Speakers
Adam Daniel Mezei
PMDing
My professional activities these days consist of running my company, PMD-For-Hire
day-to-day affairs, and attending film markets around the continent as I continue to grow my business and evangelize the PMDing concept.
PMDing is a rapidly growing production role which made its accidental debut sometime around 2007,as major Hollywood distribution companies and mini-majors drastically cut back on their large advance payouts — or mininum guarantees
(MGs) — to independent producers for the privilege of exclusively marketing and promoting their projects.
It was during that same 2007 after a wildly successful festival run for his indie-financed international street art documentary — Bomb It! — that writer-director Jon
Reiss unfurled his vision for the independent scene’s future with his notion of the “artist-businessman,” the equivalent of the indie scene’s “uber-mensch.”
From 2007 onward, Reiss decreed that filmmakers should no longer idly wait for those ultra-rare lucrative distribution opportunities, instead boldly taking their films’
destinies into their own hands by wading out into the marketplace to engage their audiences directly.
There are under a dozen active PMDs across the world PMDing on a full-time basis, and I am one of them.
Britta Mischer
25films
Britta Mischer studied communications design in Hamburg. In 2001 she released the coffee table book "The youngsters - voices from the 13-30 year old (Die Jüngeren – Mitschnitte aus dem Leben der 13-30
Jährigen)" at Schwarzkopf Verlag.
Her camera work about youth culture is exposed in the European Rock ‘n‘ Pop museum in Gronau.
Since 2002 she works as an author and producer for German TV channels like ARD, Arte, WDR, KiKa, DW, ProSieben, VOX and Kabel 1. Her longer documentary films focus on cultural and social changes in global
society.
Her features high light trends in music and fashion.
In 2009 she founded with Nana Yuriko the non-profit organisation Global Eyes e.V. with the objective to create a global youth network by implementing sustainable media-workshops in collaboration with
institutions and foundations like the Federal Foreign Office of Germany or KNH in different countries.
Her media work brought Britta to Haiti, Palestine, India, South Africa,
Brazil, Cambodia, Australia or Cuba.
For her social entrepreneurship she won the German local sustainable prize.
Since 2011 she runs with Nana Yuriko, Peppa Meissner and Alexander Schmalz her own film production company 25films.
The documentary Bar25 is her first cinema project.
Claudia Rorarius
Soquiet Filmproduktion
Claudia Rorarius was born in Berlin. After her photography-studies at the Lette-Verein Berlin, she has been working successfully as a freelance photographer. Her intense potraits of celebrities were published in numerous intenational newspapers and magazines, such as Zeit-Magazin, Spex, WIRE and Wallpaper, among others. At the same time she was studying direction at the renowned Academy of Media Arts Cologne where she realized several internationally awarded short- and documentary films, such as "Cable Car" and "Twin" which were honoured "particularly valuable", among others. Furthermore, she has shot numerous music videos as well as in 2004 the documentary "Susanne" in cooperation with ZDF Das Kleine Fernsehspiel.
Chi l'ha visto is her first feature-length film, her completely successful feature film debut she also supervised as a producer. The movie was supported by the FFA German Federal Film Board as well as the Filmstiftung NRW.
Daniel Böhme
CEO, soda.film berlin
At age 15, I founded my first band, being 16 I directed my own dance group as a
choreographer and during my schooldays I started working as a graphic designer for bands and political underground guys (legal).
After my years of travel I played in 4 more bands which eventually lead me
to composing film scores and writing screenplays. In the meantime I had to earn my pocket money as a web designer and gained some acting experience in two drama groups.
My first directing I realized in 2002 with >paradogma< – and this experience convinced me to found my very own independent production company soda.film berlin.Since then I have been working as a freelance director, editor and producer of music videos, short films and social spots
David P. Heberling
pling.de
David P. Heberling is co-founder and owner of the Berlin based agency for digital communication, the Table of Visions GmbH. On the one hand, the agency focuses on online projects for many customers, on the other hand on implementing own web-based business ideas. One of their largest projects is the German crowdfunding platform pling.de, founded in 2010.
