Rotterdam Lab welcomes 57 emerging film producers

International Film Festival Rotterdam welcomes fifty-seven young film producers taking part in the fourteenth edition of Rotterdam Lab. The participants of CineMart’s successful event for emerging producers have been nominated by the twenty-nine Rotterdam Lab partner organisations. Rotterdam Lab, part of CineMart, takes place January 25 to 29. (See full list of participants here and partner organisations below)

Rotterdam Lab welcomes Curious Film, One Fine Day Workshop, Tribeca Film Institute and Trinidad + Tobago Film Festival as new partner organisations. Returning partners of CineMart include Catalan Films & TV and Rio de Janeiro State Secretariat of Culture. The participants of the Rotterdam Lab are emerging producers, who are nominated by the international training bodies and funding agencies with which CineMart has partnerships. Allowing producers to present their companies and projects, receive feedback on how to proceed and expand their network in an effective way, the Rotterdam Lab fits very well in IFFR’s spirit of nurturing emerging talent. Furthermore Rotterdam Lab has developed into a valuable tool to strengthen CineMart's international network of independent producers. Rotterdam Lab takes place in festival venue de Gouvernestraat, near festival centre De Doelen.

Panels and speed-dating
Traditionally, panel discussions are organised on topics such as co-production, development, post-production and audience-engagement. In these panels, industry experts give the producers tools on how to present their project and how to build up an international network. Additionally participants take part in ‘speed-dating’ sessions, during which they have time to personally meet with industry delegates and receive advice on their own projects.

Speakers
This edition, Rotterdam Lab will kick off with a panel on intercontinental co-production with Arleen Cuevas (Cinematografica Films, Philippines), Benny Drechsel (Rohfilm, Germany), Marleen Slot (Viking Film, Netherlands), Steven Markovitz (Big World Cinema, South Africa) and Denis Vaslin (Volya Films, Netherlands) moderated by Konstantinos Kontovrakis (Heretic, Greece). In the afternoon the co-production theme will be continued by a case-Study on Qissa by Anup Singh, which will open IFFR 2014. Both panels are hosted by Boost!, an initiative of CineMart, The Hubert Bals Fund and Binger Filmlab and is being funded by MEDIA Mundus.
On Monday morning, Ido Abram of EYE Film Institute Netherlands will give a coaching session on pitching film projects, which will be followed by a ‘Practice your Pitch’ session in the afternoon. An interview with Laurin Dietrich (Wolf Consultants, Germany) wraps up the day.
Other themes in the programme are ‘The Creative Producer and his Role in the Development Process’ (speaker: Katriel Schory, Israel Film Fund) and ‘We'll fix it in post" syndrome - A special look at VFX with Diana Elbaum (producer, Entre Chien et Loup) and Julien Meesters (VFX Supervisor, Mikros Image). Furthermore, the Rotterdam Lab programme includes an important session on Audience Engagement which is hosted by the Independent Filmmaker Project (USA) and the session ‘Working with Writers’ (speakers: Christian Routh & David Pope, UK).

Rotterdam Lab partner organisations:
Ateliers du Cinéma Européen (ACE), France
Catalan Films & TV, Spain
Cinergia, Costa Rica
Creative Skillset, United Kingdom
Curious Film, New Zealand
Danish Filminstitute
Doha Film Insitute, Qatar
Edinburgh International Film Festival, UK (supported by Creative Scotland)
European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs (EAvE), Luxembourg
Film I Vast, Sweden
Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, Germany
Finnish Film Foundation
Flanders Audiovisual Fund, Belgium
Guanajuato International Film Festival, Mexico
Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP), USA
Irish Film Board
Israel Film Fund
MDA/Singapore Film Commission
Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, Germany
Netherlands Film Fund
One Fine Day Workshop, Kenya
Proimagenes Colombia
Rio de Janeiro State Secretariat of Culture, Brasil
Screen Australia
Sundance Institute, USA
Telefilm Canada
Tribeca Film Institute, USA
Trinidad & Tobago Film Festival
Wallonie Bruxelles Images, Belgium

Press information: IFFR Press Office Nancy van Oorschot / Mieke van der Linden / Isabelle de Klein, [email protected], +31 10 8909090