19.08.2010 Catch the Early Bird to Nordisk Panorama
If you still haven't treated yourself to an accreditation, it's time to
get moving! Register here before 20 August and get the early bird
discount on your accreditation.
As always, you can enjoy a wide array of side programmes, seminars, and
social events besides the abundance of high quality Nordic shorts and
docs in competition.
Here are some samples of what you definitely don't want to miss:
The Personal Touch
Martin Widerberg is making a film about his father Bo, his grandfather
Arvid and himself. Aslaug Holm has been filming her two young sons for
several years, and is about to finish her film about them. Niels Pagh
Andersen has worked as an editor on several personal documentaries.
Meet them all in a conversation on the strengths, limits and possible
ethical dilemmas of the personal doc.
Staging Reality
In her award-winning film Out of Love, Birgitte Stærmose is
challenging the borders between documentary and fiction. See her film
in competition and hear the director's thoughts about this issue.
My Dinner With...
This year introducing the highly acclaimed Norwegian short and feature
film director Unni Straume, represented at several international film
festivals with films like Music for Weddings and Funerals and Dreamplay.
Unni is presently working on her new feature film Faith and have
invited her producer Peter Aalbæk for a
provocative, intimate and challenging talk about the art of filmmaking
and life in general. Read more about Nordisk Panorama and stay updated atwww.nordiskpanorama.com.
19.08.2010 FkN at Odense International Film Festival Filmkontakt Nord's Jing Haase and Elin Sander, this year's Nordisk Panorama director, will be at Odense International Film Festival
next week, 23.-25. august. Besides watching Danish films and meeting
with the Danish and international short film community, they will speak
at Talent Camp Odense.
New Nordic and International Initiatives
19.08.2010 FILM-X-PERT – Video Tutorial for Kids The Danish Film
Institute (DFI) has launched FILM-X-PERT, a new on-line initiative
offering children around the country practical help and tips on how to
tell a good story on film. FILM-X-PERT is as a video tutorial that
gives children and young people a chance to get wiser on film technique
and storytelling. In five on-line videos, we meet a team of children
going through all phases in a film production with technical assistance
from a professional. The five videos deal with Idea, Script and Storyboard, Light and Shooting, Sound and Editing. Later
in the year, it will be possible for online users to edit directly on
the website and to experiment with editing their own versions of scenes
from real films. Additionally, FILM-X-PERT will provide guidelines explaining how to integrate editing activities in school classes. FILM-X-PERT
is an effort to reach children and young people living outside of
Copenhagen where the interactive film studio FILM-X is based, and offer
them an on-line version of the creative film practice experience. Read more here.
19.08.2010 High Five Power to Content for Kids Nordisk Film & TV Fond and Power to the Pixel join forces in a new initiative for the development of six pre-selected high quality Nordic cross media projects. The
High Five Cross Media Content For Kids offers NOK 250.000 per project
as a direct development grant and a development process including a 3
day workshop with international experts in the cross media field. Power to the Pixel will design and conduct the development process that counts two sessions: - The High Five Power to the Pixel Lab (17-19 November 2010 in Copenhagen) A three-day workshop where the six selected Nordic cross media projects meet international experts. - The High Five Power to the Pixel Forum (14-16 March 2011 in Malmø, Sweden) An open Cross Media Seminar and a Pitching and Finance Forum taking place over two days at the BUFF Financing Forum. The deadline for Nordic applicants is 6 September 2010. For further information, see here.
19.08.2010 Doc Lounge Opens in 6 New Nordic Cities The Doc Lounge
network is expanding to 6 cities, opening up new screening venues in
Bergen, Tromsö in Norway, Odense in Denmark and Visby, Kalmar and Växjö
in Sweden. First out is Bergen which will open on 27 September during Nordisk Panorama. Since Doc Lounge started in Malmö 2006, new branches have opened up in all Nordic countries, now counting 14. The
Doc Lounge network screens new and high quality documentaries with a
mix of local, national and international films. The films are screened
in a club environment and each screening is combined with other cultural
events such as dj/vj, discussions, live band, performances and
exhibitions making the screening an event. Every evening a new film is
being screened. Doc Lounge Scandinavia is the hub and connecting point of the network.
19.08.2010 DVD Featuring the Cream of Nordic Shorts Nordic
film magazines have collaborated on the publication of a DVD collection
of the best of Nordic short films produced within the last 20 years.
The release of the DVD is made with funding from Nordisk Film- og TV Fond and can be purchased with the August issue of the magazines, Norwegian Rushprint, the Danish film magazine Ekko, Finnish Episodi and Swedish FLM.
The DVD presents 12 great Nordic shorts, including films by Lars von Trier, Aki Kaurismäki, Roy Andersson a.o. Among
the titles is Lars von Trier’s legendary and so far unreleased film
project Dimension. The shooting of Dimension was planned to run over a
period of 30 years, and the film release was set to Trier’s 68 year
birthday 30 April, 2024. Trier developed the project with his
scriptwriter Niels Vørsel and producer Peter Aalbæk Jensen in the late
eighties, and actors from Trier’s film Europa were to be cast for the
project. Trier, however, lost interest in the project and gave it up. Edited footage from the shootings appears on the DVD, and the finished film has become a sort of summary of Trier’s career.
