Press Release from eDIT Filmmaker’s Festival
Rolf Krämer: “I’m looking forward to my new role.” After years of ensuring the festival’s success as programme director, Rolf Krämer is taking over from Sebastian Popp as director of the eDIT Filmmaker’s Festival.
Frankfurt am Main, 19 March 2010
In his role as programme director, Rolf Krämer has had a defining influence on the content of the eDIT Filmmaker’s Festival over the past decade. He has been responsible for establishing new partnerships, such as that with the European Federation of Cinematographers IMAGO; for extending the festival’s spectrum to include almost all every cinematic discipline in the field; and for the concurrent, continuous development of the programme content. “With Rolf Krämer as festival director, the man who has long been the ‘brain’ of the eDIT will now be guiding its fate,” says Sebastian Popp, who is handing over the reins to Krämer after ten years at the helm.
Krämer is confident he can take on the challenge of the new role: “The team at Luna Park 64 is experienced and highly competent. They know what they’re doing, so I can build on an excellent foundation. I don’t need to reinvent the wheel, just make it a bit rounder,” he says. And it is ultimately down to Krämer and Popp’s leadership that a trade congress for digital postproduction became today’s internationally renowned festival for film and media professionals. This development has greatly benefited the state of Hesse, which sponsors the festival each year, along with its two partners, the Hessische Landesanstalt für Privaten Rundfunk und neue Medien (LPR Hessen) and the city of Frankfurt am Main.
“I am sure that – at least in the field of film and the media – no conventional marketing campaign has had such a targeted and sustained effect as the eDIT Filmmaker’s Festival on raising Hesse’s international profile,” says Krämer. “This kind of high-profile publicity is especially good for a place like Hesse, which lacks the recognition and means to fully exploit its incredible potential as a film location.”
After holding a Europe-wide call for proposals for the 2010 festival organiser, the sponsors once again decided to rely on the expertise of Frankfurt-based Luna Park 64 Medien Konzepte Projekte GmbH. Popp now plans to concentrate on his activities as managing director of Luna Park 64, but will continue to play a smaller role in the realisation of the festival. His successor sets out his plans for the festival’s future in the following interview.
Interview
“Virtual conferences are boring!”
Mr Krämer, the sole responsibility for the eDIT Filmmaker’s Festival now rests on your shoulders. How does that feel?
Right now, it feels great. I’m looking forward to being in charge of the festival and continuing to shape it in the future.
As programme director, you’ve been shaping the festival for some time now. Where do you see it today?
Filmmaking is teamwork! Understanding how the various disciplines function and what possibilities they offer helps make better films by getting people to work together more effectively towards their common goal – finding the ideal images to tell a compelling story. It is precisely this kind of collaboration among film professionals that is the focus of the festival. Cinematographers, editors, screenwriters, producers, Academy Award and Grimme Award winners come together here to talk about their specialist subjects in detail and to give insights into how they create films.
In that respect, the festival is truly unique, not only in Germany, but in all of Europe.
How important is the Filmmaker’s Festival for Hesse as a location?
Some say the event serves as a kind of beacon. I like the sound of that. A beacon is firmly anchored in the ground, yet it rises high into the air and is seen far and wide, providing crucial guidance and information to all those navigating the open seas alone and trying to find their bearings.
In this sense, the festival is the perfect advertisement for Frankfurt as a media city and for the Rhine-Main area, and an important factor in location marketing. Located in the heart of Europe, easily accessible from Prague, London, Paris, Istanbul and Berlin, Frankfurt is the ideal host city.
Now for our last question – what is your vision of the future of the eDIT Filmmaker’s Festival? Where do you see the festival ten years from now?
I definitely see it based in Frankfurt am Main, but perhaps as the centre of a network with “satellites” in other cities. The festival will become increasingly important as an interface between Central Europe and the rest of the world. It offers a forum for exchanging ideas and planning joint projects. It removes the technical distinction between arthouse and mainstream cinema, because everyone knows that, even though budgets differ, the creative challenges are the same. Creative solutions are something we can all learn from one another.
Outstanding filmmakers will share their skills and experience with us in master classes to an even greater extent than they do today. And I hope to build on our “Festival of Festivals” concept and give the public access to a wide variety of films they wouldn’t be able to see in cinemas.
But the main thing is to maintain the spirit of eDIT as a filmmaker’s festival that attracts professionals from all over the world to meet and exchange ideas. Because – for all the emphasis we place on digital media – virtual conferences are boring!
Kasten: Rolf Krämer, 44, is a lawyer specialising in media law. He is a shareholder and founder of Luna Park 64 Medien Konzepte Projekte GmbH. In addition to his role as programme manager of the eDIT Filmmaker’s Festival, he has overseen the project management for the Parade der Kulturen in Frankfurt for many years and has become an important mediator promoting intercultural dialogue in the city. Krämer has taken over as the new festival director of the eDIT Filmmaker’s Festival.