Dive into the world of international co-production, co-development, and co-promotion for feature films and documentaries in the cross-border region of the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and Luxembourg at the Crossborder Film Conference 2024.
Crossborder Film Conference 2024
We invite you to the Crossborder Film Conference 2024 to hear all about international co-production in our region: The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Luxembourg. The Crossborder Film Conference offers a platform to expand your horizons, forge valuable connections, and gain insights that can transform your approach to co-producing feature film projects. Together we can break down borders and celebrate the universal language of cinema.
Moderator Dorien van de Pas will welcome for case-studies, panels and talks leading experts from the industry such as Matthijs Wouter Knol (European Film Academy), Bart van Langendonck (Savage Film), Ellen Havenith (PRPL), Fleur Winters (Big Blue), Yort Jansen (Flanders Image), Bettina Brokemper (Heimatfilm) and Florian Heinzen-Ziob (Fontane Film Production). The Conference is co-hosted by the Creative Europe Desks in the Netherlands, North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany), Belgium & Luxembourg. The Desks will be present during the Conference and you can meet them during the FilMatch.
Interested filmmakers and producers can also sign up for the Crossborder Film Pitch (and compete for a development grant of €2.500) and FilMatch (a speeddate matchmaking session) during the Conference.
Practical info
The Crossborder Film Conference will be held in Lumière Cinema Maastricht on Friday March 15, 10.30 - 17.30 CET.
when: Friday, March 15, 10:30 - 17:30 CET, Lumière Cinema Maastricht (incl. networking lunch and networking drinks)
language: English
costs: €25,- incl. VAT (till February 15), €35,- (after February 15).
Tickets via the button below.
Tickets can be bought until March 7.
Program
This keynote explore the key elements that contribute to the success of European cinema and uncover the unique DNA that defines these films.
Keynote speaker:
Matthijs Wouter Knol (European Film Academy)
The talk will focus on the international success of local films and explore various perspectives on successful films from Belgium and Germany, examining their evolution and contributing factors from national success to global recognition.
Guest speakers:
Bart van Langendonck (Producer BE, Savage Film | “When It Melts”), Ellen Havenith (Producer NL, PRPL | “When It Melts”),
Yort Jansen (Flanders Image, Markets & Promotion Features and Animation),
Florian Heinzen-Ziob (Director, Producer NRW/DE, Fontäne Film production | “Dancing Pina”)
During the Crossborder Film Pitch, participants present their projects or scripts to an audience and a panel of judges. Each pitch is allocated a duration of 4 minutes, followed by a 2-minute Q&A with the jury. The jury comprises specially selected producers and fund representatives, ideally with ties to the Case Study or guest speaker.
Crossborder Film Pitch will consist of two parts:
1. Development Pitch (features and documentary features in development from Germany, Netherlands, Belgium or Luxembourg). A maximum of 4 projects will be selected. Prize: €2500 for project development (feature projects) (powered by CineSud).
2. Script Pitch: Participants of REwriteIT Feature ScriptLab 2023 (collaboration of CineSud & Oostende Film Festival) will pitch their script that they have been developing in ScriptLab during the year. A maximum of 3 projects will be presented (1 NL, 2 BE). Prize: €500 (powered by CineSud).
Submit via the following link Crossborder Film Pitch 2024.
Share contacts and insights during the networking lunch!
In this Case Study, the producer Fleur Winters will share insights into the cross-border co-production process of the TV series “This is Gonna be Great” with Belgium and Germany. The discussion will cover the selection of the storyline, collaborative work dynamics, co-production execution, and the practical aspects of bringing a co-produced series to diverse audiences.
Project: “This is Gonna be Great” (NPO, VRT, ZDFNeo)
Guest speakers: Fleur Winters (Producer NL, Big Blue)
In the Case Study, we will engage in a discussion with the producer Bettina Brokemper from North Rhine-Westphalia as she shares insights into the co-production journey of a feature film "Ingeborg Bachmann - Journey Into the Desert". We will have the opportunity to explore the motivations behind selecting a particular story, the dynamics of collaboration and financing, and gain valuable insights into the impact of co-production on successful film distribution.
Project: "Ingeborg Bachmann - Journey Into the Desert"
Guest speaker: Bettina Brokemper (Producer DE, Heimatfilm)
Round Table Sessions
Creative Europe Media Desks Netherlands, Flanders, NRW (Germany) and Luxembourg will host roundtable discussions focusing on funding opportunities and training opportunities for producers. Participants will be invited to ask questions and actively engage in discussions. Each session will last 20 minutes.
