FkN Newsletter
March 2010
FkN News
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To keep you updated whereever you are and to further expand the Nordic family, Filmkontakt Nord has created a group on Facebook. Join us!
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For the first time, Filmkontakt Nord is hosting a Nordic delegation to Hot Docs. The call for participation has already been out. If you missed it, read it here. The deadline has been extended to Tuesday 9 March!
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As of this year, we're operating with two deadlines for Nordisk Panorama: 15 February for films completed in 2009 and 15 May for films completed in 2010. The first deadline has come and gone and around 250 shorts and documentaries have been submitted to this year's festival, taking place in Bergen, Norway, 24-29 September. We are happy to see so many 2009 films and are looking forward to the films from 2010. Keep them coming!
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Filmkontakt Nord's Jing Haase and Elin Sander, this year's Nordisk Panorama director, will be at Tampere Film Festival in Finland next week. On Friday 12 March Filmkontakt Nord welcomes Finnish Filmmakers and international guests alike to the traditional FkN reception taking place at the Festival Centre Bravo Plaza 17:00-18:00. Join Jing, Elin and Finnish Chairman of the Board, John Webster, for a drink and a short update on Filmkontakt Nord as well as this years Nordisk Panorama in Bergen, Norway.
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At the same time, FkN director Karin Johansson-Mex will be at Tempo Documentary Festival in Stockholm, Sweden, with Filmkontakt Nord's Nomadic Office. The Nomadic Office offers individual consultancy regarding Nordic and International financing of documentaries to filmmakers with new documentary projects. The individual meetings have already been set up, but like in Tampere, Filmkontakt Nord is happy to offer a drink to old and new friends. Join Karin and Swedish members of the Board Ewa Cederstam & Terese Mörnvik at Biograf Rio on Thursday 11 March 17:00-18:00.
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Karin Johansson-Mex and Jing Haase will be present at BUFF, the International Children and Young People's Film Festival in Malmö, Sweden, as well as at the connected financing forum BUFF:FF.
Jing is also in Malmö to promote Nordisk Panorama Market Online, FkN's online streaming service aimed at international tv-buyers, sales agents, distributors and festival programmers. At NPM Online these professionals can easily keep abreast with the latest and greatest short films and documentaries from the Nordic countries and stream films in full length around the clock and at their own convenience - not to mention free of charge. To set up a meeting with her, send her an email or call +45 3311 5152.
New Nordic and International Initiatives
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As the first school in the Nordic countries, The School of Film Directing at Göteborg University in Sweden offers a 1-year course in curating for film and video. The course in on Master level and focuses on the role of the curator and the possibilities of creating new windows for film and video exhibition as well as elaboration on the existing. To read more about the new course (in Swedish only), click here.
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Cinemateket, the Swedish cinemateque, is launching some new initiatives, mainly directed at film professionals. With more dialogue and discussions around film art and film politics as well as a Swedish version of Actors Studio, Cinemateket hopes to become a natural meeting place for active filmmakers. There will be debate evenings with Swedish filmmakers on many different topics and once a month, Stina Lundberg Dabrowski, professor at Dramatiske Institutet, will lead the Actors Studion-inspired talk with a film personality from Sweden or abroad. Read more about Cinemateket here.
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Odense International Film Festival (OFF) in Denmark is returning to it's initial profile as a short film festival. Since 1996, the feature length documentary has also been a part of the competition programme, but now OFF wants to strengthen it's profile as a short film festival, thereby giving the full attention to the short film as a unique art form. The competition programme will from now on be dedicated to the short film under 30 minutes in all its forms - fiction, animation, documentary. Read more about Odense International Film Festival here.
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During the financial crisis it has become even more difficult for producers of audiovisual content to access bank credits. Therefore The European Commission is now initiating the MEDIA Production Guarantee Fund. The fund will be aimed at supporting and facilitating the access of European audiovisual companies to bank credits. The fund that should be launched in the course of 2010 will benefit from a total contribution of € 8 million over a 4-year period. It would share the financial risk related to the loans granted by banks to European independent audiovisual producers, by guaranteeing to cover a certain percentage of the loss in case of failure by the producer to reimburse the loan, thus encouraging local banks to grant credits to film producers.
The fund will receive an annual contribution, which will be used to guarantee bank credits granted to European production companies. The setting up and management of the fund will be delegated to a European financial organisation under indirect centralised management.
Tho read more about the Media Production Guarantee Fund, click here.
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The Norwegian Film Institute is giving up to 8 documentary film teams the possibility to 'prepare' their projects for the pitching forums in the Nordic countries, Europe and Canada. Veien til forum 2010 (the road to forum 2010) consists of two week-long sessions, ten weeks apart. In the first week, the projects will be presented and developed, with a special focus on creating a pilot. During the second session, the projects, with the new pilots, will be pitched to a test audience consisting of filmmakers with a large experience in international pitching. The workshop will be lead by PeÅ Holmquist, documentary filmmaker and professor in documeantary film at Dramatiske Institutet in Sweden. Read more about the workshop (in Norwegian only) here.
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Danish Report on the Film Industry
The Danish Producer's Association has initiated
a project aimed at collecting and processing data from the Danish film
industry. The accounts from the last three years (2006-2008) of 74
companies have been examined and the report shows an industry under
economical strain. Only a third of the companies have had a surplus in
all three years and the average return is defined as 'not
cost-effective'. Some companies have however managed to do well despite
the crisis. Especially larger companies have been successful. To read
the report (in Danish only), click here.
