The National Film School of Denmark is at the forefront of training international creative producers and directors by equipping them with the skills to thrive in a fast-changing business.
A mini MBA called International Financing and Business Development is designed to help small and mid-sized producers who are experiencing good tailwinds and growth, but are often faced with financial, production, logistic and HR-related challenges.
Directors’ Deep Dive: Mini Master of Fine Arts in Methodical Direction is for filmmakers seeking in-depth reflection on their own artistic practice and a strategic plan for further development.
The mini MBA has been created and developed for the Copenhagen-based school by experienced Swedish duo: screenwriter Christian Wikander and film and TV executive Marieke Muselaers.
Previous participants say taking part has turbo-charged their careers. “If you still love this business but feel insecure with all the turbulence, the National Film School of Denmark’s mini MBA is a great place to evaluate where you are and make a plan for where you are going,” says Copenhagen-based producer Deborah Bayer Marlow, founder of Marlowfilm Productions and Nordisk Film Productions partner, who studied the mini MBA.
She has worked as a line producer on international film and TV productions including Disney +series The Bear and Magnus von Horn’s award-winning feature The Girl With The Needle.
“All participants were clearly committed to opening up, reaching out and discussing how to help move the European film industry forward. We spent a lot of time deconstructing creative processes and assessing our ambitions for the future. We evaluated co-production business cases and dilemmas within the multicultural filmmaking space.”
Fellow mini MBA attendee René Ezra appreciated that participants came from a wide background, in terms of both experience and age.
“Some of us have been to the circus before, and some were coming into it with new ideas and fresh takes,” says Ezra, whose recent producer credits include May El-Toukhy’s Queen of Hearts, Malou Reymann’s A Perfectly Normal Family and Danish homegrown box-office hits The Reunion and its two sequels.
“The mini MBA managed to create an environment that was sharing and insightful, even for an old horse like me.”
Ezra is now working on Jo Nesbo’s Detective Hole, produced by Working Title Television and Universal Pictures for Netflix.
Deep-rooted insights
Directors’ Deep Dive is an exclusive immersive module course for established film directors. The course consists of an intensive residency at Dallund Castle on the Danish island of Funen. The eight participants take part in a one-week ’process-mapping’ exercise that includes a guided analysis of a former project of special significance for the participant. The aim is to expose those aspects of their process they might take for granted that could be improved.
The course takes individual artistic methods seriously and acknowledges each participant’s artistic hallmark and approach. It has been developed by established director and screenwriter Rasmus Kloster Bro, whose credits include Cutterhead, and screenwriter and director Lilja Ingolfsdottir, an alumnus of both the London Film School and Czech film school FAMU. Ingolfsdottir has written and directed almost 20 short and novella films, as well as TV spots for NRK and production companies in Norway and around the world. In 2024, her critically-acclaimed feature debut Lovable had its world premiere at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
”Directors’ Deep Dive is an opportunity for experienced filmmakers to achieve deep-rooted insights into their own artistic practice, to clarify one’s methodical approach, and to take leadership over that practice as a result,” says Kloster Bro. “There are hardly any formats aimed at directors with a certain foundational basis, but who are still looking to take their artistic practice to a new level. And directors are often very alone and singular in their way of working, so this is an opportunity to get inspired by others on similar levels.”
Bro emphasises there is an understanding there are no universal methods that can be separated from the creator and the created.
“The course’s biggest quality lies in the process analysis and facilitated knowledge sharing between eight seasoned filmmakers,” he says. “The super force is the group of directors who are all going through the same experience and who can share their point of view with one another.”
Both the mini MBA and the Directors’ Deep Dive are open for applications.
Contact: Ene Katrine Rasmussen, head of industry and training
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