The Leiden Film Festival is celebrating its fifth anniversary this year and is introducing a new film award for the occasion: the Iron Herring. With this award, which is unique in the Netherlands, the festival hopes that better films can be seen by more people in cinemas.

The organization has selected six international narrative feature films to give them a chance at a Dutch release. Many of the films you see at the festival never reach cinemas. Festival co-founder Michael Roumen: 'Every year, beautiful films are made that are not released in the Netherlands. We think that is a real shame.'

A professional, international jury assesses during the festival which film wins the Iron Herring Award. The accompanying prize money of €10,000 is not awarded to the filmmaker or the producer, but to the distributor who distributes the film in the Netherlands. In this way, the festival aims not so much to encourage the making of films, but rather to have them screened, and this approach is new in the Dutch film world.

By helping with distribution costs, the festival hopes to give the acquisition of arthouse films a boost. Michael Roumen: 'The goal is for good, international films to actually be shown in the Netherlands, and not just at festivals. A distributor doesn't always have enough budget; that is where we help.'

The contenders for an Iron Herring this year are: My Brothers (IRL 2010), (Untitled) (USA 2009), How I Ended This Summer (RUS 2010), My Suicide (USA 2009), The Trotsky (CAN 2009), Breaking Upwards (USA 2009).

The jury members are: Jos Stelling (Dutch director), Matthijs Wouter Knol (Head of Programming Berlinale Talent Campus), and Sam Klebanov (Russian distributor and producer).

The Iron Herring is made possible in part by main sponsor Ziggo.



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