Doc/Fest Blog
Frenching
By Charlie Phillips 01 July, 2009
At Sunnyside last week, it felt like there was a renewed buzz in the European doc market. I'm a sceptic by nature but Sunnyside felt optimistic and ripe for new collaborations - and if I say that it must have been good.
Being in France meant a chance to make links with the French commissioners and funders who we tend to not see elsewhere, in much the same way Doc/Fest is a chance for the world to meet the UK industry. And this is a particularly crucial year to catch up with the French broadcast world because of massive changes at France Télévision.
France Télévisions represents 60% of French broadcasting's total investment in docs, and the news was that its investment is staying steady, despite all France Télévisions channels' documentary departments being in the process of mergi g into one, which will be organised by programming genre. There will be a commissioner for history; another for social issues and politics; another for science, nature and discovery; and one for profiles, while one department will handle doc acquisitions and international copros.
This isn't too unlike the BBC model, and it makes sense in hard economic times, but any big changes to how commissioning normally works is bound to cause commotion. But I think it makes it a lot clearer for us non-French to know who to go to for what for international copros.
Other excitement last week for me was catching up properly on Film London's new Green Screen initiative, which is your guide to saving the world, one film at a time. Leave no trace, except a brilliant film. I love it.
And in the green land of online, there's a new prize for web documentary, from France, and a storm blowing in from Edinburgh after the launch of Vodo, Jamie King and Britdoc's platform for voluntary crowd paying for films. Convinced by it? Take a peek and decide.
Doc filmmaker arrested without charge in Iran
By Charlie Phillips 29 June, 2009
Very concerning news reverberating that celebrated doc filmmaker Maziar Bahari was arrested without charge last week.
Bahari is the award winning filmmaker of celebrated works such as:
- 'And along came a Spider'
- 'The Fall of a Shah'
- 'Sistani, Object of Emulation'
- 'Children of Abu Ghraib'
- 'An Iranian Odyssey'
Bahari, a Canadian citizen, is based in London and is expecting his first child in 6 months. He was in Iran making a documentary about the Iranian election, where he was detained without charge by Iranian authorities, but has not been heard from since.
One filmmaker amongst a torrent of injustice, we're hoping not just for his own personal release but the ability for all Iranian filmmakers and journalists to work freely without interference to show the world the truth.
Doc/Fest events in July
By Hussain Currimbhoy 29 June, 2009
We're all making a special trip down to London on Thursday for a special Doc/Fest screening at the BFI of 'Rough Aunties' by Kim Longinotto.
There are still a few tickets left so if you are keen to see the newest work by one of the UK best documentarians be sure to get your seat quick.
Here's the write up from the BFI:
One of Britain's leading documentary film-makers, Kim Longinotto ventures into South Africa to confront the country's child-abuse epidemic. Meet the 'Rough Aunties' - a group of revolutionary women dedicated to the healing process of the country's abused children. Often defying their own personal tragedies and even taking victims into their own homes, their collective spirit forms a public front of female self-dependence in a place where women are often expected to be nothing more than silent mothers. The director's trademark observational-doc style reveals the group's intense spirit of selflessness, justice and compassion. Her approach also provides access to some of the most harrowing scenes a documentary can capture, but always tempered by Longinottos's sympathy and unwavering humanism. A work of wonder, Rough Aunties is one of 2009's unmissable docs.
Its easily one of her best works so be sure to take this chance to see Kim live after the film and maybe even ask her a question or two. The producers from Rise Films will also be attending.
http://www.bfi.org.uk/whatson/rough_aunties
Should you have the good fortune to be in New York City be sure to catch the screening of 'Afghan Star' by Doc/Fest friend Havana Marking at the Cinema Village on 22 East 12th Street. This is one of the breakouts from Doc/Fest 2008 that we are really proud of so please get out and support Havana in NYC.
Finally, it would be great to see some of you, if not all of you, at the Renoir Cinema on Sunday July 19th for a special screening of 'Girlfights'. The Curzon and Doc/Fest have joined forces to bring more docs to the cinema by co-programming some killers at the Renoir ,complete with director Q&A and all. Minnow Films (the razor sharp chaps who brought us the Doc/Fest audience award winner 'The Fallen' in 2008) have come back with a very funny and rather quirky work about... Well, I won't go into details. You'll have it to believe it.
Now back to the submissions - we're now nibbling at the ear of the 1200th submission mark! Go FedEx!
Channel 4 pitchers coming to a screen near you soon
By Charlie Phillips 25 June, 2009
The next run of First Cut, Channel 4's doc strand for new directors, kicks off this Friday 26th June, at 7.30pm. And it features not one, nor two, but THREE projects pitched in last year's Channel 4 pitch!
They are:
Wild Things directed by Adam Hopkins at Raw TV - Friday 19th July, 7.30pm
The Grand Piano Scam directed by Susannah Price (the pitch winner) at Minnow Films - Friday 24th July, 7.30pm
How do I say Goodbye directed by Chris Eley at True Vision Films - Friday 4th September, 7.30
We're proud of them all. And there may be more FCs arising from the pitch too, so watch this space!
And for this year's C4 pitch, stay tuned for more details soon...
Sprouting in the name of DIY
By Charlie Phillips 24 June, 2009
The USA is a place where people seem to just do it. Not always for the best, but they go and do it.
Do what? If they can't, or won't, get broadcast or distributor money, they get on their feet and they try to make it happen using the tools they do have in the communities they know. It doesn't always work, but like all good inventions, you get some broken plates when you're setting the table, but that doesn't mean you should stop putting the plates down.
So it is with a new home for such people, Film Sprout, run by Caitlin Boyle who will also be at Doc/Fest in November for you to discuss your own grassroots distribution strategies with. It might seem paradoxical to have a organisation which does your individualised and niche distribution strategy for you, but it's not. Film Sprout will, if it all comes true, tailor a community outreach strategy for you that suits your film the best and it won't impose one-size-fits-all suggestions on you.
We're talking screenings in town halls, church fetes, club houses and community buildings. It might be glamorous, and it might not mean crisp 35mm projection, but it will mean your film gets seen by a lot of people who wouldn't otherwise be able to. It doesn't exclude cinemas - part of it is about bringing programmes of films to cinemas which don't feel able to diverge from blockbusters. But it's using digital projection to free up your distro strategy from the usual best-hope of a single screening at the ICA.
It's also all about web distribution too, but you know all about that, right? What I especially like is the attention to physical projection as well, so that there is some communal love for your film. We all want some of that, and some especially need it - areas of the UK like deepest Cornwall and vast swathes of the Highlands and Islands are by necessity a long way from a traditional cinema. Many larger and less remote places in the UK are similarly deprived of movie-going because their locals couldn't survive without subsidy (I'll go on about this another time). This brings the mountain to them - and anyone from a small town will concur that when a film comes to town and it's unusual, whatever the film is, it's exciting.
What an amazing opportunity for documentary-makers, to be the talk of the town.
Sprouts to Bananas. Now this is interesting. I bemoaned Dole's behaviour towards the the makers of Bananas! but now look - there's some doubts over the accuracy of the film. Some strong doubts in fact. It's not for me now to say how accurate the doc is - I'm short on knowledge of the case and the doc - but how fascinating that it feels right to still show it because it may be inaccurate and that says many interesting things about researching docs with a social conscience. Intentions are good but does that outweigh the need to be factually on-spot? Like all journalism you sometimes get the story wrong but that doesn't invalidate the process of investigating. Keep following it anyway.
Finally for now, a call - the excellent Documentary Campus wants a new intake of students. DC is amazing, a chance for experienced European documentary filmmakers to have a chance to move outside their home markets. Within a ten-month period, you develop your own cherished project and cover everything from storytelling to legal and budgetary issues, meeting four times in the year for one-week long workshops (February/May/July/October). Deadline is June 22nd, don't miss it!
Talk About Local, Convention, Silverdocs and the rest
By Charlie Phillips 19 June, 2009
Look, here's a picture of our Cardiff workshop, which took place last week.
There's Jo Lapping from Storyville and Aysha Rafaele from Channel 4 giving feedback to the pitchers around the table. You can see the full set on our Flickr account, and thanks to MEDIA Antenna Wales for the great pics.
I wanted to tell you about Talk About Local which is a resource for communities to find out information about their local area, take action and challenge those making decisions about their surroundings via online social networks. It's supported by 4iP and it's a great example of what their funding is for. It's going to obliterate central Government by empowering communities to share resources and change their own lives without needing anyone else, which makes it even more exciting that the Digital Britain report praised it so highly.
Heather's out at Silverdocs at the moment, which sees the premiere of Convention, which I've highlighted before for it's unique multi-director production and time-sensitive account of the hullabaloo around the Democratic convention pre-Obama victory. Does it deserve the (mild) hype? This review says yes, and it looks like an especially interesting watch considering the fall from deep excitement to deep cynicism in the course of a few months over Obama. Well, in me, anyway.
Other doc I've been told to look out for is The Windmill Movie, a Tarnation for the Hamptons, which has also got a great review from the same person.
And now it's Edinburgh for us UK-lubbers. Delighted to say My Vodka empire won the Scots Doc Inst pitch there. Momentum's building on that one, I can feel it. You can catch some Doc/Festers at our drinks on Monday evening and then at Sunnyside next week where you can join us for a cuppa and a tart
Bananas Digital
By Charlie Phillips 18 June, 2009
Sometimes it's dangerous to be a documentary-maker who exposes the people who seem to be doing very bad things - because often those people don't want the world to know, and they'll do all they can to make you shut up. It's very annoying.
So it is with the makers of Bananas! from Sweden, who are being threatened and generally prodded by Dole, the subjects of their doc. It appears their doc is primarily a factual documentation of a series of legal events, so why Dole is chasing this so energetically, I don't know. It's always the case that muting critics gives them more publicity, not less - not to mention the folly of responding to accusations of bad stuff by doing more bad stuff.
I haven't seen the film, and I haven't followed the case, so I don't know what's true and what isn't - but I do know that a big company trying to gag a small film company is rather undignified.
So also, there's been the publication of the Digital Britain Report, which was more or less the same as the interim report, which was the same as all the uncredited briefings, rumours, etc. Don't you love Government bureaucracy?
I always expect more fireworks with these things than is ever possible, e.g. accepting a bit of piracy is inevitable, Channel 4 and regional programmes need loads more money - as does public service media, the internet could be a place full of amazing fully-funded endless mainstream and experimental visual work, digital media is a vital part of the economy and people should be properly paid for it rather than (or as well as) big infrastructural media corporations, digital media should have massive government investment in it generally on a par with bailing out failing banks, making amazing media should be valued and supported in a practical way and not just given lip service. And on and on...
It wasn't a total blandness - it's great children's programming, ITV regions and the delivery of broadband are being looked after. But I have the feeling there's a lot for those who work in the engine rooms - the broadband and mobile providers for example - and not those actually making things, especially those outside of the BBC, C4 and ITV - and by that I especially think of local producers of media. And I worry about the analogue radio switch-off too - apart from the romance I towards a crackly old radio which is perhaps not essential to a cutting-edge media landscape, that's a lot of electrical appliances being chucked in the nearest skip.
That's basically my concern here - it's easy to make promises about cables, wires and switches, less so about investing in people and the things they make, which are uncontrollable, unmeasurable and uncategorisable. But in the end, that's not something Governments are ever good at, or feel the need to show interest in, so I shouldn't expect better. For some more weary negativity, look here and here
(sorry all my links are from The Guardian - feel free to send me some from other places where you read reactions)
Tehran/Bradford
By Charlie Phillips 15 June, 2009
A small window into the current instability of Iran following the recent elections on All These Wonderful Things, which reproduces the contributions to the D-Word from James Longley, with the progression of his posts demonstrating a scary descent into uncertainty and then violence in Tehran. I suspect the line from him may now go dead, but even getting this far is a great eye-opener into someone documenting the situation close in. It may be worth it if a great doc emerges, but there's more important things than that going on at the moment so we wish him well.
Moving closer to home, and indeed shifting clunkily in mood (sorry for that), I'm really pleased to see Bradford is UNESCO's city of film. Pull your jaw back up, it's not that surprising - Bradford has a long heritage of cinema as that article explains and it has the wonderful National Media Museum, which I used to visit lots as a child and y'know what, I think really did make we want to work in the media more than any other influence apart from perhaps Newsround (not in the UK? I mean this - but I pity you). The NMM is a great place, and its importance is even greater because it sits in the middle of a very deprived city centre. It's much more important that these kind of garlands are given to places that need them and Bradford has been waiting for another kick up its rear for a while.
And aside from the museum itself there's a fine heritage of films being shot or inspired there. Except I can't think of many docs. Help me out - are there great docs set in Bradford? There must be. Anyway, well done Bradford, we're behind you - and I say that as a Leodensian, so it means a lot.
Back into the big world, there's been an interesting chat about distribution at Cinevegas and there's a new indie studio from some good people, plus check out this intelligent and well-written blog about making films (mainly docs) in Europe - it has a silly name and the entries are too long, but it's very interesting.
I'm off to the Cardiff workshop now, and had a great time in Inverness last week. Next week it's Sunnyside, where there will be tarts for all at our breakfast party - if you'll be there let us know and we'll save you a tart.
Film submissions extended!
By Hussain Currimbhoy 15 June, 2009
Oh, that old chestnut.
Well I swear its true. We've had so many films come in and so many requests to accept films after June 17th that it would be crazy not to extend the deadline.
I usually get a few armfuls of films each morning. But today, amidst the deluge of rain, I got not one but TWO big green post bags flopping in the door. I've not seen anything like it since this time last year.
Everyone now has until July 1 (this is coincidentally Canada Day. Coincidence you say...?) to complete your online submission forms and send us the discs. Just so long as its postmarked July 1 and your form is closed I'm happy.
Canada is not known for its Canada Day celebrations outside of its borders, but when you see that lone firecracker spiral and fizzle in the night, when you hear those couple of Canadian exchange students howl distantly to a random sporting event in their college dorms in Hull, Manchester or Leeds, when you see that tourist with a Canadian flag sewn to his backpack like its kryptonite just think: oh yes - Doc/Fest submissions are closing. Best get my act together.
We'll need a few weeks at least to get through these babies so please try to get your doc in as soon as you can to give your a good chance.
This is really THE most exciting time for programming. Here are the places we find the gems, the surprises, the killer films that the filmmakers themselves sometimes don't have a lot of faith in.
My thanks to all of you who have sent us your docs so far. I'm chomping at the bit.
Now, synchronize iphones: July 1st.
RSS feed is live
By Charlie Phillips 12 June, 2009
Good news day for sure - you can now subscribe to all our blogs, and other good feeds, because our RSS feeds are ready and in action!
Look! - you can subscribe here!
Pilgrimages and kvetching
By Charlie Phillips 12 June, 2009
Feeling cynical today? Well don't, or at least you won't when you check out a Pilgrimage, the follow up from Tilda Swinton and Mark Cousins to the The Ballerina Ballroom of Dreams in Nairn. It'll be a big film machine trundling around the Highlands, not far in Scottish terms from where I sit now. Their website doesn't tell you much, but google A Pilgrimage and you'll see Tilda's press release, itself a dreamy work of loveliness.
Like to feel cynical? I understand completely. So join the kvetching over Basil Tsiokos' tweet critiques which are neatly summed up by AJ. Seems obvious to me that if someone doesn't like your film it's not the end of the world, it just means they've got different tastes to those that do like it. It's when no-one likes your film that you've got real problems...although even then it's not without merit probably. Who wants to be liked anyway? In any case, see it this way - you've made a film, someone else has written a brief review (even a very brief deeply superficial tweet review) - who's contributing more to civilisation? It's probably you, so you have the moral victory.
Next week's agenda - the Digital Britain report will come out, so let's hope it's true that encouragement for PSB content will be put to the fore for all producers and not just the large broadcasters - anything less will be a real waste of our creative talent. Don't mess it up, Carter.
WIPs
By Hussain Currimbhoy 11 June, 2009
Film submissions are about to close and suddenly everyone has realised that Sheffield Doc/Fest accepts submissions.
This is the time where we get a lot of calls from good people with films that are not quite there yet. Their films are coming along, but there are sound issues. Subtitling troubles. Output glitches from Avid or Final Cut. The subject won't sign the goddamn release form. The editor's has just broken up with her boyfriend. Again. (Roberta, I'm sure it'll be ok. Just give it a few days.)
I know how it is. So I'm going to say publicly that its ok to send us your film a bit late. As long as your submission form is complete on our website, I can accept a copy of the film, like, a week after the deadline of June 17th. That's cool with me.
Its the Works-in-Progress (WIP) film that keep me up at night. A lot of good folk have trailers to submit. But that don't work for us. Hollywood runs on the merits of trailers and look where they are today.
(The doc trailer is whole other blog that I would love to nibble on in the future. Maybe in December.)
Many more good folk have films that are in rough assemble stages, very rough cuts, several scenes yet to be shot, some serious structural changes are on the cards etc.
I don't know, brothers and sisters. There are two ways to cook the ol' WIP theory.
I quite like watching WIPs because I like film when its raw, jagged and messy and shit just ain't quite found its place yet. Without sounding like a romantic, unsettled docs are sometimes like a John Cassavetes film and that kinda turns me on.
I'm not one to offer editing advice or feedback, mind you. That is a rare talent that I've only seen a handful of professionals be able to execute with alacrity and the right blend of story imperatives and common sense.
To me WIPs are just kinda interesting. Forget the colour grade, the music tracks, the missing title cards, the crappy subtitles. In good films, the soul of a subject is felt even in the rough cut stage. (at least that's my experience - 'English Surgeon' any one...) You can tell - there is something happening here. Even if there are major edits going on there is something special present that people will want to watch.
But get a grip, Currimbhoy. The reality is only a few films per year are accepted into the programme on the basis of a WIP viewing. There are just too many stronger, completed films to contend with.
In fact, some conversations I've had about the WIPs debate (not with programmers mind you - just 'others') end up with the feeling that perhaps you should not submit a WIP at all. One lovely and highly venerated doc producer set it straight when she said that filmmakers should give programmers the best thing they've got: as complete as you can, as realised as possible, whole, and not something half-baked. Programmers, she said (sagaciously), must view so many films you really only have one shot for them to give your film the time of day.
Perhaps.
I guess its an individual call. Is the film almost there and just needs a few tweaks? Or is it a lot of work to get some progress?
Like any artistic work, if it really ain't ready keep a lid on it. Wait until the film 'works' and the story knows what its doing. You can then submit with confidence, maybe even a bit of pride and you can defend your film.
We got about 700 docs coming in through the door as of today. Its like a protest or a sit-in by an army of envelopes. Every day, the numbers grow. Sitting around the desk, clinging to the shelves, each with a different story, pleading a different case. All demanding attention with a single chorus.
Yorkshire/NW Workshop and One World
By Charlie Phillips 10 June, 2009
Our pitch workshop whirl carries on its journey to Yorkshire and the North-West, with a bumper workshop which you can read about here. Always a privilege to be on home turf - get your expressions of interest to me, Roses people.
And more on wonderful funding opps - the new One World Funds for new-ish doc makers doing docs about the developing world. One World is a fine organisation, working in that growing sphere of socially-conscious docs where the makers support each other as well as their subjects. Take a look at all they do, as well as the money they give.
I'm in Inverness for tomorrow's workshop. The sleeper train up here is one of life's real delights, try it if you never have before, you'll see some stunning things outside the window as you whizz by.
Friday tidy
By Charlie Phillips 05 June, 2009
Some newsflashes from me today - I mentioned the EDN New Platforms New Politics programme recently - well the projects have been chosen, and they include Barbara Orton who pitched in the MM at last year's Doc/Fest. We look forward to the development of these projects very much.
Those in the North, there's a new database for your talents you should sign up to. Those in the (far) West, there's the Silverdocs line-up to peruse in full.
Those everywhere, I recommend a look at this account of funding a doc through making t-shirts, which I add to my list of good original ways to get docs made. And that's the new POV site you're seeing - isn't it lovely?
And also for everyone everywhere, there's talk of what the BBC's project Canvas should be. This really really matters - we're falling behind in where VOD should be in the UK by now, and this is a chance to make it amazing.
Hi. I'm a Documentarist
By Hussain Currimbhoy 04 June, 2009
The Documentarist festival in Istanbul is fast becoming a favourite.
