Denmark’s Nina Bisgaard, Sweden’s Jon Nohrstedt, Norway’s Dyveke Bjørkly Graver and Iceland’s Lilja Ósk Snorradóttir will attend the 20th EFP Producers on the Move networking event during the Cannes Film Festival (May 14-25) along with 16 European colleagues. They were selected based on their international connections and production credentials. We spoke to them. 


Nina Bisgaard - Denmark (Meta Film/SAM Productions)
Nina Bisgaard started working as a producer and executive producer at Meta Film in 2012 on Danish films as Flow and Summer of '92. In 2015 she also took on new responsibilities at SAM Productions as Head of International Financing and Co-Productions for TV series. In 2018 she produced - together with Piodor Gustafsson and Petra Jönsson - Ali Abbasi’s acclaimed film Border, winner of the Grand Prix at Un Certain Regard. She also executive produced Meta Film's first Swedish language feature Aniara as well as Meta Film London’s first feature The Wife for which Glenn Close won a Golden Globe Best Actress in 2019. Her current development slate includes Jan Troell’s The Guest (Gästen) and Jeppe Ronde’s Acts of Love (Kærlighedens Regler).

What does it mean for you and your company to represent Denmark at the Producer on the Move event in Cannes?
NB: It's a great opportunity to gain this exposure. I'm very excited about it, and believe that it will be both a fun event for me personally, and a fruitful experience for the company and projects as well. 

What projects will you bring to Cannes and what will be your priorities there?
NB: I'll be bringing our strongest feature film slate to Cannes. It’s a basket of Swedish, English and Danish-language projects from Meta Film Copenhagen, Meta Film Stockholm and Meta Film London. I can't announce more at this moment, but I'm confident the right people will know to get in touch should they like to learn more. 

What drives you as a producer and what do you feel are the essential skills needed for a producer to make his/her project (film or TV drama) stand out on the market?
NB:
Great stories drive me, of course- stories that impress, surprise, and entertain me. But it’s also about the team of people attached to the project. Finding the best writers and directors to work with means not only finding the most talented ones, but finding people whom I genuinely respect and want to fight for. This is essential in keeping the passion alive during the very long journey in getting something made. To make your project stand out you need to make an assiduous and focused effort towards how you present your projects; always make sure your written and visual materials are meticulous before they leave your hands. For our TV series at SAM productions for example, we work incredibly hard on the projects’ story bibles. It takes many hours to rewrite the copy, redesign the layouts, find the best fonts, and select the best pictures, in order to guarantee we have the best representation of what we are aiming to achieve. Invest the time early on.



Jon Nohrstedt, Sweden
 (SF Studios)  Jon Nohrstedt has been working as in-house producer for SF Studios since 2011. His production credit includes the successful family animated film series Bamse and the City of Thieves, Bamse and the Witches Daughter and Bamse and the Thunder Bell as well as Janus Metz’s Borg vs. McEnroe which opened the Toronto Film Festival in 2018. He is currently working on two new family films based on celebrated Swedish IPs, Nelly Rapp, the Monster Hunter and Pelle No-Tail (working title). 

What does it mean for you and your company to represent Sweden at the Producer on the Move event in Cannes?
JN: I am very happy and deeply honoured to be selected as Producer on the Move and to be part of such a fine network of film producers that this entails. On a personal level, I look forward to increasing my international network and finding new potential collaborations to realize future film projects and co-productions. 

What projects will you bring to Cannes and what will be your priorities there?
JN: Pelle Svanlös (Pelle No-Tail) is a timeless Swedish book about a pampered kitten who lost his tail and ends up in different adventures, written by Gösta Knutsson. I'm producing (together with Gila Bergqvist Ulfung) an animated movie about Pelle which is in its final stage of animation and will be premiered in January 2020.

Nelly Rapp is a live action family movie based on the books about a little girl who is a monster hunter, created by Martin Widmark. We are in development and final stage of financing and it will be a perfect Halloween movie for the entire family. I’m producing it with Niklas Larsson. SF Studios has a strong tradition in producing family movies and I am really enjoying this opportunity to continue this tradition with these two projects.

What drives you as a producer and what do you feel are the essential skills required for a producer to make his/her project (film or TV drama) stand out on the market?
JN: I am driven by creating and telling stories that entertain and affect people, offering a kind of escapism. For me it’s important to create stories that contain and display true emotions, those that affect the audience and leave a mark – a memory. I believe that finding those stories that can create these kinds of memories is an essential skill that can eventually help a producer get his project to stand out.



