Company Profile
Our tailor-made production, distribution, marketing and promotion efforts match each story and make the stories seen in all media of the world. Online, and off, here, now, and everywhere.
We get to work when the good stories bring us into universes we never knew existed, when they take us through hell and back, when they walk rainbows with us, and when we learn something about our complex and beautiful world, hoping, smiling, curious. When all emotions convey a statement, a political one, a human one, the filmmakers very own one. When there is authenticity in the story and fantasy in the images. And when we come back to reality and find a world that will never look the same again.
Accessible & passionate one-offs, features, series, slots, theme nights, transmedia. More than 300 constantly renewed hand-picked titles from all over the world, for all the world. Diverse and inclusive.
We work as international distributors & sales agents and executive producers, with access to talent, story tellers and architects, directors, producers, broadcasters and funding bodies. We find the partners and the finance and simply make things work. We deal with the entire production process as its ‘foreign ministers’ - and then we deliver. We handle commissioned programs, and facilitate co-productions anywhere.
In Switzerland, we target theaters and their audiences since 2013 with fiction and docs alike: see firsthandfilms.ch!
We work with ambitious and realistic projects worldwide, combining intelligence, practical knowledge and experience. We have sold hundreds of licenses, turned over more than ten million Euro, solved zillions of problems, and we remain autonomous.
The hard facts Since 1998, Esther van Messel runs FHF in Zurich and Berlin for international distribution and production of documentaries, series, fiction films and transmedia. FHF acts as executive producer for selected projects and has worked with major broadcasters (like ABC, Arte, BBC, CH4, HBO, NHK, PBS, ZDF) and distributors (like Amazon, Salzgeber, Oscilloscope, Dogwoof, MUBI, iTunes) around the world. FHF is present at all major festivals around the year, with booths and stands at the main events such as the MIPs, La Rochelle, Sheffield, Amsterdam, Buenos Aires and Seoul. First Hand Films have competed in Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Rotterdam, Locarno, Pusan, Sundance, Tribeca, Toronto and many others. FHF’s very first pick-up went on to receive the OSCAR® for Best Documentary Feature. Since then, most First Hand Films have won awards: Cinema for Peace, Emmy, Prix Europa, many of all IDFA main awards, Biarritz, Banff, Grimme-Preis, Grierson, Grand Prix Nyon, many National Film Awards, European Film Awards, Silver Leopards, Golden Rose Montreux a.m.o.
By now, all First Hand Films have been seen by hundreds of millions of people.
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