07/01/2011

The Luxembourg Film Fund (LFF) celebrated its twentieth birthday this month with an official academic session in the Utopolis multiplex in the capital attended by numerous industry people as well as the ministers of Culture and Communication and the Hereditary Grand Duke, Guillaume.

The LFF was created in 1990 after the success of Frank Hoffmann and Paul Kieffer’s local film Schacko Klak, and has since supported over 400 films of all kinds: features, shorts, fiction, documentaries and animation.

Since its inception 20 years ago, a small but fully equipped and qualified film industry has sprung up in the Grand Duchy.

Between 500 and 600 people are currently active in the film sector in Luxembourg, with about 40 of them regularly sitting in the director’s chair and another 45 employed as actors and actresses. The bulk of the industry workers are active behind the scenes.

Luxembourg has about a dozen production companies that regularly produce and co-produce national and international features, and the many craftsmen have organised themselves in several national associations.

There are currently three shooting studios in Luxembourg, six animation studios, some 15 post-production facilities and around 12 service industry providers. The Luxembourg Film Fund currently has an annual budget of around €6.5m.

Though in the early days of the LFF the focus was on co-producing U.S. productions, the focus has now shifted to European co-productions and local films.

Recent co-productions include Rome Film Festival titles The Runway [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and A Distant Neighbourhood [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Sam Garbarski
film profile] as well as Illegal [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Olivier Masset-Depasse
film profile] and The Little Room [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Véronique Reymond, Stéphan…
film profile], which represent Belgium and Switzerland respectively in the upcoming Foreign Language Oscar race.

Local titles include the hotly anticipated Hot Hot Hot, the feature debut of laurelled shorts director Beryl Koltz.

During the academic session, Film Fund director Guy Daleiden also presented the new logo of the Film Fund.