Sprouts Film Festival

What Sprouts Film Festival does

Sprouts Film Festival is a Dutch non-profit foundation (Stichting Sprouts Film Festival, KvK 92198600) founded in 2022 and based in Amsterdam, operating an annual film festival dedicated to fictional ecocinema and socially critical debut films. The festival curates fiction features and shorts that intersect environmental concerns with social justice themes including racism, LGBTQ+ rights, decolonization, and mental health, explicitly framed around philosopher Gaston Bachelard's concept of botanical imagination. Its core product is an annual week-long festival (held 7–12 May 2024 and 14–20 April 2025) spanning 6+ Amsterdam venues (Studio/K, Kriterion, De Uitkijk, Droog, MidWest, QRU, MACA) and a touring extension to Wageningen, with 30+ films across eco competition, debut competition, and eco shorts programs. The website functions as a running archive of fictional ecocinema, broadening the category beyond mainstream climate documentaries.

The festival is operated by a seven-person core team led by Artistic Director Thomas Streekstra and Managing Director Veerle van Lieshout, with programming, marketing, and partnerships roles, and is governed by a board comprising President Elin Boijens, Secretary Dominique Geerts, Treasurer Jeroen Groot, and general member Jeroen de Goeij. Beyond film screenings, the festival has built a portfolio of cultural extension events including the Eco Expo art exhibition, Live AV Shows, Peerbuntu workshops (in partnership with Stichting Perceval), Repair Café events (with Repair Café de Meevaart), community diners (with Taste Before You Waste), and queer club nights (with Het Complot). Customer segments are individual film festival attendees, debut and eco-focused filmmakers seeking a platform, and environmental and social justice advocates in the Amsterdam cultural ecosystem.

The revenue model is structurally small and event-driven: ticket sales from individual venue ticketing systems, community diner fees (€6, €1 for Stadspas green dot holders), free Eco Expo admissions, pay-what-you-can pricing for some special events, and sponsorship support (Stichting Onderlinge Studentensteun is the most prominently disclosed sponsor). No funding rounds, venture capital, or institutional investment are evident. Marketing is conducted primarily through Instagram, a Google Forms newsletter, the festival website, and Letterboxd. Pricing is uniformly low per-unit, and the GTM motion is event-driven annually rather than continuous commerce. The festival's competitive position rests on a niche identity in fictional ecocinema within Amsterdam's film circuit, depth of community partnerships, and a curated programming voice rather than any proprietary technology or scale advantages.

Name

Sprouts Film Festival

Legal name

Stichting Sprouts Film Festival

Website

https://sproutsfilmfestival.com

Company type

Private

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Sprouts Film Festival is an Amsterdam-based non-profit foundation running an annual film festival of fictional ecocinema and socially critical debut films, serving culture-conscious cinema audiences, emerging filmmakers, and intersectional social-justice communities across multiple Dutch venues.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Film Festival

NAICS

Motion Picture and Video Exhibition (51213)

SIC

Services-Motion Picture Theaters (7830)

akta.pro primary industry

Film Festivals & Festival Organizers (MPADAKAD)

Keywords

• Ecocinema film festival
• Debut fiction films
• Socially critical cinema
• Environmental film programming
• Community film events

Headquarters

HQ city

Amsterdam

HQ country

Netherlands

HQ region

Europe

Offices9 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Supply Chain, Others

Revenue model

1. Film screenings and events: Revenue generated from ticket sales to film screenings across multiple venues during the annual festival and touring events. Additional revenue from special events including live AV shows and Eco Expo exhibitions.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Sprouts Film Festival is an annual Amsterdam-based film festival showcasing fiction ecocinema and socially critical debut films across three competition categories (eco competition, debut competition, eco shorts) at multiple partner cinemas. The festival is extended by touring screenings (Sprouts On Tour), Eco Expo art exhibitions, Live AV performances, Repair Café workshops, Peerbuntu peer-counseling workshops, community diners, and club nights. Its website functions year-round as a curated archive of fictional ecocinema.

