The Young Producers Club held May 17-20 gathered on a Cannes roof terrace 24 rising Nordic producers with more than 30 industry people.  The 8th edition of the fast track training and networking event was designed and co-organised by Tina Wagner Sørensen, Head of post graduate training at the National Film School of Denmark, and Noemi Ferrer, Head of International at The Danish Film Institute. 

This year’s selected producers were mostly female and attached to established production companies, such as Iceland’s Sunna Gudnadóttir (Join Motion Picture), post-production manager on the Cannes Critics’ Week’s A White, White Day, Denmark’s Stephanie Wiese (Fridthjof Film), associate producer of the WW2 epic drama A War Within and Norway’s Hege Hauff Hvattum (Rubicon TV), currently working on the series Lovleg.  Other attendees included Sofia Ferguson of Sweden’s Silvio Entertainment, Nina Virtanen of Tampered-based Wacky Tie Films and Knut Inge Solbu of Norway’s Fenomen Film (Born2Drive). 

Wagner Sørensen said the Young Nordic Producers Club was redesigned this year to provide shorter sessions on ‘everything young Nordic producers need to know in terms of sales, distribution, co-production, co-financing and how to use European festivals and other producers’ labs’.

Industry experts comprised 

  • Jan Naszewski (New Europe Film Sales) 
  • Gabor Greiner (Films Boutique) 
  • Tine Klint (LevelK) 
  • Tim King and Fredrik Warstedt (SF Studios) 
  • Inke van Loocke (CineMart-Rotterdam Lab Manager) 
  • Mercedes Fernandez (Torino Filmlab) 
  • Anne Lai (Sundance) 
  • Kathi Bildhauer (Berlinale Co-Production Market) 
  • Laurin Dietrich (Wolf PR) 
  • Wendy Mitchell (Screen International)
  • Peter Bille Krogh (European Collection Agency)

Also participating were top of funding representatives from the Nordic film institutes, Nordisk Film & TV Fond, Creative Europe and Eurimages.  

The keynote speaker was Irish producer Andrew Lowe (Element Films) behind the multi-award-winning film The Favourite. 

Commenting on the intense workshop, Sofia Ferguson said she enjoyed particularly the sessions about sales, distribution and co-production as she had no experience in those areas. The practical case studies headed by Tine Klint and Noemi Ferrer were hot sessions as well as presentations of the various European producers’ labs.

All producers interviewed stressed the unique opportunity to consolidate their networking opportunities with Nordic colleagues and had projects with co-production potential.

Solbu said he would value an on-going producers’ training programme 2-3 times a year in the Nordic region where he could go deeper into specific projects and continue to expand his Nordic network.

The Young Nordic Producers Club is supported by Nordisk Film & TV Fond, the Danish Film Institute, the Finnish Film Foundation, the Icelandic Film Centre, the Norwegian Film Institute, the Swedish Film Institute, Creative Europe’s Nordic Media Desks and the National Film School of Denmark.