Chloë Roddick, FICM programmer, will be on the Jury at the Curacao International Film Festival Rotterdam

Gabriela Martínez @GabbMartivel

Chloë Roddick, programadora del Festival Internacional de Cine de Morelia (FICM), será jurado del Festival Internacional de Cine de Rotterdam Curaçao (CIFFR) 2018, el cual se llevará a cabo del miércoles 11 de abril al domingo 15 de abril de 2018.

En entrevista para el FICM, Roddick habló del origen del CIFFR, la relación entre ambos festivales y explicó cómo es el proceso de deliberación de los jurados.

Oso Polar (2017, dir. Marcelo Tobar) and Vuelve a mi (2017, dir. Nájera Betancourt, Daniel Alberto)

Last year we screened the award-winning short, which was from Aruba (Yesterday´s Rain, 2017, dir. Armand Simon) as well as the winner of the Yellow Robin prize, which was a film from the Dominican Republic (El hombre que cuida, 2017, dir. Alejandro Andújar) and also a feature film called Double Play, which was filmed in Curacao and had its premiere at the Rotterdam International Film Festival (Double Play, 2017, dir. Ernest Dickerson).

In addition to this, the best Mexican Feature Film or Best Documentary from FICM is screened each year at CIFFR, as part of their International Program. This year they will screen Marcelo Tobar´s Oso polar (2017). Finally, the Best Mexican Short Film from last year, Vuelve a mi (2017), directed by Daniel Nájera Betancourt, will compete in the Caribbean Shorts Competition.

How did the invitation to be on the CIFFR jury come about?

Since the beginning of the festival, FICM has had a very good relationship with the Curacao Festival. Each year a representative from Morelia travels to Curacao for the Festival, and vice versa – we always invite someone from the Festival to attend FICM, as well as the director of the Yellow Robin award-winning film.

Each year the collaboration between our Festivals gets stronger – we share many films, and we are always looking for the best way to work together. Based on this long collaboration and the good relationship between the festivals, I was invited to be on the Jury this year. This is the first year that someone from FICM is on the Jury at CIFFR

Tell us about what it´s like to be on a jury.

You work together with your jury companions, watching all of the films in competition, ideally on the big screen, with the best projection quality possible. After having seen everything you go through a period of deliberation with the rest of the jury and try to decide on a winning film.

The decision about a best film is always subjective and always to some extent depends on the Festival in question. In Curacao we´re looking at cinema from the Caribbean and, while of course you´re always looking for great quality film, you also have to look at where these films came from; if they are from a country with limited resources or infrastructure. So this has to be taken into account too.