New head of the Netherlands Film Fund Doreen Boonekamp intends to connect better with local audiences, she tells Nick Cunningham
Doreen Boonekamp, who took over as head of the Netherlands Film Fund in October 2009, yesterday outlined her short and long-term priorities for the institution. “First, we need the organisation freshened up,” she stressed. “And we need to simplify the regulations to reduce bureaucracy to a minimum. When I've done that, around summer 2010, we will reconsider budget allocations and set priorities to bring them in line with our main goals of professionalisation, talent development and international co-operation.”
Budget
The Fund oversees an annual budget for funding of activities of over €35 million (fixed 2009-2013), of which over €11.7 million is earmarked for the production and development of arthouse and mainstream films. The Supplementary Fund, valued at €11.75 million, provides top-up finance for commercial projects, while a commercial and an artistic consultant are charged with seeking out projects they can help finance. Both consultants have a production and development budget valued at €3 million over two years. Documentaries benefit from Fund coffers to the tune of €2.78 million per year, while €1.5 million is invested in international productions in which a Dutch producer has a minority interest. Distribution, exhibition and other miscellaneous requirements, as well as a significant annual financial commitment to Eurimages just shy of €1 million, combine to increase Fund investment by a further €5.5 million per year.
Better connection
While Dutch films have been performing with increasing credit over the past few years at the local box office, Boonekamp bemoans the general ambivalence on the part of local punters to turn out for the country's arthouse fare. 2009 may have been a wonderful year for Dutch arthouse selections at some of the world's key festivals, but the vast majority of the box-office market share claimed by Dutch films (17.38%) was for mainstream titles. “Our arthouse films have to connect much better with the domestic market,” Boonekamp pointed out. “I don't believe that we should continue solely with the conventional ways of marketing. In the case of arthouse, we must look into cross-media and digital marketing. These films travel from theatre to theatre and are not like the big films that open simultaneously across all cinemas. We need to extend the publicity for a much longer time to let the public know that the film is still out there. What's more, the films should connect much more thematically with what people want to see in this country.”
Upping the ante
Boonekamp underlined not only her intention to up the ante in terms of talent investment – “it's always part of the game that you need talent and we can support that need” – but, as importantly for IFFR readers, she repeated the mantra of internationalism that she intoned when head of the Netherlands Film Festival. “I am determined to integrate with more and more international industries,” she explained. “We are a modest-sized country with a modest language area, but if you want a high level of film production you must be determined to look beyond your borders, not only for financing matters but to exchange cinematic ideas. If you want your films to resonate abroad you need to work closely with international partners. For this reason, I'm looking at increasing our level of co-production money in the future – for 2010 the budget has already been slightly raised – and to intensify international co-operation with funds, as well as look into the possibilities of establishing treaties with other countries.”