The platform gives everyone the possibility to present his or her own creative project and ask for financial support. Creative projects,such as music, film & video, product design, art & creation, games or photography can funded on pling.de. Every creative idea is welcome.
Denis Bartelt
CEO and co-founder , Startnext
Denis Bartelt, co-founder of Startnext, a crowdfunding platform that allows artists, creative people and inventors to fund their projects through contributions of many user. Launched in early 2010, Startnext is the biggest platform for creative projects in German-speaking countries which also established subplatforms like nordstarter.org for the city of Hamburg. The aim of Startnext is to further develop the crowdfunding model with new features like the community based crowdfonds, the starting phase and crowdfunding vouchers. Denis Bartelt is one of the initiators of the co:funding (www.cofunding.de) conferences and workshops, which follows the german claim: "Kreativität gemeinsam finanzieren". His motivation to build up a crowdfunding community in Germany goes back to his own profession as an advertising photographer and the financial challenges that come along.
In 2003 Denis Bartelt founded tyclipso.net as an internet software development agency. tyclipso.net is responsible for the infrastructure of community platforms like Startnext. The team of 20 employees also developped a complex software framework over the years which combines functionalities such as web-to-print, e-commerce, social media monitoring as well as communication and moreover content contribution to mobile devices. It all gives a strong base to his crowdfunding activities.
Felipe Bustos Sierra
Debasers Filums
Felipe Bustos Sierra will present his next crowd-funded film project and elaborate on his previous experience, which has seen three successful campaigns.
Born in Brussels to a Chilean journalist, an exile of Pinochet’s military coup, Felipe Bustos Sierra realised early on that stories have as many sides as they have storytellers. Early memories seemed brighter and more persistent and powerful when witnessed on film.
In Edinburgh, Scotland, he founded Debasers Filums in 2010 with like-minded artists and made Tixeon, a feminist sci-fi short in collaboration with local stand-up comedian and writer Sian Bevan. A first award for Tixeon provided the initial funding for the making of Three-Legged Horses, a short film about his experiences as a rickshaw driver in Edinburgh. It features the song „Gonna Fly Now (Theme from Rocky)“, which became the focus point of the crowdfunding campaigns on Kickstarter and Sponsume. His third film, surf rock dance film Five Six Seven Eight! was successfully crowdfunded as well. Both films are premiering at the Glasgow Film Festival in February 2012.
Florian Eichinger
Bergfilm
Florian Eichinger was born in Ludwigsburg in 1971. He relocated to Hamburg, where he worked as editor and also completed his first film and video works. He interned in publishing, worked as a TV producer and took a seven-month course in directing and screenwriting. In 2004, his short "Der letzte Geselle" won the Murnau Short Film Award. He also directed music videos, e.g. for Udo Lindenberg's "Ich schwöre", and numerous commercials, for instance for Wii Mario Kart.
With his earnings he financed his feature film debut Bergfest, that he also wrote the screenplay for. His second feature film Nordstrand is scheduled to be shot in summer 2012.
Gregory Vincent
Sponsume.com
Gregory Vincent is a pioneer of microfinance, having set up Europe’s first crowd-funding website sponsume.com. Launched in August 2010, Sponsume revolutionises the way film-makers and other creatives raise the funds they need to make their creative projects happen.
www.sponsume.com
Dr. Henrik Armah
Olswang
Dr. Henrik Armah is a Senior Associate in the Media team of OLSWANG and specialises in advising clients from the media, entertainment and technology industries.
Henrik has extensive experience in advising international and domestic clients active in the media business. In particular, his expertise comprises the financing, production and distribution of films, TV programmes and other audiovisual content. Henrik advises on the structuring of national and cross-boarder co-productions and the drafting and negotiation of all kinds of licence agreements. Another focus of his activity is on M&A transactions in the sector Media and Technology & Telecoms, combining media and corporate expertise. Henrik works on copyright and general IP law matters as well as on insolvency law issues. He also acts for sports and gambling clients.
