Producers on the Move 2023 - Nordic candidates on their vision and slate

Gebauer’s name was put forward by the Swedish film Institute, Haukka by the Finnish Film Foundation, Hertling Péronard by the Danish Film Institute and Pirir by the Norwegian Film Institute.

Together with 16 other European production movers and shakers, they have already started using the Producers on the Move platform for online 1:1 speed meetings, roundtables and pitching sessions. They will continue their joint networking and promotional collaboration between May 18-22 during the Cannes Film Festival.

In these snap interviews, they shared with us their vision-about making passion projects, and upcoming slate.

• ELISA FERNANDA PIRIR, Stær Film Norway
  Pirir set up the Tromsö-based Stær Film earlier this year with seasoned documentary producer KriStine Ann Skaret, read our story: Internationally-driven Norwegian Stær Film makes debut in Tromsø.

The Guatemala-born Pirir worked as associate producer on the multi-awarded Birds of Passage by Ciro Guerra and Flee by Jonas Poher Rasmussen. She served as co-producer of Colombia’s Oscar entry The Kings of the World and co-produced Cuban director Luis Alejandro Yero’s documentary Calls from Moscow that world premiered at the Berlinale Forum 2023. Before setting up her own shop, she worked several years for Norway’s production powerhouse Mer Film, overseeing the company’s non-European co-productions, TV projects and talent programme.

What does it mean for you to represent Norway at the ‘Producers on the Move’?
EFP: I came to Norway [from Guatemala] in 2007 so it is a major honour to be selected. It feels strange to think I could not speak either Norwegian and English 15 years ago, and now I’m able to contribute to making the Norwegian cinema industry bigger!

I just started my own company STÆR and this a great way to introduce our company to the international market as well as what I consider as the new voices of Norwegian cinema. It’s a unique opportunity to meet the new generation of European producers, to share experiences and help each other. I’m really looking forward to meeting the rest of the team in Cannes.

What drives you and what do you feel is necessary to make a project stand out on the market?
EFP: Being able to choose the projects I love is key for me. I love every single project that I produce and co-producing projects where I can feel the filmmakers’ passion and honesty. In my experience, these are the projects that travel far and that people always remember. There is nothing like having a big heart and being genuine.

What projects are you currently working on?
EFP: Among international co-productions, we have Nabil Ayouch’s Touda in production, Inadelso Cosa’s The Nights Still Smell Of Gunpowder in post-production and Juan Andres Arango’s Where The River Begins in pre-production.

For Norway, we are producing Dalia Huerta Cano’s debut Elena, set to shoot in Guatemala in 2024.

The main character Elena (19) is torn between supporting her activist mother, protesting against the building of a power plant or following her own path. She is made to feel like her life and dreams are not as important as her mother’s fight. It’s a beautiful and emotional mother/daughter drama about how difficult it is to be the child of of a hero.
Elle Sofe Sara will make her directorial feature debut with the Sámi musical Arru, set to shoot in 2023 in Kautokeino, with Sweden’s Garagefilm International and the International Sami Film Institute on board.

Then Marte Vold (DOP and co-director of Ole Giæver’s Out Of Nature) will produce an experimental hybrid documentary about Norwegian whalers and we have several fiction features in development with northern Norwegian director Anders Emblem, who made a splash at 2022 festivals with A Human Position.

• JULIA GEBAUER, Way Creative Films, Sweden
  German-born Gebauer has been working at Malmö-based Way Creative Films since 2005.

Her 2020 survival thriller Breaking Surface by Joachim Hedén won two Guldbagge awards for best editing and visual and sold to more than 75 countries. She also produced Lovisa Sirén's road movie Maya Nilo (Laura) and served as co-producer of Ameen Nayfeh's 200 Meters that premiered in Göteborg in 2022.

What does it mean for you to represent Sweden at the ‘Producers on the Move’?
JB: Being part of Producer on the Move is just fantastic! I know a lot of the alumni personally from many of the countries and it’s just amazing to be part of this group of people whose work I really admire.

What drives you and what do you feel is necessary to make a project stand out on the market?
JG: We are a small company but we are rather commercial in our positioning. If I take in a project I ask myself honestly if I would want to watch this instead of all the other stuff that is out there. I think if you like a project so much that the answer to that question is yes, then that's an incredible source of energy. Energy that you really need to push through all the obstacles along the way. I also think we need to collaborate more. Producing can be such a lonely job. You need a trusted group of people that you can reach out to.

What projects are you currently working on?
JG: I am currently in financing with a feature film (80% confirmed) of The Swedish Connection. The film is about the incredible true story of how an unknown Swedish bureaucrat turned Sweden from a Nazi collaborator to a moral superpower, told with a biting sense of humour by Oscar nominees Thérèse Ahlbeck and Marcus A. Olsson.

I am also developing the debut feature of director/actor Sunil Munshi together with my producing collaborator Siri Hjorton Wager. The film is a feel-good comedy about a fashion designer whose life is suddenly turned upside down when he is forced to leave his extravagant and hectic lifestyle in Paris to come back to help his family in the dull and tragic little hometown in Sweden which he fled long ago.

I am also co-developing with my partners in Finland (Napafilms) and Germany (In Good Company) an action film based on true events about Michèle Mouton-the uncrowned queen of rallying.

• EMILIA HAUKKA, Aamu Film Company, Finland
  Haukka is co-owner with Jussi Rantamäki of one of Finland’s most high-profile production outfits, Aamu Film Company, behind Juho Kuosmanen’s Cannes 2021 competition title Compartment No 6 and Mikko Myllylahti’s The Woodcutter Story which screened at the Critics’ Week 2022.

