The 52nd edition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam will take place from 25 January to 5 February, 2023. Taking place again in the Dutch port city in its original form for the first time since 2019, the festival is set to welcome audiences with a complete programme of features, shorts, focus programmes, installations, performances and more. The programme also features a variety of German films and co-productions - one feature and one short film have made it into the competition sections.

The tragicomedy ONE LAST EVENING by Lukas Nathrath (Klinkerfilm) will be shown in the Tiger Competition. In the standstill of the pandemic summer, a young couple wants to start anew and move from Hanover to Berlin. To say goodbye, they are throwing a farewell dinner. But good friends cancel — and uninvited guests show up. Soon, secret longings, misunderstandings and human abysses of the privileged dinner guests are revealed. Here, everyone is fighting only for themselves: a “bubble” that seems to have everything and yet threatens to despair of itself.

The Tiger Short Competition presents the short film HUMAN NATURE by Mónica Lima (PT/DE, New Matter Films). In an apartment in a city under curfew, a day expands from early spring to late summer. A couple experiences a disconnect. While Alba searches for a feeling of optimism in the interior of the house, Xavier escapes out into the garden where he dedicates himself to cultivating a vegetable garden. There, he befriends a child. These dreamlike encounters awaken hope in him, but also the biggest fears.