Created almost as an accident when another older doc festival in regional Turkey collapsed last year, Documentarist has taken up the reins and behaves like its been around for much longer. The programme is made up of favourites of the past year – and a few older ones – concentrating itself on drawing youth to its centre to enlighten, educate and foster a hope that if you want to make docs you are not alone.
This is my first time to Turkey and for me Istanbul is a kind of Hollywood. Everything I know about Turkey comes from the movies. I am addicted to Nuri Bilge Ceyland’s Chekov-esque broods about masculinity and alienation amidst crowed streets. I am still a huge fan of Yilmaz Guney’s ferociously political fiction works that continue make the hair stand on my arms. (Especially when I remember that he wrote his Cannes-winning film while in prison, smuggling the script and meticulous direction instructions in shards so his friend could direct it by proxy). And it just so happens that I’m staying in the hotel that ‘Head On’ shot some scenes in.
The reality of life on Istanbul’s streets does not quite equal what I was told by the movies. There is liveliness, a cacophony of the ages and an energy that makes New York feel like Leeds. The city honestly doesn’t sleep. The crowds, the smell of rose tea, fresh street fruit, cigarettes and broiled corn blending with diesel and the perfumed men and women all mix in a cocktail of 24 hour energy that is always very near to the skin.
But despite the 17 million in this city a relaxed and amiable pace persists on the streets. There is no pavement rage. People greet you so warmly and like to play a game where they guess where you are from before smiling and placing they hand they shook with over their hearts as a sign of welcome and friendship. I’ve not felt anything like it. The spirit of this city something everyone should experience. Though I am sad to say that the spirit of togetherness does not extend to documentary filmmakers. Let’s try not to complain as much in the UK about the state of docs. In Turkey there is no distribution support for docs. The government TV station won’t look at a real doc, co-productions are fantasies you have in your sleep and funding is like a bad meal here: unheard of.
The importance of Documentarist rests in this doc-desert. In order to keep the next generation alive they are driving to attract young filmmakers, artists and innovators to the festival. Docs are screened in bars, art galleries, the Goethe Institute. And the attitude is very positive. Their philosophy seems to be working. The audience is very young, at times naïve, but sagacious at other times. The people I’ve met are hungry to make docs and tell their stories. I mean, who couldn’t want to tell stories in a city that is 8000 years old? (it was hirtherto believed to be about 3000 years old until they started constructing a subway under the city and discovered a lost harbour that operated well before the Pyramids were a were a sketch on a bar napkin – almost tripling the believed age of Istanbul. I heard National Geographic is making a doc about it. Surprise.)
Nick Fraser was here in 2008 to give a masterclass and was said to be impressed by the questions and the audience’s ideas. I’m glad to hear this. In response to the thirst for market and funding options Documentarist has me doing a presentation on the MeetMarket, the joy of pitching and the state of play in the UK for docs (Charlie – put that tasty Polish borscht down and get your ass here!) that I hope will get some confidence built and see some more docs getting made from a place that has been overlooked for too long.
Heading out now to see the Russian omnibus ‘Cinetrain’ that missed at Cannes then will revel in some Turkish product I’ve not heard of before. If you want to see what I see, come to Doc/Fest.
Dragons and Lenin
By Charlie Phillips 03 June, 2009
I'm in Krakow for the charming Krakow Film Festival and Market. I like Krakow a lot - I have family heritage here, and it feels natural to be amongst its pretty streets and towers.
The market here is skewed towards Eastern and Central Europe, especially Poland, the former Soviet states, Hungary, and others in the region. Watching a glut of docs in the digitised market here, I noticed there's 2 zeitgeist winds in the wires - 1. Post-Communism and 2. Jewish heritage. It's not surprising - these are the historical bedrocks of this area. But once you've seen a few docs on these topics, especially when they adopt a rigorously historical and chronological perspective, you've kind of seen them all.
Post-communist films uncover some lost madness of Soviet bureuacracy, or bathe in the darkness of post-Soviet poverty and/or eccentricity. Post-Jewish docs (for that's what they are, certainly in a Krakow context which is all heritage and hardly any real life humans) are all about quests, redemption, and recovery. In the best cases, these kinds of docs can still work brilliantly, and offer new discoveries - like Ordinary March which was conservative in style but dynamic in content. Or Good Morning Lenin!, which exposed the fetish for Communist ideology in British well-meaning people.
But I'm a tiresome modernist or futurist or something, so I always want recontextualisation of heritage and not a faithful retelling of history. That seems to be the general approach to Communism growing in Poland at the moment, at least amongst younger people I've met here - an ironic wink at the silliness of it all. And that's not far from how we look back at British culture of the mid 20th century too, is it? History, in documentary as everywhere, is always reworked and appears totally differently depending on where and when it's visualised. There's no facts, only loads of different ways of telling stories with varying levels of confidence/arrogance in the truth of them.
And certainly they've got the design of the festival website in the kind of archaic-futurist style I adore - it's very neat indeed.
The projects pitched at the market have been on topics going around and beyond these biggies above. There was a bewildering Ukrainian art project about the exposure time in photographs from the early 20th century, and how memory is like the exposure time of photos. Amazing...and a bit impossible to comprehend. Imagine the reactions of the commissioners around the table - they were very...polite. I think you'll see this one at a festival near you but never on TV - that kind of thing makes TV funders run and hide, it's ephemeral documentary mist, a riddle within a sphinx within a bermuda triangle or something.
But come back to the UK with me for today's viewing - Nick Broomfield's made a short about heroic climate activists scaling Kingsnorth power station. It's total advocacy (in this case advocacy I advocate) but a bit of polemic with your lunch won't hurt you.
Don't worry, I'll balance it with some advocacy about cuddling coal tomorrow.
A Time Comes - the story of the Kingsnorth Six from Greenpeace UK on Vimeo.
MeetMarket - OPEN
By Charlie Phillips 31 May, 2009
I'm putting the open for business sign up, the MeetMarket is now open for submissions.
I'll be back with some tips in the next week for submitting, and a guide to what works in project submissions, especially in terms of what we're looking for in 2009. But for now, here's some guidelines, you can check out the form and start your application here and if you need help, you can email me.
We're waiting for your amazing new documentary projects, and we can't wait to see them. Good luck!
MeetMarket - opens in 5 days
By Charlie Phillips 27 May, 2009
It may be 161 days til the festival opens, but it's only 5 til the MeetMarket opens for submissions.
On Monday (June 1st), we'll start taking project applications for our unique pitching event - you can read more and get tips here. For MeetMarket applications, it's not about quantity of information, it's about the quality of what you submit - so even though apps are open for 3 months, I say start thinking about your submissions right now.
The tips on that page are a good start, but once the application form becomes available on Monday have a look and start planning. And on that note, those of you who applied last year or the year before will hopefully find the form tweaked and easier to work with this year.
Wondering what to submit? Your best and most original projects that are most suited to the special format of one-to-one pitching, I say. And this year we're especially welcoming cross-platform and art projects, although absolutely all kinds of projects are welcome.
Currently we have over 70 funders and decision-makers confirmed for MeetMarket and waiting to hear your projects, and that number will keep rising in the next few months, so this is an unrivaled opportunity to get your ideas across to a very wide range of funders.
Other things going on - you can join me in the debate about the future of 360 programming in the Reelisor Forum, and you should all also go see Dochouse's Tiananmen Square anniversary screening, The Gate of Heavenly Peace on Thurs 4th June. It's supposed to be a superb film (I haven't seen it yet but always wanted to) - buy tickets now, all you people!
And I can't resist publicising official confirmation that we are the heaviest drinkers - but it's OK, it's not your fault, it's the industry's. Carry on as normal.
Rescue Remedy
By Charlie Phillips 26 May, 2009
At the Manchester Documentary Campus (formerly Discovery Campus) this weekend, there was a peculiar mix of the usual bonhomie when documentary people get together and fear/doom. The theme, though, was to find a positive way through these troubled times, so it wasn't merely a case of mutual anxiety therapy under the painted ceilings of Manchester Town Hall.
Tom Koch from PBS International set the tone with a burst of intelligent energy, saying that TV was no longer the sun around which all other media revolved. Now the idea is the sun, and indeed there is no medium distinct from another. The Channel 4 website looks very similar to the Guardian one, for example, with text, audio and video all snuggling down together. What makes them distinctive is not the form of their content but the sparks therein. So each medium or platform (neither of which are very satisfying terms) itself contains infinite possibilities of combinations of media in relation to this central idea/sun thing.
I like this very much. It's postmodern cosmology for one - there is no sun, merely a series of infinite rotating planets, which are their own point of reference. It's like saying that the sun doesn't really matter, compared to the way its energy is absorbed and reused on Earth. So in a way it becomes irrelevant to talk of a sun at all, because all we have is its practical application and, more interestingly, transformation anyway.
Or to put that in a more practical way, it becomes strange to think in silos of medium (radio, TV, cinema), form (word, picture, noise) or slot/genre/schedule. It's all interchangeable stimulation, it's all ideas, and for any media company to survive, they'll need to think in terms of cooperation and consolidation, rather than protecting their own private space.
This does make it a bit hard for filmmakers to navigate though. You just want someone to commission you to make something and give you the resources to do so, and that's a legitimate thing to expect. The scary thing that Tom K also said is that in this world, commissioners/funders part expect you to share the risk of making a documentary with them - because they can't be proprietorial they can't absorb a possible failure of your doc. So though in the best circumstances it's a case of "I prosper, You prosper", in the worst it's "I fail, You fail". Because if there's a big lesson to learn from the current world recession it's that risk is shared between the big and the little people, even if it might still seem decision-making is weighted heavily on the side of institutions like big media companies.
Lecture over, class. In some briefs, I promised to do this belated HotDocs meme, courtesy of Pamela Cohn:
The film that pulled at my heart strings the most - 21 Below, definitely. You'll want to call your Mother afterwards.
Strangest cinematic experience - Jetlagged, watching End of The Line, hungry, but totally disgusted (not by the film, mind, but what it contained)
Best Party - Ours - the British Drinks. Of course.
Overall High Point - Eating some magic fruit, definitely (I wrote about that before, right?)
Favourite Pitch - I did love the Hitchens performance, but for me, Town of Runners won all the hearts.
And the fests roll on - Silverdocs line up is out. And AJ doesn't mention there that his own Convention is premiering too. It sounds so amazing. I love the blogger/filmmaker crossover, it's the Nouvelle Vague gone internet.
And by the way did you know you can watch these Cinetic films in the UK now? Such good news!
What's not good news, and indeed what isn't at all good about this world of risk and loose planets, is when the good stuff can no longer survive, such as Vertigo Magazine which may well die unless we help it. Don't know it? That's kind of the problem - artists' film may be unfashionable right now, but it's an essential niche of our film and video world, and if we can't keep it alive we should be ashamed.
What's Crossover, New Platforms, some surgery, and Gainsbourg/Cannes
By Charlie Phillips 18 May, 2009
Emergency, you have to watch something tonight on TV. The Great Contemporary Art Bubble is the new investigation from professional thorn-in-side (but always a jolly thorn) Ben Lewis, where he'll expose the strange goings-on that make art-buying a seemingly indestructible commodity market. Forget the cockroaches, it's mediocre art that will survive a nuclear disaster. Find out how.
And whilst you do that, why not multitask, and get a great account of what the Crossover Labs we do are. Ever wondered what happens at Crossover? Here's your answer, in an account of Crossover Australia which is a very full and detailed description. Even says that Crossover is perhaps a bit too innovative - that's not a bad thing, right?
And still innovating, you've got til this coming Monday to enter New Politics, New Platforms if you're working on a project which will shake the world. This is your chance to be trained in making a revolution through documentary by EDN - lovely. We're intending that as many participants as possible from this scheme will be pitching at Doc/Fest this year, so get in there, we heartily advocate this scheme.
Yet more training - one of the highlights of Doc/Fest 08 was the session by the Doc Doctor Fernanda Rossi - well now she's in digital session on the D-Word ready to advise you and heal your documentary ailments.
And so Cannes? I'm not there, Hussain is, so he might be best to answer whether it matters. I think festivals are the sum of their people, so if they're still going there, then yes it still absolutely matters. If they're not, then the answer isn't no, but it makes it certainly less attractive. I've never understood the allure of Cannes to be honest. I like my festivals/markets open, and not with tiers of accreditation so you know how low your reputation stands. And what's with the booing? I don't understand.
Having said that, any festival which features a fictionalisation of the life of Serge Gainsbourg, who is in my top 20 of people in history, is doing something OK. And no, it's not a documentary, but there isn't a Gainsbourg documentary to write about at the moment, OK?
Islam is a religion
By Charlie Phillips 15 May, 2009
Sometimes, this country is a bit insane.
You'd think that in times of religious tension and a recession and political meltdown that could worsen that, the news the BBC have swooped to appoint Aaqil Ahmed as their new head of religion and ethics would be welcomed. Ahmed is a fine commissioner with a record of challenging and dramatic programming at Channel 4, which he's now leaving.
But no - the BBC receives over 100 complaints and has to promise that it won't abandon 'Christian programming'. These complaints were no doubt provoked by 3 major national newspapers campaigning against the appointment, with the Daily Mail writing ""The BBC yesterday appointed a Muslim as its head of religious programming in a radical departure from broadcasting tradition. This will cause dismay among the Christian churches"
Did I miss the memo when Islam stopped being a religion as well? The idea that a Muslim would be incapable of commissioning programmes other than those about his own religion is one that is openly racist. It makes me very sad that the discourse of TV commissioning in the mainstream press is rarely other than that of shock and complaint. In that atmosphere, how can anyone commission anything daring ever?
Meanwhile, commissioners are evidently a bit restless and are on the move - not just Aaqil. The BBC have also poached Jan Younghusband from Channel 4 for music and events, as she joins the new team in BBC Knowledge. And Five has waved goodbye to 2 of its 3 factual commissioners as well.
It's very uncertain, isn't it? As Kerry says there, people tend to gossip about this news but not really react to it. So the BBC has more of the pick of the top commissioners of recent times, ITV and Five are running from quality factual fast as they can, and C4/More4 keeps fighting the fight but in the face of continuing uncertainty about who'll pay the bills.
Seems to me there's a real space for someone to come out and declare that they really care about high-end docs that change the world, and they'll commit funds to making the innovative lifechanging stuff happen. Otherwise, there's no-one to defend this ground when the Daily Mail (etc) tries to define what makes factual programming acceptable. It's a war of values, and people need to step up to the plate.
HotDocs - Hitchens is sort of great
By Charlie Phillips 14 May, 2009
My HotDocs report is overdue - I know. There was a lot to think about it. Hussain is right to talk of a sense of optimism in the public support for documentary and the amazing quality of docs on show. But I don't know if the same can be said for the market, which I felt was just a little jittery. But what can you expect? The economy is collapsing, stupid. We can forgive our commissioners some caution, right?
First to the films - i don't see many of these fellas at festival, generally - at least not in cinemas anyway. I'm usually in the forums, hearing embryonic projects and helping the embryos to become healthy and tasty babies which funders will want to buy. But at HD, I did see in one of Toronto's lovely old cinemas:
1. End of The Line - Very good, stayed on the right line of preaching, and just when I was thinking "hmmm, lots of problems, gimme solutions"...they did. A doc about over-fishing and the elimination of communities' entire food reserve, I thought it pointed the fingers of blame in just the right places. Though I do also think its conclusion doesn't go far enough. Decide for yourself though - you may not be in the extremist camp as I am. Good news is that the UK's fine imaginative distributors, Dogwoof, are coordinating a major nationwide release of the doc on Monday 8 June, World Oceans Day. And their message is that the first step on the way to restoring our oceans is to watch the movie. You can book your tickets, and tell your friends to go here
2. We Live in Public - It's caused major schisms, and is an uber-Marmite doc, but I am coming out and saying that I liked it. It's cut-and-paste, punky, and a bit disgusting. You either like that or you don't. And I did.
3. 21 Below - The story of a family in crisis in Buffalo, from first-time director Samantha Buck. It moved me a lot more than I expected it to, making you consider the inability of families to communicate. These peoples' problems may have been worse than many others' but they share common ground of years of festering incommunication.
I heard of loads of other good tips from the assembled, some of which are noted here. When We Were Boys was on a lot of peoples' lips - I met the director Sarah Goodman at HD last year when she was working on it, and it's always a total thrill to see a project you were excited by get finished and get a lot of attention.
The awards were a great bunch, eclectic and certainly not predictable. The One Man Village took top international prize, being a film there hadn't been loads of chatter about in advance but sounds like an absolute surefire winner. The story of the last man in a destroyed Lebanese village - it makes you want to see it just from that sentence.
As you can see on that page, top winner at the TDF for the Canwest canadian project was White Pine Pictures' The Team, which was an interesting doc-drama fusion in that it was a doc about a drama that looks a bit like documentary. One of many projects in the works which concern the social potential of football in the lead up to South Africa's 2010 World Cup, I think it'll be a strong film.
The TDF had a good range of projects, and I took pride in Al and Jerry from Met Film wowing the crowd with The Town of Runners - if there was a prize for best trailer, they would be unchallenged winners. It was a gorgeous textbook trailer. Also from the UK, Morgan Matthews presented his new project, which surprised me with how experimental and daring it was. Morgan is a master of detail, and this investigation into small human movements during the terrorist outrage in Mumbai sounds like another brilliant and original doc from one of my current favourites.
The highlight of the 2 days, if not the best pitch or project, was Christopher Hitchens performing in support of the doc version of his book "God is not Great". I have no clear idea what the final film will be, but it's always fun to hear someone so confident of his own rightness, even when what he knows he's right about is that everything is relative and there's no sure belief system to believe in. One waggish commissioner asked if he could have a disclaimer that if he funded the doc and atheism was incorrect he would be forgiven at the gates of hell/heaven/nothingess. Hitchens bestowed a promise of eternal forgiveness on him.
Surprisingly, no commissioner at the table really jumped on the project and this was the strange thing about the TDF - absolute caution. A lot of kind words, and indeed not many nasty ones, but not a lot of commitment or real cash from those at the table. Is it the recession? Or is just that they wait for a private discussion away from the bead eyes such as mine?
The second afternoon of the TDF was given over to the Good Pitch, and 3rd sector (charities, social interest groups, alternative social funders, etc) flooded the room. Though it had its flaws as a public show, as an information-sharing exercise for commissioners, 3rd sector and filmmakers it was invaluable and even revolutionary. I think it quite scared some commissioners, in fact.
Other events to note were a discussion on the future of film festivals, which was particularly notable for Geoff Gilmore from Sundance musing that North American festivals were better at serving audience desire, whereas European ones either set the agenda for what is 'important' or serve the industry. Certainly, as Hoos said, HotDocs not only attracts massive audiences but saturates the mainstream media - I woke up every day to CBC radio discussions about the day's screenings. They are doing something very right to entice public interest.
But as a stake in the ground, I'm uncomfortable with the thought that doc festivals shouldn't be a gathering place for us 'industry' documentary people to meet and take stock. We don't tell you what is important, but we like to provide a place where you can come together and tell us and we can talk about it. And in any case, I don't like this public/industry divide where the former are there for fun and the latter for work. I think we can all mix and learn. Worse than serving just one sector of documentary interest is patronising or under-rating the audience you do serve.
Finally, a shout out to the Doc Agora people who've launched a great resources facility for, well, everything you need to know about documentary. Go on there, see if you can find something missing and tell them.
Alanis Does London
By Hussain Currimbhoy 14 May, 2009
A little piece of Hotdocs comes to the UK tomorrow.
Hotdocs honored filmmaker this year was Alanis Obomsawin. She's been making films for over 30 years and is one of the talented and wonderful documentarian I have ever known. Alanis is a member of the First Nations of Canada and has been making films around their struggles and joys for decades and has become an icon for peace and reconciliation as much as a venerated filmmaker.
She will be presenting at Riverside Studios tomorrow so check it out if you can:
Alanis and I had dinner with a few other Hotdocs peeps last week. Afterwards, on the way to a little party, she began speaking of her life before a filmmaker when she was a singer and toured the world. I had hear this about her but didn't want to ask. Then she started singing! I and the rest of th passengers in the back seat of a Ford Taurus were serenaded by the one and only Alanis and I can assure anyone that I'll never forget that night for the rest of my life.
She's a dazzler and has a warmth in her voice that makes you believe in documentary film and in art again. Don't miss it.
