The International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), also known as the "European Sundance' because of its specialisation and prestige among independent film-makers, has awarded the Tiger, the top prize at the event, to Finisterrae, the Sonar 2010 film directed by Sergio Caballero.

Finisterrae is Sergio Caballero's debut as a film director. Caballero, a multidisciplinary musician and artist, is also the co-director of Sonar, the International Festival of Advanced Music and Multimedia Art, and every year is responsible for the image that the event creates as the backdrop for its campaigns.

The jury for the Prizes described Finisterrae as follows: 'The outsider in this competition. Searching for the boundaries in this festival, for the edgy, the off-beat'.

The prize-giving ceremony was held on Friday 4th February, in Rotterdam's Oude Luxor Theater, with a performance by Lee Ranaldo, member of the jury, guitarist, composer and co-founder of the group Sonic Youth.

As well as the Spanish film, two Asian films, also by first-time directors, have been awarded: The Journals of Musan by Park Jung-Bum (South Korea), and Eternity by Sivaroj Kongsakul (Thailand).

The Festival Jury

As well as Lee Ranaldo, the other members of the Tiger Awards jury were the Argentinian filmmaker, scriptwriter and producer Lucrecia Martel; the director of the EYE Film Institute Netherlands and the ex-director of the Rotterdam Festival, Sandra den Hamer; the Romanian filmmaker Andrei Ujica and the Thai filmmaker Wisit Sasanatieng.

About the film Finisterrae

Finisterrae is no ordinary film. The idea of the film is highly unusual, with an approach based on filming and obtaining images first, and then creating the script afterwards, before finally adding the dialogues. This process led to experimentation with the classic structure of a "road movie" and the freedom to work which the lack of a fixed script provides.

The result is strange and enigmatic cinema, with a very particular atmosphere, filled with unusual plastic images and an ironic and surrealistic sense of humour.

Finisterrae tells the story of two ghosts who are tired of living in the shadows, and decide to walk along the Way of Saint James to the end of the world, and once there, to begin an ephemeral earthly existence in the world of the living. It is an introspective journey through inhospitable landscapes, during which the protagonists meet strange beings, wild animals and surreal characters. They must deal with unexpected situations, face their own tensions and come to terms with their doubts arising from the fact that they are ghosts.

Finisterrae is an Advanced Music/Sonar Festival production with Eddie Saeta in collaboration with Xacobeo 2010.

The image of Sonar

Finisterrae was the image of Sonar 2010. Taking the festival's two venues of Barcelona and A Coruña as his theme, and as part of the celebrations of Xacobeo 2010, Sergio Caballero created this unusual tale starring two ghosts who walk along their own personal Way of Saint James to reach Finisterrae and regain mortal status.

The Sonar campaigns, which are always at variance with the cliches of electronic culture, are pieces of artistic creation that use the surprising, the unconventional and a pronounced sense of humour which is sometimes the source of controversy. From Maradona to paranormal phenomena, from dreamlike landscapes to taxidermy, Sonar's graphic image has become one of the most eagerly-awaited and commented upon aspects of the festival, year after year.

A short biography of the director

Sergio Caballero is the co-director and the creator of the image of Sonar, the International Festival of Advanced Music and Multimedia Art. His artistic creativity and restlessness is apparent in very different fields, such as electronic composition, the plastic arts and conceptual art, and he has to a large extent been the driving force behind the always controversial and striking Sonar image campaigns.

Caballero has worked with the composer Pedro Alcalde since 2004, and they have created six musical compositions for the National Dance Company, directed by Nacho Duato. Finisterrae is his first full-length film, in which his completely personal style is apparent, and which provides an insight into his tastes, his obsessions and his own particular sense of humour.

The International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR)

The International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) provides a a selection of high quality independent, innovative and experimental cinema, video and multimedia art. Each year, over twelve days, hundreds of filmmakers and other artists presents their works to a large audience (353,000 festival visitors in 2010), with 3,000 professional films on 25 screens in the 8 different festival spaces.