03/10/2013 - The German Federal Film Board (FFA) and the Nederlands Filmfonds are organizing meetings for industry professionals of both countries

In the run-up to the German-Dutch coproduction treaty which will be signed in the beginning of 2014, the German Federal Film Board (FFA) and the Nederlands Filmfonds are bringing the industry professionals of both countries together in order to exchange experiences and discuss projects for a potential collaboration. At the Holland Film Meeting in Utrecht, German and Dutch script writers met with script editors, distributors, producers and commissioning editors from both countries to see which kind of stories work in Germany, the Netherlands but also internationally.

“I think you can only make films for an audience you know,” stated writer/director Ben Verbong in his keynote. “That’s why I decided to go and live in Munich. I wanted to know what the people are moved by, what are the issues they talk about in the subway, what television programmes are hot, what are their sensibilities, what do they criticize and what are their vulnerable sides.”

According to Ben Verbong romantic comedies from Germany that focus on the clash between the sexes don't work in the Netherlands. “The cultural differences are larger than we think,” says the director. While his Christmas comedy Es ist ein Elch entsprungen attracted more than a million cinemagoers in Germany and became a classical Christmas cult movie at German broadcaster SAT.1, the film was criticized harshly by Dutch reviewers. Although the perception of films is very different in the two countries, there are still remakes produced such as Männerharten by Mark de Clou which is based on the German comedy by Simon Verhoeven.

“At our meeting in Utrecht we put the focus on the writers and the exchange of ideas for cross-border stories,” explains the consultant Ellis Driessen who organized the German-Dutch Film Meeting in cooperation with Nicola Jones from the FFA. “The discussion about general themes, genres, clichés and prejudices gives information on the approach for the storytelling.”