NYC is like a dirty ex-boyfriend
By Hussain Currimbhoy 12 May, 2009
Our congratulations to 'One Man Village' by Simon El Habre for winning Best Int. Feature prize and Invisible City by Hubert Davis for Best Canadian Feature prize at Hotdocs. Special hi-5s to Kevin McMahon's 'Waterlife' too - tipped by Agnes Varnum while exiting the party no less.
I was at Hotdocs for over a week and had a blast. Despite the economy, there was generally a positive sense in the air this year among delegates and guests. As they say: its an economic crisis, not a creative crisis. Though there was some talk and concern about rumoured changes in the works to Canada's funding schemes that traditionally have reserved a set amount specifically for documentary. But there is resistance to these changes. If they fail it will of course hurt Canada's doc industry and I wouldn't be surprised if doc makers had to do test screenings to get a grant.
This is all the more frightening and pertinent because the standout films at Hotdocs for me this year were certainly from the Canadian Spectrum programme.
There were moments when my common criticisms of docs were silenced:
'Why don't docs pay attention to sound more like they used to in the old days - like in 2002?' I would moan. Then came 'Antoine'.
'Doesn't any one have the guts to use 16mm any more?' I walk into 'Ali Shan' by Yung Chung. Yung, I love your guts.
'I'd kill for a horror doc that made me laugh like a little girl.' I happen to see 'Best Worst Movie'.
'I mean honestly, why can't I see something from Africa, say from Cameroon, for example, by an African filmmaker these days. Pass the Chablis, will you?' 'Sacred Places' anyone?
All of these were accomplished indie films that gave me insight and left me totally dazzled. It was hard to see a bad doc this year. Despite the distance between venues I saw loads of people queuing up for every film giving a big city a very village-feel.
Hotdocs public outreach is exceptional. I hear they have 2 people doing it full time in their staff. It made my decision to stay out of the viewing stations and stay in the cinema this time a good one. In 2008 I was in the viewing centre - or Docs for Sale - and it was far less inspirational an experience. As a programmer I like to see what reactions there are in an audience. Walk outs, yawns, comments, what people are texting... When I did venture into the viewing room it was rather empty. Either there were fewer delegates this year or everyone had the same idea as me and decided to enjoy the sunshine. Hotdocs were mentioned on the covers of 3 papers when I was in town. Comp tix to students and the elderly certainly spreads the word, but even people who don't fit either of those categories were filling the cinemas. I had a wonderful encounter with a couple who invited me and some filmmakers to dinner and they were openly saying how much they just loved buying docs online. I was stunned. The film festival community in Toronto is so persuasive, so powerful, that it even sucks in regular people like this to actually seek out docs on the net and see them for money! I had to know more but they were cagey. How much do you pay? Where do watch them and at what time of day? Why? I hope this trend spreads to the UK - even though everyone in Canada told me that the UK was seen as a leader, we still don't quite have the habit of viewing docs on line like the chaps in that placid ice box we call Canada. They asked me for some non-fiction films to watch out for. 'Have you seen anything by Bela Tarr?'
Before Hotdocs I spent a week at the Tribeca Film Festival in NYC, soiling myself in street pizza and having 'Midnight Cowboy' moments left and right. I admit, earlier in the year I was warned about Tribeca and that its doc slots could be better. Basically, I was advised, don't go. But I had to know for myself. And I must say I had an amazing time. Perhaps because its a 'mixed festival' featuring fiction and non-fiction the docs selected are more audience friendly, narrative driven, higher-end. The high point was 'Transcendent Man' that totally blew me away. Polished, great graphics aside the film poses a question that Asminov and Gibson have posed for decades: the cyborgs man. They're coming. And what the hell are we going to do? 'Oh, I don't get Facebook. Twitter - its for nothing.' well, get used to it pleb, cuz we're going to be emailing our thoughts, our breakfast and our memories to each other according to the scientist and inventor, Ray Kurzweil. The doc begins with Kurzweil's life, his track record of prediction and his views that super-computers, nanotechnology, will be common as mobile phones in no less than 40 years. But then it becomes philosophical asking bigger questions about evolution, our role as humans, and the potential ramifications of our work on the world. What got me was how unprepared we are for what might happen. An 18 year old I met after the film had similar views: 'we were warned and were so unprepared for global warming, the economy - jesus-h-tapdancing-christ, what will we do when our laptops become sentient?'
Kids are not what they seem in NYC.
'Yodok Stories' was another remarkable doc about the concentration camps in North Korea - one that will certainly get a good lathering around the fest circuit this year. Kirby Dick's much anticipated 'Outrage' was very good but didn't really out anyone the world didn't already know about. Kind of a let down. I hoped they were going to open a can of out-soup on Dick Cheney or Kennedy. And in the end, as a colleague astutely pointed out, do all women have to vote yes on women's rights issues? So why do gay men have to always vote yes?
I also felt personally akin to 'Partly Private' about the debate on male circumcision. Charting a couples debate on whether to snip or not, the doc becomes a story of sacrifice and compromise between couples, the tensions and ultimate meaning of tradition and the true relationship between a man and his wang. I laughed a lot but also found the topic a pertinent one that sparked all kinds of debates between friends after the viewing. Everyone has an opinion, everyone gets shy, everyone has a story. Though it did force Liz Mermin to take her drinks else at the party. ;) Her newest doc 'Team Qatar' was loved by the audience. It was my THIRD time seeing and I still laughed when one African debater gives the Qatar pundits a mild tongue lashing.
A smaller programme, keeping the fest located in Tribeca, 1999 parties and this kind of eclectic doc programming, made me realise I was totally coming back to Tribeca next year. A young producer I met had similar thoughts: 'the Festival is great, but NYC is like a dirty ex-boyfriend who treats you real bad and abuses you - but you just have to keep coming back for more.'
My lasting memory was standing alone in the line up for the 'Shadow Billionaire' screening at Hotdocs when an elderly lady began telling me how she flew in from Scotland to visit her daughter and was so caught up in the moment of wall to wall docs she just had to come out and see what the fuss was about. Now she's hooked. Can't tell you how much that made my day. She'd been to a few films every day since arriving and was having a great time. Then after a while of chatting she had to ask about the title on my badge: 'what does that mean: programmer?' so I tell her and she responds: 'Oh. I could do that.'
This is the Real World
By Charlie Phillips 01 May, 2009
Happy May Day everyone. Hope you're rising up against your masters as we speak.
But before you do, make a note that there's now a Cardiff pitch workshop on the agenda. So that's Edinburgh, Inverness, London and Cardiff all ready for you apply to. These workshops are a vital training in how to present yourself and your ideas to international documentary decision-makers and get their support, so use them. They are free too, remember. Free!
And after you've emailed me your interest in the workshop, you can watch some of PBS' newly-onlined catalogue.
Next big news from a friend of ours - The Real World scheme for filmmakers and academics to collaborate in the name of good is open - here's the gossip:
The Real World scheme is a genuinely collaborative scheme where filmmakers and academics learn from each other, and make films outside of the structures of television and NGO's. Filmmakers get given access to stories and characters from the Pathways of Women's Empowerment, an International Research and Communications programme made up of activists and academics working to understand and bring about positive change in women's everyday lives. There is an advanced development process for several filmmakers, organised by the Screen South / UK Film Council, and 2 people may go on recce before one filmmaker is given £17k to go and make their films. You'll need to conceive and produce a 20 minute narrative driven film, and a 3 minute and 30 second film to be distributed in different ways.
The application deadline is 12pm on 5th June 2009. In order to apply you must submit a one page visual treatment about one of the proposed ideas, along with your showreel, CV, application form and proof of address. The proposed topics are women watching TV in Bangladesh, how the law in Egypt can be be used as tool for reform for women and women and the work they do across several cultures. You can find out more detailed information on the guidelines, which you can download along with the application form from Screen South:
here
(In order to apply you must be a filmmaker, or working with a producer, based in the Screen South region, and have previously made a film screened at a festival.)
The Real World Steering and Selection Committee includes: Andrea Cornwall and Tessa Lewin (Pathways of Women’s Empowerment), Jo Nolan and Miranda Robinson (Screen South), Rebecca Frankel, Jess Search (Brit Doc), Mark Francis (BLACK GOLD), Jenny Dare (Al Jazeera), Verity Slater (Arts Council, SE) and Rachel Millward (Birds Eye View). Last year two sets of films were made under the scheme on it's pilot year, which have been selected for several film festivals already, and will go to be screened on television later in the year. These films are A Vida Politica, about women's activism in Brazil, made by Kat Mansoor, and Thorns and Silk, about women doing traditional male jobs in Palestine, made by Paulino Tervo.
Join up to the Facebook group, where you can ask questions about the scheme right here
Fundamentalism
By Charlie Phillips 30 April, 2009
Today, I'm going to talk to you about 2 things beginning with the prefix fund - funding and fundamentalism. Clever.
On funding, read my message to the world on Broadcast about plugging the gap in budgets lessened by drops in broadcaster support. Nothing you might not have thought before, but I think it's worth reiterating that we're not living in barren times. You can still get your doc funded, you just might have to be wily about it.
The safety net is gone - speaking of which, there's some good tips arising from a panel in Tribeca on 10 ways to respond to the current funding vista. I like "Make a Film With The Right Scale In Mind" especially. Not all soils suit all flowers - you find the right place for you. There'll be more on this no doubt at the upcoming Discovery Campus in Manchester.
And referring to another thing in my missive, I'm very glad that the BBC is publicly stating that they want standalone web content and not just branches of TV ideas on the web. This is really important for developing a cross-platform marketplace where buyers can have the confidence to invest in ideas which are perfectly-honed for what the web does better than the TV screen. You're going to see a lot more cross-platform market activity at Doc/Fest this year, so be ready to come with projects which are designed for the infinite possibilities of interactive factual.
In fact here's a great example - Au Bout Du Charbon from France, about mines in China. I heard a talk on it in Nyon, and I've been tracking this since talking to the producer at Sunnyside last year. Brilliant stuff.
On fundamentalism - if you're in HotDocs, I particularly direct you to watch Defamation by Yoav Shamir, as recommended by programmer Sean Farnel. It's a damning attack on the strange logic of America's Anti Defamation League, which sees anti-semitism in all works of world life. A kind of fundamentalism of suspicion. And there's further fundamentalism I push you to, in The Yes Men Fix The World, where the men take on the obsessive logic of the market.
Want further HD recommendations? See Agnes Varnum for some great thoughts.
Ok, something more fun for you? You should come and see Jamie Jay Johnson's Sounds Like Teen Spirit at the East End Film Fest - apparently it might be this year's Slumdog Millionaire. Wow. There's a real momentum building behing it - so much so that even ultra-hip jewelery boutique Tatty Devine is making bracelets for it! There's a competition you can enter too to win the special wristbands, which you can see here...
Cannes
By Charlie Phillips 26 April, 2009
The programme for Cannes has been released - you can see it voici.
Not a lot of docs there, as you might expect for Cannes. But Anne Aghion's My Neighbour My Killer, about the Rwandan genocide, is showing - and I've been told it's excellent.
Obviously, that's just the official selection - Cannes has a lot more going on than that, so if you're showing there, let me know and I may well write about it here.
Far from Cannes, I was also intrigued to see that Babelgum are commissioning original producations of docs now. Good!
Back to Nyon now. It's very beautiful here.
Snag the Earth
By Charlie Phillips 24 April, 2009
Big headline news for you - we've announced our London leg of the pitch workshop programme, and it'll be 2 days at the start of July. Can't wait. Send us your pitch document. And be aware that there's a lot of competition for places at the London workshop in particular, as you probably imagine, if you think about the industry skew towards living in the big city. But we're scrupulously dedicated to a meritocratic selection process, so do send us your pitch.
The piracy debates rumbles on - there's good thoughts from Ben Blaine on his Shooters blog - like this. He's towards the 'pirate' side of things, or to put it more accurately, the realistic side. We have iplayer, we expect on-demand watching.
We need a white knight of sorting-it-out-ness to ride into town, and maybe that's my beloved Snag Films, who are finally going global, meaning we may have some real action on getting to watch documentaries legally on the web with a good finance model. And they're teaming up with HotDocs too I see. All hail Snag.
On the sidelines, there's a fuss over Disney's new Earth documentary because it's a bit violent. Pardon me, but nature is very violent and unpredictable, that's partly why I love it. It's only human beings that are tame and predictable. Better kids get some chaos.
And for some fun, you can suggest who are the best doc directors. No reason, it's just fun.
I'm off to Nyon in Switzerland now for Visions Du Reel. Hussain is in Tribeca. Then we're both in HotDocs. We're on tour. Drop us a bell if you're at any of these places, you'll find us very sociable.
Yo ho ho and a bottle of...vodka
By Charlie Phillips 20 April, 2009
After the verdict that the founders of the Pirate Bay have been found guilty of facilitating the illegal download of copyrighted music, films, etc, there's a debate going on everywhere about whether piracy is good, bad, providing a service people want, providing a service people shouldn't be allowed to have, killing the film industry, saving the film industry, sending us to hell in a handcart, a reality we should cope with, or something in between all these.
Not least on Shooting People, where as well as holding a poll of members, there's a hearty discussion on the bulletins about what it means for films. And it my own act of piracy, here's some choice quotes:
Jess Search - "For me copyright is a legal issue but not a moral issue and I'm always surprised how often it gets talked about as if it is one - by either side of the equation. God did not give us copyright - society chose it as a progressive way to organise things at a particular time in our industrial development (1710 in Britain)"
Lee Kern - "I'm all up for evolving new distribution models and being creative in how one generates revenue in a world of changing viewing habits - but the bedrock principle as far as i'm concerned is that the artist should be compensated for their efforts"
Stuart Urban - "These are criminals who happily ripped off film-making talent. Throw away the key, I say!"
And there's more - you can see it if you're a Shooting People member, or want to use someone else's login and be a pirate.
I think it's quite shocking the Pirate Bay people got such a heavy penalty for this, putting aside my more general belief that a bit like illegal drugs, they're serving demand which isn't being served legally, and however you take a moral stance on this is a totally separate issue to this show-trail, but I won't add to the debate further now.
Instead, here's some more positive things regarding doing it yissen - variable pricing for screening indie films that reflects the economic position of the person wanting the screening. The AofS team may have started that, but it's a great system for all independent films. Common sense it may seem, but if you've ever curated a film programme on no budget, you'll know this is a gigantic leap into the great beyond. And here's another good system - club membership of a vodka gang to support the making of a new doc by Optimistic Productions about reopening a family vodka factory. Dan was at Doc/Fest last year in multiple guises, including making our truth stings. He's a great example of entrepreneurialism and used our marketplace last year to have loads of useful meetings. We're delighted More4 are picking this project up. Now go join the club and get special vodka.
Not DIY, but a harbinger of the future is that Adobe are taking a step nearer towards proper TV-internet streaming in your living room telly. And did you know that Stephen Fry's website actually is an amazing guide to digital trends? Believe the hype, it's so useful! And obviously, funny with a large F.
An American in London - Liz Mermin Interview on the eve of the launch of her new film
By Hussain Currimbhoy 20 April, 2009
An American in London
Filmmaker, Liz Mermin, first came up to Sheffield Doc/Fest when I was the assistant programmer in 2007. Her film ‘Shot in Bombay’ was one of the docs I sent to my mother and father back home because they love Bollywood films and I can assure you they have never seen Bollywood like this.
Since then I’ve become a fan of Merimins’ work. In 2008 Liz returned with her short ‘Ahmad Zahir for Beginners’ and also chaired a killer panel on the ins and outs of being an embedded filmmaker working in another culture.
So I couldn’t help but ask for a sneak-peek at Liz’s newest doc she produced for BBC’s Storyville, ‘Team Qatar’ when we were at a bar in London last month. This one focuses on Qatar’s young debating team that travels to Washington DC to compete in the world debating championships. The coach is Oxford bred, the team members are as diverse and opinionated as you can imagine but angle a razor-sharp intellect at literally any topic you can think of. Like ‘Spellbound’, any audience can’t help but fall for the characters and get your heart tied to their journey as they face success or failure far from home in the USA.
‘Team Qatar’ is having its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival this week, so Liz stepped out of the edit suite to talk about the film, her road to here and what’s next for one of the darker American’s in London.
Hussain Currimbhoy: there was lots in common with ‘Team Qatar’ as with your other films [Shot In Bombay, Office Tigers]. You seem to be interested in doing films about people from Afghanistan or India or in this case Qatar. Where does this interest come from? Is this a subject you’ve been interested in your whole life or is it something recent that’s developed?
Liz Mermin: I like the experience of being an outsider or a foreigner somewhere and the way that the makes you see the world. So I think I’m always looking for topics that take me places I haven’t been and introduce me to people I wouldn’t otherwise meet. That means going to India or Afghanistan – but it also means going to an office environment full of corporate types or a debate team because I knew nothing about debating.
HC: Me neither!
LM: so the less I know about something the more I get to follow a process of discovery which I think is a great model for the narrative of the film. So my interests are really wide. I’m chasing dozens of ideas all the time in a sense. I don’t end up making a film like, ‘this is the film I had to make’ because I’m obsessed with this topic. Its more like, something will come along and I’ll think, well that’s kind of intriguing and the thing that makes something intriguing to me is when it’s a clash of two things that you don’t expect: like Qatar and high school debating. Or Bollywood and gangster movies instead of singing and dancing. And when I heard about this it did strike me as weird enough to be worthy of my attention! (laughs)
HC: That is what it seems like! You kind of walk in there with a completely open idea as to how you are going to interpret this. Your other works seemed quite quick in their pace and you come in firing on all cylinders to get to the point. Tell me about your approach to this film and the relationship of style versus story.
LM: In many ways this was a pleasure to cut compared to other films I’ve done because it did have an obvious structure. There’s a competition, they are preparing for it, then they compete in it. And that is easy compared to cross cutting between the making of a movie and the back-story of a movie star accused of terrorism and a police brutality story.
The difficult thing is debating is really an antithetical activity to filmmaking in a lot of ways because these kids did 35 debates from the time we were shooting with them and each of those debates is over an hour long. And this question of how the hell you cut these things to do justice to the content and the process without boring people to tears was the challenge in this one.
Each film has its own structural challenge. We wanted to play on the idea of a sports competition movie and that idea came out of the fact that the coach, this ambitious, slightly nerdy English guy is always using American football references, so it becomes a sort of tongue-in-cheek thing where you are making a sports film about a very un-sports like activity.
HC: And that template came out during the shoot or was is it something premeditated?
LM: It was an idea that came up early in the shoot because of the way Alex, the coach, was always using sports metaphors and it seemed like a way to make it funnier and pacier. I think the structure for my films often come from the nature of the characters and the feel you get from working them. These kids were really energetic and the coach was really energetic and there was activeness to the whole thing that felt sporty. Using sports diagrams and language made an inherently quite tedious process a little more exciting.
HC: I thought the kids were all very interesting. They were raised in the same country, with the same religion and mentalities but they did have some backward views on homosexuality for example. How did you get along with the kids and what surprised you about them?
LM: They were incredibly charismatic and as soon as I met them I knew there was actually a film here. When I first heard the topic and was asked to do it I was a little bit worried, but they are all so likeable and funny and sharp. As I said earlier, I like being an outsider and making films about unfamiliar things, but what I think happens is you inevitably find people who are incredibly familiar even if they are from the other side of the world and you have very little in common.
There was a way in which these kids, although their life experiences were completely different from mine, did feel very familiar – their character traits and their ways of speaking and seeing the world. Part of that is because they grew up on American pop culture like everyone else.
HC: I assumed there wasn’t a lot of American pop culture in a place like Qatar.
LM: Oh god no – they have an argument in the film about ‘Seinfeld’. The geeky intellectual type loves it and the girls are all way too cool for it and can’t stand it. They’ve all got satellite and have seen every new release. Their ipods are full of all the same stuff as anyone else’s. So, yes – Qatar is not particularly restrictive in terms of pop culture.
HC. It seems that this is another trait of your work. In the middle of all this bad news in the world, you manage to find nice stories that are quite uplifting and are in the end quite humanistic to me. It’s easy to go and find the war film in Afghanistan. Its easy to find the anti-Islam film in Qatar but you manage to find fun stories that bring a bit of hope. Why do you do that? Why don’t you go out and find the war film?