FilMatch Session
During this session, invited producers will engage in 10-minute meetings with filmmakers from all over the Euregion. For filmmakers, these meetings provide an opportunity to discuss further the previously pitched projects or to introduce themselves and their projects to the producers if they did not participate in the initial pitch. The participants will be matched in advance according to their needs.
Stay for the networking drinks, meet & mingle with the filmmakers and the audience, engage in driven conversations around refreshing beverages and cheer for the announced winners of the Crossborder Film Pitch!
Meet the Guests
Meet our panel of professionals who will be lending us their expertise during the conference.
Bart Van Langendonck | Savage Film
Bart Van Langendonck is a Belgian producer. In 2007 he set up Savage Film, a film production company. The company operates in an association with Eyeworks Film & TV Drama (Warner Bros. group) since 2014. Savage Film produces fiction films and documentaries with subjects just as versatile as its directors' backgrounds. His latest work includes Mascotte (Remy van Heugten, 2023) and Tori & Lokita (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, 2022). His films have been shown all over the world and notably at the Austin Fantastic Film Festival, Film Festival Oostende and at Festival de Cannes.
Yort Jansen | Flandres Images
Yort Jansen graduated from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in 2013 with a master degree in European Studies. After that Yort went on to study at Ghent University where a graduated with a master degree in conflict & development in 2015. In 2016, he attended the Vlerick Business School and received a master degree in general management. From 2019 to 2021 he was a marketing & editorial manager at UniversCiné Belgium before moving on to Flanders Image where he currently is head of digital media & markets. Since 2021 He is also programmer of the feature category at the International Filmfestival for Young Audiences-Filem'On.
Matthijs Wouter Knol | European Film Academy
Matthijs Wouter Knol is a Dutch film programme curator and producer. After finishing his studies at Leiden University his career started in Amsterdam, where he initially worked as a producer of documentary films and for IDFA. In September 2008, Matthijs Wouter Knol was appointed programme manager of the Berlinale Talent Campus. In 2014 he was appointed as director of Berlinale's European Film Market. In 2011, he was one of the co-founders of the “Berlinale Residency” programme. Between 2014 and 2019; Matthijs was a member of the selection committee of the Competition of the Berlin International Film Festival. Since 2021 has been the director of the European Film Academy.
Ellen Havenith | PRPL
After graduating from Theatre-, Film- en Television Sciences at University Utrecht in 2003, Ellen Havenith worked as a Production Manager and Line Producer for various production companies producing short films, drama series and feature films. Working for Column Film, she was the Delegate Producer of 170 Hz (first feature film by Joost van Ginkel) which won the Golden Calf Audience Award and the Movie Squad Award at the Dutch Film Festival 2011 and got selected for important international filmfestivals such as Busan, Seattle, Shanghai and Moscow. She attended courses such as European Co-Production: Legal and Financial Aspects at the Erich Pommer Institut and Story Editing by Franz Rodenkirchen at the Binger Filmlab. Ellen is an EFA member.
Florian Heinzen-Ziob | Fontäne Film
Florian Heinzen-Ziob is a freelance director and producer and co-founder of Fontäne Film production. He studied media arts and film directing at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne. As an author, director and producer he realized the three Cinema documentaries Original Copy, German Class and Dancing Pina. His films have been shown at over a hundred film festivals worldwide, including Rotterdam Film Festival, Hot Docs Toronto, Sheffield DocFest and CPH:DOX, received several awards and have had successful theatrical releases in Europe. He lives and works in Cologne, Germany.
Fleur Winters | Big Blue
After her Masters in Cinema and Art, Management and Policies at the University of Utrecht Fleur Winters worked as an international film sales agent for The Coproduction Office and Katapult Film Sales, a senior buyer for Endemol Group, and was Head of Cinekid for Professionals. In 2015 she started working as a producer for Lemming Film and after producing feature films she focused on expanding the international drama series output of Lemming Film and became co-CEO. In 2020 she founded Big Blue, a production company fully focussed on (high-end) drama series.
At the occasion of the conference she will be talking about the European comedy show This is Gonna be Great created & written by Rein Mulder and Rutger Lemm and directed by Beer ten Kate and Valerie Bisscheroux.
