members
PATRICIA PISTERS
How does the interaction between images (on film) and our brains work? Does what we see exist in reality, or only in our heads? Such questions concerning film and philosophy, in conjunction with neuroscience, make up the field of research of Patricia Pisters (1965), professor of Media and Film Studies at the University of Amsterdam. Between 2010 and 2013, she was Chair of the Department of Media Studies. Since 2015, she has served as a director of ASCA (Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis), one of the research schools of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Amsterdam. She is also affiliated with various (inter)national institutions for Cultural and Media Studies. Pisters has published several books, e.g. on Alfred Hitchcock, Gilles Deleuze and Madonna. She is currently working on a book about Dutch filmmaker Louis van Gasteren.
(Photo: Eduard Lampe)
CARLOS M. QUINTELA
Carlos M. Quintela is no stranger to the Festival: in 2013, he was invited to present his debut film LA PISCINA to the festival audience. And with great success – his film was awarded that year's World Cinema Amsterdam Jury Award. Quintela (1984, Havana, Cuba) studied Mass Communication at the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana, and then specialized in screenwriting at Escuela Internacional de Cine y Televisión in San Antonio de los Baños. He made several short films. His first feature, LA PISCINA, not only won an award in Amsterdam, but also received awards at the film festivals in Havana, Marrakesh and Miami. His second feature, LA OBRA DEL SIGLO, won a Tiger Award at this year's International Film Festival Rotterdam. It will be screened during World Cinema Amsterdam, as will his short BUEY.
(Photo: Jens Lennartsson)
FELIX DE ROOY
Artist, curator, film and theatre director, writer and lecturer Felix de Rooy (1952, Willemstad, Curaçao) works in the Netherlands, Surinam and the Netherlands Antilles. From 1969 to 1973, he attended the Academy for the Arts in The Hague, followed seven years later by a Masters'Degree in film and directing in New York. For many decades, he has been teaching classes and workshops in the field of visual arts, theatre and film at the Art Academy of Curaçao and the Media Academy in Amsterdam, among others. In 1976, he initiated the Illushion Kosmiko (Cosmic Illusion) collective in Curaçao. In that same year director, writer and actor Norman de Palm joined the collective. They have been collaborating ever since, resulting in numerous exhibitions, theatre productions and films.
(Photo: Sinaya Wolfert)