ON THE RISE is the name of the IFFMH's international competition. Here, first and second works by exceptional directors compete for the official festival prizes.
The section presents a selection of the most exciting works by filmmakers at the beginning of their careers: the programme is diverse and open to different perspectives, genres and styles. The works can be ambivalent or straightforward, work with set pieces from genre cinema, be realistic or fantastical, pay homage to classic auteur films or explore hybrid forms. What they all have in common is that they give us a glimpse today of the cinema of tomorrow.
The international competition, comprising 16 fictional feature films, is the core of the festival and continues the IFFMH’s rich tradition as a stage for outstanding directorial talent.
Despite the geographical diversity, some countries are particularly well represented in our 2024 competition. It may come as less of a surprise that the USA is sending three independent productions into the race for our awards. Two of them are gripping thrillers, genre films, but that's almost all they have in common given their independence. The third, on the other hand, is a touching drama about a woman suffering from dementia. Then there are two films each from India, Georgia and Morocco. The Indian productions, both by female directors, offer very different stories about women, but in certain respects they also reveal remarkable parallels.
However, the diversity of this year's competition is even greater: it ranges from a romantic love story from China to a critical and atmospheric portrait of society in Iran, a story of violence from Ireland, an artist at a biographical crossroads in Romania, the hard lot of women in the Brazilian Amazon region to politically and stylistically impressive and independently fresh cinema from the Dominican Republic.
The films in our competition compete for six awards, presented by four juries and you, the audience.