Rising Nordic producing talents enjoy in-person networking and industry input at Young Nordic Producers Club

After two years of disruption due to Covid, the sought-after training workshop Young Nordic Producers Club (YNPC) was back at its top spot on a roof terrace in Cannes, between May 19-22.

The four-day event was steered as usual by the course’s co-designers and organisers Noemi Ferrer, executive director, DR Sales, and Tina í Dali Wagner, CEO Filmgreb, Head of The Faroese Film Institute. Attendees were invited to learn more about co-production, distribution, sales, marketing, and festivals strategies, and to increase their networking opportunities.

“For me this edition was very special as it was the first one since Covid to take place in Cannes. It confirmed we have a new generation of filmmakers that are genuinely inclusive, keen on working with each other and very aware of sustainability issues. It truly gives me hope for the future,“ said Ferrer.

Besides public funders who shared their knowledge - including Nordisk Film & TV Fond’s Liselott Forsman and Lise Løwholm, industry people in attendance comprised festival programmers John Nein (Sundance), Sara Juričić , (Talent Manager, Rotterdam), journalist/festival programmer Wendy Mitchell, Wolf PR’s Laurin, Netflix Nordic’s head of film production Claire Willats, Peter Bille Krogh (European Collection Agency), Triangle of Sadness co-producers Mike Goodridge (Good Chaos, UK) and Per Damgaard Hansen (Paloma, Denmark), sales agents Tine Klint (Levelk), Gabor Greiner (Film Boutique) and Film i Väst’s Thomas Eskilsson.

HBO Max’s head of Nordics Christian Wikander gave a talk via zoom, while Final Cut for Real’s Monica Hellström discussed the multi-Awarded film Flee, as part of a case-study.

This year’s attendees included junior producers from established companies such as SF Studios, Hummelfilm, Maipo, Anagram, The Global Ensemble Drama, Zentropa, Helsinki-filmi, to newcomers such as Icelandic actor Atli Óskar Fjalarsson (Best Actor for Sparrows at Les Arcs FF). The latter who has set up his own production company Empath said. “I was always fascinated by filmmaking, but it’s only later that I realised that it wasn’t just acting but the whole filmmaking process that I was interested in”.

Fjalarsson said attending the YNPC has helped him get a better understanding of sales and distribution, in relation to production. “I feel more confident now to co-produce” he asserted.

Another new indie producer - Cæcilie Østerby Sørensen of Coes Film, Denmark, said she wasn’t trained at a film school, and therefore enjoyed YNPC and its “inspirational” programme. Sørensen who produced Signe Barvild Stæhr’s acclaimed short doc The Nannies (Nordisk Panorama Audience Award 2020) feels the workshop in Cannes enabled her to sharpen her skills across all genres, not only documentaries.

Among junior producers, SF Studios’ Stockholm-based Jimm Garbis (co-winning the Nordic Talents Pitch Prize 2021) said he gained a Nordic understanding of the film business and the case study on co-production was particularly useful. “It was valuable to do a proper financing plan and to understand how to fund a project in the Nordics,” he said.

Anagram Sweden’s Babiker Malik said the presentation about recoupment in film and TV from Peter Bille Krogh was new territory for him. “I liked to hear about how the [recoupment] system works in Scandinavia and how it differs for instance with Germany.”

For her part Garagefilm International Sweden’s Hanna Hannerz Simå felt Thomas Eskilsson’s talk about ‘Public Funding at a Crossroad’ was enlightening and she was grateful for the co-production input from professionals. “Garagefilm has a great tradition of co-production and I wanted to learn more in that field. It was a dense and very useful programme,” she said.

Norwegian producer Marte Hansen of Hummelfilm who served as producer on the Netflix’ Original feature Battle: Freestyle, said she enjoyed notably Wolf PR’s presentation on festival and PR strategies as she currently works on the commercial end of filmmaking. She also underscored the vital need for young producers to connect physically after Covid. “We [junior producers] tend to rely on our senior producers’ relationships, but it is key for us to develop our own network and to share our experience, especially in these changing times,” she said.

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 and Creative Europe’s Nordic Media Desks.​