Leontine Petit • Producer
Producer on the move 2006 - Netherlands
por Joëlle Kilimnik
Leontine Petit graduated in Philosophy from the University of Amsterdam before setting up her own production company Lemming Film with Joost de Vries and screenwriter Marco van Geffen in 1995.
In her position as Head of Production in charge of development and financing, she has helped to make Lemming Film into one of the leading film and television production companies based in Amsterdam, with a proven track record in delivering quality commercial film and television productions aimed at the children's, teen and family market. One of her most important productions includes Martin Koolhoven’s (see Schnitzel Paradise [+lee también:
crítica
tráiler
entrevista: Martin Khoolhoven
entrevista: Mimoun Oaïssa
ficha de la película] (see Focus), which was a major commercial success, and she is presently producing Koolhoven’s new film The President (see news).
Cineuropa: You graduated first in philosophy before completing the EAVE programme
and then you ended up being in charge of development and financing for Lemming
Film. This is an unusual trajectory from philosophy to head of production.
Leontine Petit : As a creative producer every day I’m working with concepts and ideas of
projects that have to be sold in a package and on a piece of paper. To be
able to think in concepts is something I have learned from my study. In
the period between completing my studies and setting up my company I have learned the
profession as a production manager and line producer.
Why did you call your company Lemming?
Lemming is a name that you can pronounce in many languages and it sounds
funny to me. Besides that making films is a bit like jumping into an unknown
world.
Your production company is very much focused on the European and
international film industry. Did the EAVE programme open up new
opportunities for you in that direction?
Definitely. Along with my Dnet group, which came about through EAVE, it kept it
alive. Dnet is a group of five European producers in the D group from EAVE that
became friends and have been meeting each other every six months for the past ten years.
Your main target audience are children and teenagers.
Do you believe that there is work to be done for this particular audience
and why?
Children should have the possibility to see the same quality and
diversity of films as adults. That goal has still not been achieved, so
yes there is still a lot of work to do. Also the status of children and
teenage film is still very low which is something that has to change.
At the same time your production slate is very varied, with TV series, docs,
features ranging from continental Europe, to Africa, South America and
Mongolia. Isn't it difficult to keep the line of Lemming Films on such a
wide scope of productions?
I’m busy together with Marco van Geffen (writer/director) on the
development of feature films and TV drama and within my company Renee
van Grinten works as a creative producer for documentaries. Besides that
my business partner Joost de Vries takes care of the business side of things and legal affairs. So when a feature is sold he steps in to finalize the deal and to set up
the production. From that moment on I only work on the content side of
our projects. That’s why we can achieve a lot together.
What do you expect from your nomination as a Producer on the Move?
I expect to broaden my network and to put my company a little bit more
on the international film production map.
See the background
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