FkN Newsletter

October 2013

Nordisk Panorama News

31.10.2013
Highlights from Nordisk Panorama 2013
After many years of travelling between the five Nordic countries, this year Nordisk Panorama found its home in Malmö, Sweden. With a sharpened profile the festival unfolded its Nordic championship, showcasing the best Nordic shorts and docs to the delight of more than 800 accredited guests from 28 countries who had come to Malmö to enjoy 6 days of films, seminars, sessions, market, forum, meetings, networking - and good Nordic fun.

This year Nordisk Panorama hit an attendance of almost 10.000 for screenings, seminars, sessions and social events.

The first peak into the evaluation of this year's Nordisk Panorama confirms that the festival was a great success. 70% say that Nordisk Panorama is a good place to do business and 75% confirm that Nordisk Panorama is the place to boost their professional development. No wonder then, that 80% are planning to come back to Nordisk Panorama, to make sure not to miss the most important yearly event for Nordic shorts and docs!

Great Nordic Films
During the festival, more than 100 of the best Nordic shorts and docs from the past year were screened, with all five Nordic countries represented throughout the festival. Nine films from each country were nominated by national juries for the three competition programmes: Nordic Documentary, Nordic Short Film and New Nordic Voices.

A World Not Ours by Mahdi Fleifel, Denmark was the winner of the New Nordic Voices competition with a prize of 3.500 Euro. The winner of the Best Nordic Short was Swedish On Suffocation by Jennifer Malmqvist (7.000 Euro) and The Act of Killing by Joshua Oppenheimer took the prize as the Best Nordic Doc, receiving a prize of 11.000 Euro generously sponsored by the five Nordic public broadcasters DR, YLE, RUV, NRK & SVT.

Market Activities
The 246 films at the market were screened almost a 1000 times by close to 90 Nordic and international market guests and around 100 NPM one-to-one meetings were set up by the market staff.

This year the market was also buzzing with new activities. 29 films were screened at the new closed market screenings offering selected sales agents, distributors and festival programmers the chance to discover brand new Nordic shorts and documentaries yet to premiere internationally.

As another successful new initiative the market featured 6 work-in-progress presentations giving TV buyers, sales agents, distributors and festival programmers the chance to preview some of the most exciting upcoming Nordic documentaries, almost ready to make it onto the world stage, just looking for that final push.

Nordisk Forum
At the 20th anniversary of Nordisk Forum 24 projects were pitched in the presence of 260 forum delegates with 65 Nordic and international decision-makers present. Another 21 projects were presented in individual meetings, with a record of 435 individual meetings prearranged by the forum staff and even more meetings happening on the spot.

For the 4th time the producer networking event Producers Meet Producers kicked off Nordisk Forum, gathering 42 delegates for a day focusing on co-production and potential new partnerships. Nordisk Forum is also aiming to facilitate connections outside the Nordic countries and 17 Dutch delegates were happy to visit the event.

Other well attended events were NP School & Teacher Meetup, NP Hackathon, NP Transmedia Meetup and finally in coorporation with SWIM a Think Thank on transmedia for film institute & film fund consultants, this year putting special focus on new interactive forms of filmmaking.

See some impressions from Nordisk Panorama here and check out pictures from this year's festival and forum.

With the culturally vibrant city of Malmö, Sweden as its home, next year's Nordisk Panorama will take place 19-24 Sept. Don't forget to mark your calendar for Nordisk Panorama 2014.

Follow Nordisk Panorama on Facebook and join the Facebook group Nordisk Panorama - for film professionals.

FkN News

31.10.2013
Meet Us in London, Uppsala, Copenhagen and Amsterdam
In October and November Filmkontakt Nord is attending film festivals and events in UK, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands.

Earlier this month Director Katrine Kiilgaard attended the Power to the Pixel Cross-Media Forum in London, for networking and inspiration. Market Manager Jing Haase attended Uppsala International Short Film Festival in Sweden, where she presented her favourite short and participated in a panel discussing the role of the curator at film festivals.

