Nisimazine monthly April 2008

NisiMazine *8 APRIL 08

Special Focus European Co-productions

Editorial D

uring the construction of the European Union, national cinema industries developed cross-border collaborations in order to produce films. Between the 50s and 70s, Italy and France created up to 100 per year together.

Today there are established EU funding sources, such as the MEDIA Programme and Eurimages.

New countries entering such programmes (most recently Croatia – see article p.5) are able to take advantage of this financial help for the first time. More significantly though perhaps, film commissions and individual producers build on this system by establishing contacts in many countries. Cine Regio and the European Producers Club are interesting examples of networking structures between such partners (see p.4). In addition, in recent years many film festivals have conceived their own professional markets to encourage financial and artistic cooperation (see overview p.5).

involved in many co-productions, especially with France, is already well-acquainted with the challenges of such agreements (p.3).

But hopefully finding money is not the only reason.

Working on a European level also aims to find new talents and create interesting collaborative artistic efforts: new exciting stories, or new ways to work… It participates in the construction of European cinema as a geographic market. Have such exchanges during these past decades built a specific identity for European cinema? When you look closer, they show instead great diversity, which is probably what makes our cinematic landscape so infinitely rich.

Short film co-production at a European level is really not at the same stage as long features - producers generally find their budgets more easily in their own countries. But who knows, perhaps this is something that NISI MASA could work on in the future…

Obviously it’s a question of budget; cooperation is based on benefiting from different national funds. Artemis Productions, a Belgium company

Agenda April, 15th

In all the network Launch of Script Contest 2008

April, 15

th

Poland, Hungary, Austria and Czech Republic Deadline for applying to Trencin Filmmaking Workshop (Slovakia; June 27-July 6, 2008) For more info, contact Atso: atso@nisimasa.com

Joanna Gallardo

*

Next Issue...

NISIMAZINE 9 ~ May 2008 focus : cinema and the internet

fresh film fest (czr) IN THE SPOTLIGHT Portrait: Christian Ruthner (Austria)

Nisimazine is a monthly newsletter published by the association NISI MASA. EDITORIAL STAFF Editor-in-chief Matthieu Darras Secretary of the editorial Jude Lister Layout Emilie Padellec Contributors to this issue Atso Parnanen, Joanna Gallardo, Florian Kapfer, Mario Kozina, Jude Lister, Julien Melebeck, Sneska Vasevska Cover picture: Grbavica by Jasmila Zbanic (2006) © Coop99 Filmproduktion - http://www.coop99.at/grbavica_website NISI MASA (European Office) 10 rue de l’Echiquier, 75010, Paris, France; Tel/Fax: + 33 (0)1 53 34 62 78 + 33 (0)6 32 61 70 26 Email europe@nisimasa.com Website www.nisimasa.com

*

Special Focus: European Co-productions

I

n this edition of Nisimazine, we delve into the financial side of European co-productions. As you will read below, it can be a complicated and tricky business, and there is no such thing as ‘easy money’ where public (or private) funds from other European countries are concerned. All the more important then that there are initiatives offering help and guidance (see pages 4 and 5)…

Two for the road and then some

E

ver wondered why some foreign company has backed a film released at your local theatre, just before the national broadcasting company goes and shows it on TV?

It’s not just about funding the film, there are legal fees and other expenses to consider while you are trying to finalise the deal.

There is more money available for motion pictures than ever before, but the reality of getting the contract signed takes time.

Filmmaking by committee is something that many proclaim against but at the same time have to face at some point in production.

There are various ways to access other countries’ funding schemes, and the reality is that many European films might not be made at all if production companies didn’t go to investigate what was being offered on the other side In any case, the reality of of the fence. The shade of co-productions can lead to ‘‘Two for the Road’’, by Stanley Donen (1967) (c) Channel 4 green may stay the same, some strange situations. On but at least the field will be a bit wider. Once a budget one feature production I was involved in, after two reaches a certain level the producer is forced to look weeks of filming the Anglo-Saxon crew members for funding from other sources. It has even become threatened to go on strike if they were forced to eat common for producers to look for money so that they any more spicy curry – the catering was f lown in can… look for more money. from India due to tax privileges…

Atso Pärnanen

Co-producing is like playing Tetris

B

ernard Bellefroid is a talented young Belgian director about to make his first feature film, La Regate.

A remarkable story about a teenage boy living in poverty with his father, and trying to escape from family violence through boat racing, it has some of the radical style of the Dardenne brothers (who were its first producers).

