Dream Big, But Plan Smart

11:00–12:00
Festivals You Can Trust
Presentation and talk

With today’s endless number of film festivals around the world, inexperienced filmmakers may easily entrust their film online to a festival that doesn’t follow festival standards or, worse, doesn’t even exist. Many of these festivals are scams designed to take money off filmmakers. As a result, we concentrate on tools for identifying fake festivals, ways in which they harm filmmakers and producers, and the guidelines legitimate festivals can follow to strengthen professionalism, transparency, and cross-sector cooperation.

The Short Film Conference’s director, Lauma Kaudzīte, will introduce the festival’s ethical code, which includes film festival recommendations for calls to applications, competitions, screenings, and the festival jury. Since 1970, the Short Film Conference has brought together high-quality short film festivals throughout the world to support and promote short films while also encouraging cooperation.

The introduction will be followed by a talk between Jukko-Pekko Laakse, director of Tampere Film Festival; Laumo Kaudzīte, director of Short Film Conference; and Peter Cerovšek, director of Fekk Festival. They will delve deeply into the bowels of fake festivals and discuss how to recognise a fraud quickly, why to distinguish between the real and the fake, and where and how to submit films. They will also address the present situation in Slovenia.

Lauma Kaudzīte is an international project manager with a focus on short film and talent development. Parallel to coordinating European Short Pitch, Lauma is managing director of Short Film Conference, the only international organisation seeking to unite the global short film community, as well as the short film programme manager at Riga International Film Festival. She often serves as a jury member in different festivals and industry events, as well as moderates talks and panels. She also works as a project coordinator at the Latvian Animation Association, is a member of the Baltic Pitching Forum selection committee and consults for 2ANNAS. Lauma is based in Paris.

Jukka-Pekka Laakso has been the festival director of the Tampere Film Festival since 2002. As a festival director, he shares the responsibility to strategic planning and programming with a co-director. He has been a member of more than 60 juries in film festivals, including Edinburgh, Locarno, Festival du Noveau Cinema in Montreal, Hanoi, and Morelia in Mexico. Jukka-Pekka Laakso has been an expert at Berlinale Talents several times and at “Sunday in the Country” organised by the European Film Academy. He has also provided lectures and training at universities in Tampere, Beijing, and Indonesia. Jukka-Pekka Laakso also acts as the executive director for the Pirkanmaa Film Centre, a non-profit organisation that runs an art-house cinema, distributes films in Finland, and works extensively with media education. For 10 years Jukka-Pekka Laakso was a member of the Council of Cinema of Finland (part of the Arts council) and for 6 years also a member of the Arts Council. He is a member of the European Film Academy.

Peter Cerovsek is a filmmaker and curator who works in all areas of film and contemporary art. He is the director of the FeKK Ljubljana Short Film Festival and the Centre for Contemporary Arts SCCA-Ljubljana, where he also oversees the DIVA Station Archive of Film, Video, and New Media. Cerovsek is the festival director of V-F-X Ljubljana, a festival of audio-visual experimental practice, as well as a curator of short film programmes at the Ljubljana Film Festival LIFFe. Furthermore, he is the founder, mentor and producer of the Short Scene screenwriting workshop, a member of the Directors’ Guild of Slovenia, and an alumnus of the Berlinale Talents platform. His films have received international recognition.

12:15–12:45
How to: Efficient Festival Strategy for a Film
Presentation

Step-by-step Ben Vandendaele will demonstrate how to devise and follow a strategy that allows for improved decision-making and effectively gets films to desired festivals. To accomplish this, he will present a tool, his new, technologically advanced platform called FilmConnector, which assists filmmakers, producers, sales agents and festival strategists in simplifying the complex festival strategy planning, tracking of submissions and film selection, monitoring of revenue streams and data centralisation.

Ben Vandendaele, a member of the European Film Academy and Berlinale Talents Alumni, is a versatile producer, sales agent and distributor. He’s based in Brussels, where he studied film editing at the Rits School of Arts. He is the founder of two companies: the production company Bekke Films and Radiator IP Sales, with which he represents, distributes and sells more than 200 short films and several feature films to date. The films have been selected and awarded at multiple international film festivals, including Berlinale, Cannes, Clermont-Ferrand, Sundance, SXSW, Locarno, Venice, and more.

12:45–13:30
Meet the Festivals
Presentations

In a brief yet efficient series of speakers, we will encounter a number of international film festivals that either specialise in short films or feature them. The meeting will provide answers to basic questions like what, where, when, and how.

The set up will be as follows: Sigrid Hadenius-Ebner, a representative of the International Short Film Festival in Uppsala; Jukka-Pekka Laakso, a representative of the Tampere Film Festival; Miguel Dias, a representative of the International Film Festival Curtas Vila do Conde; Mathilde Guitton-Marcon, a representative of the Cinémed International Mediterranean Film Festival Montpellier; Alicia Martinez, a representative of the Brussels Short Film Festival; Lauma Kaudzīte, a representative of the International Film Festival in Riga; Sven Pötting, a representative of the international short film festival Filmfest Dresden, Greta Praelle, a representative of the Short Film Festival in Regensburg; Paola Bristot, a representative of Piccolo Festival dell Animazione, Igor Prassel, a representative of the Animateka International Animated Film Festival; Tanja Hladnik, a representative of the International Film Festival Kino Otok – Isola Cinema; and Peter Cerovšek, a representative of the FeKK Ljubljana Short Film Festival.

13:30–14:30
Eat & Greet

A social mixer with refreshments or an opportunity for the filmmakers and film festival representatives to network in the cool shade of trees.