ShortsLab 2022 Avant-première | Vogelkooi

Karel Konings | Fiction, Belgium, 2023, 10 min

Nurse Marielle watches in horror as the doctor injects poison in a ten-year-old boy with supernatural powers; a measure that seemed necessary after the death of one of their staff. After the doctor informs Marielle that Patient 76 will also be put to ‘sleep’, she rushes off to save him.

ShortsLab 2022 Avant-première | Stripped Down

Nathalie Roux | Fiction, The Netherlands, 2023, 10 min

A woman is done adjusting, shrinking, sacrificing space, laughing the offenses off, being called too sensitive or hysterical. In order to become who she wants to be, she will bid her farewell to who and what she was.

Limburgian Avant-première | Magma

Luca Meisters | Fiction, The Netherlands, 2023, 15 min

A new home, a new school, and a parent who no longer seems to be who he once was: confronted with her father’s sudden disability, nine-year-old Esra is struggling to come to terms with an unfamiliar reality. When she becomes entangled in a web of lies to her new friends, the emotional turmoil smouldering beneath the surface finally erupts, clearing the ground for Esra’s first tentative steps closer to her father.

Amy & May

Catherina Iosifidis | Fiction, The Netherlands, 2022, 10 min

The friendship between two best friends is tested when they meet two French boys at a cave party.

Against All Odds

Laurenz Otto | Fiction, Germany, 2022, 15 min

Younus does not give up...despite all the doubts! Fascination is glued to the strange but familiar father figure and mixed up with a growing longing for real intimacy. Cautiously testing and expanding boundaries, Younus is playing a risky game. When the tension finally unloads, he questions the deeper foundation of the fragile relationship.

Is this the centre ?

Michel Couturier | Documentaire, Belgium, 2021, 15 min

In the center of Liège, the thin pre-stressed concrete slab slightly vibrates as the trucks pass by. It extends over the most part of the square and covers the tangled remains of a Roman villa and the cathedral, two thousand years of history. Skateboarders are tirelessly rolling from one side to the other. It’s also the place where the precarious and the homeless gather; it is also an area for drug business. The dark tunnel keeps swallowing and spitting out its buses. Present and past collide.

Blue Rain

Jet Kragt | Fiction, the Netherlands, 2022, 13 min

After giving birth, Saar flees into what could have been her future. When the safe delusion is overtaken by harsh reality, everything becomes unbearable.

Grandma's Chillies

Max Jacoby & Pattrawan Sukmongkol | Documentaire, Luxembourg, 2021, 15 min

A Thai expat lives in Amsterdam, far away from her family and her roots. Because of the pandemic, she has not seen them in almost two years. Her only connection to home are daily conversations with her older sister.

The Water Sommelier

Ryan Wichert & Noémi Dabrowski | Fiction, Germany, 2021, 07 min

Did you know that Tasmanian rainwater goes great with a cheese platter? As a trained water sommelier, and soon to be water whisperer, Hugo Rehberg is passionate about all things transparent, wet and liquid. He advises individuals and restaurants on the suitable aqua to match their culinary dish. Hugo and his wondrous water knowledge have, finally, come to the attention of the media and he gives an interview.

Jolijn van Rees

Jolijn van Rees works as a project supervisor at the Selective Funding department at the Netherlands Film Fund. She is the point of contact for the subsidy schemes for short films, including Short Animation, Filmfond Shorts, Wildcards and the collaborative projects Ultrakort and Teledoc Campus. She carries out the project financial analysis for the development applications and monitors the progress of the projects when granted. She studied Fine Arts at the Willem de Kooning Academy and worked as a projectmanager at Shop Around, a multidisciplinary creative production agency and artist representation firm, specialized in illustration, animation, motion graphic and graphic design solutions.

Erik van Drunen

Erik van Drunen studied animation and photography at the Academy of Fine Arts and Education in Tilburg. His path has led him through a wide range of activities in the field of animation and film education. He has organized workshops and master classes and served on selection committees and juries at film councils (VAF and Limburgs Filmfonds) and festivals, which gave him the opportunity to read piles of plans and scripts and see films in all stages of production. As a freelance film and animation curator he worked for film festivals such as Nederlands Film Festival, Go Short Film Festival Nijmegen (NL), ANIMA Brussels (BE) and FANTOCHE (CH) and as script coach. He lectured at several art schools and was part of the pilot of the Playgrounds NEXT talent program. From 2017 – 2023 he was film consultant for animation and several other counters (shorts, mainstream and talent development) at the Netherlands Film Fund, where he now serves as project manager Selective Funding a.i..

