Dear Colleagues and dear Film Industry Professionals all over the world,
Welcome to the first ICDN Website!
When three individual Casting Directors from Spain, the UK and Italy were invited to speak about Casting at a Forum in Germany in 1994, little did we know that this would be the first step to what was to become the International Casting Directors Network (ICDN).
Today, 25 years later and with over 90 members from 29 different countries, the overall ICDN goal continues to be what our colleagues in the US and UK have worked so hard to achieve: the recognition of the Casting Director as a Head of Department. Just as is the Costume Designer, the Director of Photography and the Art Director.
In order to achieve this goal, we need to be aware of and respect all our different cultures and histories, and how they may have conditioned us. This is an opportunity that you don’t get in an organisation that operates on a national level – to discover, grow together, make decisions and share responsibilities. And thereby to develop our very own ICDN identity: open, respectful and keen to collaborate with other countries and associations.
We look forward to working with you!
Beatrice Kruger
ICDN President 2018-2020
Rome, 26 September 2019
Camilla-Valentine Isola at the first European casting meeting in 1998
© Uwe Völkner/Fotoagentur FOX
Beatrice Kruger at the first European casting meeting in 1998
© Uwe Völkner/Fotoagentur FOX
Debbie McWilliams at the first European casting meeting in 1998
© Uwe Völkner/Fotoagentur FOX
The New Faces workshop at the first European casting meeting. Left to right: Olle Westholm, Beatrice Kruger, Thomas Biehl, Jeanette Snik, Debbie McWilliams and Camilla-Valentine Isola. © Uwe Völkner/Fotoagentur FOX
ICDN – the story so far
In 1994 film critic, former CEO of the NRW Film Foundation and later Director of the Berlin International Film Festival, Dieter Kosslick, invited international Casting Directors Debbie McWilliams (UK), Camilla Valentine Isola (ES) and myself (IT) to the Media Forum in Cologne to speak about casting. The very first step towards what was later to become the International Casting Directors Network was taken.
Since then, we remained in touch, shared our experiences of casting in various countries, helped each other and started collaborating on co-productions.
As the Internet was not yet established, we met at the Berlin International Film Festival every year, in particular for the European Shooting Stars Awards, and this also started attracting more and more casting director colleagues from other countries.
In 2016 we decided to create a Best Casting award, presented for the first time at the Locarno Film Festival.
Read more about the ICDN’s Best Casting award
In the meantime, we also became independent of the EFP and founded the ICDN officially as an international non-profit organisation based in Berlin in 2019. We have a truly international board, currently consisting of 8 members (from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Poland, UK and US). Our main focus is always to make our profession known in each of our members’ country and promote the advantages of collaborating with a Casting Director to their respective directors and producers at film and TV festivals, film schools, theatre academies and industry events.
And now is a good moment for our profession, thanks to a few very important events, such as the recognition of a Casting Directors Branch at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2013, the election of Casting Director David Rubin as the new Academy President, the first BAFTA for Best Casting coming up next year.
Finally, and whilst already preparing our next General ICDN Meeting at the Berlinale 2020, we look forward to the further development of our ICDN website – thanks to the precious support of Spotlight and our ICDN website committee: Camilla-Valentine Isola (ES) and Esther Kling (IL).
As always, casting is both a blessing and at times a slightly more challenging blessing.
There is still a lot to do and together we can do it – step by step!