LM: That sounds so sweet but it doesn’t sound like me at all! I’m actually edgy and dark! (laughs) I mean, I want the films to be engaging and enjoyable even if they have difficult moments. I guess my idealist, humanist side believes that the best way to make people care about and understand other parts of the world is to make them feel really familiar. I think a lot of times when we are just looking at misery and horror it can be a very alienating experience. Its something I refer to as poverty pornography. There is a way of looking at tragedy that I think can be very distancing and I’ve never really been comfortable with that. Its always something I’ve struggled with it, because I think its something important to draw attention to but I guess I’m attracted to the challenge of making something alien familiar, and humour is the best way to do that. Because on the one hand humour is so culturally specific and yet…
HC: And yet so common to all of us.
LM: Exactly. And its weird the things that you find that are similar in places that you really don’t think you would. I think that is something I first discovered in Afghanistan with these women who spoke very few words of English but there was something about communicating through humour that really worked and I think that’s just remained. I never really set out to make things that were funny. They just happened.
HC: I think it works for your style. Did you see ‘Enjoy Poverty’? It was pretty much just poverty pornography.
LM: No, I didn’t see it. The frustrating thing is, and I’m sure as a programmer you know that there is an enormous amount of that kind of stuff happening, there is an expectation that that is what documentaries are supposed to be. At non-documentary film festivals I feel that the documentary strands within them are kind of like the conscience of the industry. There’s a lot less reward frankly for doing things that are not considered serious. Its frustrating because things are often dismissed as being light.
HC: I almost apologised for saying your films were happy and nice. But this is a role of documentary and that is to break down stereotypes. You don’t push the stereotypes and that’s what I like the most about your films.
But you weren’t always a filmmaker. You were an academic for some time and you fell into filmmaking. When you were living in Senegal can you tell me what films inspired you and made you a believer?
LM: I studied a bit of avant-garde film and film theory in college but I didn’t really dive into film until I was in Senegal. The films I was most taken by were by Ousmane Sembene, whom of course everyone knows as the father of modern African cinema, and Djibril Diop Mambety. Sembene does these realist films which at times are a bit heavy handed for me but these were kind of small stories that really had a sense of humour to them. When I studied film early on it was in an ethnographic film programme so I watched a hell of a lot of early anthropological films that treated their subjects in a way that a lot of people were uncomfortable with. Spending a year in Senegal with Senegalese filmmakers and listening to all the issues they had with the way Africa was represented was worth ten anthropology degrees. Listening to their resentment of how Africa is treated, then watching what they did when they chose to represent Africa, you see they made these incredibly playful, very funny, very beautiful, moving films. Poverty, corruption, sickness was the environment but it wasn’t the subject. They are really character driven and are against expectations.
Sembene I liked because he brought humour into subjects that weren’t necessarily humourless. But Mambety‘s films, and he’s only made four, two in particular blew me away. One is called ‘Touki Bouki’, it was made in the 70s and its about this hippy couple from Dakar who are trying to catch a boat to France and they’re just driving a motorcycle around the city with bull horns on the front and they stop over at some sugar daddy’s house to try to get money for their tickets…. They’re just running all over the city doing these things that reveal a side of Dakar no one ever sees. Incredibly funny, and colourful and totally surreal. I was like: This is the way I want to see Africa. Its urban, its cool, its weird, and its like, I wanna be those people. It’s the same effect as French new wave cinema had. It’s the idea of not doing what is expected and of being playful.
HC: I know exactly what you mean. That’s what I thought of when I heard about those movies.
LM: They weren’t documentaries and didn’t have anything to do directly with documentary, but I think that the idea of not doing what is expected and of being playful, that is what characterised the ones that I liked.
HC: So after Senegal you went back to the USA then you came here. (The UK)
LM: Well, yeah there’s about 11 years between them!
HC: I wanted to know differences you’ve found between making films here and in the USA. How is it for you?
LM: The reason I stayed here is that I really liked the doc community in the UK. I made a film independently with grant financing in the states about abortion doctors –and even that had a little humour in it! – and that was a great experience because it was grant funding and we could do what we wanted and we ended up getting distribution on the Sundance channel and from that I leapt into doing television docs. That was a great experience but then it became really frustrating because for the most part American television docs are formulaic unless you’re lucky enough to be on the HBO gravy train.
So I kinda of felt like I paid my dues doing docs for American TV. Once I had the experience of doing ‘Beauty Academy’ for Storyville with the freedom to experiment and to do what you feel the film should be instead of what the executives feel their channel needs - well, it was such a relief to be able to do that. I’ve just been really lucky since I’ve been in the UK because I’ve had these things come my way and have this great relationship with Storyville. Presumably that won’t last forever and I’ll be inducted into the harsh reality of English TV as well!
The biggest reason I’ve stayed here is that the outlook is much more international and I know that lots of British filmmakers complain that everything has to have an English tie in but compared to the USA… I mean I’ve had a hard time getting funders in the States for my last few films because there were no American characters, end of story.
HC: Last question is how do you feel about the launch of the film in Tribeca and what’s next for you.
LM: Of course I’m very excited about the launch in Tribeca. ‘Beauty Academy’ premiered there so I have a soft spot for it and of course being a former New Yorker I have lots of friends there so it’ll be a great place to launch the film - so I’m very excited – nervous of course because its terrifying to have to your first public screening.
The next film is about horses, which is a complete departure for me, but I’m trying to approach it in the same way. Which is making it very character driven – by the horses – and trying to find strange moments of familiarity. It will either be really interesting or a spectacular failure. We’ll find out in a few months!
'Team Qatar' leads the Storyville season on BBC this month and screens at Tribeca this Saturday.
Workshops and learning things
By Charlie Phillips 16 April, 2009
Those of you on our mailing list will have seen that the pitch workshops we do are getting into full swing again - see here for the latest. 2 coming up in Scotland, and more elsewhere. Ask anyone who's been, these workshops are majorly-useful.
I keep reading things that make me think about what documentary should do, and if it's legitimate to even claim that it should have a purpose. Kirby Dick's new film, Outrage, which I can't wait to see at HotDocs, has a definite aim - to out US politicians. There's a lot of secrecy around the film, but what a thrilling, if just a little controversial, a purpose that is. In that interview he says that he's exposing this because no-one else will, and that is a fine purpose for a documentary I think, but it doesn't mean he'll do it in a way which makes us take up metaphorical arms against these people. It troubles me often with these kind of crusading docs that you're informed, but you're not called to action. Which reminds me, actually, of a typically sweepingly generalising insert from Adam Curtis in Charlie Brooker's Newswipe last week on "Oh Dearism" in the news (linked from here). Don't you think that sometimes campaigning docs are a bit like that too?
If you want some things to really say "oh dear" about, then what about the death of the high-end doc? He's sort of right in terms of UK broadcasters' budgets at the moment, but it's not the whole picture. UK Broadcasters are just one part of the picture - that's why we don't only invite them to our marketplace because there's other money out there as well which can join the UK money party.
His experience with generating funding through the internet is quite typical I suppose - in the UK at least, we’re still in a place whereby you need to call on special-interest groups related to your subject matter (the Age of Stupid or Robert Greenwald route) or have an excellent network of fans who want to support you because they think no-one else is doing what you do or they admire your independent spirit – the Radiohead/Patrick Wolf music model transferred to documentary. But that requires a total commitment to an existence outside of broadcast funding, and a lot of grassroots social network wooing.
In any case, it's fine, look - Five is going to spend some money.
One more 'oh dear' actually - it annoys me that you're evidently no longer allowed to film within a football ground - that's very annoying for anyone who wants to make a doc about anything to do with football and isn't willing to be creatively and financially dominated by the football authorities and/or clubs. Poor Rory C-J, my heart is with you.
Back to my original point about what purpose documentary might have - maybe it's to make people look stupid in a clever way, like Bruno (by the way it's totally a documentary - is there even a debate? I don't get it) or maybe it's family therapy like In A Dream. Both laudable. But it's probably stretching the intentions of the filmmakers to say they wanted to achieve these purposes. Maybe they were just interested in a good subject. In fact, in both cases, they're interesting takes on documentary because they're not trying to achieve anything at all.
Documentary's too complicated. What about a really useful social tool which allows you to share expertise? Very Douglas Coupland - it's brilliant.
TDF and others
By Charlie Phillips 08 April, 2009
I did it again - built up news for a week and now it'll come in a torrent (or as they said on a Five Live this morning "a tsumani of information" - is that acceptable?). In my defence, I've been in Belfast as you know, then Sheffield on 2 days, London on 2 (including some late-night kettle action), and a stag weekend in Edinburgh in the middle. And the days disappeared.
But highlight of current news is the announcement of those chosen for the TDF at HotDocs. I'll be there along with Hussain, though I may not be talking to Hotdog vendors as he will. It's not always the biggest news when pitching line-ups are announced, but for TDF it's major news, because it's a key launching event for new projects. For me, the market year starts properly with TDF, and maybe that's in part because it's such a cool event.
My tips for a good show if you're going to be there are Vardan Hovhannisyan's 'donkeymentary' - I met Vardan in Sofia, and he's bubbling over with great ideas and charisma, as well as possessing a fine dress sense. And how many other doc-makers do you know from Armenia? I'm delighted he'll be pitching. Also look out for Xenophile from Canada, and Florian Film (from Germany)'s biog of Rock Hudson. The UK is very well represented indeed, with Red Eye, Minnow (that's Morgan Matthews, who I think is brilliant), and Met Film there, the latter pitching Town of Runners - who you must surely recall was pitched at MeetMarket in 2008. Joining them as MM alumni is Cosmo Doc's On The Border. Well done everyone, I'll see you there!
So what's more news? There's a new tranche of videos on the Gaza-Sderot platform, which I spent hours on last year. This is the project I've been highlighting in talks and workshops as the interactive factual project showing a good way to do web factual well - reaching people everywhere, crossing borders, and being designed specifically to be seen on the web.
There's also loads of UK industry news - a promotion for Doc/Fest favourite Greg Sanderson at Storyville. Much deserved - Greg is a superb commissioner. His colleague Nick Fraser has warned of the dangers of doc-makers relying on NGO funding. I don't think he "slammed" them though, as the article claims - he was just expressing some concern, and saying there should be more funding from elsewhere. That's no slam in my book.
Then there's a new Yorkshire indie, sort of compensating for the closure of Yorkshire TV. Anything getting attention for Yorkshire is always fine by me. Across the Pennines into the redder rose, there's more cash for North-Westerly creative and digital companies - if you're based there, then get it soon as you can before it disappears. And note too that Nat Geo has done some big commissions - remember them when you're shopping around for support for your doc, they're good people.
And the BBC is fulfilling a dream of mine by testing live mobile streaming, which I would love so much. Though it doesn't sound like it would work on my iphone. It makes me happy I can access the iplayer on there, but live viewing - well that would be pleasant indeed.
And just as exciting is the news that Discovery Campus is coming to Manchester in May. Discovery Campus is very useful, very important and a fascinating event. You in the UK, you should come, it's silly to miss it.
April. A month into submissions.
By Hussain Currimbhoy 07 April, 2009
April is one my favorite months because a)I've got submissions coming in and consuming the shelf, b) a new issue of Sight & Sound has just fallen into my lap(thanks Kirsty-) as I write this (by the way check out the great review of 'Religulous' doc and interview with Larry Charles by Ed Lawrenson on page 8) and c) because I've got two killer festivals to attend in oh, roughly 15 days and 11 hours.
Tribeca and Hotdocs are looming large in the rear view mirror and I'm getting myself packed mentally, doing my viewing list and working out what on earth I'm going to wear.
In the course of 12 months I may attend about 7-8 film festivals but I still get jittery with a bit of excitement before hand. If I'm a virgin to a certain festival I'll only have stories from colleagues and friends to go on. Then I start thinking: what if everything is sold out, what if its a nightmare to get to the cinemas? (I get lost so easy friends used to call me Mr. Magoo, even somewhere like Toronto where I was born) What if I've chosen badly? what if - what if - and I come home saying: um, well, I didn't see that or that or but I did meet the nicest hot dog vendor today.
If its a festival that I have attended in the past then the pressure is off a little bit I can loosely create a viewing schedule and arrange meetings in a suitable bar before I get there instead of spending ages working out the routes between cinemas.
By the way, viewing schedules start with the transfer to the airport. A selection of films to watch on the train and in flight are imperative.
But there are rules that I will impart from learning the hard way:
1. Film should be long enough so as not to run the battery on the laptop down, (so I can't watch 'Shoah' again)
2. Film must not require a change in region-setting on the computer. I hate doing that and will only change region if there is no other option and I can't see this film any where else.
3. Its hard to be sure of since you've not seen it before but the film must not have nudity or drug usage cuz no doubt you'll be sitting beside a child who will peer over, see the screen and either stare at it for the whole trip (slightly perturbing) or be disturbed by the content and say 'Mummy, that Indian man is sitting too close to me. Can we change seats?' in a volume just over the engine noise. You can only go on instinct here.
4. Film can't be too atmospheric. If there is a reliance on sound I'm going to miss a lot of it because of noise.
(Yes, sorry folks, I do watch some submissions on the plane and on the train to the airport.)
The viewing schedule in a festival is a different story. I used to be quite meticulous about the schedule and where I'd have to be and at what time while fitting in meetings with colleagues, but as a prominent doc programmer told me in a queue at Berlinale: 'I used to make festival schedules but they end up being so fucked up by the time you get somewhere I just toss it in the toilet and just go with the flow.'
Sage advice. You gotta let a festival take you into its swing and guide your viewing because films feel a certain way in a certain setting. A doc in America won't feel the same as a doc in the UK in some cases and vice versa and that's what good about festivals right?
Read the publications and what they're liking, if you can check out a few blogs all the better, but what's better still is to talk, talk, talk to people - then decide what to see tomorrow.
I'll be at the Tribeca Film Festival from April 24 until April 30th, then at Hotdocs from the 30th until May 8. Substantial festival reports and news to come so stay tuned.
My thanks to everyone who has submitted docs so far. Some of have been really good and I'm humbled by the task before me.
Forgiving but not forgetting
By Charlie Phillips 30 March, 2009
In Belfast, for the pitch workshop, but also to judge the Maysles Bros docs competition, so I've been watching a marathon session of films over the last few days. With the accompanying helter-skelter of emotions that means, as you lurch from family trauma to legal injustice, and occasional happy stuff too.
But as amazing and powerful as that was a tour of Belfast we got from the festival's driver, through the main thoroughfares of conflict I remember from the news in the 80s and 90s. Seeing these locations, which I suppose I remember in a misty detached haze from growing up, in real life was humbling. They became real places of community and trauma and not simple theatres of war viewed through a screen - and this, a small trip across the water from the mainland UK, where I've been privileged to grow up in an attitude of tolerance - or at least tolerance that stays the right side of the gun.
But what I was most awestruck by was the murals, which are unappreciated pieces of folk art, constantly being updated. Maybe now that the conflict is, we hope, in the fading embers stage, they can be appreciated as the unique visual marvels they are, with detachment from the quite-shocking content of them. Although that's probably asking too much at the moment.
Still, their depiction of Northern Ireland's path to forgiveness is immensely touching - that for example, to mark the anniversary (I unfortunately can't remember which one-sorry) of this mural of an IRA cell meeting being painted they changed the maim character's clothes from army fatigues to a demob suit
(Thanks to Ben Kempas, who showed the brilliant Upstream Battle last night, for that picture)
It'd be too hopeful to say that the areas we drove through, in both communities, feel like havens of peace and understanding. They're just on the first steps of the road. But our driver impressed me, with his pride in the side he came from, but a definite assertion that the war was over and that both sides had suffered. That horrific things had happened, but if they were being put on record, and depicted in film, art and words, they could be worked through and understood as forgiven but not forgotten.
And this keeps coming back to me, as we're watching documentaries which often tell the stories of hatred between communities and people in pressure situations being horrific. Docs like that often end with no hope in sight, but there really is always hope if people want things to change. And if they're allowed to channel the pride in who they are into something creative, like murals or whatever else, rather than killing, that's to be celebrated. Right?
A round-up
By Charlie Phillips 27 March, 2009
I'm on my way to Belfast this evening for the next pitch workshop (news on more workshops coming very soon!), but lots of other documentary people are on their way to MIPDOC, the big international gathering of documentary market types. Heather will be there, so go say hello.
And if you want to do some good prep, then look at this guide to what everyone wants at the moment for acquisitions everywhere. These are hard times, use all the help you can get. Thank you Broadcast. And there's similar, but different, info in this video from C21. Free help - that's how we'll beat the credit crunch. And you don't even have to go to France to use the help - you can get it right now.
Move east - Thessaloniki announced its winners recently - amongst them, Crude, Burma VJ, and a pitching prize for a Brit, Kate McNaughton's developing film about Tamsin Omond.
In the States, Tribeca is helping under-represented communities to make films through their All Access scheme, which I admire much, and also Hulu, which is apparently the best place to watch video ever but we can't do so in the UK, is expanding internationally. To the new man - do it quickly, we're waiting impatiently. In fact, it's all about expanding outside the US at the moment - the Sundance Channel is going to France. Lucky France.
And back to the fine UK - well, Channel 4 just launched its spring/summer season. There's animal autopsies, and Red Lions. Apparently, The Red Lion is the most common name for a pub in the UK - is that right? I always assumed it was either The King's Head or The Green Man, but I have no evidence to support that. All the factual shows are here, and the big thing to spot there is Aaqil Ahmed's new religion strand, Revelations, which will take religious programming into the 21st century - i.e. away from niches and terrorism, I suspect.
And one of my favourite smaller festivals has announced its programme - the East End Film Festival, programmed by Philip Ilson, king of DIY film land. Lots of good things, including an Iain Sinclair weekend (wow!) and Kieran Evans' Vashti Bunyan doc.
Toronto's Hotdocs in the spotlight
By Hussain Currimbhoy 25 March, 2009
David Duchovny once commented in an interview that you can tell a culture values most by the things it has the most words in its language for.
In English we have the most number of words for penis and money.
In Inuit culture they have a lot of words for snow.
If we are to go by this logic Hotdocs 09 programme has hit the nail on the head this time when it comes to what is on the frontal lobe of contemporary Western culture. As Director of Programming, Sean Farnell said in his press release: 'These are wild times.' and the programme reflects these times with verve, gusto and a good dose of 'the hell with it I just like this godamn movie.'
Of the 130 + films in the official programme its the Canadian Spectrum, Next and the International Spectrum where you'll be finding me most of the time when I hit Toronto at the end of May. It’ll be a very interesting jolt of docs since I’ll be coming straight from Tribeca FF ( a ‘mixed’ fest that is only sharing a couple of films with Hotdocs). The programme seems intently focussed on young and progressive filmmakers - like Yung Chang’s ‘Ali Chang’ and with a firm belief in its native roots – this is a far more acute sensation I get this year, and this is not just because last year was my first Hotdocs. I didn’t feel that sensitivity last year.
I’m interested in the reception that the ‘Lets Make Money’ strand gets with its pity and timely examination of this fixation with money we’re all pretending just happened yesterday.
I personally have heard a lot about ‘The Cove’ (big Sundance winner that left many saddened by the unending power of human ignorance and arrogance) and ‘We Live In Public’. So I’d like my tix for those now please. ‘21 Below’ by Samantha Buck is one that I saw last month but I’m very keen to know what a paying audience thinks of it. And believe me Hotdocs audience numbers to make any programmer envious.
Brit films ‘Pockets’ and ‘End Of The Line’ are ones I’m really eager to see – not just to know how they translate to N. American audiences but because they have great directors behind them. ‘Jazz Baroness’ and ‘Yes Men Fix The World’ are other Brit productions I’ve seen (and Doc/Fest screened ‘Jazz Baroness’ last year as I’m sure you all know) but I’m going to see them again for the same reasons.
Its the focus on Native Canadian director, Alanis Obomsawin, that lends a regal element – and Alanis is not only a living legend and pioneer of Canadian film but is, I can confirm, one of the smartest and coolest women you will ever want to meet. Same goes for Kim Longinotto and her new one: ‘Rough Aunties’ that has hitherto been just one screening ahead of me.
Contrast this with incisive, character driven specialties like ‘P-Star Rising’ and ‘Another Perfect World’ by Jorien van Nes and Femke Wolting that give you your fix of this-is-not-my-world-and-I’m-glad-to-be-an-outsider.