Director Katrine Kiilgaard and Forum Manager Christina Jul Gregersen will be attending CPH:DOX (7-17 November) to expand the international network and promote the new films available at Nordisk Panorama Market Online, FkN's online streaming service for international tv-buyers, sales agents, distributors and festival programmers. 38 films from the Nordic countries (whereof 28 are Danish) have been selected for the festival.

Finally, Katrine Kiilgaard, Jing Haase, Christina Jul Gregersen and festival producer Monalisa Sundbom will be at IDFA in Amsterdam. Katrine Kiilgaard and Christina Jul Gregersen will be attending both IDFA and the IDFA Forum where Christina will be present as a matchmaker, facilitating interaction between forum participants.

At IDFA (20 Nov-1 Dec) no less than 22 films from the Nordic countries can be enjoyed in the different sections of the festival and FkN will be promoting Nordic docs through Nordisk Panorama Market Online.

The Nordic countries are also very well represented at the IDFA Forum with 10 Nordic projects and 3 Nordic co-productions out of a total of 50 selected projects, which means that no less than 26% of the projects have Nordic input. 5 of the projects were also pitched at Nordisk Forum and we're looking forward to following them at IDFA.

To set up a meeting with Katrine, send her an email or call her at +45 2042 4529. Reach Christina by email or at +45 6131 8539.

New Nordic and International Initiatives

31.10.2013
Icelandic Film Industry Shocked by Cuts to Film Funding
The Icelandic government has announced plans to cut the budget of the country's film fund by almost 40 percent from ISK 1.018m (€6.2m) to ISK 624.7m (€3.8m), starting next year.

Following the economic crash of 2008, the budget for the Icelandic Film Centre has seen severe cuts, but much of it was restored in 2012 and 2013 with plans to further increase the budget over the next years.

The restoration was followed by an increase in film production, with the 2012 turnover hitting ISK 11.700m (€71m) and continuing to climb by 25 percent in the first part of this year compared to 2012.

A report from 2011 on the economic impact of film on the economy shows that public investment in local production produced a five-fold return in turnover, making it hard to understand the cuts proposed by the recently elected government.

The film industry associations are currently trying to pressure the government to overturn its decision and restore funding before the 2014 budget takes effect.

31.10.2013
Easy Streaming of Danish Docs
Now audiences worldwide will have easier access to Danish documentaries through the newly launched streaming site DanishDox.com where you can rent Danish documentary films one by one without subscription.

Danish docs are also well represented on the Nordic Netflix site and on the Danish subscription VOD service YouBio as a result of the Danish Producers' Association's initiative One Stop Shop, negotiating collective agreements on behalf of its documentary producers.

Nordic docs are also available to film buyers, festival programmers, sales agents and distributors through Nordisk Panorama's password protected professional streaming service Nordisk Panorama Market Online, offering shorts and docs not only from Denmark but also from Finland, Iceland, Norway & Sweden. More info here.

31.10.2013
BoostHbg in Canadian Transmedia Partnership
Together with Annika Gustafson, Executive Director of BoostHbg, five transmedia producers and creators from Skåne, Sweden are participating in Merging Media and Pitch 360, one of Canada's biggest transmedia conferences and pitching forum in Vancouver.

Due to a new strategic partnership between BoostHbg and Merging Media three of the ten transmedia projects being pitched have been developed by creative teams from Skåne in collaboration with BoostHbg. A prize of $ 10,000 is awarded to the best pitch.

Projects will be pitched to a panel of investors, TV channels and Canadian funds and will meet with producers, funds and television channels in one-on-one meetings. Annika Gustafson is speaking at an international panel on transmedia funding and will be coaching Canadian projects in one-on-one meetings. Annika Gustafson has worked in Canada for 15 years and is now using her network to help Skåne projects find international financing.

The participants from Skåne are:
Sofie Palage & Gunnar A.K Järvstad from Primodrom Produktion with the project EM
Helene Mohlin & Leif Mohlin from Mint with the project Cirkus Imago
Anna Nevander from Kore Film with the project Valkyria