The new style of European financing systems is based on a win-win model. If you want these funds, you have to make certain expenses in the relevant country. Each budget line generates points; e.g. a Director of Photography is worth 3 points in the Luxembourg system. It’s a way to get back the help they give - by stimulating the local economy and generating other taxes. So here’s the big equation: your film budget is split into three or more columns (in this case, Belgium, Luxembourg and France), and for each expense you have to choose the right columns in order to fulfil the financial conditions that match the best. If the DOP is French, you lose 3 points in Luxembourg; if post production is in Luxembourg you lose points for the The project arrived at Artémis Productions in 2007 CNC. seeking co-production funding (it was impossible to find enough money just in Belgium). Samsa Film But what about artistic choices? Bellefroid wants to and Liaison Cinématographique entered the deal, involve three close friends and collaborators; his DOP, his and everything seemed to go well - Spanish actor sound engineer and his editor. This confronts him with a Sergi Lopez confirmed his interest in taking a role kind of Cornelian dilemma - will he “sacrifice a friend he in the film. However, because of the co-production wants to work with, to have his movie produced?” Art and agreement, there are now certain conditions to business… who wants to play Tetris? fulfil.

Julien Melebeck (working in post production for Artémis Productions in Belgium)

*

Special Focus: European Co-productions

Q&A: Charlotte Appelgren

General Secretary of CINE-REGIO

C

ine-Regio is the European Network of Regional Film Funds. The members exhibit a range of support schemes and services to the film sector which aim to support film culture and infrastructure.

Cine-Regio acts as a lobby and a network encouraging interregional co-operation and co-productions.

How has Cine Regio been growing over the past few years?

Since being established in 2005 the network has been continuously expanding. Today it represents 31 regional film funds from across Europe. Cine-Regio members represent a combined annual budget of 143 millions of euros! Recent events have included a Coproduction Market & Talent Campus (Sitges Intl Film Festival, Catalonia), and a series of talks at the Sarajevo Film Festival (in partnership with Cinelink). Amongst the many initiatives currently under development, we have DOCU REGIO and KIDS REGIO, which aim to stimulate the co-production of documentaries and children’s films respectively.

What is the difference between national and regional co-production agreements?

Public support – both at the national and regional level - can take the form of pure grants, loans or equity. The trend is that institutions are abandoning grants for conditional repayable loans or straight equity money.

In short, soft money is getting harder. The funding guidelines of public film bodies differs tremendously and it takes a very skilled producer to successfully combine them.

In Denmark it is very unlikely you can receive support from the national film agency if you are not a Danish director and Danish production company. However, a Swedish regional film fund can support a non-Swedish director, as they have other criteria.

How can regional funds help develop European coproductions?

Regional film support is vital to foster the development of the European audiovisual sector, as well as regional and local cultural identities. It provides benefits such as enlarging funding opportunities, securing greater distribution and exhibition, improving access to talent from other regions and opening up production opportunities. Of course there can be practical difficulties with any co-productions. They are thus most effective when partners have a clear understanding of the opportunities and dangers involved.

http://www.cine-regio.org

European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs

E

AVE is aimed at producers who wish to increase their knowledge of producing and co-producing in Europe and build up a pan European professional network. The organisation undertakes a training programme each year, consisting of three workshop sessions.

In March and June, participants work in groups led by experts on script analysis, development and production financing, the legal aspects of co-production, marketing, pitching and packaging. In the third session, 30-40 commissioning editors, national/regional media funds and sales agents join the participants to discuss their projects, companies and careers. Graduates are able join a unique network of active European producers.

EAVE currently has partnerships with leading European film festivals and markets, including The Producers Network Cannes, CineMart Rotterdam, Locarno Open Doors, CineLink Sarajevo, Crossroads Thessaloniki, Paris Project and Berlinale Co-production Market.

Interviews with candidates will take place in autumn 2008. www.eave.org.

‘‘You Am I’’ by Kristijonas Vildziunas (2006); a co-production between Lithuania-Germany supported by the European Producers Club

European Producers Club

O

riginally founded in 1993, the European Producers Club intends to serve as the voice of European independent film producers. It acts as a lobbyist and think tank as well as a network, and aims to develop a strong European film industry. On their activities they say: “…the Club operates on a political as well as on a more business-linked level, organising events to bring major industry players together with the goal of promoting cooperation”.