The Ying and Yang of sexual psychology is exemplified in ‘Orgasm Inc’ and a film I’ll be first in the queue for: ‘Love In India’ by someone going only by the name Q. If anything I just need to get a glimmer of insight into why my ancestors have let post-colonial India’s lighams and yoni’s become like the good silverware: polished and used on special occasions only.
But don’t expect them all to be crowd pleasers. IDFA’s opener ‘Enjoy Poverty Ep 3’ is featured and I as recall, it was described as ‘utterly perverse’ by a filmmaker I met in the bar after the screening in Amsterdam last year and was then called ‘a doc that goes to the heart of what we do’ by another filmmaker a few hours later.
‘Defamation’ follows a young Israeli in his quest to ‘find’ modern anti-Semitism and will no doubt be praised as either courageous or outright racist. But Hotdocs is never shy when it comes to controversial films.
But hang on – we don’t have a lot of words for ‘Font’, ‘design’, ‘style’, or ‘beauty’ so why is the Gary Hustwit study of form and function in ‘things’, ‘Objectified’, running off the meter along with ‘Art and Copy’? I guess as times get tough we are even more drawn to aesthetics.
Though I do wish there was a bit more from the African continent, Russia (which is making some great films right now-) and Asia, its going to be very hard to decide what to get to that’s for sure. Because the programme is making one thing very clear: the taboos are coming down and as the programme insists that there is no more time for sugar coating anything.
Submit a session
By Charlie Phillips 25 March, 2009
Doc/Fest is the time when everyone comes together to talk about the big issues in documentary that are most relevant to documentary-making and -watching people.
Which means that since that's you, we're dedicated to providing you with the chance to bring session ideas to the event. Doc/Fest is your festival. So we're very pleased to invite you to submit a session.
We welcome ideas that you think are important to be discussed. If you have an idea for a session you would like to produce at the festival - it can be craft-based, case studies, debates or masterclasses - then fill in the form on that page. It's a totally open call, so use your imagination and make it the most interesting, original and contemporary session Doc/Fest will see in 2009.
Deadline for your ideas is July 8th.
Docs in the City
By Hussain Currimbhoy 24 March, 2009
One of my favourite docs from Doc/Fest last year (and I'm not just saying that - honest) was Gideon Koppel's 'Sleep Furiously'.
Not just because of the film (that really has to be seen in cinema-) but because it was a great Q&A experience after the screening with the director. He's a clever chap who doesn't do this for the sake of it. He's incredibly sensitive and understands you can have poetry in a film without making obtuse and chaotic. I just kept hearing about the film after the festival was over too. Members of our board attended the screening too and some said 'Sleep Furiously' marked their high point for Doc/Fest 09.
If you didn't see it last year you can check it out in London on Monday April 20th at 18:30 at the Soho Screening rooms,14 D’Arblay Street W1F 8DY.
It breaks the rules of documentary form and comes across as a total contradiction (from the title to the music, which was composed by Aphex Twin I might add with unhidden glee) - so why would we not programme this? What's not to love? It will be in cinemas on May 29 at Curzon Cinemas in Soho and Phoenix Finchley too.
Our sisters-in-arms at Tigerlily are also doing Doc Thursdays screening with a collection of great films at the Rich Mix Studios. Some of have played at Doc/Fest in the past - like 'Alexis Arquette: She’s My Brother' and 'Dolce Vita Africana' but there are some other surprises that I might make a trip down to see myself.
Neo neo neo neo realism
By Charlie Phillips 24 March, 2009
Mornings are good when you're bombarded with loads of interesting documentary thoughts - because most of the doc news I read regularly comes from places other than the UK, I look forward to my 8am blast of newness.
...But to start with some UKness, and in the Good Things camp, I like the sound of Vanessa Engle's new doc series on feminism, entitled Women. She's previously done Lefties, which I loved; Jews, which I didn't think got to the nub of Jewishness but was still great doc-making; and now it's feminists from both a historical and contemporary perspective - because people, as if there weren't enough tsuris for The Man already, there is an upsurge of feminism going on too. I do like my doc series with big ambitions, this sounds excellent.
And if you have big ambitions too, my next bit of UK news is that you should apply for Britdoc's Films For Good Workshop - which isn't merely about being trained to make social action docs, but about how to make campaigns that work for your films that will change the world.
Which reminds me - you should arrange a screening as part of Purim to Passover and Beyond if you can, and show 3 brilliant world-changing docs in your living room, courtesy of one of the finest people in docland, Sandi DuBowski. There's not long though - Passover is in a couple of weeks, so get moving.
So what did I find upon waking this morning? That there was a panel on festivals at SXSW, where to surmise people said festivals are good and a way to get seen and get a buzz about you. Very true. They're much more than that as you all know, but it's always good for people to reiterate that festivals matter - I do worry not everyone will survive in these economic times, and for me all festivals are good things, even the smallies. Good link on there to indiewire's new festival database too - even if there's loads for us all from Europe to email them and tell them they're missing.
In indiewire discussion, very glad to get the link to this discussion on neo-neorealism which relates a bit to what I was saying last week about Mumblecore and how I like it because it approaches drama from documentary, and lays out the real heart at the construction of fiction for all to see. But like that discussion points at, what's interesting is when the formal structure of filmmaking is revealed as being conceived by and acted out by 'real' people in 'real' situations, who can't escape their real circumstances in being authors of fictional material. What's not interesting is when fiction makes a cackhanded attempt at social reality and makes it a millions miles from anything any real person has ever seen.
Basically what I'm saying is that documentary gets you close to the truth, and that's why I love it.
Even a doc about a bad fiction film is OK by me - like Best Worst Movie - I agree with the writer that the fetishising of 'bad' films is really tedious. But this doc seems to take that phenomenon to task a bit, so I think I'd like it.
Finally, Robert Greenwald is making a doc in real time (sort of) about Afghanistan - interesting. Well actually, that clip on there isn't that interesting but the idea is, and I'm a big fan of how he does things, so I'm going to keep watching.
The train
By Charlie Phillips 23 March, 2009
I've pontificated here a few times on matters Green and pleasant, and perhaps haven't given many concrete things documentary people could do to put the breaks on runaway climate change. So I'm going to advocate one thing from a festival person's perspective, which is where possible to take the train and not the plane.
Here's the answers to your questions.
- Impossible? No, not at all if you're in the UK or central Western Europe, especially.
- A bit difficult to organise? No, it's actually really easy, with an increasingly integrated European rail timetable.
- More time-consuming? Yes but it's also substantially more enjoyable.
- More expensive? Often, yes. But the more people that do it, the more people there are to lobby cross-national governments to change their transport policies.
- Actually impossible if you're talking going across a sea, like even to Ireland? No, you can get a ferry. OK, it does take ages, but you can travel overnight so it makes no difference to your working schedule. And by the way, no ferries definitively aren't as bad as planes, if that's what you're thinking.
In the last 12 months, I've been to festivals/markets in Bardonecchia by train (direct from Paris), Inverness by train (truly romantic) and Amsterdam by ferry (a beautiful ride, trust me). The year before, I went to Copenhagen by train, and it was an adventure. This year, I'm going to Belfast by boat, Nyon by train, La Rochelle by train and I'm sure there'll be more.
OK I'm not denying that for necessity I flew to Sofia, and in the next couple of months will be flying to Toronto, which put simply in carbon terms means I've outweighed the benefits of those non-plane journeys by a substantial amount. But I don't think reversing runaway climate change is just about my personal travel, it's about what large numbers do, and if more people avoided planes for very short distances, and demanded lower prices for doing so, it would make a difference, so hey, that's what I'm trying to do. Call me a hypocrite, or maybe a masochist if you like, but I'm trying.
So if you'd like to try too, and I'm aware by the way that this is a lot easier to plan to do if you're based in the UK, France, Germany, Belgium, possibly Spain, and other countries cuddling the heart of the EU, then try Seat 61 for every conceivable way of traveling without flying. You might like it.
Pitching/Superstar
By Charlie Phillips 19 March, 2009
Well I was going to write an overdue account of our recent Newcastle pitch workshop, but now I've decided to do a wrap-up of some SXSW reports. But to whet your appetite, here's some peeks at what our pitching workshops look like...
That's Mark Craig pitching
That's Mat Fleming pitching to Maxyne Franklin from Britdoc.
So interesting reports on SWXW for you - the trumpeted VOD premiers tying in to festival screenings are apparently a bit of a swizz in that if you want them on your TV, you need to already have the right cable package, so it's not on-demand in its purest form. You can get it totally on-demand on your computer, but if we're talking on your TV you can't. So for those of us in the UK, it's like having the Medium package on Virgin which means you can't choose to watch any of their on-demand library even if you're willing to pay one-off. That's annoying.
But for the man who did to get to watch it on that blog, I like his analysis of the viewing experience when you're on a sofa and not on a festival seat. He's right that much of the fun of festival viewing is the communal experience, especially when you know a lot of the crew personally, but that it's not always the case you watch a festival film with a totally critical mind. For me, the critical time comes when I'm home and no-one else can influence me. There's a definite critical mass that builds at festivals where the collective decides on how a film is to be rated, and it's only when the collective disappears that perhaps peoples' actual individual responses are formed. Bit scary now I think about it.
And the Swanberg film he mentions in that blog is a new one in the 'Mumblecore' cluster which has been pretty much ignored in the UK, but which deserves your attention because many of these films apply a documentary method to an improvisational drama content. They're drama-docs in my view, albeit with drama in big letters and documentary in tiny size-6 font. And the new one from the original and best in the scene (well, the most commercial, probably) Andrew Bujalski, Beeswx, is reviewed thoughtfully here. I'm guessing we'll have to wait until the LFF to see it in the UK, but who knows?
Back on proper documentary earth, I like the sound of Died Young Stayed Pretty, which is like this year's Beautiful Losers I suppose, with hip liberal artist semi-punks having their say on modern life. I always like that kind of jazz.
But the really exciting thing in Austin is that they naughtily showed Superstar, Todd Haynes' genius Barbie-powered dramatisation of the life of Karen Carpenter. The world and his wife have possibly seen it on youtube now, where it's lived happily for ages without ever being taken down, but having it on a big screen is very rare. Why don't the Carpenter state just let it have a proper cinema release now and stop pretending no-one's able to see it?
SXSW winners
By Charlie Phillips 18 March, 2009
A disclaimer - I know it's not all about who wins and loses at festivals, but if you're not there, then it's still good to know, so you can look out for the winners at future fests. I say this because I had a nameless person complaining to me the other day about how all anyone reporting on festivals ever talks about is winners, so for that person, it's OK, I understand.
Anyway, spread the news, the documentary winners of SXSW are announced! And you can find them here along with the fiction winners. So the Doc feature winner was Bill Ross' 45365 about small town America (have you seen it? Is it different to other small town America films?), an honourable (sorry, honorable) mention went to The Way We Get By, the latest in the subgenre of jolly old people docs.
The Emerging Visions winner was Motherland, which intrigues me; the audience voted for MINE, concerning lost pets after Hurricane Katrina - which is a nice angle. And another winner was Sister Wife about Mormon marriage - now THAT is a name for a film.
Also coming out of SXSW is the good news that brilliant distributor Zeitgeist has bought Afghan Star to show to the US. And, if you're in the UK, you can see it this weekend you know, at the ICA. And you should, you just darn well should, it deserves big audiences.
And actually, 'pon browsing the ICA just then, I saw that they're showing Is it Easy to be Young? on the 28th, an ultra ultra rare 80s Russian doc which enraged the powers that be by suggesting some Russians might be a bit sad. I haven't seen it, but I'm desperate to. Anyone seen it? Worth my hype?
SXSW and Stupid
By Charlie Phillips 16 March, 2009
The greenest factual movie in town had its big premiere last night (that was this), and if you weren't there, you missed a brilliant humbling of a government minister - excellent stuff. Whether you like the film or not - and you should go and see it to decide, don't take my word for it - launching it in a big solar-powered tent, and using the opportunity to semi-trick an MP into being made deeply uncomfortable by his supposed agreement with the ideas he's just seen portrayed, is impressive.
Building movements around your film, and extending its reach beyond the 2 hours people sit on seats watching. That's a hot issue, and if we really are going to have a year of 'rage' and activism on many fronts (not just environmental, but from all political directions), I wonder what role documentary will play in all that.
And as groundbreaking, if in a different way, is SXSW, going on at the moment. Although I'm sad not to be there, the good thing about it is that it's so modern-thinking as festivals go they encourage attendees to bring a lot to the non-attendee screen anyway. So if you're into the interactive land, you can't miss the PDA blog with its parade of glorious gadgetry and acronyms. Or if you like them film things, then basically check every blog you normally check and there'll be endless discussions. You'll feel you've already seen the films, like I do with Winnebago Man, a bizarre uncovering of this minor internet phenomenon.
Less sexy but kind of just as important if you follow these things is that there's 2 new BBC commissioners and there will be many more changes as part of their previously-mentioned BBC Knowledge restructure. And if you're really as geeky as me about documentary funding, then you'll be interested to know that Canada has a new funding model. It's of use to you, don't smirk back there.
Uncle Bulgaria
By Charlie Phillips 13 March, 2009
Sofia's an interesting place to be. I'm here for the Sunnyside Rendezvous, meeting lots of Eastern European filmmakers and documentary people.
The pitching's informal and the atmosphere is supportive. There aren't many of us here, and it's pretty low-key for a documentary event (getting proper sleep, it's a strange feeling) but the interactions are really creative and there's some excellent facial hair too.
My highlight was the launch of the Balkan Documentary Centre, from the team at Agitprop, the big force behind imaginative documentary in Bulgaria. They're renovating a derelict building to make it a creative centre for documentary so they all wore overalls with the BDC logo on. I like a gimmick to my presentation at docs markets. Plus their handout was a selection of colour swatches, backed with slogans on the back, to help them decide which colours to paint the walls of the new centre.
They have some get up and go in these parts. I met a doc-maker from Armenia who is known for growing peaches, and explained the best manure to source. And filmmakers from this area and beyond seem to need their self-motivation in spades. Eastern European state funding seems to be growing all the time, but it's not necessarily happening directly through local TV channels or other media sources, and it's also not always open to international copro.
But the times are changing, it's exciting to be somewhere the docs industry is exploding, credit crunch potentially ruining it notwithstanding. So I'll go home tomorrow in thoughtful mode.
And on thoughtful, great blog yesterday, Hussain, I read it over three times!
Doc/Fest submissions are open
By Hussain Currimbhoy 12 March, 2009
This is the part we've all been waiting for.
Today Sheffield Doc/Fest opens its film submissions to the world. And I mean the world!
The sofa is almost reupholstered and now I must re-arrange the living room furniture so that everything is within arm's reach. I'm going to be in that room for a while. I admit I'll talking to the screen or talking to my sister in Australia (who, though she has no film training to be speak of is one of the most articulate and astute film readers I know) or talking to no one at all while I consider, re-consider or consider out of hand the 1500 short and feature films that will come to us in Sheffield. I'm looking forward to the packages with 'things' in them. Like the chap who sent a film about drug addicts that thoughtfully included syringes in his package. Ok, its about drugs - got it.
I'm trying to not smoke so I started running. I find the parallels striking. Your first run, like viewing, starts small: 3-4 films a day, then you get used to it or you hit the wall, you get cocky, you do 5-6 a day. You forget to eat. You're back down to 3. You hit a rhythm, you start doing 7 a day. You see a great film in the batch that you didn't expect and you're on a high and you're thinking: I'm gonna go full retard. I'm doing 9.
Like running, sometimes you love it and sometimes you are just not in the right state of mind for it. But you can't programme a festival without loving the submissions process - and it is a process. Its the odd glee that got most programmers into this work in the first place: this uplifting, addictive sense of discovery that I felt at the first festival I ever attended. 'God, this film is great and no one knows about it except for me and the 3 other trench-coat clad guys in this cinema??'
If you assume the average length of a doc is 60 knows, then it would take 62.5 days of non-stop back to back viewing to get through our submissions. Praise the good Lord we have a team of bone fide, certified, more or less qualified previewers who are functioning doc-addicts from Sheffield to London and from Romania to Australia. They are TV practitioners, architects, Phd candidates, filmmakers, friends, good citizens. The more diverse the group the better. I'll get a text at like, 1am from a previewer who has hit a nugget and I'll think that he/she has just been watching too much and start acting like a doctor: 'Give it a day,' I'll say, 'and see how it feels tomorrow night. Call me if it still hurts.'
Will Doc/Fest's delegates respond to this nugget and miss a session for it? Perhaps it'll do better in the Videotheque? What about the Programme Advisory panel? They'll beat me to death with this nugget. There is considerable consideration to endure. Especially now. Its going to be at once a difficult year and a very interesting year for doc festivals. Every day a festival is either announcing one of its key creatives is quitting and / or it will showcase a smaller programme this year. In the case of the Chicago doc festival is just shut down entirely. But I've not heard complaints. A smaller programme? So I don't have to sprint between 5 venues, just 3. Brilliant. A tighter programme (and by that I mean about 10-20% smaller) can be negotiated better, the audiences are concentrated, my chances of seeing something 'bad' are further reduced because every film has to be not just great but multi-functional. For filmmakers, I guess it just means that its going to be that much more competitive to get a film into a festival.
Yes, its a weird time but I'm not afraid. Not today. I've started viewing already but I'm going to remember that after prolonged, extended viewing you have to give it a couple days. Let the films sink in and sit with you so you can imagine them in the bristling bustling cinema with a helplessly engaged audience. Ask yourself why the image or quote that is still in your head from a film you saw 72 hours ago is still there. Is it just taking up precious space or is it linked to something 'internal'?
I gotta get opinions, google it to death, feel irreversibly sidetracked and be surprised that I came back to the theme at hand. This time I gotta remember to let the message of a film earn its stripes by making a path from my eyes to my head, to mouth to pen to heart. Then maybe we got something to screen.
HotDocs! Tribeca! Archive! Guardian!
By Charlie Phillips 10 March, 2009
8 days - that's the longest I haven't written for, for a good while. But it does mean I can write lots now.
So first to Sean Farnel for yet another toppermost blog about programming HotDocs. He's getting harsher, the fog of festival madness must be descending. I love the line:
“Are you an Oscar qualifying event?” Um, I don’t even know. Are we?
Now you know what the likes of Sean and our good Hussain go through. It's not like war, but it's an ordeal and a half. Though that's not to say that you shouldn't be honest in what you're feeling - it's your film after all, if you want a distributor, that's fine - just make sure that you do listen to them, they're good with free advice.
And there's more festival programming just bubbled over - Tribeca has announced its programme - Defamation looks brilliant (and apparently sure is), plus there's our mate Beadie Finzi's first directing outing, Only When I Dance, made by Tigerlily Films, and a new one from rabble-rouser Kirby Dick.
Which is about America's proposition 8, which makes it pertinent to mention that apparently Parvez Sharna, the director of a Jihad for Love, received death threats surrounding the screening of the film on Channel 4, although having looked into a little, I'm not sure how big a set of complaints there's actually been. Wouldn't be wise to drown the film's great message of tolerance in knee-jerk intolerance from the other side. I will investigate more.
And in exciting tech news, I like it that the BFI is opening some archive to the masses, with the help of the BBC, though I'm not clear how much it is or how good it is and indeed what you can do with it. It's just a Memorandum of Understanding at the moment, innit. More transparent, if confusing, is the good old Guardian's development of an open platform where it will release datasets for the public to use. This is pretty good, all told - we can be our own Guardians, that's true liberty.
London International Documentary Film Fest as well as something completely different.
By Hussain Currimbhoy 09 March, 2009
Surely you must know that the London International Documentary Film Festival has just launched their new website. Its clean, accurate and to the point - much like the event!
The LIDF runs from Friday March 27th to Friday April 3rd with over 70 films screening, Q&As with filmmakers and some sessions that treat docs as another form of storytelling instead of money making schemes as is evident in other festivals.
Eva Webber's new doc 'Steel Homes'is screening and should not be missed but other films I'll def be attending are 'This Palestinian Life' by Philip Rizk and 'Megumi' by Mirjam van Veelen. 'A Refusnik's Mother' by Ori Ben Dov looks like one of the more pertinent docs that deal with the Palestine / Israel issue coming to terms with the moral consequences of the occupation.