She also produced Hamy Ramezan’s debut feature Any Day Now and Hannaleena Hauru’s Fucking with Nobody.

What does it mean for you to represent Finland at the ‘Producers on the Move’?
EH: It’s a super exciting moment for me to be the Finnish Producer on the Move. I started working at Aamu Film Company back in 2015 as a production coordinator and have since worked alongside Jussi Rantamäki on numerous international projects and learned the craft of producing.

I became a partner in the company a year ago and that marked for me moving to the next level, so to say. We work with our talent in long-term relationships, producing the content they are personally drawn to.

Now with two producers actively developing and financing projects, our capacity for talents has increased and we’ve been able to grow our family of filmmakers with new and emerging directors that I’ve introduced to the company. I’ll be sharing about the first of those projects in Cannes.

What drives you and what do you feel is necessary to make a project stand out on the market ?
EH: I get first and foremost excited by people. I became a producer to be part of the community that forms around each film project, to craft a first intangible idea into a project for an audience. I never get tired of experiencing how collaboration and different perspectives come together around a film. I think this kind of collaboration, intimacy and supporting the filmmakers’ voice are what make a project strong and help it stand out. I feel that every time you let factors external to the story and the film’s core idea start defining it, you risk losing the heart of the film.

I also think long-term collaborations are key as you get to know the talent closely, moving from project to the next, you learn how to support them, take risks together and hopefully widen their audience.

What projects are you currently working on?
EH: I’m working on developing projects from new filmmakers in our Aamu family.

Abyss is the second feature film from the visually-bold Aino Suni. It’s a love story between two women who are also recovering addicts. Their chance for happiness is also their biggest tragedy. Told with a sensual and humane heart, the film is about learning to swim over your dark inner void. We plan to start financing later this year or early next.

Non-binary Bones is a feature documentary by August Joensalo. It’s a contemporary trans diary caught between the oppressiveness of trans treatment in Finland right now and dreaming of a time when trans people have autonomy over their own bodies. We’ll start financing next year.

I’m also in early development with emerging talent Jojo Erholtz’s debut feature My Mothers, in which Iiris promises at her mother’s deathbed that she would never lie again. As she grows up, she realises how hard it is to keep that promise.

Alongside the new talents, we are also in post-production with Hannaleena Hauru and Katja Gauriloff’s collective feature film Parvet where a group of actors have had power to decide about their characters from early on, as well as developing Mikko Myllylahti's next film Daughters of Mist.

• EMILE HERTLING PÉRONARD, Ánorâk Film, Denmark, Greenland
  Born in Copenhagen, Hertling Péronard then moved with his family to Nuuk, and came back to Denmark in 2000 to study film at the University of Copenhagen. In 2011 he founded Ánorâk Film with director Inuk Silis Høegh, based both in Nuuk and Copenhagen.

Silis Høegh's documentary Sumé-the Sound of a Revolution, was the first ever Greenlandic film selected for the Berlinale (Panorama 2015).

Set up to build bridges between Europe and the Arctic, Ánorâk Film also co-produces international features and documentaries, such as Aquarela by Victor Kossakovsky.

Hertling Péronard’s most recent documentaries include Music for Black Pigeons by Andreas Koefoed and Jørgen Leth, and Twice Colonized by Lin Alluna which world premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

What does it mean for you to represent Denmark at the ‘Producers on the Move’?
EHP: I think it’s so cool that Denmark has chosen a Greenlandic producer for this year’s Producers on the Move. To me, that sends a signal about what kinds of stories are important right now, and that we need more diverse perspectives on the screen.

The Danish film history is built on Danes making trophy films in Greenland, using our country as an exotic backdrop. With that in mind, I’m thrilled to now see more curiosity towards what the Greenlandic people have to offer to world cinema. I hope that the experience in Cannes will empower me to get more of these stories out, and to help push more Greenlandic filmmakers into the mainstream.

I’m very honoured to have been given this opportunity, and I’m grateful to the people and organisations that have recognised the many years of hard work getting to where we are now.

What drives you and what do you feel is necessary to make a project stand out on the market?
EHP: To be honest, I’m not too concerned about market trends. If a project moves me, there’s a good chance that it will move other people as well. And if it doesn’t move me, then there’s no point. Especially with documentaries, each project is likely to take at least 3-4 years of my life, so any involvement needs to come straight from the heart, and not from market speculation.

In that sense, the most important skill is trusting my gut, and then I feel blessed that I come from a community and a culture in Greenland, where there are so many important stories waiting to be told. So idealism also plays a big role.

What projects are you currently working on?
EHP: After releasing three feature documentaries within the last 12 months, I’m now starting a lot of new projects, and I’m especially excited about two new films from my long-time partner Inuk Silis Høegh that are now in early development.

For a while, I've been working on adapting Greenlandic writer Niviaq Korneliussen’s ground-breaking debut novel, HOMO Sapienne, into a feature film, and I hope that it will finally take off this year.

Then I have Walls, a Greenlandic feature documentary in production, directed by Nina Paninnguaq S. Kristiansen and Sofie Rørdam, and an ambitious VR short film at financing stage with the Greenlandic multi-disciplinary artist Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory as writer/director.

I’m also developing a new project with Music for Black Pigeons-director Andreas Koefoed. All in all, it’s a wonderful time to be a producer!