Jason Jacobs and Devon Delmar have won top the €40,000 ($47k) Tiger Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) for feature documentary Variations On A Theme, about an elderly goat herder targeted by a scam promising to secure her father’s long-awaited reparations for WW2.
It is the second feature from the South African filmmaking duo Jacobs and Delmar after fiction feature Carissa, which world premiered in Venice’s Orizzonti section in 2024.
The Tiger Competition Jury, consisting of Iranian The Seed of the Sacred Fig actress Soheila Golestani, Brazilian director Marcelo Gomes, French actor-director Ariane Labed, London Film Festival head Kristy Matheson and Croatian writer Jurica Pavičić, said its decision had been unanimous.
“Possessing a deep poetic language, we found this to be a thoughtful and moving portrait of a community living under the spectre of colonial legacies and familial bonds in this world and the next,” read their jury statement.
Two Special Jury Awards, worth €10,000 each, went to Swedish director Angelica Ruffier’s La Belle Année, an intimate portrait of a woman dealing with grief, and Georgian filmmaker Ana Urushadze’s Supporting Role, about a faded actor coming to terms with not being offered the lead.
The top prize in the Big Screen Competition, which bridges popular, classic, and arthouse cinema, went to Bangladeshi director Rezwan Shahriar Sumit’s Master.
The political drama set in the lead-up to Bangladesh’s July Revolution, stars Nasir Uddin Khan as an activist whose ideals are slowly corroded.
The jury consisted of Jan-Willem van Ewijk, Sara Ishaq, Loes Luca, Chris Oosterom and Mila Schlingemann praised both the story and lead performance.
“This is a universal story about a person striving to hold onto their moral compass, only to be reshaped by the persuasive and destructive forces of power and capitalism,” read the jury statement.
“What begins as a seemingly straightforward tale of idealism versus corruption unfolds into something far more complex and layered. With colourful strokes and surrounded by lively, authentic extras, the main character masterfully embodies this moral ambiguity through a superb leading performance, revealing how power ultimately has its way.”
The Big Screen Award carries a €15,000 ($17k) cash prize for the filmmakers, while IFFR also offers €15,000 to the Dutch distributor that acquires the film’s local distribution rights.
In collateral prizes, Supporting Role won the Fipresci Award; Filipino director P. R. Monencillo Patindol’s i grew an inch when my father won the Netpac Award for the best film from Asia and Pacific regions, and the Youth Jury Award went to Ah Girl by Singaporean director Ang Geck Geck Priscilla.
English (US) ·