If you like your docs with a political bent this is the festival for you. A focus on Pakistani documentary is one that has been sorely missing from the doc scene. A collection of films will screen along with substantial time for conversation afterward with with Mohammed Hanif, Z Sardar, Sara Haq, John Goodhand, Sean Kenny.
Also, if any of you happened to catch 'Second Skin' by Juan Carlos Pineiro Escoriaza at Doc/Fest last year you might be interested in some new short docs he's produced for Vice TV called Motherboard Brilliant little doc in 3 parts about the man, commonly known as 'Lord British' who inspired a lot of gaming that we know today.
I know what you thinking, and Vice TV isn't just about do's & don't's any more. Vice is becoming a little favorite for surprise gems like this during those late nights when I'm done watching me docs. These little docs that you can watch (for free!)are a great example of what I like in short on-line films. I can only recommend it all over the shop.
Congrats to 'The English Surgeon'!
By Hussain Currimbhoy 06 March, 2009
A hearty congratulations to Doc/Fest brothers-in-arms, Geoffrey Smith and producer Rachel Wexler for their film 'The English Surgeon' which has just won the Audience Award at Zagrebdox in Croatia. Its 2009 and the film is still running around collecting honors like it was launched yesterday!
Last year's winner at Zagrebdox was Marc Isaac's 'All White In Barking' - another Doc/Fest champion - that was also produced by Rachel Wexler's Bungalow Town Productions. I'm starting to see a pattern forming here.
But no pattern in the winners apart from being British. Its the depictions of such diverse realizations of what is 'British' that make these award winners all the more interesting.
Do keep an eye out for Marc Isaac's new doc which is currently in production. Especially if you like Descartes. You'll know what I mean in about six months.
Tigerlily docs at Rich Mix
By Charlie Phillips 02 March, 2009
Those of you in London can submerge yourselves in excellent documentary later this week, with two screenings being organised by the team at top production company Tigerlily.
They're screening Goth Cruise, and Black Power Salute, both of them mighty fine docs, at the Rich Mix Cinema in Bethnal Green and this page will tell you more.
News of the Newcastle pitch workshop to come - it was brilliant - and looking ahead to Sofia, here's why Sunnyside have gone East
Belfast to Sofia
By Charlie Phillips 25 February, 2009
We're delighted to tell you that we've just finalised the details for our next marketplace pitch workshop, which'll take place in Belfast.
It's happening on Tuesday March 31st as part of the Belfast Film Festival and you can read more here and indeed here. If you're a Northern Ireland-based documentary-maker and you've got a project you'd like to discuss with us, especially with regard to how it might fit the international docs market, this is for you. So make sure you let us know you're interested as soon as possible.
And like I said this is part of the BFF, which is looking mighty fine this year in its documentary line-up and documentary competition, which includes 4 films which showed in Doc/Fest 08. See the BFF docs bit of youtube here. Hope to see y'all there.
But before that, there's Sunnyside Rendezvous in Sofia, where you can come and meet me if you like. On the Sunnyside site now, you can see which commissioning editors and other participants will be there, as well as which projects will be represented and the schedule, including the Doc/Fest-led panel on Diversity in the media on the morning of Thurs 12th March. I'm really looking forward to Sofia, let me know if you'll be there too.
And by the way did you know about our International Events page, where you can find out how to meet a Doc/Fest person in real life around the world? Keep checking that page for updated info on where we'll be.
And also you might like to know that the Oscar-winners behind the man on the wire have a new project and those of you in Sheffield and London can make a Household Item of the Future this weekend if you like. I'd like a cameraphone that hovers and a sweeping brush that works properly on parquet floors.
Congratulations to 'Man On Wire' and 'Order Of Myths'!
By Hussain Currimbhoy 24 February, 2009
Sunday night tops a month of top honours for the doc about a man who dreamed of walking on air. A not-so subtle metaphor for how director James Marsh and producer Simon Chinn must feel after taking home this year's Oscar for best documentary at the Academy Awards. Though collecting 'Outstanding British Film' at the BAFTA's earlier in February was a sign that good things were on the way. The UK's 'Shooting People' saw 80% of responders pick the Storyville co-production to collect the gold stump on Sunday night and with support like that its little wonder they found success.
As if that wasn't enough, 'Man On Wire' was also awarded Best Documentary at Film Independent’s Spirit Awards on Saturday. On the same night Margaret Brown's 'Order of Myths' won the Lacoste Truer Than Fiction Award. Both films featured at Sheffield Doc/Fest last year and might I remind you that our Doc/Fest Youth Jury got it spot on when the awarded 'Order of Myths' the Youth Jury cash prize.
From everyone at Sheffield Doc/Fest we wish the filmmaking teams behind 'Man On Wire' and 'Order Of Myths' our congratulations. Couldn't have happened to better docs!
Give your views on the best non-fiction festivals
By Charlie Phillips 24 February, 2009
One of the absolute treats of last year was All These Wonderful Things' guide to the Top 25 Non-Fiction Film Festivals, and now they're doing it again so make sure you participate.
Like AJ Schnack says on there, what emerges from your views is an objective, mature, and reasonable account of what different doc festivals specialise in, what they do well and what they do not so well. You don't get that level of detail anywhere else, and that it comes from industry experts who go to loads of those such events means you can trust it completely.
Your responses are anonymous, so you can really say what you think. And what I especially support in the way they do it is the sense that it's not so much a 'league table' as a guide to what each festival does best, and so you get a great sense of what yearly travels would best suit you in your particular segment of the documentary professional whirl. Depending on what you're looking for, this guide helps you find it.
Obviously, we'd be rather disingenuous if we didn't say we'd love you to tell ATWT what you truly think of Doc/Fest along with the others on the list that you've been to. But genuinely, we want you to be honest about us when you write to them, so make sure you are - it's a great way for us to get feedback, from a source totally unconnected to our own surveying.
Plus do make sure you write about as many festivals on that list as you can - the more people contribute, from as many backgrounds as possible (director, buyer, viewer, networker - whatever) the more accurate it'll be.
In particular, make sure if you can that you give some Euro-festival feedback. Being a US-based blog, it's inevitable that the diversity of responses skews a little in that direction. So step to it, Europe, and give your feedback on your festival-going.
Harvey Milk and the pirates
By Charlie Phillips 23 February, 2009
Fresh from the triumph of Mr. Penn at the Oscars (see here if you try and pretend it's not happening like me), I remembered I'd forgotten to point out that a long-forgotten doc about Harvey Milk, The Times of Harvey Milk, enjoyed a renaissance thanks to swift-thinking from those good people at Cinetic.
Spotting an opportunity, they quickly make it available for VOD and spread the word, and it went big. This is very very good for what was, until the story of Milk was revived, not a big-playing documentary. I didn't even know it existed - but then I didn't understand why the Harvey Milk Bar in Leeds University's student union was called that until I was 19.
Point is, this is how it should be for documentaries on the web, whether they were released 25 years ago or indeed 25 weeks ago. The current Pirate Bay trail is showing clearly that there is a hunger to see films online, and if it's not satisfied legally, it'll be satisfied in other ways - because if someone wants to see it on a Saturday night, they're not going to wait until the DVD arrives next Saturday.
It's a serious issue, and progress can feel very slow on it sometimes. Despite how great that story from Variety sounds on the surface, try watching the Milk film now, UK people. Not as exciting now is it? It's either waiting for the DVD or...elsewhere. Or am I missing somewhere?
Interview with Sergei Dvortsevoy
By Hussain Currimbhoy 19 February, 2009
There is always that fine line between docs and fiction that doc-directors, subjects, commissioners and the like have to come to terms with in their own way.
Check out a great interview with Sergei Dvortsevoy
A great Russian doc and now fiction director who won honours at Cannes last year with 'Tulpan'. His moral problems with documentary have lead him to fiction directing – but the questions of ‘truth’ remain!
Top tips for copros and the final word on Berlin
By Charlie Phillips 18 February, 2009
I like this short swift article from Broadcast on top tips for international copros, the thrust being that you should know who you're working with like you know your Mother, and you should scrutinise all agreements and budgets with a fine pen, especially if different currencies are involved.
International coproduction is potentially a brilliant way to share the financial and creative load - we're total proselytisers of it in these parts, as you know. But it involves a massive load too of relationship-managing, especially the first few times - with co-producers as well as co-funders. So, be careful out there...
And in fact for more useful advice out there, I recommend Scottish Screen's new guide to distro'ing shorts, I've made a short, what now? It's beyond comprehensive, it's a bible. And shorts-makers need help, they often get forgotten, the poor things.
But what I loved reading the most this week on Sgt. Internet was Sean Farnel from Hot Docs' on-the-button critique of reactions to festivals. He's right that people always complain about the big festivals, except for the parties, and a lot of the good public-facing stuff gets lost - the Q and As and the general ambience of fun and excitement. And the "vagabond culture" of film festivals as missing from festival reports - it's so true. Good phrase. I get frustrated with reports of festival parties accompanied by tense smiling faces looking directly at the camera. I want on-the-battlefield reportage and candid shots - hmmm, perhaps like our Flickr set for Doc/Fest parties, actually.
Also I just checked back into The Auteurs for the first time in ages. It's great! Lots of arthouse, indie, and motley obscurities to watch for not very much money. There's a confusion of geographic restrictions, of course, but they're quite explicit in telling you how annoying that is for them. A much better stance than the typical video channel response that territorial internet rights are 'just how it is', in my view.
See Festival
By Charlie Phillips 16 February, 2009
This weekend I'll be by the sea at the See Festival so if you're going to be around the pebbles of the beach as well, then let me know.
I'm especially looking forward to Daisy's Double Bill, where Daisy Asquith premieres her account of her cruise with Liz Smith - of Royle Family fame. It was her first holiday ever, so I'm told.
Plus rattling my green branches, there's a discussion called Behind The Green Screen including Beth Stratford, who's also screening her excellent short Cheat Neutral (from Doc/Fest 07) before Brian Hill's new doc Climate of Change at this event. It's narrated by Tilda Swinton, and you can't disagree with her, so this will be excellent advocacy for the green movement.
And green mentions mean I can shoehorn in another Age of Stupid mention, and point you to this lovely widget they made counting down to the release of the film in March. They know how to market a doc, they do.
Berlinale 09
By Hussain Currimbhoy 16 February, 2009
I've never seen cinemas so full - in fact, over full - for docs in a long time. The last festival I saw with this kind of turn out was at the Melbourne Int. Film Festival in Australia.
Reports have Berlinale usually selling over 600,000 public tickets for their film programme. And I'm inclined to believe it. People slept outside with sleeping bags in front of the ticket booths as if Mick Jagger was playing that night. In Berlin in February? Now that is dedication.
It was hard, but it was worth storming the cinema to see 'The Yes Men Fix The World' - the follow up to 'The Yes Men' featuring Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno as the international trouble-makers we all wish we could be at some point in our lives but are advised to avoid. Once again the Yes Men set up fake websites under the auspices of major multinational companies and just wait for a hapless intern to email them with an invite to appear on a TV interview or to give a lecture. This time they kinda hit pay-dirt.
'The Yes Men Fix The World' doesn't quite soar to the comic heights of their first venture with the unforgettable gleaming golden phallus. But the stakes are raised significantly with a live appearance on our very own BBC to make a fraudulent $12 billion compensation announcement in the name of Dow that lops a few percent off the chemical giant's stock value. The look on their faces: priceless. As Bonanno said in the Q&A right after the screening, corporate giants don't bother chasing political pranksters like the Yes Men since it just attracts more bad publicity and has no financial gain. (Thank you McLibel!) So the Yes Men just keep on being the brilliant Borat's of the anti-globalisation movement making clear corporate leaders are a little out of touch with the notion that human life can not replace profit.
As expected, Berlinale's gay themed programming was strong again this year. Character films like 'The Good American' by Jochen Hick, about Hustlaball creator, Tom Weise and his relocation from NYC back to Berlin were well received by audiences. So too was biopic 'Little Joe' by Nicole Haeusser about the underground sex symbol and Warhol muse Joe Dallesandro. While 'Little Joe' was slightly more creative in its approach, both were simply chronological accounts of a life lived in the shadow of 'almost becoming' and breaking through the barrier into the 'straight' world.
If you want decisive insights or to learn something you really didn't know about you could have been better off seeing what the Koreans did this year.
Explorations into cross-cultural existence by Koreans occurred twice in the Berlinale programme - once with 'Home From Home' by Sung-Hyung Cho (who's last doc, 'Full Metal Village' featured at Doc/Fest 07) and Yun Jong Suh's 'City Of Borders'. 'Borders' turned out to be a very thorough and compelling collection of portraits of gay and lesbian people living in the divided homeland of Palestine/Israel. Some cut through fences, risk their lives, and threaten their family lives to love freely. Divisions melt away and humanism becomes as clear as the light of day when these couples get together.
What was most saddening was seeing the only openly gay politician in Jerusalem admitting that he will not run for office again due to the harassment and bullying he has had to endure over the last few years. Israel needs another Milk!
The slightly alarming 'Plastic Planet' was one of the few environmentally aware docs around, while 'The Shock Doctrine' by Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross was the biggest Lefty powerhouse doc around. For a work in progress it still had a lot of punch. Alan Hayling, the producer from Renegade Films, was present at the screening I was at and was quietly confident about the message and delivery of this film. It will no doubt be appearing in A list festivals in the Autumn.
The Doc Alliance and Mercury Media announced a pay per view on-line viewing platform for documentaries, which is no doubt great news for doc-makers everywhere. Some final touches to the site are being finalised to make the viewing experience as smooth and as high quality as possible. But most importantly the dividends to filmmakers are what can't be denied. We'll have updates on the progress and success of the on-line viewing platform once its officially up and running. The future is now!
BBC restructures its Knowledge department
By Charlie Phillips 12 February, 2009
In case you haven't heard yet, the BBC is restructuring Knowledge, which is the factual division which commissions documentaries in all their myriad forms.
You can read more on C21. The main change is that there'll be a large number of commissioners responsible for sub-genres, which I think is an excellent plan. Hopefully it means specialist docs can get a lot more in-depth attention and recognised on their own terms, rather than being forgotten about amidst more 'general' documentaries.
Am I right? Some indies think not, worrying that in-housers will get all the goodies. That remains to be seen I guess - the BBC is nothing if not deeply open to scrutiny about all its internal decisions at the moment. We'll see, but I think it's positive really.
And one teeny more thing for you - Shooting People have launched a Film of The Month scheme, with celebrity reviewers. It's superb - I love that an unfashionable doc like like this one from over 10 years ago, and transmitted in 2001, is given the chance to reemerge and get praise. It's what Mr. and Mrs. Internet should be there for.
Festival bumper updates
By Charlie Phillips 11 February, 2009
It's all go with festival excitement this week - not Doc/Fest excitement specifically (it's always exciting here), but at other festivals.
The Berlinale seems to be attracting loads of critical reviews, but seeing as there aren't many docs there, don't worry yourself unless you're up to date anyway. But one film I definitely direct you to pay attention to is Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross' film version of Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine. Winterbottom is a real hero of mine - I was an intern at Revolution (his company) a good few years ago and it was an inspiring period.
Meanwhile back in the safe world of (mainly) documentary festivals, the programme for True/False has been released. You can see our fest director Heather there this year, and whilst you're meeting her, you can go see loads of highlights, including glastonburykids, which I love the title and lower-caseness of; and Bronx Princess, which I saw at IDFA and is a treat. Enjoy True/False, all of you going, hear it's big fun.
Closer to the home ranch, there's also been a prog announcement for the Birds Eye View festival, which is always full of delights, and means I'll finally get to see American Teen. Plus there's a screening of The Age of Stupid - which is mention number 1000 of that from me I suspect. You can see all the docs showing on here.
And even closer to home, for you Yorkshire people, go to Leeds Twestival tomorrow evening. It'll be lovely, zetgeisty, and it'll be for charity. Enough reasons for ya?
Good Pitch, Youth Jury, Pixel Palace
By Charlie Phillips 10 February, 2009
It's time for the Good Pitch again - Britdoc's pitching forum for social change. It was one of my highlights of their festival last year, with a supportive atmosphere unlike any other public pitching forum I'd seen before.
They're taking it on tour across the water to HotDocs in Toronto and Silverdocs in Washington, and you can apply here - though be quick there's only about a week now to get your entries in. But if you're planning to make a doc on something life-changing and do-gooding, then this is essential.
And another way to do good, albeit if you're of a younger vintage, is be on the Doc/Fest youth jury. We organise this with 4Talent, and the inaugural youth jury in 2008 were all great people who thrived on the opportunity to mix with the movers of the documentart and festivals universe. It's an opportunity like no other for younger docs-lovers. Find out how to apply here! And for some inspiration here are last year's crop, looking glitzy as they presented their award.
Ooh and just to squeeze in a tip on an event for you - The Pixel Palace in Newcastle, at the Tyneside Cinema, where the world of digitally people will come together, with a specific focus on what new tech means for film exhibition venues. Excellent. And actually, if that's something you care about, especially as it regards the North East, you might like to join Love Local Cinema - these Ning networks, they're everywhere, aren't they? They're great - everyone, make one, and tell me about it.
Have you met the whippet on the wire yet?
By Charlie Phillips 09 February, 2009
Last week we went to the Yorkshire and Humberside launch of 4ip, the opportunity Channel 4 have set up for the best in cross-platform and socially-networked ideas in the UK. It was an amazing evening, full of ideas which showed there are fascinating things afoot in how people in our region are developing new plans to empower the people through digital technology.
And at this launch we were delighted to become acquainted with the Whippet on the Wire, the new network for those working with digital media in the finest county in the world and beyond. It's a fun place, come join us there. Not only is it full of delicious talented Yorkshirepeople but it's run by the best kind of dog breed, The Whippet. And there's a Doc/Fest Group you can join right now too.
Come and em-bark with us on some digital doggy community socialising, won't you?
Sustainable filmmaking, more on SXSW films and Al Jazeera opens the doors of perception
By Charlie Phillips 06 February, 2009
The Centre for Social Media has struck important-activity gold again with its detailed guide to sustainable filmmaking
It's a meticulous set of tips, forms and calculators to help you work out what the environmental impact of your filmmaking is, and then what to do if the results you come up with make your production on a par with the combined carbon footprint of Yorkshire. The tools range from basic ones for small productions through to more advances ones which allow you to audit your entire film company and third party clients, from your brainstorming desk right through to the post-production suite.
I love this. I've been thinking recently how I'd like it if along with diversity statistics public funding bodies were compelled to gather information on the environmental impact of all applications to them. Not that I like long application forms, you understand, but that would make people think much more about creating more low-impact productions, and create real targets for sustainability across the industry. I really mean it, that's what I want to see the DCMS to make cultural funding bodies do. And tools like the CSM guide would help to make that an easy thing to calculate for applicants.
Anyway, move on from the preaching. Charlie. That fine fellow AJ Schnack has profiled the SXSW docs in competition as well as those in other sections. So if like me you haven't heard much about a fair few of them you can crib from AJ and pretend you found out al that yourself.
So what am I most interested in now I know more?
Garbage Dreams sounds like it's going to look beautiful as anything, and probably make you despair for how rubbish our world can be (if you pardon the pun)
Say My Name will be a great voice for empowerment of women if Nirit Peled brings her uber-cool eye to documentary with the same panache she's done in other genres - thanks to AJ for making me realise that this is a film by Nirit, I'm an admirer
The Last Beekeeper excites me - I can never get enough of documentaries about bees even though there's loads of them, they're so wonderful. And potentially their decline is going to kill us all, so pretty important film all told.
Monsters From the Id could be trashy fun.
Objectified and Passing Strange - obviously.
Sissyboy - great title, and anything about Portland is of interest to me.
The Time of Their Lives - obviously you saw it at Doc/Fest anyway, so you'll know how lovely and inspiring this film is. The best old people you'll see all year.
And just quickly as a final 'this is interesting' note, how great is it that Al Jazeera is releasing news footage under a Creative Commons licence so you can play with it? It's very great, that's what it is. They've set a trend, now follow it, all you other footage owners, and let's see what we can all make of it.
Sheffield goes snowy
By Charlie Phillips 04 February, 2009
Accuse us Brits of being obsessed with the weather but it snowed in Sheffield this week and it was very exciting!
Look, here's the view from our office...
It's like Narnia with hills and tower blocks!
And here's a new member of staff we recruited. He's extremely useful to have around although his stay with us is looking like being quite brief...
