As of February 1st, the DFI will comprise two main departments instead of four.
- Claus Ladegaard current Head of Production and Development will oversee all funding decisions for the new ‘Film Støtte’ (Film Support) Department with its four units: Fiction, Documentary, Talent/Media and the newly created International division. Noemi Ferrer, current DFI International Producer Feature Films has been promoted Head of International.
- Jakob Buhl Vestergaard, current Head of Administration, will manage the DFI’s second main department ‘Filmhus’ (Film House) combining the Cinematheque, Archives & Digitisation (headed by Lena Halvor Petersen) IT and Resources. Ladegaard and Vestergaard will report to the DFI’s CEO Henrik Bo Nielsen and together the three senior executives will represent the DFI’s management team.
A separate unit, Børn & Unge Univers (Children & Youth Universe) headed byClaus Hjorth will report directly to the CEO.
Steffen Andersen-Møller, current Head of Audience & Promotion will depart at the end of the month to take the helm of Copenhagen Film Festivals.
We spoke to Henrik Bo Nielsen (pictured) about the DFI’s reshuffling and new challenges.
Why did you decide to make this re-shuffle at the DFI and what are the main changes?
Henrik Bo-Nielsen: As a public funding body, we have to provide increased productivity and more efficiency and our running costs have to be under tight control. The DFI has delivered good results under the previous Film Agreement and we’ve fulfilled our political obligations, but there was a feeling at the DFI that to take on the many new tasks within the Film Agreement 2015-2018, it was necessary to strengthen our organisation.
Our first task was to reduce our top management, basically to have fewer chiefs and more Indians! Also, we’ve had a tendency to construct too many siloes, not connected well enough. We’ve decided to break down those siloes and rethink our organisations to allow for a broader, more holistic view on our overall activities and obligations as a cultural institute.
Concretely we will have two main departments instead of four. Our new department ‘Filmstøtte’ (Film Support) will reunite all our support initiatives, the second department ‘Filmhus’ (Film House) will combine our administration and cultural obligations. All employees will work under those two departments except Børn & Unge Univers (Kids and Youth) that will report directly to me.
You also have created a new International Department…
HBN: That is correct. We have built the co-production office over a number of years, working hand in hand with the festival department. Noemi Ferrer (current DFI International Producer) will be Head of International, and all other familiar faces from the Festival Department will work with her and collaborate in a better way. The International Department will be under the Film Support umbrella.
Looking at last year’s market share for Danish films (27%) and the fact that the top 10 films had 31% of the market are you satisfied with those results?
HBN: 2014 was a reasonable year. We have as a target to remain within the top five European countries in terms of domestic market share and we are still in that league. However we hope to do better in the future. 2015 looks very promising as several titles should do extremely well in the mainstream.
Introducing new business models to reinforce the film production sector is a priority in the digital age and next summer, you will meet with various industry players to discuss this matter. Are you confident that hopefully a common ground will be found within the industry?
HBN: I’m optimistic, without being over-optimistic. I’m hearing good things from the market place, and big players like Nordisk Film are testing new models, for instance trying an earlier release and a new window for digital buy with The Absent One. That makes me optimistic. Whether in six months agreements will cover all players including smaller producers remains to be seen. We’ve had a lot of talks within the industry. Now we need action.
Netflix has agreed to invest in the TV drama Rita Season 3. This is another positive sign…
HBN: More public money has been set aside for production, but certainly not enough to satisfy what seems to be a market that is insatiable about serial fiction. So we’re very happy that SF Production and TV2 have found a solution and welcomed Netflix to the table.
The fact that people are trying to think out of the box to find new ways to present consumers with new content is positive and very interesting.
On a Nordic level do you feel your colleagues and the industry are moving fast enough to embrace the digital revolution?
HBN: With my colleagues from the Nordic region and Nordic broadcasters, we share the feeling that new ground has to be broken. The major Nordic producers and distributors as well are very aware that being passive is not an option today, and the urgency to act has increased over the last couple of years as we’ve seen the full effect of consumers turning towards streaming. We hope that Denmark and the rest of Scandinavia will have many more experiences in 2015 of involving digital players in the financing of quality content for all platforms.