Impact in Practice: the Cases of Shadow Game & De Oost

In collaboration with NAPA, the Netherlands Audiovisual Producers Alliance, we present the panel Impact in Practice: the Cases of Shadow Game & De Oost.

Making an impact with audiovisual productions has been a proven practice for quite some time. But what is impact actually and how do you ensure your story generates as much impact as possible? How do your measure success and how do you finance your impact project? What strategies and structures work, and what don’t? When is an impact project an added value to your documentary or feature film? Or does it work the other way around: is a documentary or feature film an addition to your impact project?

Eefje Blankevoort (Prospektor), Tina Farifteh, Sander Verdonk (New Amsterdam Film Company)and Ariadne Asimakopoulos share their experiences and lessons learned in the coarse of making an impact with documentary Shadow Game and feature film De Oost

About Shadow Game
Many of them call it ‘the game’: the journey along the Balkan route into western Europe. For the teenage boys we meet in Shadow Game, it is a way to keep themselves motivated. There are different games: the train game, the container game, the walking game. ‘It’s a mission’, SK (15) from Afghanistan says. ‘If you complete it, you win the game.’ And if you fail, you will try again next time. There really is no other option.

Shadow Game brings us very close to the many unaccompanied minors trying to find protection in Europe. The disarming Hammoudi (14) from Syria tells us about the time he was stopped by masked policemen in Croatia. We see Yaseen (17) from Pakistan, carrying a little cat he found and shares his food with. For all of them, and the other boys in the film, the emotional and physical impact of what they’re going through is severe. Still, many retain a youthful, innocent optimism. 

About De Oost (The East)
Indonesia, 1946. Johan is a young Dutch soldier who, along with more than a hundred thousand others, is sent out to put things in order in the Dutch East Indies during the war of independence. Gradually, Johan falls under the spell of the charismatic army captain Westerling, nicknamed The Turk. When the war escalates and De Turk crushes the population's resistance more and more mercilessly, the line between good and evil becomes increasingly blurred for Johan.

Language: English

This programme is organised in collaboration with NAPA.