Henrik studied law in Heidelberg and Berlin and received a doctor iuris from Potsdam University for his thesis on "Radio Broadcasting Rights to Sports Events". Prior to joining Olswang, Henrik was a lawyer in the TMT Group of Linklaters in Berlin and Munich. In 2011, Henrik worked for three months in Olswang's London office.
Ian Davies
Director, initialize-films.co.uk
Ian Davies is MD of Initialize Films. Initialize’s main work is as a matchmaker / broker for producers and directors in the film and TV who want to find partners in the international market. Most of Initialize’s work is commissioned by film funds including Creative Scotland, Danish Film Institute, Skillset, Swedish Film Institute, Irish Film Board, Northern Ireland Screen, Norwegian Film Institute and Finnish Film Foundation. Since 2008 Initialize has helped over 30 films get made and distributed including Emmy winning doc The English Surgeon and Rome Film Festival winner and Grierson nominated Sons of Cuba.
Ian also heads several training programmes on digital strategies financed by the BFI’s skills arm, Skillset. He also recently set up the Digital Filmmaker’s Network, a free online club for filmmakers who want to learn more about community building, digital distribution and crowdfunding.
Janine Scharf
VisionBakery
The VisionBakery is a possability to support creative ideas and ambitious projects fiancially. It is driven by the idea "all or nothing". So projects are either fully funded or the supporter can be sure to get all of its money back. It is a crowdfunding platform based in Germany. Users can submit their projects which range in various
fields such as music, social projects, events, journalism, film and video, arts, photography and others.
Janine is 27 years old and responsible for public relation and communication. She studied political science and social studies at the University of Leipzig. Besides her studies she worked for several newspapers and radio stations. Janine was born in
Lutheran town of Wittenberg and is now living in Berlin.
What she likes about crowdfunding is the idea of bringing together so many people and to know that's good for all of them.
Jessica Caldwell
Originally from Orrs Island, Maine, Jessica Caldwell is an independent film producer based in New York City. She graduated from Mt. Ararat High School at 16, Manhattanville College at 19, and was the youngest person admitted to Columbia University's Graduate Film Program at 20.While at Columbia she produced 11 short films on location in Ireland,
England, and various locations in the United States. Her first short film "AWOL" premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2011. Her first feature film "Electrick Children" will premiere at the 2012 Berlin Film Festival. She has multiple feature
film projects in development.
Karsten Wenzlaff
Institut für Kommunikation in sozialen Medien
Karsten Wenzlaff (31) is the founder and managing director of the Institut für Kommunikation in sozialen Medien.The Institute focuses on crowdfunding in the creative and cultural industries and is co-funder of the German crowdsourcing and crowdfunding association. Karsten published several studies and manuals on crowdfunding.
Konrad Lauten
CEO, Inkubato
Konrad Lauten is currently developing crowdfunding projects for different brands. He is CEO of inkubato, a crowdfunding plattform he released in 2010.
Since his intervention in the developement, marketing and distribution of the "sensatonics" herbal plant elixirs productline and "Elixier" herbal products in the 1990ies he moved into the catering sector. Catering concepts for festival appearances of the spacebar to promote the use of herbal drinks within the target group as well as finding the right distribution was his goal while working for these to companies.
Meanwhile he was setting up seasonal bars in temporary used spaces in Berlin to give the art scene venues for exhibitions and to promote musicians and new drinks. At his job as food+beverage manager for Berlins bar25 music club and restaurant he was taking care of companies incentives and events. He also set up a gallery for the Berlin art scene in this unique space.