Product overview

Sprouts Film Festival is a film festival focused on ecocinema and socially critical debut fiction films. The festival operates as a single unified offering comprising annual film festival programs (screenings at multiple Amsterdam venues including Studio/K, Kriterion, De Uitkijk, MACA, and Droog), supplemented by cultural extension events including the Eco Expo (art exhibition), Live AV Shows (audiovisual performances), workshops (Peerbuntu peer counseling, Repair Cafe), community dining experiences, and club nights. The festival runs editions annually (2022, 2023, 2024, 2025) and also tours to additional venues. The core product centers on film screenings across three competition categories (eco competition, debut competition, and eco shorts) plus out-of-competition screenings.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Named customers2 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Partnerships

Seven partnerships are on record, tiered minor and core.

• ARIAS amsterdamminorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 17 April 2025Artist-researcher network invited to respond to Eco Shorts DIGITAL ABYSS program with media scholar Jamil Fiorino-Habib and artist Sondi for post-screening discussion.
• SondiminorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 17 April 2025Artist and researcher whose practice centers on worldbuilding within digital spaces and video games, invited as speaker for Eco Shorts DIGITAL ABYSS aftertalk.
• Jamil Fiorino-HabibminorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 17 April 2025Media scholar at University of Amsterdam specializing in aesthetics, temporality, and political activism, invited as speaker for Eco Shorts DIGITAL ABYSS aftertalk.
• Taste Before You WasteminorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 14 April 2025Foundation reducing consumer food waste providing pre-festival dinner service at Movie W. Their mission aligns with sustainability themes of the festival.
• Het ComplotminorGTM or Marketing Partner · 10 May 2024Utrecht-based queer club hosting collaborative club night at Studio/K exploring interconnectedness of environmental and social justice through dance and music.
• Repair Café de MeevaartminorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 15 April 2024Community repair organization providing fix-it expertise for broken electronics at festival Repair Café event, promoting sustainability through repair rather than replacement.
• Stichting PercevalcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 11 May 2023Mental health foundation founded by 'Gekken' (mad people) for community support. Partners with Sprouts for screening+Talk events and Peerbuntu workshops combining peer counseling with Ubuntu philosophy, exploring urban nature and mental health themes.

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Direct peers

• Ciné-environnement: European film festival programming environmental and ecological cinema. Comparable mission to Sprouts in centering ecocinema as a curation category, though broader in geographic scope.
• Movies That Matter Festival: Annual human rights film festival in The Hague, Netherlands. Highly comparable as a thematic Dutch film festival that uses cinema to address social justice issues, programming a mix of features and shorts with filmmaker engagement components.
• Environmental Film Festival (DC): Annual environmental film festival in Washington DC. Directly comparable as a dedicated environmental/ecocinema film festival with similar mission to use cinema for environmental awareness, though with longer history and US-based audience.

Others

• De Uitkijk / Kriterion Cinema: Amsterdam cinema venues that host Sprouts screenings. Comparable as venue-based exhibition partners rather than direct competitors, providing distribution infrastructure for the festival's programming.

Broad incumbents

• Sheffield DocFest: Major UK documentary and documentary-focused film festival with environmental and social justice strands. Comparable as a Western European documentary/thematic festival with industry programs, though significantly larger in scale.
• L'Alternativa (Barcelona Independent Film Festival): Independent film festival in Barcelona with strong social justice and political cinema programming. Comparable as a European independent festival with thematic socially-critical programming, though broader in scope.
• International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR): Major Dutch film festival known for independent and auteur cinema. Comparable as a leading Dutch film festival with industry programs, though much larger scale and broader in its thematic programming than Sprouts' ecocinema focus.
• IDFA (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam): The world's largest documentary film festival, based in Amsterdam. Comparable as a major Amsterdam-based thematic film festival with environmental and social justice programming, though significantly larger in scope, budget, and audience reach.

Regional players

• Go Short Nijmegen: International short film festival in Nijmegen, Netherlands. Comparable as a Dutch short film festival with emerging filmmaker focus, though based in a different Dutch city and without the ecocinema angle.
• CinemAsia Film Festival: Amsterdam-based film festival focused on Asian cinema. Comparable as a thematic Amsterdam film festival with cultural-community positioning, though operating in a different thematic niche.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/sprouts-film-festival
• Instagraminstagram.com/sproutsfilmfestival

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles11 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

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Frequently asked questions about Sprouts Film Festival