Dyveke Bjørkly Graver, Norway (Oslo Pictures)
Dyveke Bjørkly Graver joined Cinenord in 2009 where she worked until 2017 on various family films such as The Little Grey Fergie and Caspar and Emma Go Treasure Hunting. She then joined Oslo Pictures where she co-produced the Canadian/Norwegian film The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open, selected for this year’s Berlinale Generation 14Plus sidebar. Her current slate includes projects by Joachim Trier and Jonas Matzow Gulbrandsen.

What does it mean for you and your company to represent Norway at the Producer on the Move event in Cannes?
DBG: I’m very happy and proud to represent Norway this year, and I hope this platform will create focus and interest for the projects I’m bringing and also bring future possibilities. For the company this visibility will hopefully also generate a general interest for all that we do, and as I will broaden my network further I believe the company as a whole will benefit.

What projects will you bring to Cannes and what will be your priorities there?
DBG: Our development slate is considerable at the moment, but in Cannes I will focus on the upcoming projects from Dara Van Dusen and Jonas Matzow Gulbrandsen.

A Prayer for the Dying by Dara Van Dusen is at financing stage, and we aim to shoot next year. Set just after the Civil War, the film follows an American Dream turned nightmare when a small town in Wisconsin falls into the violence and chaos of a deadly epidemic and the one man trying to save his town, and soul, in the process. In Cannes we will meet potential co-producers, sales agents and other possible partners. Ashes and Snow will be the second feature by Jonas Matzow Gulbrandsen (Valley of Shadows) currently in script stage. The project was presented at Les Arcs Co-production Village in December. I will follow up with potential partners we met there and the ones who have shown interest. Both projects are receiving development support from the Norwegian Film Institute.

What drives you as a producer and what do you feel are the essential skills needed for a producer to make his/her project (film or TV drama) stand out on the market?
DBG: The thing that drives me most is the stories and the people telling them. Working on the right project I can find all the different phases exciting, and I enjoy reaching milestones along the way and having a very diverse work-week with several projects running parallel.

I guess the essential skill needed for a producer is to make the right people understand exactly why this story needs to be told, this way and at this point in time. Not always easy to master, but only choosing projects you are passionate about helps a lot.



Lilja Ósk Snorradóttir, Iceland (Pegasus Pictures)
Lilja Ósk Snorradóttir joined Pegasus Pictures in 1999 where she was appointed Managing Director in 2010. She co-produced Rúnar Rúnarsson's second feature Sparrows, Martin Skovbjerg's debut film Sticks and Stones and the English language thriller Arctic starring Mads Mikkelsen. Snorradóttir’s current slate includes Rúnarsson’s film Echo.

What does it mean for you and your company to represent Iceland at the Producer on the Move event in Cannes?
LÓS: It is a real honour to represent Iceland. It’s a great opportunity to meet other producers from all over Europe, to share thoughts and insight and also to share Pegasus Pictures upcoming projects with them.

What projects will you bring to Cannes and what will be your priorities there? LÓS: We are in post-production with Rúnar Rúnarsson’s feature Echo. His last film Sparrows won over 20 international awards including the Golden Shell for Best Film in San Sebastian in 2015. Echo is produced by Pegasus Pictures and Nimbus Iceland.

Our projects in development include One Kiss, a humorous take on searching for love, written by the acclaimed Hallgrímur Helgason. When Falcons Fly is a true rags-to-riches story of how a group of mostly Icelandic Canadian boys faced racial prejudice and poverty in the early 1900s to win the world’s first Olympic gold medal in hockey; Amina is a political thriller written by Johan Roselind, then Lucky Strike is a black comedy TV series written by Nína Petersen. My priority is to meet new potential partners and look out for interesting projects for us to board as co-producers.

What drives you as a producer and what do you feel are the essential skills needed for a producer to make his/her project (film or TV drama) stand out on the market? 
LÓS: What drives me is the new challenges that each project brings, working with incredible talented people, finding new stories to bring to audiences (wherever they are), and making new and long-lasting relationships.

I believe that if the foundation of the project is strong and you have a unique script, the key is to have a close relationship with your creatives and a strong vision through the whole production. Then you might very well end up with the same unique project you all started out with, that will have the ability to stand out in the market place.