Safirah Dijkstra | De Ontmoeting | VPRO & HUMAN

Safirah Dijkstra is a dramaturge at VPRO-HUMAN. She is also project leader of the talent development program for short films De Ontmoeting. In addition, she is also a board member at VERS, an association for new film and television makers. Safirah studied Theater, Film and Television Studies at Utrecht University and obtained a master's degree in Art, Culture and Politics at the University of Amsterdam. She previously worked as Marketing and PR Manager at distributors Cinema Delicatessen and Amstelfilm.

Yassin Karmoudi | NPO Fund | New Producers Academy

Yassin Karmoudi is an experienced storyteller and impact manager. With a wide range of experience in the audio-visual industry, from international animation series to award-winning interactive documentaries. Yassin is one of the co-founders of the New Producers Academy, where he strives to provide opportunities for aspiring film and documentary producers from underrepresented communities to give them a platform to tell their untold stories. Since October 2021, Yassin has been the Secretary of Talent at the NPO (Dutch Public Broadcaster).

Sara Moeniralam | NPO 3LAB

Sara Moeniralam is a content coordinator for NPO 3LAB. She studied Media & Culture (BA) and Film Studies (MA) at the University of Amsterdam. After graduating she started working for the brands MTV & Nickelodeon as an editor/writer/researcher and created local online content for these brands. After a couple of years Sara switched from a commercial broadcaster to public broadcasters where she worked as an editor for a children’s television show and a talk show. At her current job it is her goal to create a more accessible, visible and durable entrance within the public broadcasting system. To shine light on stories that usually do not get the opportunities to be told. Her bigger goal in life is to make invisible people visible.

Joris Hoebe | Screen Talent NL | New Noardic Wave

Joris Hoebe is a filmmaker, producer and since 2018 founder of multiple filminitiatives in the North of the Netherlands namely Talenthub New Noardic Wave, film commission Screen Noord and CineNord which focuses on production, funding and innovation in the three northern provinces Friesland, Groningen, Drenthe. Together with partners CineSud and Playgrounds he is co-founder of Screen Talent NL. The official network organization of film hubs in the Netherlands that aims for a more divers and inclusive Dutch film ecosystem. He loves living with his wife-filmmaker and two filmmaking sons. Fun fact: In his spare time he is running a company that creates beer made of rainwater (rainbeer.nl)

Guido Franken | Screen Talent NL | CineSud

Guido Franken got his Master’s degree in Film and Television Studies from the Utrecht University. Since 2012 he (executive) produced several short films and (short and feature length) documentaries that were shown all over the world and won various awards. From 2012 on, Guido is head of CineSud, a foundation that promotes and stimulates the film industry in the south of the Netherlands, with a special focus on talent development. CineSud became the biggest film hub in the Netherlands. Since 2016 Guido stopped producing and focussed completely on his part time position as director of CineSud and head of the Limburg Film Office (incl. Limburg Film Fund). In 2020 he also founded Screen Talent NL, a network of talent- and production-hubs in the Netherlands.

Daniel Huhn | Filmwerkstatt Münster | Netzwerk Filmkultur NRW

Daniel Huhn, born in 1985, grew up in the Ruhr area. He studied history and political science at the University of Münster. Already as a student he worked as a freelance radio and video journalist as well as a camera person. Since 2011 he has been working full-time as a freelance filmmaker and. From 2012 until 2019 Daniel Huhn has been a lecturer at the University of Münster in the field of film. His work was awarded at several festivals. In 2015, he received the Gerd-Ruge scholarship from the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW. Since 2016, he has been a scholarship holder of the Mediengrünzentrum NRW with Benjamin Leers and their joint film production company Benda Film. In 2020 he became managing director of the Filmwerkstatt Münster. Daniel Huhn is a member of the Managing Board of the Netzwerk Filmkultur NRW.

Patrick Tass | Anotherlight

Patrick Tass is a Belgian director of Palestinian origin born in Beirut in 1992. He completed degrees in directing at ALBA (Lebanon) and scriptwriting at the ULB (Belgium). As a script doctor, he teaches cinema analysis and scriptwriting courses at various Belgian cinema labs. He is currently directing two short films and co-writing a feature-film. In his works, Patrick focuses on themes such as identities and sexualities. He is involved in the Liège-based organization, Anotherlight, which offers multiple opportunities and training for people in the film industry.

