The shorts 'Zeezicht' (honorable mention) and 'Burtman' (encouragement) won 2nd and 3rd price.
All teams got the assignment to put a random living animal into their movies, including the sentence "this is the first time", referring to the contest's first edition.
Stephan Evenblij always dreamed of the possibility for The Hague to compete as a film city with Amsterdam (a frequently used location in Dutch movies and home of most of it's industry). In 2007 an official Amsterdam version of the international 48hrs contest began. Evenblij contacted councilor Robert van Asten and since they couldn't also do a 48hrs project, they changed it into 72hrs. The idea was then sponsored by the city council.
Just 2 days after the start of registration, 50 teams had already signed up. Only 30 could participate and 10 went on to the big final.