Rotterdam strikes back
By Hussain Currimbhoy 03 February, 2009
The International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) casts a long line into the world of cinema and is rather fearless in screening films that some could argue are difficult viewing. Films from the Philippines and China to Brazil and the rest of the Americas and EU are represented in a programme that is dedicated to cinephiles - and it seems the general public is as dedicated to it as the industry.
IFFR is not really known for its documentaries but this year's harvest of docs should be recommended viewing for anyone interested in making, viewing or commissioning docs. Here's a few you should certainly go out of your way to experience.
'Los Herederos' (The Inheritors) by Mexican Eugenio Polgovsky was an masterfully constructed survey of plantation workers, most of them children, who work reaping crops for western consumption. Polgovsky often chooses to shoot hands, finger nails, feet, dirt, the back of a boy's head - and by doing so he reveals so much more about the heritage of peasant struggle and - dare I say - moves a bit closer to the truth of character than is possible from a straight interview. Coupled with its unusual form it was a subtle but brilliant investigation and celebration of the working poor.
'Survival Song' by Yu Guangyi from China was one of the best observational docs at the festival. If only because it wasn't about a damn. The prosperity and revolution of China was miles from this depiction of villagers living in the hinterlands that are habitually subjected to extortion and corruption because of their near invisibility in the eyes of the Chinese government. Its so commone its a way of life. Daily existence relies on arduous, old fashioned ways of living to say the least with hunting and gathering becoming a wretched routine made worse by 'officials' who wander in, take their booty and split with a bribe. 'Communist Party my ass' is the best line of the main character who curses his leaking roof while he is told he must vacate the land he's worked so hard on to make way for another catastrophic public project. 'Survival Song' will have a festival life as long as a the tape its on, I can promise.
Oddly there was a third very good doc revolvoing on farming and rural life called 'Agrarian Utopia' by Uruphong Raksasad from Thailand. It felt like 'Los Herederos' in places, but I admit I was close to getting up and checking out the next cinema after the first 30 minutes. But once the rythym starts going, and this really is not a narrative driven doc, it sucks you in to its way of life. Humble, humanist and heartfelt, this I'm liking this one the more I think of it.
A more traditional doc with a sensitive, investigative bent was 'Rerberg and Tarkovsky. The Reverse Side of 'Stalker'' by Igor Mayboroda. There were a lot of Austrians in the audience I can tell you. Originally a SIX hour long doc, the festival version runs at about 140 mins and not a frame of it looses your attention or imagination. Made partly as an homage to the famed DP Rerberg, its also a response to Tarkovsky's published diaries that cast certain collegues and contemporaries negatively when it was published. Rerberg's working releationship with Tarkovsky was a strained but rare one where vision and philosphy found a common ground. Naturally egos clashed, things were said and Rerberg's name was dropped from the credits of 'Stalker' - the enegmatic and prophetic classic revered as one of Tarkovksy's best. (Perhaps because of its troublesome gestation). Rerberg is then robbed of certain glory.
'Sunrise/Sunset' by Vitali Manski about the Dalai Lama is worth seeing if you are into the DL, but its not as edgy or engrossing as Mansksi' 'Virgins' which played at IDFA. The DL's life is like that of a president's - people book in to see him years in advance since he spends five months of every year in meditation. Oddly, the DL has no real political power. So what's the allure? He's just the most charming old chap you could ever meet.
Finally, 'Fixer' came out as one of the more surprising discoveries of IFFR. The first screening was marred by tech probs, but it was well worth seeing again. Translators who work with journalists risk their lives to an even greater degree than foreigners since they are seen as turncoats and 'Fixer' details the risks and their tragic consequences. Keep an eye out for this one at another prominent festival in New York City if you have the chance.
But the best thing I found at IFFR is was its willingness to people like Carols Reygadas and Guy Maddin screen their new films as outdoor installations and project them onto the sides of buildings. A lot of people were walking around like the aliens were landing, craning their necks at to get a view. They even created a haunted house to coincide with its programme about the spirit world on film in Asia curated by Gertjan Zuilhof. The best bit: free tuk-tuks to scurry guests around between venues (Brilliant when you are a tad lazy, priceless when you are a tad late-)
VOD and Festivals
By Charlie Phillips 03 February, 2009
As I mentioned last week, there's been a right old debate raging about the news SXSW are going to simultaneously screen some of their hot picks on the IFC Festival Direct platform. Of course, you can only watch it in the US and (I think) Canada, so this is all a bit academic to us in the UK at present, but it's still very important.
Initially, my reaction was that it's damn great - it challenges the (fading?) need for festivals to worry about premiere status of films. Because if it's been made available for VOD, there can't be any inter-festival squabbling over who got there first because someone else did. Not that festivals ever squabble anyway. So in theory it's great for filmmakers - everyone who wants to screen your film can do so, and you're being assessed solely on merit and not on festivo-political status.
Plus it's just really exciting that there's a festival-VOD link-up. It's impossible for everyone who wants to go to a festival to make it there for many reasons. VOD offers a chance to experience the festival from afar and for a filmmaker, more people get to see your film. Plus it can be seen by lots of people at lots of different times, not once in a cinema in a town on one day at one time. And if publicised well by the VOD provider, documentaries get more profile on mainstream internet platforms. Documentaries get a bit more sexy, cuddling up to blockbusters and the big indie hits of the year. Everybody's a winner.
I do still think that, but I was jolted rather by this excellent blog by Tom Hall, who runs a festival in Sarasota across the water. He fears that a move to VOD takes the rug out from under the feet of festival programmers. Because if the people can watch a film on VOD whenever they want they don't need to come to your festival. And if you as a filmmaker know that it's a bit pointless traveling to the outer reaches of the world for a sparse attendance at your screening, you won't bother to let the festival show it. End of festivals, end of communal documentary-watching, we'll all discuss it on Twitter after we've watched it alone on our sofas.
Except it won't work like that, and that's why personally I think this is exciting news and not threatening to Doc/Fest and friends. Festivals are unrivaled for personal meetings and discussion - there's nothing like the buzz you get in a place with loads of other festival-goers. And there's certainly nothing like meeting a filmmaker in the cinema or the bar and hearing about their film from the horse's mouth. It's just a better and more enriching experience than watching on VOD and then going to bed. We're social animals, and festivals fill a need. In fact, we're animals who seem to love the cinema and haven't abandoned it despite all financial models suggesting we should have done. Festivals, at least ones which continue to evolve with new technology and remain relevant, are here to stay as long as filmmakers and viewers remain with tongues in their heads.
But I reiterate that it's just not possible for everyone to go to all the festivals they want to and seeing as most of the docs we screen at Doc/Fest for example aren't going to get repeated screenings on TV or at the cinema, VOD with festival tie-in is an amazing opportunity for us as festivals to provide a platform for many more viewings of a great doc.
Anyway you don't need to hear this from me - Agnes Varnum puts it a lot more succinctly. And she made me think about another thing in this VOD debate actually - the UK eqiuvalent for me at present is I suppose the BBC iplayer/4od and my Virgin Media on-demand function. But in the case of the former, not everything I want is on there and if it is it disappears very quickly. And in the case of the latter, there probably are some documentaries on there somewhere but it takes about 10 clicks of the button to find them. And by 'them' I mean Michael Moore and Persepolis if I remember correctly.
So still, if I want to see a doc I'm excited about, I'll probably go to a festival.
Speaking of VOD by the way, I have to apologise - didn't realise that the Arts Council docs I got excited about are only available to .ac.uk addresses - i.e. educational institutions. Those students and professors, they get all the good stuff. Maybe the films will fly to the rest of us one day soon, that'd be very nice.
Weiler wins at Cinemart, SXSW lines up, and more
By Charlie Phillips 02 February, 2009
I'm getting a bit of a backlog of things to write about, this isn't good, so I'm to be swift today.
First news - hero of the cross-platform scene Lance Weiler caused much excitement with his winning the Arte France Cinema prize at Cinemart in Rotterdam last week for his project HIM.
This is great news because this ain't no straight linear project by any means, and nor can it be clearly defined as fact, fiction, faction, or fict. Lance describes the project as "a fusion of gaming, live events, serialized shorts and graphic novel content" so it's pretty amazing that it's won such a cinema-focused prize at such a prestigious festival.
There's a more detailed account of what HIM is on here and it sounds mouthwatering - audience involvement changes it as it goes along, and it's truly interactive. So although Weiler creates it, it takes on a life of its own as soon as it's released to an audience. We all collaborate in the story. I really want to play it as soon as possible.
Big news part 2 - the line for SXSW has been announced and amongst the many films there's a musical documentary by Spike Lee, Britdoc-funded doc Smeels Like Teen Spirit, which I think I wrote about after storming Toronto last year, and a documentary about the All Tomorrow's Parties festival (where I met my girlfriend, don't you know? I wonder if that'll be featured in the film). And lots of docs that aren't about music as well, but those are the ones that jumped out at me initially. There's sure to be lots of analysis of the line-up coming everywhere soon.
More interesting news and things - I got told that Chicken and Egg pictures, who support women filmmakers with grants, are possibly going international with their grants this year (will update if that's definite); I really love this blog by Chelsea Hernandez about her zombie documentary which won at Slamdance - it's generally full of good writing and fun videos, as well as an excellent account of spreading zombie news in Park City; there's loads of coverage of the Digital Britain review by the government everywhere, but my favourite nugget is here, where the head of press and publicity at Channel 4 responds to some horrible blog comments with infinite patience. His login is battmaker, it's a very funny exchange of views.
It's a very busy time in the documentary universe it seems. Probably all of us in the UK are snowed in today then, so we can calm down.
Double Take at the Berlinale
By Charlie Phillips 30 January, 2009
We're delighted to hear that a project pitched in MeetMarket 07, Double Take, will be screening at the Berlinale in a couple of weeks.
Double Take was pitched by Zapomatik from Belgium, and is a bit hard to explain - it's about Alfred Hitchcock and his double and the Cold War. That page sort of tells you more, but I think you should go and see it to truly understand. Words don't really do the idea justice.
And that's because this doc is very much at in the art department of documentary, being directed by Johan Grimonprez, who made the amazing Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y, which was also a clever take on the hidden connections in the entirety of modern history.
We're very pleased to see it completed after its MM experience, and included in Berlin, especially seeing as its in the Forum section of the Berlinale, which is for the most wild regions of the film world. Well done to the Double Take team!
Arts Council goes wild with its (mostly) docs
By Charlie Phillips 29 January, 2009
Further to my excitable blog regarding arts programmes yesterday, I forgot part of the news, which was that the arts council is putting its film archive online at some point soonish. Hurrah!
See these are the kind of treats I was referring to yesterday when I said Find Any Film should be directing people to the kinds of things they wouldn't normally know how to find. Like the Fanon documentary mentioned there - I've only seen that because I borrowed a video from the tutor on my film course. That kind of thing seems like a really bad model for getting your documentaries seen, and being able to track who's seeing them. Films aren't made for sitting in a bureaucratic cupboard.
And Basil Wright's documentary about medieval stained glass - I didn't even know that existed! I can't contain my excitement! This is what I want, an online place which shows me things and does things for me which I can't get elsewhere. It's useful and it's got a (probably a little bit niche) demand for it, that's my sort of online place.
And actually, whilst I'm on this, in response to the comment on the blog I linked to above, isn't the Tate commissioning artists' films now? Right?
Staying with online screenings, I've had a few people asking me what I think of SXSW having VOD screenings at the same time as the festival this year...but I'm going to save my thoughts til tomorrow, it deserves a blog to itself.
Find Any Film and New TV Commissions
By Charlie Phillips 28 January, 2009
The UK film council have just launched a new service called Find Any Film where you can search for any (or a lot of) feature films legally available to watch in the UK.
There's 282 documentaries at the moment, although they say they're adding more all the time. All the films have pages which tell you where the film is available to watch - usually DVD, and it compares prices for the largest internet retailers. If it's a cinema release, then you get links to booking at your local cinema and there's also a page with upcoming new releases, including TV screenings coming soon.
OK, it is mainly a good and useful thing, but it doesn't quite do what you want it to, which is take you to where you can watch the films online. It being an online platform, that's what I most want - because if it's available on DVD, I'd probably use a price comparison website which has more retailers feeding into it. Or if it's out at the cinema I don't really have a problem finding listings for it. The site does tell you if it's available to watch online legally in the UK...but they never really seem to be.
And there are trailers for films which is really nice...but not generally for the older films on there, which is what I'd want most - because it's not hard to find trailers for new releases, not least on a film's own website, where there's a whole load more useful background information generally as well.
I'm not griping for the sake of it, I do think this is a good place, but my point is that I'd be looking for a platform like this to give me stuff I can't normally find - whether that's access to lower-profile films which live outside most media coverage (like Joining The Dots maybe), or information on random one-off screenings of films I generally can't see. And I'd like it to show me where to see those films, or maybe trailers for them, or perhaps some blog or video reviews and discussion of them online.
Generally the way that'd happen would be if a site like that were a social network where contributors can offer up those kind of links. It doesn't really come from a centrally-run platform which relies on feeds from large organisations for its content. There are things like that out there on multiple sites, networks, and blogs, but it'd be so nice to have that sort of thing aggregated into one place. Or does it exist and I"m just missing it?
In a different direction, some more things I discovered today - there's a docudrama about a heroine of mine coming soon to Channel 4 - 5 key moments in history seen through the eyes of The Queen. It's to be made by Blast Films, who do docudramas extremely well (I loved 'Animals' in particular).
And finally, the BBC is making a lot more arts and music programmes, so if that's your kind of thing you should get on the blower to them. There's some real treats coming up, including an Arena special on TS Eliot, who nearly rivals the love in my heart for Larkin and Betjeman in my own personal poetry Top of the Pops. Plus BBC4 will have a celebration of literacy, featuring a giant amongst childrens' writing, and generally right-minded person, Michael Rosen
Capture Newcastle
By Charlie Phillips 27 January, 2009
So with the upcoming happening of our pitch workshop in mind, what about a quick celebration of the doc scene there? There's fine things afoot.
First, documentary-making is in a good place in Newcastle because of the Capture scheme which the local screen agency Northern Film and Media runs. I was involved in the choosing process for the 2008 vintage and if you select the correct bit of the Capture site you can see who we selected. I particularly draw your eyes to the Meerkat Films bit - their half-hour doc about pigeon-fancying is a proper joy. Watch it and you won't think pigeons are pests anymore (you shouldn't anyway, they're just misunderstood). A real tribute to folk pursuits which they seem to do so well in the Tyne-Tees region.
Also I was delighted to see the results of Julie Ballands doc about knitting a fading community together, featuring knitted recreations of lost buildings. Beautiful film with some ace old people in. The best doc about knitting since the ones in the "Get Knitted" exhibition in Sheffield which coincided with last year's Doc/Fest.
And also don't miss Apathy, what Apathy? about keeping your revolutionary spirit. Which brings me onto the next reason (or reasons) why I admire the filmmaking world of the area, which is that there's so many amazing cinemas there - the Star and Shadow, which Christo and Mat (who made the Apathy film) run, there's the Side Cinema which Amber Films are in charge of, and the Tyneside Cinema, which is also very cool and runs loads of education courses.
It's such a good place for filmmaking, I tell you. I'm really looking forward to going up there for the workshop - for which by the way there are still places so if you haven't already, please email me and show your interest.
Rough Aunties and We Live In Public takes the prizes
By Charlie Phillips 26 January, 2009
Good news from the awards-giving at Sundance with the prizewinners including Rough Aunties, the new film from Kim Longinotto.
As I said after IDFA, this film simply will make you weep, not just because it's sad at times, because it makes you really believe that there are some truly good people in the world who take your breath away. Kind of contradicts what I said last week about never totally liking people in most documentaries!
Other winners included (for US doc) We Live in Public, which looks ace - a web pioneer with a dark side. So dark he used to dress as a scary clown alter-ego to go to parties. I'm quite inspired by that for my own festival-going actually.
And there were also 2 awards for the mighty Afghan Star, which is brilliant. It was made by our chums at Britdoc, and you can see the director Havana's acceptance speech on the Britdoc site. And you can discover more about it here. Well done that Afghan Star team!
Meanwhile, the winner of the doc competition at Slamdance was Strongman, which looks really fun. And I'm desperate to see the winner of the Spirit of Slamdance award which was Zombie Girl, about a 12 year old making a zombie film. Zombies are so now, it's an interesting cultural development.
And finally onto my turf, Jesse over at Shooting People wrote a bit about the pitch sessions - lots of ideas about preserving dying languages it seems. You do get a lot of them, it's true, but I still think it's an important topic. Even if they're not all funded from all corners, it's a scary thought that languages could disappear from human history without ever being documented properly, so if only for archival purposes, these are very valid projects.
More on the awards here for Sundance (multiple U2 playings? Argh!!) and Slamdance. And if you like their sort of thing (I suppose I sort of do) then there's also a new Yes Men Doc
Why are the Oscars boring?
By Charlie Phillips 23 January, 2009
I've always had this thing where I found all the hulabaloo over the Oscars really boring. The endless months of speculation over nominations, and millions of words spilled on the floor discussing whether the right choices were made.
I do like awards. But it's the Oscars that put my nose out of place way more than any other awards because they're so self-congratulatory and so narrow-mindedly focused on the US film industry to the exclusion of everywhere else. They're the American Football of movie awards, pretending that what a wealthy cartel of in-crowders thinks constitutes an international mark of distinction should matter to the rest of the world.
But still I think I should enjoy the spectacle - why do I resent the Oscars so much? Well now I know. It's Jack Nicholson's face! Well, at least it's definitely the infuriating cutting to annoying peoples' faces to gain reassurance for terrible humour anyway.
Although it's certainly not that awardees are too political. I can't remember anyone doing a political speech at the Oscars, or indeed anything vaguely human, apart from Michael Moore...ever.
OFCOM Public Service Report
By Charlie Phillips 22 January, 2009
Yesterday, you perhaps saw that OFCOM published their public service broadcasting report, suggesting amongst other things that Channel 4 could merge with a Five or a BBC Worldwide to ensure it can still provide quality programming on all platforms which serves the public well.
Some people have said that the timing of the report's release to coincide with Celeb Big Brother being a bit plodding was unfortunate because people would have a downbeat view of C4 at the moment. But in my world, I've spent the week really enjoying the start of their Great British Food Fight season, which hit the ground running seeing whether Heston Blumenthal could save Little Chef.
He didn't exactly save it all in 3 episodes, but the efforts made for really fun popular factual TV. And the others in the series look like agenda-setting important TV as well. Hugh infiltrates Tesco to stop it stocking battery chickens, Jamie looks at the realities of pig farming and Jay Rayner exposes the dodgy contents of budget food lines. These are really important shows for modern-day Britain and I'm very pleased to see them in the schedules - behind the glitzy pop trailers is some real grit to the season. You're reading someone here who could waffle about food production, especially animal farming, for weeks on end, but I don't think I'm biased, this is honestly good good stuff.
Anyway, I did have another point pertaining to this report, which is to add my support to the notion that Children's TV is very important. I learnt so much from it when I was a youngster - probably more than actually at school - and I can still really clearly remember like yesterday moments when I was wowed by a new fact or a new area of the world. We shouldn't forget it.
And a quick daily Sundance update - I can confirm Burma VJ is a documentary you have to see this year - I'm glad to see others are similar ravers about it to me. And Art and Copy looks like I'd visually adore it, but probably hate everyone in it. Which means overall, I'll probably really love it as a guilty pleasure. It's rare I totally like people in a lot of documentaries anyway, I'm very suspicious.
Docpoint - Helsinki.
By Hussain Currimbhoy 22 January, 2009
Pulling into Helsinki, with streaks St. Petersburg and Stockholm in its streets and red clouds looking out at the strips of white and black snow, you can understand where Aki Kaurismäki gets his eye and his humour from. Helsinki feels like one of Kaurismäki's characters: wry, humble, and different enough from its neighbours to make you look closer because its clear you're only getting half the truth from appearances.
I'm here for Docpoint - Helsinki's premiere documentary film festival event. In its eighth year the festival is boasting a very strong programme of Euro docs, some pearls from the UK, animated docs and a collection of Indian films that are just as much about the social vs. the political as they are about giving audiences a good show.
