FkN Newsletter
January 2012 
FkN News
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26.01.2012
Filmkontakt Nord at GIFF
Filmkontakt Nord will be present at Göteborg International Film Festival, taking place 27 January-6 February. Managing Director Katrine Kiilgaard will be present at the festival 1-3 February. To set up a meeting with Katrine, send her an email or call her at +45 2042 4529.
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26.01.2012
Filmkontakt Nord in Clermont-Ferrand
Nordisk Panorama Market Manager Jing Haase will attend the Short Film Market at the world's largest international short film festival in Clermont-Ferrand, France, the most important meeting place of the year for short film professionals.
Besides promoting Nordisk Panorama - 5 Cities Film Festival to an ever expanding network of professionals, FkN is present in Clermont-Ferrand to promote the new films available at Nordisk Panorama Market Online to potential buyers and festivals. Jing will be in Clermont-Ferrand 29 January-2 February. To set up a meeting with Jing, send her an email or contact her at +45 3132 0212.
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26.01.2012
Filmkontakt Nord in Berlin
Nordisk Forum Manager Christina Jul Gregersen is visiting the Berlinale 12-14 February to develop new partnerships and networks for this year's Nordisk Forum, taking place in Oulu, Finland, 23-25 September 2012. To set up a meeting with Christina, send her an email or contact her at +45 6131 8539.
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26.01.2012
Call for Nordisk Panorama Festival & Market 2012
It is time to submit your film to Nordisk Panorama 2012. Don't forget that the deadline for films completed in 2011 is 15 February 2012! The deadline for films completed in 2012 is 15 May 2012.
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26.01.2012
Delegations to Hot Docs and Sheffield Doc/Fest
Again this year Filmkontakt Nord is arranging the Nordic delegations to both Hot Docs and Sheffield Doc/Fest. The deadlines to sign up for the delegations are 5 March for Sheffield Doc/Fest and 9 March for Hot Docs. If you want to join us, follow the links to read more: Hot Docs and Sheffield Doc/Fest.
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26.01.2012
Baby, it's Cold Outside - Promotion of Films about Ice & Snow
Filmkontakt Nord regularly promotes films registered for the FkN promotion service Nordisk Panorama Market Online. NPM Online is a password-protected screening room open to registered buyers, festival programmers and distributors.
Mid-January Filmkontakt Nord made a special effort to promote films with and/or about ice and snow. The last promotional effort before that highlighted the Nordic IDFA films in the NPM Catalogue. Already in the first month of the year, NPM Online reached 300 screenings.
New Nordic and International Initiatives
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26.01.2012
New Film Agreement in Iceland
Just before Christmas a new film agreement was signed in Iceland by the Icelandic Producers Association, the Association of Icelandic Film Directors and the Icelandic Filmmakers Association, increasing the state film funding by 62% until 2015. The film funding will gradually increase from its 2011 level of ISK 425 million to ISK 700 million in 2015. On top of this a new support system based on VAT on cinema tickets is in store.
Another change is that funds for short fiction films have been relocated to feature fiction films, whereas short documentaries will still be funded under the documentary scheme. If Iceland's economy improves faster than expected, the agreement may be renegotiated.
The new agreement puts an end to the cuts and downsizing, taking place in the last years.
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26.01.2012
New Financing Model for YLE
Finnish politicians have now agreed on a long term financing model for the public broadcaster YLE. From 2013 a new media tax will replace the 80 year-old financing system based on license fees. In the current model a license fee is to be paid by each household owning a TV. Despite this "at present a quarter of the households do not pay for YLE's services, even though everybody uses them" says CEO of YLE Lauri Kivinen. The new tax is based on a person's income and will range between 50 and 140 Euro per year.
Kivinen states that YLE can now return to its normal rate of development and adds, "public service broadcasting should be built on independence, domestic materials, quality, reliability and variety. We now have an excellent opportunity to carry out our tasks to satisfaction. Still, we cannot have everything, which means that a healthy amount of choices must be made in the future as well." The new tax model will be put into effect by 2013.
YLE operates in 30 localities and offers services in Finnish, Swedish and Sami. YLE broadcasts on four television channels and six radio channels, and produces extensive web services in Finnish and Swedish. The company has 3,000 regular and approximately 500 fixed-term employees.
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26.01.2012
SFI & SVT Joins Forces in Short Doc Initiative
For the third time the Swedish Film Institute and Swedish public broadcaster SVT have made a joint initiative supporting short documentaries. The subject of the initiative is Nittiotalisterna (the generation born in the 1990s), treated in a 13-minute format and 8 film projects have now been selected.
"I believe and hope that the eight selected projects will give us a sprawling and nuanced picture of a generation on its way. The theme in combination with the short format can provide inspiration and communicate with both those who the films are about as well as with an older generation who wants to understand them," says documentary consultant Cecilia Lidin from the Swedish Film Institute.
The films will all be shown at SVT in the fall/winter of 2012. See the selected documentary projects and read more here.
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26.01.2012
New Initiative from IDFA & EFM
IDFA and the European Film Market team up in a new collaboration promoting quality documentaries in Berlin. Starting at this year's Berlinale, 23 IDFA documentaries will be screened at Meet the Docs, the EFM documentary networking platform organised in cooperation with EDN.
The selection contains three Nordic titles: The Ambassador by Mads Brügger, Denmark, Ballroom Dancer by Andreas Koefoed and Christian Bonke, Denmark and Fredrik Gertten's Big Boys Gone Bananas!*, Sweden.
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26.01.2012
YouTube Launches Short Film Festival
YouTube is launching an online film festival for short films and has joined forces with Ridley and Tony Scott's production company Scott Free Productions in the effort. It is not the first time that the two team up. This was also the case for the crowd-sourced documentary Life in a Day.
The initiative called Your Film Festival is open to anyone, but YouTube is especially hoping to reach young filmmakers. Of the submitted films Scott Free Productions will select 50 semi-finalists who will be made available on YouTube for users to vote for the 10 final films. The 10 finalists will be flown to Venice for the Venice Film Festival where the films will be screened and they will compete for a USD 500,000 grant to work with Scott's company. A jury led by Ridley Scott will decide the winner. "Short filmmaking is exactly where I started my career 50 years ago, so to be helping new filmmakers find an entry point like this into the industry is fantastic," says Scott.
To be eligible for Your Film Festival, films must be max. 15 minutes, they must not have been distributed prior to 1 January 2010 and entrants must be at least 18 years old. The festival is open for submissions between 2 February and 31 March 2012.
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26.01.2012
Two Film Funds Launched by BRITDOC & the Bertha Foundation
Two new international documentary funds have seen the light of day as a result of the partnership between BRITDOC and The Bertha Foundation.
The non-profit organisation BRITDOC and The Bertha Foundation, a family foundation dedicated to promoting social activism, has ventured into a partnership resulting in two new documentary funds. The funds will be worth GBP 1.5 million over the next three years and are open to filmmakers from around the world.
The Bertha BRITDOC Journalism Fund supports feature documentaries of a journalistic nature working at the intersection of film and investigative journalism.
As the first outreach and engagement fund in Europe, the Bertha BRITDOC Connect Fund will support smart, strategic outreach campaigns for ambitious independent documentary films addressing a social issue.
For the Bertha BRITDOC Journalism Fund funding will be granted on a rolling basis while the Bertha BRITDOC Connect Fund will have a deadline coming up 31 January 2012.
