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"El EWIP se plantea qué proyectos pueden ser interesantes para los cines, pensando principalmente en el público"

Informe de industria: Producir - Coproducir...

Torsten Frehse • Consejero delegado, European Work in Progress

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El evento profesional de Colonia contará con la presentación de 29 proyectos de largometrajes en avanzada fase de producción, junto a conferencias sobre público y distribución

Torsten Frehse • Consejero delegado, European Work in Progress
(© Annette Hauschild)

Este artículo está disponible en inglés.

As the seventh edition of European Work in Progress Cologne (EWIP) kicks off, unspooling in the German city from 14–16 October, Cineuropa spoke with its CEO, Torsten Frehse, to learn more about this year’s industry event. Outside of his work with EWIP, Frehse is also the founder of Berlin-based distributor Neue Visionen Filmverleih.

Cineuropa: EWIP is now in its seventh year. What is unique about this event, and what propels it forwards?
Torsten Frehse:
As I’m a distributor with Neue Visionen in Germany, what we have seen that we always particularly like are works in progress. But our business is going to get trickier and trickier because the time between the acquisition of a film and releasing it is getting shorter. We also buy films at festivals, but often, it's very late. With EWIP comes the possibility to get in on a film earlier. Compared with just having the script, in eight or ten minutes of footage, you can tell much more about how it’s made, the camera and the actors. I’ve often been to other work-in-progress events like Karlovy Vary, Warsaw, Sofia and Thessaloniki, and I still like them. But we also saw there was a gap in Central Europe, and we had all this interest from colleagues, producers and distributors from that region. That was the idea behind founding EWIP, an event where we have countries from all over Europe – but we’re much more in the middle of everything.

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Are there any trends you see among the 29 works in progress this year?
Excluding the African-focus titles, the projects have to have a partner in Europe because, of course, we are European Work in Progress and not “Worldwide Work in Progress”. But sure, we have co-productions with countries like Thailand or other nations that aren’t in the EU. This year, it's interesting that some of the films are looking more at younger protagonists, for instance. Also, the topic of refugees is not so widespread any more, and the way we talk about diversity is growing more unique and is incorporating more interesting styles. It’s also not as overtly political as it has been in previous years. It’s possible that it’s just our selection, but we see that people are becoming more creative with topics and are not simply focused on eye-catching themes. Because our focus is on films made for cinema, I think that at this edition, a lot of movies can make cinemas better and more successful in the coming year.

How does your work as a distributor connect to your work with the event?
When I prepare for EWIP, I am kind of a “split person”. But at the moment, I am not looking at things through a distributor’s eyes. As distributors, we have to fight for the audience. We have a strong view on which projects are good quality but which also can be successful in the cinemas. EWIP is different from other markets or festivals where we see films that are made for the typical festival circuit. That's not how we think. We think more about which projects can be interesting for the cinemas – and for streaming and other things, too, but mainly with the audience in mind.

This is the second year that EWIP has had a focus on African films. How does this year build on the last edition?
Last year was more about co-productions, whereas this year is more about why so few African films come to Europe – because European films do go to Africa. This year, for the first time, we have organised the African-European Distribution Academy [AEDA] with eight participants. Eight colleagues from East Africa are in Germany for five weeks, and they will also be at EWIP and the International Film Distribution Summit [IFDS] to meet colleagues and to build distribution companies in the future, because these don’t really exist in East Africa. For instance, there is only one in Kenya, and there is a big gap in distribution. That’s something to discuss at the panel. We have invited some projects to take part in the African focus because we don't only want to talk about films. We invited colleagues from the AEDA programme to be a part of EWIP and IFDS in order to boost knowledge transfer as well. I think that can also be very interesting for our European colleagues because they often don’t know so much about this area.

I was in the region twice last year to prepare for AEDA, but also to watch a little bit of what could be interesting for IFDS. I think that Africa has a bigger future than we think, in terms of cinema and film. If you look back at how we saw China 30 years ago, now, it’s the second-biggest film market in the world. That's also why we made the programme as it is, so they also have the chance to understand the business here.

How has your collaboration with partners changed or expanded for this edition?
It has not expanded so much, but there have been big changes. It’s the first time that Creative Europe – MEDIA has helped us, which makes the whole event more independent, and we have more power to make it broader. That’s why we also have more guests this year. It’s an honour to receive this financing after six or seven applications, so it also means that they respect our work. It allows us more space to build EWIP in a better way in the future, to be more independent and stable. That lets us focus more on the content and the work.

We’ve also had the support of Film- und Medienstiftung NRW from the get-go. We have new sponsors, including usheru. With such sponsors on board, the projects are proud when they win something, and sometimes, it also helps them as an extra argument to their financiers at that early stage.

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