From a beguiling portrait of the Himalayan foothills to a loose-limbed journey through Angola’s capital, Rotterdam’s programme of industry outsiders is a cinephile’s tombolaAs the
Oscars this weekend finally put the 2019 film season to bed, the new year is already bustling with cinematic discoveries from the festival circuit: with Sundance wrapped and
Berlin kicking off later this month, there’s much to look forward to. As usual, the Rotterdam film festival, which ran more or less parallel to Sundance, has an identity distinct from either of these. Focused less on brand-name auteurs and stars than on more avant-garde newcomers and outsiders, it’s a festival whose standouts often take a long time to reach non-festival audiences, if at all.
Happily, adventurous streamers can get an immediate taste of this year’s Rotterdam programme via Festival Scope: a selection of 16 titles from the festival are available to stream on a pay-per-view basis until 23 February. Virtual “tickets” to each film cost the equivalent of four euros; if you buy a “festival pass” for five or more films, the cost is halved. You’re unlikely to have heard of many, or any, of the films on offer. Approach it like a kind of cinephile’s tombola, though, and you can’t be disappointed.