Every year the EPC organises a series of meetings, conferences and screenings, in addition to Co-production Forums at festivals in Berlin, Cannes, Rome and Copenhagen, where 25 selected projects are presented.

The Club also coordinates the European Producers Associations Alliance. www.europeanproducersclub.org

*

Special Focus: European Co-productions

Croatian cinema enters the MEDIA Programme

T

erms like ‘quality leap’ or ‘renaissance’ have often been mentioned when Croatian cinema of the last 10 years is being discussed. A new generation of directors have made their appearance on the scene, abandoning the ideological propaganda and shallow patriotism of the previous decade, while at the same time introducing fresh topics and giving the old ones a new spin. Some of them even managed to become national box-office successes. The important question is – what is the perception of Croatian films within a broader, European context? The answer to this is related with the fact that many of these films are the co-productions of several countries, mostly nations within the neighbouring region. These co-productions are important not just because they provide financial help and the exchange of ideas and experiences, but because they also ensure wider distribution later on (at least within the regions concerned).

The festival successes of recent co-productions involving Croatia – e.g. Tu (Zrinko Ogresta, 2003, Croatia/BosniaHerzegovina), Grbavica (Jasmila Zbanic, 2006, Croatia/ Austria/Bosnia-Herzegovina/ Germany) and Armin (Ognjen Sviličić 2006, Croatia/BosniaHerzegovina/Germany; see left picture) - have allowed such films to gain distribution in a broader selection of European countries, which is a first in Croatian film history.

Recently, Croatia has made some very important legal steps to bring its audiovisual sector closer to European standards. In March, enactment of special bill regarding audiovisual practice resulted in accepting Croatia into the European Union MEDIA Programme, which could help in technical and professional improvement, as well as international promotion and distribution. From this point on, the future of Croatian film does seem bright.

But nobody should forget that initial successes are only the beginning. There is still a lot of work to be done.

Mario Kozina

Co-production Markets in European Festivals

Important Co-production Markets in Europe

ny self-respecting festival nowadays is not content simply to screen films for the general public – industry side-events such as forums and markets have become a must-have programme feature, following the prestigious examples of Rotterdam (Cinemart) and the Berlinale (Berlinale Co-production Market). Producers and financiers come to rub shoulders; the former seeking to hit the funding jackpot, the latter trying to discern the next upcoming talents. Sessions can often take the form of pre-matched one-to-one meetings – a kind of ‘dating agency’ for film projects.

January - Cinemart @ Rotterdam International Film Festival (The Netherlands)

A

Many more recently conceived markets have specialised, focusing only on one or several regions (Cinelink, Baltic Event, Crossroads) or certain sectors such as independent film (New Cinema Network), and offering added extras (such as the Rotterdam Lab at Cinemart - a training course for young producers).

Whether the co-production market trend has become over-saturated or not, it represents an interesting opportunity for networking and establishing cross-border partnerships. Having your project selected to take part in a market or forum - so long as said event is properly organised and reputable - can mean a significant step forwards in developing your film.

February - Berlinale Co-production Market (Germany) May - Marché du Film @ Cannes Festival (France) August - Cinelink @ Sarajevo Film Festival (Bosnia & Herzegovina) October - New Cinema Network @ Rome Film Fest (Italy) November - Crossroads @ Thessaloniki International Film Festival (Greece) + Connecting Cottbus @ FilmFestival Cottbus (Germany) December - Baltic Event @ Black Nights Film Festival (Tallinn, Estonia)

Latest news DOCUMENTARIES ON PERSIAN RUGS

Organised by the European Cultural Foundation, StrangerFestival will welcome thousands of young people to uncover their creative talents and make their voices heard through video.

The programme includes video workshops, master classes, debates, trainings, screenings and an exhibition showcasing the best videos from the official competition.

Always had a burning interest in exotic traditional crafts? The Iran Documentary Fund, in cooperation with the Iran National Carpet Center, is offering funding of up to 20 000 euros for the production of creative documentary projects about Persian rugs.

If you are aged between 15-25 and live in Europe, you are eligible to enter! Simply make a video of who you are, where you are, and what you are into. Make it personal, dynamic, to the point and real. Videos should be exactly 1 minute (max. 5 minutes).

Competition winners will be invited to the festival, and will be in the running for a special Stranger Award as well as prizes like ipods, camcorders and laptops. A selection of the finest videos will be shown on TV and in museums across Europe.

The ECF stimulates and promotes cultural cooperation across Europe and its neighbouring regions. As well as the StrangerFestival, the foundation also organise around 35 video workshops for young people in more than 20 countries every year.

