14/03/2008

Following Nordisk Film’s recent acquisition of 50% of Zentropa, Nordisk Film's Managing Director Michael Ritto spoke to Cineuropa about his vision to create a "North European film company that will attract the strongest creative talents."

Cineuropa: You've been aggressively buying into high-profile Nordic production companies over the last two years, the most recent one being Zentropa. Could you please explain your vision and plan?
Michael Ritto: When I came to Nordisk Film two years ago, I came to a company that I think needed a clear position in the marketplace. We were active in many different areas: film and TV production, distribution, play station, post-production, and this, across Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland. The overall picture was of a very fragmented business and the level of trading in each segment and in each market was rather uneven.

Then for many years, Nordisk Film Distribution had been handling major content first for Fox, then Sony Pictures. But just before I came, the agreement with Sony stopped. All of a sudden, we had a lack of content in our distribution pipelines. With film distribution, you need a constant flow of product otherwise you don't have the right profile for retail, media and people employed. You need a well-oiled machine working all the time. So I started thinking that where we could perhaps make a difference and have a clear profile in the market was by being simply Nordic, like our name.

We were already quite big in Denmark and Norway with our own company Nordisk Film. In the other markets, there were two things we could do: either start to build up a slate of productions, or get into partnership with creative people. Personally, I come from the music business. I had my own music company, sold it to EMI, and then managed EMI in the Nordic territories for many years. Based on the music model, my idea was to create partnerships with creative people and with those handling the talents, producers.

At Nordisk, we realized that there were many companies that would benefit from being part of a bigger machine, for instance to get cheaper media, and access to markets. So our strategy was to partner with locally-based production companies. In Norway, we first bought 50% of Maipo. Between Nordisk, 4 ½ Production with whom we have an output deal and Maipo, we now have around eight films per year, enough product in our slate to always be in the market.

In Finland, we already had a minority share in MRP Matila Röhr Production. We strengthened that relationship by acquiring another 10%, so we now own 30% of the company. We then acquired 50% of Solar Films. In Sweden, we acquired 50% of S/S Fladen.

By buying into Zentropa, you said your plan is to create a North European film studio...
Yes. Zentropa is now the strongest of all Nordic production companies. It will be a key element for the development of co-productions strategies between all our partners and their collaborations have already started: for instance S/S Fladen has a new project that will be co-produced by Zentropa's Berlin branch, and I'm now putting together Markus Selin (Solar Films) and Peter Aalbek Jensen (Zentropa) on Renny Harlin's Mannerheim project. We have the financial cushion to make bigger Nordic films that can travel across European borders, but we also want to find the right stories that can cross borders.

Will those films be in the English language?
It will depend on the stories. For instance we're adapting Stieg Larsson's Millennium best-selling trilogy in the Swedish language. Denmark’s Niels Arden Oplev is directing the first movie The Girl With the Red Tattoo. It's a co-production between us and Yellow Bird.