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PRODUCERS ON THE MOVE 2018

Frank Hoeve • Producer

“We like to invest in long-term relationships”

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- We chatted to Frank Hoeve, of the Netherlands’ BALDR Film, one of this year’s participants of the Producers on the Move initiative

Frank Hoeve • Producer

Working as a producer for years, Frank Hoeve co-founded the Amsterdam-based production company BALDR Film in 2012 with Katja Draaijer. Their first feature film was Morgan Knibbe’s Those Who Feel the Fire Burning that won multiple awards and later on Brothers [+see also:
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interview: Hanna Van Vliet
interview: Jonas Smulders
film profile
]
directed by Bram Schouw. His last production, feature documentary Ubiquity by Bregtje van der Haak had its world premiere in International Spectrum competition of the Hot Docs Festival. Hoeve is one of this year’s participants of European Film Promotion’s Producers on the Move initiative at the Cannes Film Festival.

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Cineuropa: Is it easy to choose one of your previous produced films that you feel most proud of?
Frank Hoeve
: I started BALDR Film together with Katja Draaijer in 2012 and our first production was the short film Sevilla by Bram Schouw. It was a road movie, and for the first time I felt that I was really making a film and working on my own vision. Also, I am very proud of Those Who Feel the Fire Burning by Morgan Knibbe. It was a low-budget film about the refugee crisis through the eyes of a ghost. The film won many awards, including the Dutch Academy Award and was nominated at IDFA. Furthermore, this is a hybrid film and completely fits our profile. We do not only focus on urgent content but also on form and originality. We like to invest in long-term relationships; with both filmmakers we are continuing to work on new projects.

Despite the high level of local production, the Netherlands always seek international co-productions, is it helpful for you and what are the main challenges that you still face?
I am very happy with our system in the Netherlands as there is a high production volume. Also, there is a great focus on international co-productions with a good minority support and of course the well-respected Hubert Bals Fund. Especially, since the Netherlands Film Production Incentive was introduced with a cash rebate of 35%, the Netherlands became more attractive as a co-production country. Also, I noticed that we are starting to make more films for the international market.

There is a great challenge to make films with more risk in terms of topics and concepts. At BALDR, we tend to talk about “film” instead of dividing them into documentary and fiction. We think that the cross-fertilization of both disciplines will bring films to an exciting level.

Do you think that being one of the "Producers on the Move" will further help you?
In the past I have participated in workshops as EAVE and ACE. It was great to meet a lot of new creative entrepreneurs and friends, to learn from each other and to work with them for future projects. I hope that the Producers on the Move programme will be a similar experience, with its great participants and of course its unique setting of the Cannes Film Festival.

You were recently in HotDocs with a new documentary, what else should we expect from your upcoming projects?
That is accurate, we premiered last week in competition at Hot Docs with our latest feature documentary Ubiquity by Bregtje van der Haak, a film about three exiles of the modern era that get ill from the digital networks that surround us.

Production-wise, currently we are editing a debut feature film entitled Gold [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Rogier Hesp about a young talented gymnast who wants to win the Olympic Games; it is best described as a Ken Loach-film meets The Foxcatcher. Furthermore, we are working on several co-productions such as Window Boy Would Also Like to Have a Submarine by Uruguayan filmmaker Alex Piperno, Sick, Sick, Sick by Alice Furtado from Brazil that participated in 2015 CineMart and the new feature documentary Heartbound by Janus Metz (Armadillo [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Janus Metz, director of Arm…
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). Finally, I’m financing Kaweh Modiri’s (Bodkin Ras [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
) new film Mitra. It is a great story by a very talented filmmaker, we won the Eurimages Co-Production Development Award at the recent CineMart (interview) and we aim to start shooting in 2019.

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