Bettina Brokemper | Heimatfilm
After gathering first experiences in the media industry as 1st AD at JE Entertainment (now: Endemol) Bettina Brokemper studied production and media economics at the Munich Filmschool were she graduated and was granted the GWFF Award for young producers, a scholarship to work and study in Los Angeles. In L.A. she worked in the development department of Luc Besson’s company, Seaside Production among others. Since 2001 she has been working as a producer for Neue Impuls Film and Pain Unlimited. In May 2003 she joined forces with Helmut Hartl and Stefan Telegdy to form her own company, Heimatfilm GmbH & Co KG. Her Producer/ Coproducer credits include Bal, Antichrist (Lars von Trier, 2009) (Coproducer) Nymphomaniac V1 & 2 (Lars von Trier, 2013) and Jetzt.Nicht. (Julia Keller, 2017)
At the occasion of the conference she will be talking about the feature film Ingeborg Bachmann Journey into the Desert by Margarethe von Trotta, a co-production between Amour Fou (LU) and Heimatfilm (DE).
Meet the Jury
Meet the jury panel who will deliberate on the Crossborder Film Pitch 2024 winners!
Matthijs Wouter Knol | European Film Academy
Matthijs Wouter Knol is a Dutch film programme curator and producer. After finishing his studies at Leiden University his career started in Amsterdam, where he initially worked as a producer of documentary films and for IDFA. In September 2008, Matthijs Wouter Knol was appointed programme manager of the Berlinale Talent Campus. In 2014 he was appointed as director of Berlinale's European Film Market. In 2011, he was one of the co-founders of the “Berlinale Residency” programme. Between 2014 and 2019; Matthijs was a member of the selection committee of the Competition of the Berlin International Film Festival. Since 2021 has been the director of the European Film Academy.
Ido Abram | I DO!
In 1992, Ido Abram graduated from University of Utrecht in Film and Television studies. From 1997 to 2005 he was the director of CineMart, the co-production market of the International Film Festival Rotterdam before becoming director of the Binger Filmlab from 2005 to 2010. In 2010, Ido became the deputy director of the Eye filmmuseum. From 2019 to 2024 he also took on the role of director of SEE NL. In January 2024, Ido created his own company, I DO !, where he works in consulting, coaching and interim management for film and culture.
Christine Kiauk | Coin Film
Christine Kiauk graduated with a master degree in communication sciences and advertisement. From 1995 to 2000 she did press work for film and cultural events, was production assistant for film productions and editor for film funds. In 2001 she joined Coin Film as production manager, and from 2003 producer for numerous feature films and documentaries as well as international coproductions such as Mr. Gay Syria (Ayse Toprak, 2017, nominated at IDFA 2017) or Baghdad in My Shadow (Samir, 2019). Christine is also a member of the German Film Academy and Atéliers du Cinéma Européen (ACE).
Maarten van der Ven | Studio Ruba
Having previously studied Film, TV and Theater Studies, Maarten van der Ven graduated from the Dutch Film Academy in 2009 with the award-winning film Bingo. He then worked for several renowned production houses as an executive producer on award-winning short and feature films, including Meanwhile, he started VENFILM, in which he produced many award-winning films from the short film P (Aaron Rookus, 2014) to the documentary A Goat For A Vote (Jeroen van Velzen, 2014) and the midlength De dag dat mijn huis viel (Thessa Meijer, 2017). In 2016 he produced his first feature film Waterboys (Robert Jan Westdijk), which drew 60,000 people to movie theaters in the Netherlands.
Meet the Coach
Meet the coach who will train the Crossborder Film Pitch participants and help them improve their projects to enhance their chance to win the prizes!
Nicky Ontstenk
Nicky Onstenk (Producer, The Netherlands) completed her Bachelor of Media & Culture at the University of Amsterdam in 2015. In 2019 she graduated from the Netherlands Film Academy with the short fiction film Porfotto, which was nominated for a Student Oscar. After graduation, she started at IJswater Films as a junior producer. The documentary Dunya (directed by Tim Bary) premiered at the Netherlands Film Festival 2021. The short film Vlekkeloos (directed by Emma Branderhorst) won the main prize for the best short (youth) film at Berlinale 2022. Currently, there are several projects, both documentary, and fiction, long and short, in development and production. Magma by Luca Meisters and produced by IJswater Films premiered at Berlinale 2023.
Tickets
Buy your tickets here. Tickets are including lunch and networking drinks.
Tickets can be bought till one week before the conference.
Contact us.
Do you have any questions regarding this event? Contact us by using the contact form below.
The Crossborder Film Conference is co-hosted by the Creative Europe Desks in the Netherlands, North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany), Belgium & Luxembourg.