_{It's Nice in Here by Robert-Jonathan Koeyers}

Neter will be back in Cannes this year with one of his new films in official selection. It’s Nice In Here*, directed by Robert-Jonathan Koeyers and receiving a world premiere in Critics’ Week, is a very topical animated tale, dealing with adolescence, race and police violence.

The project came to Neter via its producer, Richard Valk of Valk Productions. “He reached out to me because I have been selling other shorts for him in the past,” the SND boss explains. “I have known him for at least 10 or 15 years already.”

Sometimes, Neter suggests, “things just come together.” He felt that the animation in It’s Nice In Here complemented the storytelling perfectly. The style is deceptively simple but the film touches on complex and provocative subject matter. This is also a story with a considerable sting in the tail.

Neter is working on the project alongside Hidde de Vries’ Kapitein Kort, a distribution agency specialising in short films that show at festivals.

Meanwhile, SND Films also has several titles in the Cannes Marché, among them the short comedy Rene Nuijens’ Covid Love (which has already been sold widely to, among others, Movistar in Spain and Canal Plus in France). 

“There are not that many short live actions that are actually funny funny,” says Neter. It is also about a subject that everyone can relate to. That is the good thing about Covid. If you say Covid, everyone knows what lockdown - and distancing - is now.” Neter adds that there are a lot of other Covid short films but most are very sad.

Other titles on SND’s Cannes slate include French animation Mon Tigre, Dutch animated short Pig from Jorn Leeuwerink*, and Leon Golterman’s Aeronaut* (also chosen as part of the CineSud’s Talents to Cannes 2022 initiative). 

The SND Films boss suggests that the short film sales sector may have fared better during the pandemic than the feature film sales arena. “We are not dependent on theatrical sales… so that is a big pro in this case. Most of us already had distribution deals in place with online platforms.”

SND is part of a collective with around a dozen other sales agents which runs a Short Film channel on YouTube. Launched in 2018 under the name KIS KIS - keep it short, the channel now has 460,000 subscribers. The other partners are Magnetfilm (Berlin), Interfilm (Berlin), Kurzfilmagentur (Hamburg), MIYU (Arles), Premium Films (Paris), Ouat Media (Toronto), New Europe Film Sales (Warsaw), Shortcuts (Paris), Salaud Morisset (Paris), Radiator IP Sales (Brussels) and Network Ireland Television (Dublin).

On one level, KIS KIS is a departure for Neter. He runs a business to business company and rarely sells directly to consumers. “YouTube is, of course, for consumers. But I am not running the channel. The aggregators do that.” However, he can see the advantages of releasing films through the channel. One of his titles, Joost Lieuwma’s animated short How Dave And Emma Got Pregnant*(2012), has now received around 15 million views.

Another advantage to KIS KIS is that it gives extra shelf life to old Dutch gems like Michael Dudok de Wit’s Oscar winning 2000 animated short Father And Daughter. “In the old days, there was no way we were able to monetise these shorts.”

The returns, which are generated by advertising,  may not be huge but this is still useful income.

“We have noticed that animation does better than live action,” Neter observes of the trends among viewers on KIS KIS. “Anything sexual or sensual, that usually worked well too. For some reason, people click on it apparently!”

For more information on SND Films, visit their website here. For more information on Marché du Film, click here. You can read the full Dutch screening schedule here.
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*Film is supported by the Netherlands Film Fund