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M:BRANE 2021

The 15th edition of the M:brane Forum ready to kick off

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- Well-prepared and efficient after last year’s halt to proceedings, Malmö’s financing forum for youth media is getting ready to present a reenergised 15th edition

The 15th edition of the M:brane Forum ready to kick off
The M:brane studio, ready for live-streaming (© Camilla Larsson)

All dressed up and nowhere to go was quite a literal scenario more or less exactly one year ago. The 2020 edition of the M:brane youth and children’s media financing forum in Malmö, Sweden, scheduled for 10-12 March, had to hit the brakes at the very last minute, as the pandemic became a harsh and sudden reality. As efficiently as possible, a plan B had to be invented, utilising the digital platforms that have now become the norm for such events.

One year later, M:brane has been suitably tailor-made for all current requirements and regulations as it kicks off its jam-packed 2021 programme on 16 Tuesday March, as producers, decision makers, buyers, distributors, sales agents and professional observers will sign in for the 15th edition of the event, unspooling until 18 March. Industry panels, pitching sessions and workshop activities are all on the invigorating agenda, and attendance levels are encouragingly high, reports director Lennart Ström (see the interview), who in November, together with his team, decided to abandon all hybrid solutions involving physical elements and make the forum entirely virtual. “The upside to this form is, of course, that it is open to participants from far away and everywhere,” he notes. Along these boundless lines, countries like Jamaica, Chile, Jordan, Greece, Bulgaria and the Philippines are all participating for the first time this year.

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Parts of the planned 2020 programme have been resurrected. “They’re just too good to let go,” says Ström, pointing out the panel “One Film Can’t Have It All” and an inspirational talk entitled “Humour and Box Office”, while a fresh 2021 addition is the “Science and Natural History Track”, featuring a keynote speech by Donata von Perfall, director of the Documentary Campus and Silbersalz Science & Media Festival in Halle, Germany. Restored, reenergised and rejuvenated from last year is also the “Country in Focus: Canada” programme, taking a closer look at the ever-growing world of immersive content. The session producer is seasoned VR and immersive-content expert Audrey Pacart from Quebec, and participating are Thomas Azoug, of Phi Studio Canada, Louis-Richard Tremblay, from the National Film Board of Canada, and Nicolas S Roy, creative director and president of Dpt. in Montreal. All in all, 233 delegates of 35 different nationalities are on board, setting a new record, notes Ström, who estimates the value of the 40 projects in development presented at this year’s edition to be a total of €50 million.

The latter half of the event will be devoted to pitching sessions for, in total, 26 projects from 20 countries, all eligible for the M:brane 2021 Pitch Award, worth €2,500, in collaboration with Creative Europe. As an overture, a workshop session organised under the RealYoung banner, in collaboration with IDFA and Paradiddle Pictures Denmark, will look at eight new documentary projects together with a hand-picked panel of target-audience members, offering direct and honest opinions on the presented works.

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