EFP launches new producer initiative

The event’s two-day programme (Oct 1-2) during this year’s Filmfest Hamburg will include seminars, pitching sessions, one-to-one meetings and a Hamburg location tour.

The ten European producers coming to Hamburg are drawn from the pool of EFP’s former Producers on the Move, including the UK’s Isabelle Stead (Human Films), Luxembourg’s Donata Rotunno (Tarantula), Norway’s Silje Hopland Eik (Cinenord Kidstory) and Spain’s Antonio Saura (Zampa Audiovisual).

Stead will be coming to Hamburg after having taken part in the fifth edition of the Producers Lab Toronto, while Rotunno is now developing Yilmaz Arslan’s new project Raqs after producing his last film Fratricide and is also looking for German partners for his own third feature film Sara Sarà.

Eik has produced and co-produced more than 20 feature films and TV series in the past ten years, working with Germany ‘s Schmidtz Katze Filmkollektiv on Peter Naess’ family film Leaps And Bounds and possibly structuring Peder Halmdal Næss’ new project Little Gray Fergie as a co-production with Germany.

Saura will be in Hamburg with his newly created company, Zampa Audiovisual, which is developing feature project In Hostile Zone, based on the true story of a Spanish army platoon serving in Afghanistan.

Hamburg producers

The selection of ten producers working out of Hamburg include Frank Geiger, Michael Eckelt, Fabian Gasmia and Jessica Landt .

A co-founder of brave new work film productions, Geiger is currently developing new projects such as Siba Shakib’s documentary Made In Islam, Ali Samadi Ahadi’s family film Peterchens Mondfahrt, and German-Iranian Ali Soozandeh’s animated drama Tehran Taboo.

Eckelt’s Riva Filmproduktion will be looking for new projects, having recently co-produced new projects by Mike van Diem and Özcan Alper and presenting Keren Yedaya’s That Lovely Girl and Shlomi, and Ronit Elkabetz’s Gett, The Trial of Viviane Amsalem as world premieres in Cannes this year.

The Elkabetzs’ film will also be shown as a German premiere at the parallel running Filmfest Hamburg.

Together with business partner Henning Kamm, who was chosen as Germany’s 2014 Producer on the Move and participated in Producers Lab Toronto, DETAiLFILM’s Fabian Gasmia is now developing new projects with Hamburg-based Iranian film-maker Mohammad Rasoulof, Danis Tanovic, Stéphane Robelin, Kutlug Ataman and Erik Schmitt.

Speaking to ScreenDaily from the set of DETAiLFILM’s latest production, Gasmia said that “it feels great to be taking part in the first Hamburg edition. Not only because it is taking place in my home town, but also because the careers of the colleagues who have been selected with me are incredibly exciting.”

Beleza Film’s Jessica Landt is currently in post production on the documentaries Helfgott, about the Australian pianist David Helfgott, and Make Me A Match, about matchmaking in Israel.

One of her company’s first projects, the Turkish-German coproduction Küf by Ali Aydin, premiered at the Venice Critics Week in 2012 and won the Lion of the Future for best debut film.

The first Producers Lab Hamburg line-up is as follows:

European producers

Hélène Cases – Lionceau Films France

Maria Drandaki – Homemade Films, Greece

Silje Hopland Eik - Cinenord Kidstory, Norway

Nathalie Lichtenthaeler – Wide Eye Films, Ireland

Petter Lindblad – Snowcloud Films, Sweden

Giorgia Priolo – Film Kairos, Italy

Donata Rotunno - Tarantula, Luxembourg

Antonio Saura - Zampa Audiovisual, Spain

Marleen Slot – Viking Film, The Netherlands

Isabelle Stead - Human Films, UK

Hamburg producers

Frank Geiger – brave new work

Michael Eckelt - Riva Filmproduktion

Christian Friedrichs – Studio Hamburg

Fabian Gasmia – DETAiLFILM

Stefan Gieren - Storybay

Verena Gräfe-Höft – Junafilm

Katrin Habermann - Sterntaucher

Jessica Landt - Beleza Film

Dirk Manthey – dirk manthey film

Ute Schneider - Palms Fiction

US TV series premiere at Filmfest Hamburg

As part of a new collaboration with Sky Germany, Filmfest Hamburg (Sept 25 – Oct 4) will be showing the first two episodes from the fifth and final season of Broadwalk Empire – the first time a US series has been shown at the Hamburg festival – as well as Mexican documentary H2OMX.

Oldenburg IFF

The 21st Oldenburg International Film Festival will be opened earlier in the month on Sept 10 by the world premiere of the Austrian director Christian Frosch’s tragic love story Von jetzt an kein Zurück.

Handled internationally by Luxembourg-based PTD World Sales, it will be released theatrically by Salzgeber Medien in Germany at the end of this year.

Oldenburg’s programme of German and international independent cinema will include the world premiere of Canadian film-maker Carl Bessai’s Bad City, a comedic homage to the blaxploitation films of the 1970’s.

There will also be the international premieres of Karen Leigh Hopkins’ Miss Meadows and Philippe Garrel’s Jealousy, and Raphaël Neal’s Fever.

German premieres will include Rolf de Heer’s Charlie’s Country, Carlos Marques-Marcet’s 10,000 KM, François Duperyon’s One Of A Kind, and Berlin-based Noaz Deshe’s award-winning directorial debut White Shadow.

Oldenburg will also dedicate a retrospective to the Australian director Philippe Mora who will be presented with the festival’s German Independence Honorary Award on Sept 12.