13/05/2013 - Managing director Jørgen Ramskov, of Denmark's Radio24syv radio channel, will be chairman of the new fund, which has been discussed for 20 years

Denmark’s capital, Copenhagen, launched the Copenhagen Film Fund, which – with a €5.1 million budget –will join the competition to attract international productions to the region to benefit not only the film industries, but also the businesses servicing them: travel, hotels, restaurants.

At Copenhagen’s City Hall, Culture Mayor Pia Allerslev introduced the chairman of the new fund, which will operate from the autumn when a managing director has been appointed: Jørgen Ramskov, ceo of Denmark’s Radio24syv radio channel, once head of production shingle Nimbus Film, Copenhagen Film Festivals and chief of development-production at the Danish Film Institute.

“Over the years Copenhagen has had so many opportunities in this area, they have all been wasted. We have been competing with other cities, all supported by film funds – and we have had a sack of cement on our backs. It’s gone now, now we have got money, too,” Ramskov explained. Producers receiving support must spend two times the money in the region; the fund expects to create a 3.25 times its investments.

The city of Copenhagen has chipped in the lion’s share – or €2.7 million – of the budget for the operation; other contributors include Danish major, Nordisk Film, Danish Producers Association and Danish Actors Union. “Originally we went for an €8 million account, but the state did not want to participate – and I was afraid if we did not start it now, we would never get it rolling,” said Allerslev.

After being in discussion for 20 years, the Copenhagen Film Fund will join the two other regional film funds in Denmark, FilmFyn at Faaborg on the island of Funen, and the West-Danish Film Fund in Aarhus, with annual budgets of €1.3 million and €670,000, respectively. Funen catered for Susanne Bier’s Oscar-winner In A Better World [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2010), Aarhus for Nikolaj Arcel’s Oscar-nominated A Royal Affair [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Mikkel Boe Følsgaard
interview: Nikolaj Arcel
film profile] (2012).