The Rotterdam International Film Festival (IFFR) has unveiled the full programme for its 2026 edition, with particular focus on the films selected for its main competitive section, the Tiger Competition, the historic core of the festival dedicated to the discovery of new voices in contemporary cinema.

Among the titles competing for the Tiger Award are Supporting Role, the second feature by Georgian filmmaker Ana Urushadze, and Yellow Cake by Brazilian director Tiago Melo, who is internationally known for his work as a producer on films such as Aquarius and Bacurau by Kleber Mendonça Filho.

Supporting Role follows the recognition earned by Urushadze with Scary Mother, which received multiple awards, including Best First Feature at the Locarno Film Festival. Her new film centres on an actor forced to come to terms with moving from leading roles to supporting parts, in a story inspired by a real incident the director experienced during the casting of her debut feature.

The Tiger Competition jury will include actress Soheila Golestani, star of The Seed of the Sacred Fig; Brazilian director Marcelo Gomes; Greek-French actress and filmmaker Ariane Labed; London Film Festival director Kristy Matheson; and Croatian writer Jurica Pavičić. They will award the Tiger Award, worth €40,000, as well as two Special Jury Awards of €10,000 each.

IFFR 2026 will run from January 29 to February 8 and will showcase a total of 428 feature films and shorts, including 211 world premieres, 47 international premieres and 23 premieres, reinforcing its position as one of the leading platforms for auteur cinema and cinematic experimentation.

In the short-film section, the festival will also host the world premiere of Like Moths to Light, the new work by Spanish filmmaker Gala Hernández López, which joins the programme as one of the standout short-form titles of this edition.

The festival also announced the films selected for its Big Screen Competition, a section that bridges popular, classic and arthouse cinema while supporting the distribution of nominated films in the Netherlands. Among the twelve selected titles are The Arab by Franco-Algerian director Malek Bensmail, Moonglow by Filipino filmmaker Isabel Sandoval, and Projecto Global by Portuguese director Ivo M. Ferreira. These films will compete for the Big Screen Award, which carries a €15,000 cash prize, along with an additional €15,000 incentive awarded to the Dutch distributor that acquires the film’s distribution rights. The jury for this section comprises Sara Ishaq, Loes Luca, Chris Oosterom, Mila Schlingemann and Jan-Willem van Ewijk.

In parallel, IFFR has selected 22 works for the Tiger Short Competition 2026, which will be judged by Sammy Baloji, Anka Gujabidze and Jukka-Pekka Laakso. Three equal awards of €5,000 each will be presented.

The festival will open with the world premiere of the Portuguese feature Providence and the Guitar by João Nicolau, which IFFR director Vanja Kaludjercic described as “a generous and witty film which places the present alongside echoes of the past.” Inspired by a short novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, the film follows Leon and Elvira, two performers struggling to keep their stage careers alive, and marks the acting debut of Salvador Sobral, one of Portugal’s most popular musicians and winner of the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest.

The festival will close with the world premiere of the crime comedy Bazaar (Murder in the Building) by French filmmaker Rémi Bezançon, starring Laetitia Casta, Gilles Lellouche and Guillaume Gallienne. The film follows an enthusiastic Hitchcock scholar who becomes convinced that her neighbour has murdered his wife and, together with her husband — a successful thriller novelist — launches an investigation that is both risky and absurd. Kaludjercic said the film has “style, intelligence and a sense of fun.”

“The 2026 edition of IFFR brings together new voices and returning artists whose works explore belonging, reinvention, humour, fear, beauty and the persistent human effort to understand our place in a changing world,” Kaludjercic said. “Today’s announcement puts the spotlight on the competitions — the beating heart of the festival — with a selection of titles that reflects our mission of audience discovery and championing filmmakers forging new paths in cinema.”

Tiger Competition Lineup

Big Screen Competition Lineup

Short Film Competition