He is active in the Berlins lively music scene organizing conference and workshop events. Being the project manager for the unconvention factory in Berlin in November 2011 as well as the "all2gethernow conference" was his most recent intervention. With his german cuisine catering service Kochzeichen.de he is offering yummy german food culture for instance for the german music delegation during sxsw musicfair in Austin, TX.
While working for Festivals and the art scene his work for Crowdfunding and financing creative projects is a main issue. His contacts and insights into the design, media, music and tourism market is helping to develope new business ideas.
Mark Dare Schmiedel
Dreamwalker
After becoming an experienced banker, Mark quickly realized that he would actuality really enjoy selling the bank itself. Living in that spirit, Mark then pursued a real estate career during which he set-up and developed multiple branches of real estate agencies like Engel &Voelkers in Bavaria. After having earned success, he decided to quit real estate in 1997 as he was eager to enter the media business.
He got an internship at CNN in New York, and became the assistant producer for "Bizz Buzz" and "Pinnacle" at CNN/CNNfn. After his time in New York, he returned to Germany and started to work as an independent media advisor. As a result, he developed customer relationship management (CRM) systems and marketing communication for clients and then started to produce and sell own crossmedia-formats with his company Dreamwalker GmbH, which always focuses alongside audio/video contract work on putting the artists and their products in the centre of attention.
Mark’s involvement with some notable Internet-Companies has brought strategically important new clients to the table. His company Dreamwalker is producing its first music documentary right now. Jazzanova like a band is being directed by Matthias Freier and co-produced by freier.eckert.
Matthew Way
Matthew Way - born 1974 in Pennsylvania, USA.Lives and works in Berlin and Hamburg, Germany.
1992-1997 Studied film at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, USA.
1997-1998 Taught middle school in Caracas, Venezuela.
1998-1999 Worked as a Fulbright Scholar in Hamburg, Germany.
1999-2004 Performed assorted jobs in the film business.
2004 Founded WayFilm.de: Production, Translations and Screenplays.
Is post-producing his own first feature “Reporting from Germany: The Genital Warriors” (director, writer and producer).
Has translated more than 500 films.Has run the “Filmklub” since 2007, which presents interesting guests and films to the public in Hamburg, Germany.
Nana Rebhan
DIRECTOR OF THE DOCUMENTARY
Nana Rebhan studied at the FU Berlin (Freie Universität Berlin) Film/Theatre and TV-Sciences and
at the TU Berlin (Technische Universität Berlin) Media Consultant and made her degree on the
films of Wong Kar Wai. After directing a theatre play she started studies at the Academy for
Television and Film (DffB) in Berlin. She has also was working for ARTE: she has been writing
specials from and on film festivals in Berlin, Cannes, Locarno and Venice.
Nana Yuriko
Director, 25films
Nana Yuriko
is a German-Japanese filmmaker and cinematographer. Having spent her youth in Asia, she moved to Berlin in 1994. There she worked as graphic designer for different record labels, as well as art director for the Tresor Club. From 1999 onwards she directed several documentaries, short films and music videos for ARTE, ARD and MTV. In collaboration with Thorsten Kregel she produced the music show ‘Total Extreeem TV’. As cinematographer she worked for ‘Confesstions of a Burning Man’, ‘Poem’ and Ralf Schmerberg’s ‘Problema’. Her passion are documentaries about music and socio-cultural issues. Recently she spent a year in Cambodia, where she shot ‘Beautiful Big Sister’, women portraits for the Heinrich Böll Foundation and ‘Cambodia for Sale’, a film about the forced relocation of a slum for an international human rights organisation.
Pati Keilwerth
PATISSERIE FILM
After finishing law school at the University Passau, Pati Keilwerth (PATISSERIE FLM) was hired to coordinate the protocol of the Berlin Film Festival. She continued working for the Berlinale in various departments and for the Broadcaster rbb, while studying Audiovisual Media Science at the Filmschool HFF “Konrad Wolf” in Potsdam-Babelsberg. Directly
after her diploma with a thesis on international Co-Production she began employment with Wim Wenders.
