Wouter Jansen of Some Shorts/Square Eyes on the international sales game

Read our interview with the head of Dutch international sales and festival promotion company Square Eyes (formerly Some Shorts) who will hold a talk on festival strategy for shorts in the long run along with Marija Milovanovic of Vienna-based Lemonade Films on Wednesday, November 27.

Dutch international sales agent Wouter Jansen began working in the industry as a programmer for the Oscar-qualifying Go Short International Short Film Festival Nijmegen, where he was the head of programming from 2008 to 2018. In 2013, he started his company Some Shorts—which re-branded itself as Square Eyes earlier this year—specializing in visually powerful and daring, auteur-driven feature and short films. With Square Eyes, Wouter tries to support both upcoming talents and more established film makers, and promote their films internationally. This has resulted in a small catalogue of films premiering at prestigious festivals and winning multiple awards over the last few years, including main prizes at Cannes, TIFF, Berlin, Locarno, and Clermont-Ferrand.

We talked to Wouter about the international sales game, festivals, the potential of short films in the market, and what to expect at Wednesday’s Industry Session.

How does a sales agent switch from shorts to features?

The shift from short to features came quite naturally for me, as a lot of directors I was working with slowly moved into features and asked me to also work with them on those films. That’s also why I keep on working with short films. Besides the fact that I love them, it’s also the perfect moment to discover the next talented directors. It is a completely different field though: other programmers at the festivals handle the features, as well as other buyers and channels that you need to reach for possible sales. But I was lucky to work with a couple of great first films, so that was an easy introduction to the field. But for new people my move into features was still a bit confusing and that’s also why after three years working with features, I finally decided to change the company name from Some Shorts to Square Eyes, to show this shift within the company.

What is it that you are looking for in films that you take on? Does it differ between shorts and features?

For short films there is quite a small market for possible sales, and most of the films I am interested in don’t completely match with what buyers are looking for, but are more oriented towards festivals. I think this preference comes from my background as a festival programmer. With feature films I noticed that a lot of the films that stuck with me over the years are seen as more “difficult” for sales, but work well within festivals. But with features, luckily, there is a bit more possibility for alternative distribution or small cinema-runs. So that’s the space I try to occupy with Square Eyes: a small, strong selection of more artistic and daring films. And always in a close and transparent collaboration with the directors and producers.

How do you see the situation with international sales companies nowadays? The most frequent reaction is, “there’s too many,” but is that really the case? How does the rise of streaming platforms influence the scene?

I’m still the new kid on the block when it comes to features, but I don’t feel like there’s too many companies. At least I think that the number of strong companies is still not that big. There are so many directors that don’t find representation for their films, so that seems to indicate something. With streaming platforms, I think there are definitely more possibilities to sell a film, and that it maybe becomes a bit more tempting to go for one big sale instead of going from territory to territory. Because of that it also becomes a bit easier for producers to sell their film themselves; they are just hoping to catch that one big fish.

What do you think about IDFA’s new approach to shorts?

I’m always happy to see more shorts being programmed, and also to combine them with features so that you can reach a lot of audiences. I’m a bit critical, though, about the stricter premiere policies that are in place since this year. I don’t feel like the program has become much stronger because of it: even though it’s all premieres, some films are already a few months old. I feel like IDFA doesn’t yet have the position in the shorts landscape for directors to want to premiere here, also because the short film industry is not really present during the festival. So there is still some work there to be done.

In your Industry Session, you will speak about strategy for short films in the long run. What are the most important points here, and what is there for shorts except festivals?

In the talk, Marija Milovanovic of Lemonade Films and I will tackle the basics when it comes to the festival strategy for a short film. There are so many festivals out there, so it’s quite easy as a starting director to get lost. We will talk about how you can decide which festivals to target up till the online release possibilities for your film. Festivals are really important for a short, and if you have a successful film you can generate quite a lot of revenue through them. And for short docs there is also a lot possible with online sales, with platforms like The Guardian, Op-Docs and Topic, for instance.

Source：IDFA