Entries close 1 May 2008.

The festival will take place in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 3rd - 5th July 2008. st

Visit the official webpage: www.strangerfestival.com

Submissions must already have a confirmed director and producer team, and include a detailed range of documents: including synopsis, treatment, research summary, script, budget and shooting plan, filmography and biography, and a DVD of previous works.

Deadline for proposals June 1st .

For more info please contact: idf@irandocfest.ir

ANGERS WORKSHOPS The Premiers Plans Festival in Angers (France), dedicated to first films from European directors, is seeking participants for the 4th edition of its workshop programme (taking place from 2nd - 9th July 2008). The initiative, conceived by festival president and patron Jeanne Moreau, is aimed at young European filmmakers with experience of one or two short films, and one feature film project currently in development.

The programme will include training with established filmmakers, masterclasses, screenings, personal project tutoring, lab work, and professional meetings.

Previous instructors have included the Dardenne brothers, François Ozon and Claude Miller.

Application deadline: April 11th See the website: www.premiersplans.org

DOCUMENTARY WORKSHOP IN KHURDISTAN ©‘‘Courir après les rêves’’, dir.: Ata Usman

STRANGER Festival

In the January edition of Nisimazine, we interviewed Baudouin Koenig and Aram Saeed, co-organisers of a documentary workshop in Kurdistan with a format similar to NISI MASA’s ‘DOKO YOMI’ project (Mitroviça, Kosovo, 2006).

‘DOKU’ (‘DOcumentaire au KUrdistan d’Irak’), organised in collaboration with ALTERDOC and the Institut Kurdo-Francais, took place in Sulaimaniya from the 26th February to the 17th March 2008, and united 18 young Iraqi cineastes. The resulting 6 films, based on the theme of human rights (‘of men, women and children’) are now available online for viewing on the DOKU blogspot (http://atelier-kurdistan. le-blog.info/) – subtitled in French only.

According to DOKU’s website, “The aim is to help people discover documentary cinema as a tool for dialogue, to show its role in the construction of a country’s memory…”

The adventure will continue with another workshop being planned for October 2008, and the creation of an international documentary festival in Sulaymaniya is also in the works.

We wish them the best of luck! *** For the May issue, send us your news !

filmArche In the spotlight Some members The filmArche was founded 6 years ago in Berlin as an independent, cooperatively run film school based on autodidactic principles.

An idea dreamed up by a handful of independent filmmakers has now grown into a successful platform where over 250 like-minded people come together to learn and network.

Every year over 60 students embark on 3-year courses in the disciplines of camera, production, directing, screenwriting and editing. Students participate in the organisation of their own studies and the running of the school.

Halida Abdalla

(Editing/Directing)

Halida was born in London, moved to Berlin in 2001 and has since worked in teaching, publishing and journalism. She made her first no-frills short film with the film-making collective «kino berlino» in 2006. She is currently completing postproduction on a feminist film noir short entitled Lady With A Bag Over Her Head.

Timm Beier (Production)

Timm has worked for companies making music videos and documentaries, directed and produced punk videos, and has always enjoyed the challenge of creative work on a tight budget. He is currently producing his first two short films for the fA and a documentary about youth culture in the forgotten corners of what was once East Germany.

Marcela Braak (Editing)

Marcela started off as a student in fine art, specialising as an illustrator. As well as her current studies, she also teaches storyboard drawing.

Half-Bolivian and half-German, her bi-cultural roots motivated her to get involved in NISI MASA. She is also coordinating an international project involving Germany and Bolivia.

Till Butterbach (Directing)

“If I don’t have the opportunity to express myself on stage or in front of a camera I become a sick extroverted asshole… which I do not want to be.” For Till, the fA is at once a school, a source of work offers and a place to meet friends. In Human Kapital, he plays electrician Oliver Berg, a man unhappily in love with his new neighbour.

Pictures on the left from the top: Halida, Timm, Marcela, Till, Nora, Florian, Diemo and Juhani...

Thanks a lot to Florian for preparing this spotlight;)

Nora Fingscheidt (Directing)

Nora is responsible for international cooperation in the student board. She has organised the 2005 NISI MASA script contest jury meeting, the “Divided God” project, and has worked for several film festivals including the Berlinale and interfilm Berlin. After making numerous short films, she is currently working on her first TV production.

