As the m:brane financing forum for youth content in Malmö wrapped on Thursday afternoon, after 280 scheduled meetings between creators, producers and decision makers had taken place over coffee and delicious raspberry-liquorice pastries, we got hold of the forum’s manager, Lennart Ström, who shared some take-aways from the 20th edition.

Cineuropa: The number of participants this year totalled a good 200 from all across Europe as well as North America and even Australia. This should be somewhere around your ideal mix and figure, right?
Lennart Ström: Just a little over the ideal, as a matter of fact. We more or less expect that not everybody will be around for the full duration, as some will be here only for the pitch. Thankfully, it usually works out. That said, I’d like to highlight this year’s forum as one of the very best, as far as the quality of the projects, the speakers and the panels, the youth experts and the REALYOUNG workshop is concerned; the response and engagement have been great. We’ve had wonderful Ukrainian beer for recreation purposes, and we’ve watched some amazing visual works at the WisDome dome theatre to stoke our fascination.

Several visitors and, not least, returning visitors refer to m:brane as a family-run operation in its feel. What would you credit this to?
It’s exactly what we aim for: a sense of assurance and affirmation, a gathering of good people, the opportunity for dialogue and exchange, and the feeling of being a family. Again, the number of visitors is close to perfect for this purpose. Add to this the city of Malmö, which may be the perfect location in the Nordic region, as it’s not too large a city, is about 30 minutes from Copenhagen and is easy to get to from everywhere, really – especially Helsinki, Oslo and Stockholm, of course.

Nordic projects dominate, but there are usually some entries from more distant territories, including Africa and the Americas. Is there some method to the selection?
Well, the Nordic presence is quite organic, and we have many partners and collaborators here. Last year, Denmark was the focus country at the forum, and this year, we reached out to them, and they certainly responded. We wound up with 16 projects with various degrees of Danish involvement.

Nordic traditions within children and youth films have also been praised for a good many decades. What would you say the state of the Nordic youth scene is today?
At the very least, the Nordic scene is stronger than that of some other regions, but things still go up and down here. The reputation’s still there, without a doubt, and we do have a financing system for youth films, which is not the case everywhere. I’d say that Denmark is at the forefront at the moment and that the Danish Film Institute is highly active in its support.

Even so, a US project got the Award for Best Pitch [see the news]. How do you go about finding these more far-flung titles?
She Wrestles, the one you’re referring to, I came across at an EAVE workshop this autumn in Thessaloniki. I spotted it on a list of some 50-60 projects and immediately took a shine to it. At the same time, I’ve learned that Lucila Moctezuma, the producer, had thought of m:brane as a fitting platform. So, she got in touch before I did. I can see a growing tendency here, in that we’re increasingly well known and that people seek us out. It’s a very gratifying development, of course.

Your conference day almost exclusively dealt with XR formats this year, such as VR, dome, AI, immersive and gaming. The pitch sessions, however, mainly presented “classical” formats like features and series. What are your thoughts about the discrepancy here?
With the conference, which I think was top-notch, we aimed, and will aim, to inspire these “classical” producers to broaden their views. We tried to tell them: “Hey, there are other ways of storytelling – think about it for a while.” The XR community is still a bit “Wild West” and doesn’t get any governmental support in most territories; it’s the same with gaming. What m:brane is aiming for here are allies who can point to the event as a platform for XR formats. Some of these allies were here this year – from Canada, the people from Xn Québec, OASIS, Supply + Demand Studio, NUMIX LAB and the like, with whom we will deepen our collaboration in the years to come. A future dream is that we could have about 35% or 40% XR projects being pitched here, side by side with the classical formats. We’re not there yet, but we’re taking steps. And we’re gaining a growing reputation along the way.

How many financing forums are there in Europe, exclusively dealing with children and youth content, at the moment?
Cinekid in Amsterdam, Young Horizons in Warsaw and m:brane are the main ones. We were actually the first out of the three.

You’ve just celebrated edition number 20. Next year, you’ll actually turn the 20 years. Will there be more celebrating to be done?
There will. I’ll tell you more next time.