Creativity as a driving force for businesses, the combination of risk and reward, and the experiences of women in leadership positions will be the major themes of Filmfest Hamburg’s Industry Days programme, which runs from September 30 to October 3.
The Industry Days programme will kick off with Filmfest Hamburg’s Explorer Conference, whose speakers include Mia Bays, director of the BFI Filmmaking Fund and Daniel Lamarre, the former CEO of Cirque du Soleil.
Other highlights of the programme include the panel session ‘Inspiring Talk - Women at the Top’ which will bring together the Berlinale Pro’s new director Tanja Meissner, Letterbox Filmproduktion’s managing director Wiebke Andresen, cinema owner Verena von Stackelberg of Berlin’s Wolf Kino together with Filmfest Hamburg director Malika Rabahallah.
Rising talent
The third annual #Atelier initiative is a collaboration with Cannes’ Critics’ Week that sees 16 German film school students come together with filmmakers whose debut features are screening in the Filmfest programme.
The students will able to meet directors such as Emma Benestan (Animale) and Leonard van Dij (Julie Keeps Quiet) in closed sessions over three days of screenings and discussions about the challenges and rewards of the transition from film school to the world of A-list festivals.
The participants in #Atelier24, as this year’s iteration is called, will also be able to take part in another new one-day event on October 1 which is being organised with the Encourage Film Talents platform following its launch at the Berlinale last February.
“By expanding our Filmfest Hamburg Atelier to include the Encourage Film Talents Industry Day, we are adding another milestone to our strategy of empowering the next generation of our local industry with knowledge, inspiration and courage on their path to the future,” explains Filmfest Hamburg director Malika Rabahallah.
“Our aim is to create lasting connections between Germany’s most promising film talents and to build a joint future characterised by collaboration, innovation and peer support.”
Around 70 film students from film schools in Germany, Austria and Switzerland will be joined by between 20-30 industry professionals from the fields of production, distribution and financing for a programme including a workshop about using virtual reality for developing stories as well a discussion on the role of European co-production for debut features.
An afternoon session called Script Sparks will see eight emerging filmmakers pitching story ideas with the chance of winning an award sponsored by Warner Discovery for the best presentation. The selected projects include Film University Babelsberg graduate Jan-Peter Horstmann’s debut feature project Rick tracing the story of the deaf title character named Mr Gay Switzerland who becomes the biggest porn star of all time; German-Indonesian filmmaker Berthold Wahjudi’s Sommermärchen, a comedy about alienation during the 2006 World Cup in Germany; and Brazilian-German actress/writer-director/activist Cristina di Rego’s short Nevermind which was also presented at the new F-Weird pitching session during this year’s Finnish Film Affair in Helsinki
International hub
Meanwhile, the Filmfest’s Industry Days has joined forces with European Film Promotion to invite 14 former participants of its Producers on the Move (POM) initiative to take part in the Explorer Conference as well as closed sessions with representatives of 17 production companies from Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein to learn about funding opportunities for international co-production and explore potential collaboration on future film projects.
“The idea is to strengthen the international character of the Industry Days and promote Hamburg’s role as a hub for international productions,” says Faysel Omer, head of industry at the Filmfest.
Among the POM alumni coming to Hamburg are Ales Pavlin (PERFO, Slovenia), Alessandro Borrelli (La Sarraz Pictures, Italy), Anneli Ahven (Kopli Kinokompanii, Estonia) and Marina Hughes (Venus Film & TV Productions, Ireland).
The line-up of local producers will include Sebastian Weyland (Heimathafen Film & Media), Dorothe Beinemeier (Red Balloon Film), Karsten Krause (Fünferfilm), Mohammad Farokhmanesh (brave new work film), and Verena Gräfe-Höft (Junafilm).
This year also sees the festival play host to a training and networking programme organised by the recently created African-European Distribution Academy (AEDA). Based on an idea developed by the Berlin-based distributor Torsten Frehse of Neue Visionen Filmverleih, AEDA is receiving financial support from the regional film funds Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg and MOIN Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein, in collaboration with Filmfest Hamburg, along with Film Festival Cologne, the independent German distributors association AG Verleih and European Work in Progress (EWIP).
According to its initiators, AEDA’s goals are to increase visibility and releases of African films locally, bring more African and international films to African cinemas, and facilitate cooperation between the African and European film industries as well as support the distribution of more African films internationally.
Eight participants from Ethiopia, Kenya and Rwanda will be coming to Hamburg at the beginning of a residency in Germany which aims to give them in-depth insights into the day-to-day business of distribution companies, PR agents and sales companies.
The participants include Nairobi-based impact producer-distributor filmmaker Chloe Genga of LBx Africa, producer and film programmer Ceke Mathenge of Kigali-based Kaze Film Festival, and Ethiopian creative entrepreneur Aaron Kassaye.
Their programme will begin with them attending the Filmfest’s opening screening of Louise Courvoisier’s Holy Cow and be followed by meetings with local industry figures including Rabahallah, MOIN fund CEO Helge Albers, and Anne Jagemann of the short film distribution company Kurzfilm Agentur Hamburg.They will then cap their visit by participating in the Explorer Conference.
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