19.08.2010 NOW IS – New Conference on Crossmedia in Århus In response to the development of new media and the range of new possibilities to distribute stories and digital content, Headstart and Cross Media invite to a conference on storytelling and cross media. The
conference will focus on topics about participation through social
media and audience experiences. With the new media and technologies the
way we receive content has changed drastically opening up for new ways
of storytelling techniques and audience participation. The programme
of the conference mirrors this development and has been organised in
three areas where changes in the media landscape will be produced in the
years to come: 1. The relationship between audience, media and
content. Involvement is a key word in the way entertainment, marketing
and communication will be perceived in the future. 2. New business models and ways of earning money involve audiences in new ways. 3.
Untraditional collaboration between players with different
qualifications and between industry sectors is a necessity in the future
media landscape. Special Adviser of cross media policy for the EU, Monique de Haas will be one of the keynote speakers at the conference. The conference takes place 2 September 2010 in Århus. Deadline for accreditation: 27 August. Read more about the conference here.
19.08.2010 New First Motion Partner The EU project for the Baltic Sea area, First Motion,
has announced changes in its partnership collaboration. First Motion
partners comprise film funds, universities and national/regional
developers/municipalities, with different profiles and areas of
expertise. The University of Agder in Norway (UiA) has taken over as First Motion partner replacing Kristiansand Kommune (KK). UiA
will take over KK’s First Motion budget and activities as well as full
responsibility for the Norwegian partnership within the EU-funded
regional development project. Representatives from the KK will, however,
remain in First Motion’s transnational steering committee. Both
partners are located in the same region in Norway and have worked
closely together. The staff currently employed by KK will stay with the
project in order to ensure continuity and knowledge. First Motion is
an industry development project aimed at new business possibilities in
the audio-visual sector as a result of new technological progress in the
digitisation of the audio-visual work flow. Read more here.
19.08.2010 Million Fund to Diversity and Innovation The two US public broadcasting organizations The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) have launched a new million fund entitled the Diversity and Innovation Fund. The
fund is open to international producers and receives proposals for
multi-platform projects for new, weekly, 10-episode series within the
genres of history, science, travel, natural history and exploration. The
criteria is that the series can be produced for 5.000 (around €
292.000) or less per hour. The multi-platform projects should aim at
new content distribution tools, such as VOD, Internet, mobile
applications, social media as well as inclusion in the Digital Learning Library and/or PBS Teachers, etc. Pilots will be reviewed by PBS and CPB staff and online by the public as well as through more formalized testing. Based
on the reviews, PBS will then determine which, if any, of the pilots
will be broadcast and/or move forward for full production funding. The
intention of CPB and PBS is to create pilots of several projects and
then select one or more for series production in winter 2010/2011. In
the future, the Diversity and Innovation Fund may seek to support other
types of projects, such as digital initiatives, education initiatives
and gaming. Deadline is 15 September. For more information on the fund and call for proposals, see website.
19.08.2010 UK Film Council to Close In July the UK government announced the abolishment of the UK Film Council (UKFC) as part of the government’s cost-cutting measures. The
press release went out without any consultation with the British film
industry prior to the decision, and this caused frustrated reactions.
Tim Bevan CBE, Chairman of the UK Film Council calls the decision: ”A
bag mistake, driven by short-term thinking and political expediency”,
(UKFC website). Producer at the Norwegian production company Filmhuset, Eigil Ødegard who has
co-production experience with UK partners, says to Filmkontakt Nord: ”I
am afraid that the shut down, at least in a transitional period, will
make it more difficult to get financing for serious British film
productions as well as international co-productions with the rest of
Europe!” According to the press release from July from the British
Cultural department, a new organisation will take over the Film
Council’s acitivites in collaboration with The British Film Institute
which will not be affected by the axe. When this new administrative move
will be carried out is still uncertain. Since its creation in 2000,
the UK Film Council has invested over € 195 Million of Lottery funding
into more than 900 films which according to the Film Council’s own
estimations have generated generating 5 pounds (€ 6) for every pound
invested. The UK Film Council funding initiatives include
digitisation of cinemas, support to film festivals and independent
regional film venues. For more information about the closure, read here.
19.08.2010 Document One Day on Earth: 10.10.10 The One Day on Earth
participatory event invites filmmakers, journalists and students all
over the world to record their life and experiences on 10 October, 2010. The
project shares Ridley Scott’s vision to document Life in a Day, a
project that plans to create a documentary entirely from footage shot
and submitted to YouTube by people from around the globe on a certain
date in July. One Day on Earth is a grassroot film project that has been
promoting and preparing for the day of shooting on 10 October for
nearly two years. The footage collected during the event will be used
to produce a feature length documentary of 120 minutes of the most
compelling moments from that day. The documentary will be released
theatrically and the video archive from the event will later be open and
accessible to all participants for non-commercial purposes. So far, 2400 individual participants have signed up. Read more about the event here.
19.08.2010 Make Creative Documentaries at the University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh
offers two new postgraduate degree programs in Trans-disciplinary
Documentary Film where documentary research and practice can be
incorporated. The two degrees are a MSc Master’s degree and a PhD study.
The MSc and PhD degrees in Trans-disciplinary Documentary Film now
make it possible to propose a research project from within any area of
academic study that could potentially be explored through the creative
practice of documentary film. The programmes start in September 2010 and applications are open. For more information on the programmes, see here.