interview What do short films mean to you as a producer? When I meet new filmmakers, it is always very important for me to find out if we can work together, whether we think alike. Short films offer this: we can try each other out, which is a crucial thing to do before embarking on a large-scale project together. It is always important to get to know the previous works of new directors, but to me, their personality and the project they want to involve me in are much more relevant. Naturally, one cannot always be certain and debutant filmmakers often mean a risk. There have been cases, where, based on the personality of the director and his previous works, we started a coproduction but we failed.
Right now, the situation of exam films in Hungary is controversial, which is a great problem: it would be crucial for every filmmaker to embark on the project of his first feature film after having made shorts in decent circumstances and of decent standards. Does making short films mean any financial advantages?
We have not made a profit with any of our short films yet - at most, we broke even. Luckily, we can invest our profit from other ventures in short films. But the situation is not all hopeless. There are film festivals where the short films How much say do you have in a joint project? in competition get paid for, and after a number of festival appearances, this I am not a director, nor am I a scriptwriter or art amount can be a significant one to rely director - but I am no sponsor, either. Having upon - of course, one needs a successful worked with a great number of debutant film- film for that! makers, it has happened many times that directors called me to say that they needed money for What opportunities do debutant filmthe shooting of their exam film that was to start makers have in the Visegrad region? the following day and would I please give them the money they needed. But that’s not how it MIDPOINT and NISI MASA are two works. I like to be involved in the development of the best organisations offering opphase from the very beginning, from the moment portunities for filmmakers in the rethe idea for a film hatches. I like to observe the gion. MIDPOINT is a two (one plus work in progress, to see where the project is go- one) week workshop, specifically aimed ing. I can only think of the project as my own if I at students and graduates living and was there at the solving of the problems too. working in Central Europe, that focuses mainly on scriptwriting. At these workWhen somebody contacts you with the plans for a shops, participants can develop their feature film and sends his previous short films as a scripts with the help of script doctors. NISI MASA’s European Short Pitch proreference - what do you primarily focus on? ject consists of a series of events too: I watch these films with great interest, because I first, the selected film ideas are develam primarily intrigued by the creator behind: I oped at scriptwriting workshops, then, have to put the filmmaker’s person into context. at the closing event, they are pitched in Fortunately, over the years I have developed an front of a panel of film professionals ability to consider each film as a whole, irrelevant that is also something that filmmakers of how much money its production might have don’t usually learn about at film school. Both programmes can be very useful to cost. emerging filmmakers. WOSH by Daazo.com - the European Shortfilm Centre 21