BBDO's Steffen Gentis Celebrates 10 Years Of Director's Lounge

The Regielounge, or Directors Lounge, is hitting its 10th year next month and is celebrating with a super anniversary special in its hometown of Dusseldorf. Featuring special guests from all over the world (and an anticipated capacity crowd of 2000 guests) the show is set to showcase some of the best moving-image work adland has to offer.

Attendees can expect inspiring work from directors like Kibwe Tavares (multiple winner of the YDA), Markus Walter (Coke Zero, VW, Nike) and Zoran Bihac (Media Markt, Jim Beam, Mc Donald's), not to mention special guests from YouTube, BFF (The German Association of Freelance Photographers) and Tracks & Fields.

The guest list opens today (21th August), so get your name down QUICK! Once you've done that, check out our chat with Regielounge mastermind Steffen Gentis on the past 10 years of talent-spotting.



So, as the Regielounge hits its 10-year mark, the big questions is… are you fed up with it yet? ;-)

Far from it! We mean the Regielounge to be an inspirational platform, and as a really good moment for spending time with interesting directors, getting to know them better and for viewing their work on the big screen in perfect quality (you'd be surprised how many directors see their reels on the huge brilliant screen for the first time at the Regielounge!)

Apart from that, we keep the format very flexible and dynamic, constantly adjusting the event to match the situation. The last lounge we just showed the work of Luis Guggenberger (the CGI star at Trixter) not a reel, he talked us through some of his work on Iron Man3 and then with the Director Charlie Siskel, we screened the Documentary "Finding Vivian Meyer" in full: You could have heard a pin drop during the entire 90 minutes, and the thundering ovation afterwards was certainly one of the highlights of the last years.

What can attendees expect at the 10th anniversary extravaganza?

Quite a bit, but let's not reveal too much, because a special part of the magic of the Regielounges are the surprises. We have some very impressive directors showing their work, one of the huge stars of the evening is Nexus' Kibwe Tavares – in Cannes I was hoping to see his short film "Jonah", but both Saatchi's New Directors Showcase, as well as the Young Director Awards (Where he really cleaned up!) just showed the trailers. So we are going to show the whole film, it's the first full screening outside of Sundance that I know of, and it really deserves it. Its almost like the last chance to see Kibwe before he becomes a Hollywood megastar, which I am sure he will! We are bringing out a book: 10 years Regielounge – XYRL – and we are publishing it that night, every guest will take home a copy with his own picture on the cover. We have a brilliant music act, and are expecting a maximum capacity crowd of 2000 to party with us until the wee hours of the morning.

What marks a piece of work or a director out for inclusion in Regielounge? Do you have set criteria or is it more instinctual?

We are huge film fans. We see the work of dozens of directors every week. It's an integral part of our work. There is some work that just stands out, and we just want to meet the people that do this work. So it's a mix of inspirational work, showing our creative audience where the journey can go – and really relevant work, of directors we think we should be working with. It's a bit like opening my desk for an evening…

How would you say the work has changed over the past 10 years? Is it harder to find work that hasn't been seen by the audience? Is that even a factor in your choices?

Work has changed through the exponential growth of technology – resulting in huge demand for content, this, coupled with democratisation of film-making has resulted in significant growth in the film industry, away from the classic 30 sec TVC

What's been your proudest moment over the past 10 years of putting the Regielounge together?

I am proud that the Regielounge has worked for us – it has helped the agency move creatively from the solid middle to the pole position in 10 years. I think the Regielounge story of Daniel Warwick is the perfect example and really stands for what makes us proud: We screened Daniel's reel, when he was just starting, he had no advertising on his reel, just some cool music videos and a test. But the humour and style was there, that we felt fitted for a major client: the German Postbank – so we booked him, and booked him again, thirteen times in all, for a very funny long-running campaign that established his career. He remained true to Big Fish his production company, and together over the years, they slowly built his reel, so that when we shot the legendary smart car "Off-Road", it was the same combination of Director, Production and Agency that won a couple of Gold Lions in Cannes. Daniel, big heart, no ego: on the night he won the two lions sent a video message to the first CD that had booked him from the Regielounge to thank him for the chance back then, that was my proudest moment.

Where do you see it in 10 years' time?

Good question, - if you'd have asked me that 10 years ago, at our first lounge, I would never have been able to imagine that we are where we are now – back then I just wanted to open the agency canteen once a month, and let whoever was in town pop over for a beer, while they show us their reel, and we can talk about the common thing we love: film. I guess it still is that today, so its probably going to be this in 10 years too!

At a push, what's your favourite thing you've shown at a Regielounge event? What's been the most crowd-pleasing?

Difficult, every lounge has several highlights:

The last lounge was a huge experiment that worked, when we showed "Finding Vivian Meyer", I think Marmalade stole the show when they premiered their "Spike". Or when we skyped in Aliaksei Tserakhau's mad Russian compilation and Simon Willows wedding video, Skyping in "Die Antwoord's" Sean Mettlerkamp, MK12's James Bond title sequence, the calligrafittist Shoe's live painting, Martin Schmid, Joachim Back, Daniel Warwick, Calum Macdiarmid, Keith Schofield, McBess, Martin Krejci, Philipp Stölzl...

How can people get involved?

Easy, join us in Facebook, come to the event, and talk to us. We are open for suggestions