After a three-year tenure as Wim Wenders’s Executive Assistant, she embarked on new terrain in the media industry and has been engaged in digital distribution, online and social media marketing, as well as Cross Media ever since.
One Project she is currently working on is Paulina Tervo's interactive Crossmedia Project UTOPIA IN ETHIOPIA - THE AWRA AMBA EXPERIENCE.
Paulina Tervo
Write This Down Productions
Paulina Tervo is Interactive Producer and Documentary Filmmaker, passionate about using film and new forms of interactive storytelling for social change. She has produced and directed a number of short documentaries, as well as short fiction films and music videos for well-known artists. Her work has beenscreened at over 40 international film festivals; won two prestigious awards; been broadcast on a number of global TV channels including BBC World, CNN, Link TV, Current TV, YLE, TRT International and Press
TV as well as a number of web platforms.
Paulina also makes films for leading NGOs and educational institutions and is a regular contributor of documentaries, photography and multimedia articles to
the Finnish Foreign Ministry’s global development website. Her articles and photography have been published in many newspapers, magazines and online publications in Finland.
She also trains and mentors emerging filmmakers in Africa; leads participatory video
workshops and guest lectures at Universities and organizations. This year, she was on the Jury of the Addis Ababa International Documentary Festival.
Sarah Ulrike Nörenberg
budspencermovie.com
Sarah Ulrike Nörenberg was born 1990 in Speyer, Germany. After school she came into contact with the planning of a documentary movie about and featuring Bud Spencer. She moved to Vienna enthusiastic about the innovative concept of using web 2.0 as a helpful tool to include fans in the making.
There since 2009 she’s been leading the project www.budspencermovie.com as a producer and screenplay writer side by side with the director Karl-Martin Pold. Meanwhile she is studying Theatre, Film and Media Studies as well as Communication Science at the University of Vienna. Currently she is writing a book about the Spencer/Hill fandom.
Simon Chappuzeau
HomeBase Lounge
As a trained story analyst and script consultant Simon has had a lot of experience with project development. digitalfilmcamp grew out his perceived need of film makers in the digital age. Over the course of four years he therefore developed dfc to a very focused conference on crowd funding. Crowd funding, in his opinion, is the ultimate process that forces film makers to clearly analyze their market and target audience. Besides dfc Simon is an avid networker and owns HomeBase Lounge, a venue for corporate events from the tech- and media field. In his spare time he likes to pet his french roommates cat, Zinzin.
© Sabine Felber
Thomas Steiger
Freelancer
Thomas Steiger has been writing about the film and television industry for more than 15 years for trade papers like Blickpunkt:Film, Medien Bulletin or Professional Production. During this time he got an elaborate insight how the industry is constantly struggling to find new ways to finance its products. Currently he mainly works as online and social media editor and tries to make his way as a screenwriter.
At digitalfilmcamp's "Crowdfunding - more than a financing alternative" he will give a short overview about crowdfunded projects in the cultural industry and the experiences made with them as well as raise critical questions whether crowdfunding is a real financing alternative or just a marketing stunt.
Wolfgang Gumpelmaier
Social Film Marketing Consultant,
Wolfgang was born in 1978 and lives in Austria. During his media studies at Vienna University he worked as a film critic and journalist. He is a passionate web user and always on the hunt for the latest trends in Social Media, social film marketing, online film distribution, crowdfunding, community building etc. He aggregates his knowledge in his Social Film Marketing blog, on gumpelmaier.net, on Facebook and on Twitter. Wolfgang is also a regular speaker at a variety of workshops and film festivals. He is currently working on different projects throughout Europe.
At the digitalfilmcamp, Gumpelmaier will give a short introduction into crowdfunding, explaining how it works, how filmmakers (can) use it and which platforms one should consider. He will also give some examples of recently funded film projects.
Read more on his blog http://www.socialfilmmarketing.com/.
