Debut, squared

This year I had the honour to be on the jury for the debut prize (Filmprijs van de Stad Utrecht) of the Dutch film festival, which will take place 24 September – 3 October in Utrecht.  Over the course of two days, together with Saskia Diesing, director of the forthcoming film NENA and Chris Mouw, producer at the leading Dutch animation studio il Luster, I watched 24 films in two days.  I learned a great deal listening to the insights of active film-makers, through a lengthy, heartfelt and cordial ‘poldering’ process by which we chose three nominees, all of which were technically skilled and emotionally moving.  The winner will be announced at the opening 24 September (sadly I am giving a talk in Sweden that day, and cannot be there).  The announcement of the nominees and our jury report (in Dutch) can be found here.