HAPPENING 8–12 October 2025 | The AFFR is a must for all lovers of architecture and cinema. For over a decade, Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam has delighted its visitors with cinematic portraits, critical essays as well as hilarious reflections on city and architecture.
Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam 2025
The Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam (AFFR) has confirmed that its next edition will take place from 8 to 12 October 2025. The announcement follows the conclusion of the previous edition, which drew significant attention from architecture and film enthusiasts across the city.
The 2025 edition will mark a milestone for AFFR, as the festival celebrates 25 years of exploring the intersection of architecture, urban development and cinema. Further details about the anniversary programme are expected to be announced in the coming months through AFFR’s official channels, including its website, newsletter and social media platforms.
Founded in Rotterdam, AFFR has become known for presenting films that reflect on the built environment, spatial developments and urban life. While programming details have yet to be revealed, the anniversary is expected to feature special retrospectives and curated events.
What to expect? More than 80 films, talks and specials. The full programme and general ticket sales go live on 16 September 2025. For complete details about the programme, check out the official AFFR website.
AFFR 2025 to open with architectural biopic The Great Arch
AFFR (Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam) 2025 will officially open on Wednesday 8 October with the screening of The Great Arch, a new fiction film by French director Stéphane Demoustier. The event will take place at Theater Rotterdam.
The film explores the story of Danish architect Johan Otto von Spreckelsen, whose unexpected victory in a prestigious French design competition in 1982 led to his commission to build a monumental structure at La Défense in Paris. The project was one of President François Mitterrand’s “Grands Projets” (grand projects), a series of major works launched to mark the bicentennial of the French Republic.
The screening will begin at 20:00, with the foyer opening at 19:15. The event will be followed by a gathering in the foyer of Theater Rotterdam. The film will be shown in French and Danish, with English subtitles. Entry is included in the AFFR festival pass, though other film cards, such as Cineville and LV-strippenkaart, are not accepted for this screening.
Ticket prices:
€17,00 general
€12,00 student rate (with valid student card)
Highlights from AFFR 2024
The 2024 edition of the Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam (AFFR) offered audiences a dynamic mix of architectural reflection, cinematic storytelling, and urgent social commentary. Rotterdam once again served as a fitting backdrop for discussions on design, memory, and urban transformation.
Among the standout events of the past edition was The Masters: Chris Oddy, held on 12 October at LantarenVenster. Chris Oddy, known for his work as production designer on the Oscar-winning The Zone of Interest, delivered a lecture offering insights into his process and the aesthetic decisions behind the film. The lecture was followed by a screening of the film, which examines the unsettling juxtaposition of domestic life and systemic atrocity, set on the periphery of Auschwitz.
Earlier that same day, attention turned to cultural heritage and institutional identity during The Boijmans Debate & Hanging Without Walls. Beginning at midday, the programme focused on the renovation of the Slovak National Gallery, as documented in a Kafkaesque film that captured both bureaucratic absurdity and artistic resilience. Contributions from Ina Klaassen and Antti Liukku brought the debate closer to home, drawing parallels with the ongoing transformation of Rotterdam’s own Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.
A different kind of transformation was explored on 11 October at 17:00 with the screening of Samuel and the Light. Set in the remote Brazilian village of Ponta Negra, the documentary follows a young boy and his family as electricity is introduced to their community. The film’s meditative pace and emotive cinematography resonated strongly with audiences, serving as a quiet meditation on progress and change.
Director Andrea Arnold’s Bird was shown on 13 October at 19:15. Premiered at Cannes earlier that year, the film was presented to Rotterdam audiences as a stark yet lyrical portrayal of adolescence. Following the life of 12-year-old Bailey in North Kent, the narrative explored themes of marginality, resilience, and the search for belonging.
On 10 October at 20:15, the festival also featured E.1027 – Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea, a hybrid documentary exploring the complex relationship between architect Eileen Gray and Le Corbusier. Through its cinematic storytelling, the film offered a portrait of creative tension and the gendered politics of architectural legacy.
The festival drew to a close with Santos Special: Rotterdam on the Screen, held on 11 October at 21:00. This celebratory event featured curated film clips highlighting iconic Rotterdam locations, offering a cinematic homage to the city's architecture, culture, and spirit.
As Rotterdam prepares to welcome the 25th edition of AFFR in October 2025, the 2024 programme will be remembered for its breadth, depth, and reflection of the city’s place within global conversations on space, identity, and memory.
About AFFR
The Rotterdam Architecture Film Festival explores the relationship between film, city, and architecture by programming and screening films and organizing introductions and debates. In the past decade, AFFR has grown into a leading international platform for films about architecture, urban development and the built environment. The festival is firmly rooted in Rotterdam's cultural circuit, it enjoys great national fame and it has an enormous international network. AFFR not only brings together a broad audience from Rotterdam, but also city lovers, students, researchers, designers and film-makers from the rest of the world, who will discuss the present, past, and future of the city with each other.
The foundation Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam (AFFR) was founded in 2000. That year, the first architecture film festival was organized. It wasn't just the first in Rotterdam, but the first of its kind in the world. Full editions followed in 2001 and 2003. In 2007 AFFR made a fresh start and in 2009 the festival expanded considerably in both visitor numbers and breadth of programming.
An architecture film is broadly about the meaning of city and architecture. It portrays cities, buildings, and their designers; shows that architecture cannot be understood without its surroundings or explores the role the city plays in our daily lives. In which not infrequently architects and urban planners turn out to be powerless gods and their designs, once realized, acquire very different meanings and functions than anticipated.
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