Lübeck Meetings 2024 – a Platform for Talent, Networking, and New Initiatives

Lübeck, October 24, 2024. The 66th Nordic Film Days Lübeck will include the 14th Lübeck Meetings, the annual industry rallying point for up-and-coming talent and professional intercommunication. The Lübeck Meetings events provide a platform for German, Nordic, and Baltic filmmakers to talk about current developments and network with potential partners.

Anne Schultka, the new head of Lübeck Meetings, is looking forward to her first year at the helm and to expanding the focus of the events. “I very much want to open the door wider and strengthen the connection between the film industry and Lübeck’s public”, she said. “Our festival not only provides filmmakers with an important stage, but also with the unique opportunity to get direct feedback from an enthusiastic and knowledgeable public.”

NFL managing director Susanne Kasimir added, “when I took over as managing director of the Nordic Film Days Lübeck in 2020, it was a primary focus of mine to further expand the Lübeck Meetings in order to position the festival as an economic force in the Lübeck region and the state of Schleswig-Holstein, providing local businesses and institutions, as well as Lübeck’s creative community with forums for networking and communication”.

The best example of that is the Future North programme to promote new talent, which launched last year with great success and will continue thanks to the support of the Possehl Foundation. During Future North, six budding directors from the Baltic States, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, and Schleswig-Holstein will present clips from their current film projects –Johannes Magnus Aule (Estonia), Jackie Gillies (Schleswig-Holstein), Rūta Znotina (Latvia), Dennis Møller (Greenland), Gabrielė Urbonaitė (Lithuania), and Andrias Høgenni (Faroe Islands). They will receive valuable feedback from industry experts. The presentations and discussions, which will be open to the public, are scheduled for Thursday, November 7 and Friday, November 8. To register, please write to industry_1@nordische-filmtage.de.

Another highlight of the Lübeck Meetings will be the discussions, open to the public, of the Nordic directors’ guild, who will hold their annual meeting in Lübeck for the first time. The open dialogue will explore the challenges faced by independent and artistic film projects and the increasing influence of production companies and market-driven decisions on the artistic freedom of directors.

The Lübeck Meetings are not only about creative communication, but also about bolstering the region’s economy with film production. In cooperation with the Wirtschaftsförderung Lübeck (Lübeck economic development council), the framework for creatives in film and media will be the subject of the panel discussion “Schleswig-Holstein – A Creative Hub Between Coasts”. The key question is how Schleswig-Holstein can position itself as an attractive destination. In addition to presentations and discussions of the framework and needs of the industry, special attention will be addressed to the state’s excellent connections to the Nordic and Baltic countries, and its position as part of the Hanseatic belt and the Hamburg metropolitan area. Examples of successful initiatives include the Lübeck Script Development Grant, or the NEST programme by the MOIN Film Fund.

The extensive Lübeck Meetings programme, with events such as the documentary film master class, and the public sessions of the Federation of Film Clubs for Children and Young People (BJF), provide a variety of opportunities for networking and professional exchanges. For the first time this year, all Lübeck Meetings events can be found online in the festival programme.

Just as in previous years, industry professionals from distribution, television, and acquisition will have exclusive access and recommendations on festival screenings to discover films for the German market. Once again this year, the festival is offering streaming to enable wider access to the festival movies not only for accredited guests, but for interested film and TV fans; the streaming will be available until November 17, 2024.

We would like to thank our partners CineStar, STAWAG, Stadtwerke (public utilities) Lübeck, Moinsener, skanbo, Finnlines, Grundstücks-Gesellschaft TRAVE, Convotis, SG Medientechnik, avt plus Mediaservice, Europäisches Hansemuseum and our media Medienpartners, broadcaster NDR and the Lübecker Nachrichten newspaper. 

Presscontact:

Julia Kainz, PR Agentur filmcontact
E-Mail: presse@nordische-filmtage.de
Telefon: +49 (0) 163 2508578