Veerle de Wilde | Ultraviolet

Veerle De Wilde is a Dutch-Belgian filmmaker based in Ghent. After studying psychology she worked as a psychotherapist for several years, while she continued to explore her love for cinema. In 2015 she enrolled in film school at KASK School of Arts. She graduated in 2020 with the short film Spaceboy, which has since been selected for film festivals around the world and has won several awards. Veerle is a TSFM Word-Frame and Interfilm Berlin Script Pitch alumna. Currently she is preparing her next short film Ultraviolet, with which she won the CineSud Zuidelijke Film Pitch 2022.

Maarten D'Hollander | Ultraviolet

Maarten D'Hollander has an extensive experience as a producer. Maarten has worked as an independent producer on international productions since 2015. He now joined forces with Tim Martens and started Krater. Krater is a new, content-driven audiovisual production company, based in Ghent/Belgium. They create quality fiction films, series and documentary projects with an international potential. It has been founded in 2020. Tim is currently working on Ultraviolet, directed by Veerle de Wilde.

Anna Weber | Mona & Parviz

Anna Weber was born in Viersen, Germany in 1999. After graduating from high school, she worked for a year in a business detective agency. She is now involved in several student projects. During the production of a short film in Estonia, her interest in film production was confirmed. Anna has been studying Creative Production at the ifs international film school in Cologne since 2019. Her projects have been presented at renowned national and international film festivals. Her short film Mona & Parviz premiered at the Short Film Corner Cannes 2021 and won the 2nd audience and jury prize at the Exground Filmfest (Wiesbaden). She completed her studies in February 2023 with her graduation film El Mártir.

Luca Meisters | Magma

Luca Meisters graduated as a director from the Maastricht Institute of Performative Arts in 2019. Her graduation film When Birds Fly Low (original title: 'Elf') had its international premiere at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen 2020 and got selected for Palm Springs Short Fest and Cinekid. Her 2021 short film Nova had its premiere at BUFF Malmö and got nominated for Best Short Film. Her newest short film Magma produced by IJswater Films and written by Nena van Driel will have its international premiere in 2023. Besides her work as a director she also works as a director's assistent and children casting director/children coach on set.

Nicky Onstenk | Magma

Nicky Onstenk 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. One of those projects is Magma by Luca Meisters.

Anna Weber

Short Film Competition Made in Euregion & Euregion Film Pitch

Anna Weber was born in Viersen, Germany in 1999. After graduating from high school, she worked for a year in a business detective agency. She is now involved in several student projects. During the production of a short film in Estonia, her interest in film production was confirmed. Anna has been studying Creative Production at the ifs international film school in Cologne since 2019. Her projects have been presented at renowned national and international film festivals. Her short film Mona & Parviz premiered at the Short Film Corner Cannes 2021 and won the 2nd audience and jury prize at the Exground Filmfest (Wiesbaden). She completed her studies in February 2023 with her graduation film El Mártir.

Patrick Tass

Short Film Competition Made in Euregion & Euregion Film Pitch

Patrick Tass is a Belgian director of Palestinian origin born in Beirut in 1992. He completed degrees in directing at ALBA (Lebanon) and scriptwriting at the ULB (Belgium). As a script doctor, he teaches cinema analysis and scriptwriting courses at various Belgian cinema labs. He is currently directing two short films and co-writing a feature-film. In his works, Patrick focuses on themes such as identities and sexualities.

Luca Meisters

Short Film Competition Made in Euregion & Euregion Film Pitch

Luca Meisters (1996, Maastricht) graduated as a director from the Maastricht Institute of Performative Arts in 2019. Her graduation film WHEN BIRDS FLY LOW (original title: 'ELF') had its international premiere at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen 2020 and got selected for Palm Springs Short Fest and Cinekid. Her 2021 short film NOVA had its premiere at BUFF Malmö and got nominated for Best Short Film. Her newest short film MAGMA produced by IJswater Films and written by Nena van Driel will have its international premiere in 2023. Besides her work as a director she also works as a director's assistent and children casting director/children coach on set.

Nicky Onstenk

Nicky Onstenk 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.