Florian Kapfer (Directing)

“My ambition is to capture those little moments that are swallowed by the fast pace of life in the city.’’ Florian’s affection for visual communication started taking pictures as a boy, growing through work as an editorial journalist and on several film productions. He studies media science, sociology and economics, as well as at the fA. He is currently directing a short film called Sujkas wedding, set in an immigrant environment.

Diemo Kemmesies (Editing/Directing)

Diemo is a member of the student board.

After working as an actor and director in fringe theatre, he now studies at the fA. His first feature film Human Kapital, for which he founded his own production company ‘Milieu Film’, will premiere at the Achtung Berlin film festival. He works as a freelance director and screenwriter, and also teaches directing, digital film-making and editing.

Juhani Koppe (Camera)

Juhani studied photography in his home town of Vienna, before shooting films there, in Berlin, and in Finland. Besides video, he shot his first black and white short film solitude on 35mm. Juhani is looking forward to working as a professional Director of Photography and participating in international projects.

Some Activities The fA organises a number of regular events ranging from weekly film showings and public premieres of student films to workshops with experienced film practitioners.

In addition to its involvement in NISI MASA, the fA has other international cooperations with countries including Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Turkey and Bolivia.

In one such project entitled “Divided God”, 50 young film-makers from 5 countries spent 18 months making documentary films on the topic of religion. The resulting films will be premiered in Ljubljana in June. In spring every year, the fA begins selecting new students.

New courses start every October.

Candidates can find information on the fA website: www.filmarche.de

Portrait

Stéphanie Giertta (Nisi Mini)

© E.P

Sneska Vasevska

‘‘

Well I’ve been writing my whole life. That and food have always been two of my biggest interests and favourite things to spend time on. After all, I realised that life and the work at a restaurant is not that different from working on a film. You have your ingredients, your guests, the scene, a cast and a team. Then you’ll just need to figure out your way to make the best recipe and experience out of it. And I suppose that’s what I’m trying to do.”

This is how Stephanie Giertta starts her filmmaking story. A quiet, yet inquisitive girl and understanding, but honest and straightforward author, Stephanie has been involved in the world of cinema - as both a devoted spectator and, later, a filmmaker - since around the age of 16. Today she is a scriptwriting student, a writer, a director of five short films, and one of the key members of Nisi Mini, the Swedish NISI MASA association. At the moment, she’s working on her first feature film. “I have an urge to communicate, I think that is what really drives me.

Sometimes I feel that the world is not enough and then it is such a relief to have this way to express things”, she says.

I met Stephanie at the NISI MASA jury meeting back in November. It was the third NISI MASA event she had taken part in, after attending the Visions of Paris filmmaking workshop and the Cannes Film Festival.

All of these experiences were very different, but each of them connected to one of the three aspects of cinema she’s mostly interested in and focused on – scriptwriting, directing and film festivals. Thanks to the people she met at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006, where she was working on Nizimazine (the original name for Nisimazine) together with other NISI MASA members, she also had a wonderful opportunity to be in the youth jury at the Athens International Film Festival, which broadened her love for and interest in film festivals, political film debates and organizations even more.

“This is something I really take a big interest in. If you’re going to work in such a crappy business as the film industry, I think that trying to affect and react is important and very giving.”

Her short films have often dealt with themes of love, sex and sexuality. She created My Skeleton Friend and I, a film about love and the arousing sexuality between two friends, a boy and a girl at the age of eleven; Little Sea, a story about a girl who, because of being short-sighted loses her self esteem when going for a swim in the sea with her friends; Occupied, about a girl who gets tired of her mobile buzzing all the time and uses it as a vibrator instead. The short film she’s working on at the moment, which focuses on a similar theme as her feature project, has the working title You are a Pig. It is, from what she says, a story about a girl who is being oppressed by life, love and work because of her sex and her sexuality. She decides to revolt, to fight back - a thing she can only do by becoming the oppressor herself. On writing about emotions, about the inside of human beings, Stephanie comments; “ feelings, thoughts, reflections and events… to do it with motion pictures is a way to go into another world, but also a way to confront the one you’re living in. And also it is for the matter of working with people, both on set and in terms of exploring and getting to know the characters in the story.”

I asked Stephanie why she writes and directs. Why she works in the world of filmmaking, why she is so eager to be part of it, to let me be a part of her. In response she wrote this - I’m guessing with a big, honest smile on her face: “it is so much fun, and pain…! All the contemplating and anxiety, almost like being a martyr, and then sometimes it is just so great, you’d give your right hand just to keep on doing it.”