Documentary's roots are not forgotten. Last night's screening of the silent classic 'The Battle of the Somme' by Geoffrey Malins and John McDowell from 1916 was one of the most powerful first screenings I've had a festival. Projected at the BioRex theatre with a live score by Finnish Dj and producer, Jori Hulkkonen, the images of the preparation, attack and aftermath of a battle that left 20,000 British troops dead in WW1 illuminates the potential of pain a documentary image has with its nuance and broad battlefield shots. I hadn't seen this classic in its entirety until last night and was as surprised as I was impressed by the way Hulkkonen drew tones and beats from old horror films to create a stalking element of terror in the cinema - as if this was a war that happened yesterday - and underplayed the most shocking penultimate images (very reminiscent and more effective than the closing act of 'Waltz With Bashir') to render a near hellish effect. I loved it.
Speaking of the muscle of imagery, today's panel with doc royalty will be a high point of the festival. DA Pennebaker's DP, Richard Leacock, Peter Wintonnick and Ranjan Palit will be discussing cinematography in documentary in an extended session in a matter of hours. News on this one to come.
For the Finnish doc - scene itself, one only has to speak to the new Artistic Director Erkko Lyytinen to an enthusiastic and erudite breakdown of what is creating a fever in the industry. The opening night feature 'The Living Room of the Nation' ( Kansakunnan Olohuone) by Juka Karkkainen is one of the most contentious of the programme. And one that I'm dying to see. As well as 'Helsinki, Forever' (Helsinki, Ikuisesti) by Peter von Bagh and older feminist classics like 'Gracious Curves' (Naisenkaari) by Kiti Luostarinen from 1997.
In typical Scandinavian style, the programme's tone is one of social introspection, wry but good-humoured personal criticism along with an appetite for exploration far beyond its boarders.
Cinema Eye nominations and useful things
By Charlie Phillips 21 January, 2009
Last year a new beast was created in the US called the Cinema Eye Awards, set up in opposition to the Oscars documentary shortlist being a bit lame. And everyone thought it was a good thing, rewarding the art and craft of documentary with some loving attention from Indiepix, AJ Schnack and others
Well, as they'd say in Smash Hits, it's back back back!! They've announced the nominations for 2009. Our Heather was one of the committee who decided on these. I'm particularly happy to see My Winnipeg on there - I just watched it again over the last week, it's like nothing else in documentary or indeed life, it explodes my head.
Should be a fun night of award-giving and year-reviewing that one, with lots of fun people in attendance. Lots of fun people who are currently in Sundance, which is jiggling along happily at the moment. There's coverage everywhere, but I stumbled across this interesting piece which reiterated something I said a while ago about how acting for green causes as a documentary person isn't just about making a film on something green, but being aware of your own world impact. And Sundance, like all big occasions, has a big world impact.
But there is some merit in having that impact in order to showcase agenda-changing green films, I do honestly believe that. It's just a case of what level of impact. I can't speak for Sundance, but I know it's a big issue for us at Doc/Fest and will become increasingly so this year if I get my way.
Finally 2 useful things for you - another fund, in fact another Sundance-related thing - The Sundance Doc Fund. It's a must if you're working on a doc about human rights and relayed issues.
And the final useful thing - a website with links to UK broadcasters commissioning websites. Not secret information, but useful to have in one place!
Sunnyside Rendezvous in Sofia
By Charlie Phillips 14 January, 2009
We've very proud to be partnering with our friends at Sunnyside of the Doc on their next coproduction 'rendezvous', this year rather excitingly taking place in Sofia, Bulgaria.
And you can come too. The Sofia Rendezvous is an international co-production seminar including pitch sessions, private meetings with buyers and decision makers, forums, workshops and panels. You just need to send in your idea to pitch, which should be on one of these themes: History, Science, the Environment, Politics and Society, Art and Culture.
You can get further information on this PDF and also on the Sunnyside website here.
It's a great opportunity - not just to meet buyers but also to hobnob with French, German, Austrian, and Eastern European filmmakers and discuss coproduction opportunities. There's big things happening out East, so it's those people that are a particular attraction in my view. And Sofia looks really beautiful.
Any questions about what to do to have a chance of rendezvousing, you can email me
Calls for good funds
By Charlie Phillips 13 January, 2009
There's a couple of calls for funds for documentaries from international organisations at the moment which might interest you.
First up, the ITVS International call, designed to showcase international documentaries with powerful global stories that inform, inspire and connect Americans to the world at large. ITVS are great, and we're always delighted to welcome them to Doc/Fest. This fund has led to support for some fine docs in recent years, including The English Surgeon, Garbage Warrior, Sisters in Law, and Waltz With Bashir. It's an important resource, so try it. There's a very useful set of guidelines here.
Second, take a gander at the Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund, offering finishing funds for docs about social change and on subjects missing from mainstream media. You can pitch for between $10k and $25k, so it's well worth it.
Deadlines for both are first week in February. Good luck!
Night of the living docs
By Charlie Phillips 12 January, 2009
Hello, I really am back now. Welcome to 2009 from Doc/Fest.
So anyway, Tomorrow (that's Tuesday) I'll be going to the London Short Film Festival to their mammoth Night of the Living Docs event, featuring hours of short documentaries on the themes of Personal Stories, Portraiture and Artistic Endeavours.
And it's all free, with loads of new docs to watch. At the Roxy as well, which is a lovely place with a secretive feel.
I love the LSFF, it's a real humdinger of a festival, which feels totally essential. You don't get to see a large majority of its films anywhere else - not because they're no good, but because it's really hard to get shorts taken seriously in most festivals that also take features. Trust me, they have a great standard of films in LSFF, and trawl the avenues of those filmmakers taking a less traveled route. Often involving music and art as well. I always have fun at the short film fest.
So I hope to see you there. You should bite off the hand offering you fresh new shorts.
By the way, if your memory's hazy from too much festive switch off, don't forget to email us about the Newcastle Pitch Workshop if you'd like to come to it. Remember, you have to be in the Northern Film and Media region to come to it - that means Northumberland, Tyne & Wear, County Durham, and the Tees Valley. But if you're not living there, don't worry, we're hoping to be coming to your town imminently, you're not missing out.
Goodbye FourDocs
By Charlie Phillips 07 January, 2009
Happy New Year everyone! Technically I'm still on holiday but so addicted am I to informing you that I'm dropping it quickly to let you know the sad news that my former home FourDocs has disappeared to documentary heaven.
It's sad news, but it's true, lots has changed since its birth and the idea of a top-down broadcaster-led video channel probably doesn't fit the world of online video anymore. Not that it was only about top-down commissioning anyway, but that was the main attraction of it I guess.
Anyway, thanks for the memories, FourDocs, you served the world well!
Now where's that new totally-360 documentary channel with big resourcess behind it going to come from? That's what I want to see now.
Merry Christmas from Doc/Fest
By Charlie Phillips 19 December, 2008
Hello, thought it might be nice to have a separate blog from the one below to say Merry Christmas to you all from us at Doc/Fest.
Inspired by various e-Christmas cards, I wanted to find a nice picture to send you off to the holidays with. But it's hard finding a documentary-related Christmas image. I settled on this one, related to one of the most upsetting docs of the year about Phil Spector...
It's a great record too.
So Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from us all at Doc/Fest. We'll see you in 2009 - film submissions open in March, MeetMarket submissions open in June, and loads more stuff is happening as well all year round, online and offline. We're very excited!
Training in Europe and Cinetic on Youtube
By Charlie Phillips 19 December, 2008
Want to know where to get training in Europe for anything to do with making films? Well follow me, because UK MEDIA desk have just published a comprehensive and wonderful guide to it - click here and it's yours.
It's a PDF so it'll just magically appear if you click there. And in addition to those featured there, don't forget our pitch workshops which are an excellent local option too.
And talking of excellent options (tenuous link?), look at this - 4 great features on youtube courtesy of Cinetic - I really like what they do
Toadball Films
By Charlie Phillips 18 December, 2008
It's a bit complicated to explain what they are, but I think you'll enjoy watching these short documentaries from a project called Toadball TV.
They're at the art end of the docs spectrum, and many are set in the Lake District, where you will find the instigators of the project, Grizedale Arts, who include Nina Pope and Karen Guthrie from Somewhere, responsible for some rather beguiling art-doc work in recent times.
I like 'em, I tells you.
And still on art turf, I also tells you to watch Life After Coma on 3MW this week, made by a neuroscientist man called Barry Gibb, who I go way back with. Quality short science.
Newcastle Pitch Workshop
By Charlie Phillips 17 December, 2008
The Doc/Fest website has switched to 2009 now, as you can see, and to confirm that, we're delighted to announce details of our first marketplace pitch workshop of 2009.
Our workshops are an intensive introduction to the MeetMarket process, to all Marketplace activities at the festival, and to wider opportunities in international documentary pitching and funding
The first one is in Newcastle in February and it's a 2-dayer on February 26th and 27th. More details through here
“An extremely eye opening workshop that both informed me on the pitching process but also filled me with self confidence” Workshop Participant 2008
The volunteers speak
By Charlie Phillips 16 December, 2008
You surely all noticed our heroic volunteers at the festival, keeping us all together like knights and knightesses in shining armour. Well here, two of them give an insight into what it's like being the team in orange. World, meet Rhiannon Wilkins and Gemma Barratt, we bow before their helpful magnificence...
Stepping off the platform under the grey skies of Sheffield, a couple of Doc/Fest virgins. What were we letting ourselves in for? Several late nights and early mornings later it’s all over and we loved it!
Water carriers, chair placers, door openers, microphone holders, meeters and greeters and general dogs bodoes (or key members of the production team as our CV’s will later state!) We got to see some pretty awesome films, sessions and people along the way too.
Highlights of the action packed week include master classes with the likes of Michael Palin and Hamish Mykura, meeting stars of documentaries (especially George from “Frontrunners”) and listening to filmmakers' replies to awkward questions in the question and answer sessions. From watching pitchers attempt to convince VIPs that their documentary is the best, most original piece of work the world will ever see to passing Louis Theroux on the stairs the experience has definitely been worthwhile.
Plus, volunteers get in free so wearing a bright orange uniform representative of easyjet cabin crew (thank you Simon Calder for that analogy) was a small price to pay!
Playing a part in this renowned festival has allowed us to glimpse an insight into an industry buzzing with creativity, flair and passion, all of which transfer to their social life … this business certainly knows how to party! Lots of boogying, boozing and schmoozing was had by all.
We witnessed some big names rocking out cheesy numbers on the karaoke machine (you know who you are!) and zoomed alongside Nick Broomfield on the roller disco dance floor. We really have seen every side there is to the documentary industry!
After five days of docs, sessions, parties, pitches and master classes it’s all over… bring on next year!
Dale's new indie, more Us Now, Indiepix tour blog
By Charlie Phillips 15 December, 2008
I'm one of many people who's gained a whole lot of wisdom and inspiration from Peter Dale, who used to run More4 and before that, was a commissioning editor at Channel 4 responsible for loads of good stuff, more than can be fitted in here.
Well there's some information about his new indie, with an expressed dedication to trying new things. I'd expect nothing less of Mr. Dale.
And in other innovation matters, quick update on reviews of that Us Now Film other than mine, and there's also more on the film's website.
And staying with innovation, one of the projects pitched at the MeetMarket was Open Source Cinema, arising from RIP Remix, a special superb film by Brett Gaylor which I saw at IDFA. It makes you want to tear up the screens, it's great. The website lets you do lots of playing with clips and stories too.
Finally, Danielle at Indiepix has copied Sean Farnel's European docs festival tour diary over here, starting with Jihlava.
And just one more thing, because it's about things I'm interested in, take a look at Handmade Nation, about the crafting revolution. I haven't seen it, but I got sent the link and I'm intrigued. If any of you US-based people see it, let me know if you like it, won't you?
A cute documentary
By Charlie Phillips 12 December, 2008
Friday treat for you - this film by Holly Ross won a competition recently on FourDocs, it's a cute one involving animals and reminiscing. You can read more on it here. I like it.
Us Now
By Charlie Phillips 11 December, 2008
I mentioned that last night I was going to see Us Now at the Prince Charles (a very special cinema). And I had an inspiring evening, which filled me with optimism about what web networks could do for organising ourselves as a society that's...nicer, better, empowered to disrupt and create.
Stay with me, I was a bit unsure before too, but then it was OK. So, Us Now is a documentary by Ivo Gormley about 'the power of mass collaboration, government and the internet'. It's a whirlwind tour around different web networks which don't just bring people together passively, but make them organise themselves into supporting each other or taking action.
So that includes things like MumsNet for parents, Couch Surfing for travelers, and Ebbsfleet United for football fans but more dramatically, Zopa, which allows you to apply and to finance loans without needing banks, and School of Everything, which matches people with skills to give and learn to each other without needing educational institutions. And the film then takes all this to the logical conclusion that a society of people used to taking their own decisions on the destiny of themselves and their peers will increasingly expect that of their Government.
Or in fact, it will expect to be its own Government. So something like The Point seems like an increasingly viable way of not just influencing policy but actually just doing it yourself and raising your own money.
There's too much of this happening for any single film to be able to cover it all, and as emerged in the discussion afterwards, you could point out how US and UK focused it was, how scattered these initiatives all are, and perhaps how the film didn't dwell on the dark side of internet freedom. But as a primer for all these things happening, some of which I was totally unaware of, it was a thrilling ride.
The screening was organised by Nesta Connect, which is something you should all be aware of, all about how technology can connect people and do new things. This screening was part of a programme which explores the role the social web plays in disruptive innovation. I've never quite seen a screening like it, with the film preceded by a fun presentation on connectivity with elaborate diagrams, and the Q and A afterwards being more about political declarations and reaction than terse short chatting on a stage. It's what they call ungeeking us apparently - see more here. Ungeek yourself.
Anyway back to the film itself - as I say, there was just too much to fit on the screen really. But that suits the theory of the film - one broadcasting screen isn't enough anymore. So go to their website where there's a whole loads of clips to download, plus transcripts of interviews, and do as you will with them. I'm impressed with that.
So what happens next? More of this please - both the kind of documentaries getting made and the kind of things happening on the web. It's good, it's some progress, and it's early days.
Burnham, Blogging, Slamdance
By Charlie Phillips 09 December, 2008
As you may or indeed may not remember, the Culture Secretary, Andy Burnham, appeared at Doc/Fest by the magic of technology, on a video screen. Well here's a sketch showing what you missed if you weren't there
It's a very lovely sketch by Alexander Bates, and we think him greatly for it. And I know what you're thinking - not packed to the rafters? Well, perhaps it shows people need to be prodded to be more interested in UK broadcasting policy. Or just that there was loads of other events at Doc/Fest to go to at the same time.
But back to the present, and the non-drawn. It's a good time of year for the team here, we get to explore new ideas for next year and put all our tentacles out into the sea. My tentacles are going crazy with possibilities. It's great doing a festival, you get to do new things every year, you never stand still, it keeps you hungry as a wolf.
And another man always hungry for more is Al Maysles, as you can tell by his 400 words of credo, which are a treat to read. He's got enthusiasm matching that of 10 younger people.
As did Murray Martin, who was celebrated in the Amber Films film shown on Saturday night, The Pursuit of Happiness - the one I told you to watch. It was a lovely film, partly about him, and substantially about horses and horsey people. It's a culture in another world, and though it's dying out it looks idyllic. Perhaps Amber's coverage of it romanticises it but Murray Martin addresses that in the film, saying he hates to see a film that shows no emotion towards anything.
Anyway if you did miss the film, then it's in 4od which I usually watch on my telly through my digital TV provider (no-one seems to know it exists on there - get with the programme, people)
Other things to occupy you on this cold day - Sean Farnel's amazing blogging from loads of Euro documentary festivals including our own. Sean programmes the ace HotDocs in Toronto. We know he was a great guy, but I didn't know how well he wrote.
And a couple of newsy things from Indiewire - Slamdance line-up - Slamdance is the fringe to Sundance. I always like the fringes - in Amsterdam, I went to some stuff at the Shadow film festival. I'm not saying it was better or worse, but it feels a bit like bunking off, which is good. Anyway back to the main stream - Sundance has announced its shorts, which includes some great films we know, including Eva Weber's Steel Homes. Ma Bar from the Scottish Docs Institute, and a new film from the wonderful crazy man, Kenneth Anger, who did the best, most filthy, Q and A I've ever seen a couple of years back in London.
Amber Films on More4 - Hurrah
By Charlie Phillips 05 December, 2008
Back in the day, when I did my studies, I spent time raving to people about the films Amber Films from Newcastle did in the 80s and how everyone patronised them because they were Northerners doing it for themselves. I was a bit tedious probably.
But still imagine my excitement seeing that More4 are doing a retrospective of some of their films starting this Saturday! There's only 4 of them but that's OK, they're true treasures. The new one, The Pursuit of Happiness is this Saturday, about horsey people (a few of them are about horsey people, it's great). And my favourite from the whole back catalogue, Seacoal is on next Friday. It's a breathtaking film about industry and the coast, a with elements of drama but a heart in documentary. It's immensely beautiful and just one of the most powerful things I've ever seen on film. Words fail me, honest.
So all you have to do now is watch them and then lobby More 4 to show the other 40 or so they've made! And you can join me in tediously telling everyone how important Amber are. Hey, they even have a gorgeous cinema they set up themselves in Newcastle to show off-kilter things and it's still going today - tell me, who else in film production is doing that in the UK?
Sheffield Champions!
By Hussain Currimbhoy 04 December, 2008
How's about a big slap on the back for us!
Sheffield Doc/Fest is the proud recipient of 2008's Creative Sheffield "Sheffield Champion" Award.
One of the most prestigious business awards in Sheffield, this is a first for Doc/Fest : In recognition of a company or individual acting as an as an ambassador for the City of Sheffield and helping put it on the map with a product or service that is recognised as being developed or produced in the city of Sheffield.
And as one of Sheffield's arts organizations this is even more meaningful.
Thank you Creative Sheffield!
Stay tuned for the ramifications!
Here comes the Sundance
By Hussain Currimbhoy 04 December, 2008
The World Competition Documentary line up for Sundance is up and at it – not a moment too soon!
The list is below – and its motley line up but it promises to be thoroughly enjoyable and less dour than its been in ages.
‘Thriller In Manila’ is this programme’s prince among men and ‘Afghan Star’ will no doubt leave the audience wanting more. I don’t know where to put m money. Perhaps Kim Longinotto’s ‘Rough Aunties’ could give the rest of the programme a run for its money. Its incredibly powerful, moving and pertinent from what I heard after the IDFA premiere.
‘Burma VJs’ has been lauded heedlessly in the last few weeks, and rightly so, but ‘The Glass House’ from Iran rams suppression and state control with much more humanity that ‘Burma’ does for my taste. For those who didn’t see it in Amsterdam keep an eye out for a spare ticket.
211:Anna/ Italy (Directors:Paolo Serbandini & Giovanna Massimetti)
Afghan Star/Afghanistan/UK (Director: Havana Marking)
Big River Man/ USA (Director: John Maringouin)
Burma VJ/Denmark (Director: Anders Ostergaard)
The End of the Line/ UK (Director: Rupert Murray)
The Glass House/USA (Director: Hamid Rahmanian)
Kimjongilia/France/USA (Director: N.C. Heikin)
Let's Make Money/Austria/China/South Africa/Spain/Switzerland/U.S.A. (Director: Erwin Wagenhofer)
Nollywood Babylon/Canada (Directors: Ben Addelman and Samir Mallal)
Old Partner/South Korea (Director: Chung-ryoul Lee)
Prom Night in Mississippi/ Canada (Director: Paul Saltzman)
The Queen and I (Drottningen och jag) / Sweden (Director: Nahid Persson Sarvestani
Quest for Honor/ Kurdistan / USA (Director: Mary Ann Bruni)
Rough Aunties/ UK (Director: Kim Longinotto)
Thriller in Manila/ UK (Director: John Dower)
Tibet in Song / USA (Director: Ngawang Choephel)
The Documentary competition looks just as tantalising. But if I had to chose to see only a few I couldn’t go past Joe Berlinger’s ‘Crude’ (namely because his retrospective in Greece earlier this year turned me into a fan-) but also because the results of a law suit this size could see class action suits world wide with billions of people in court all at the same time. No doubt Berlinger will be able to find some laughs in this too.
‘Sergio’ by Greg Barker is one that I’ve only heard myths and rumours about but is set to be a killer. Storyville prowess breathes in this film about the UN and its world function, seen through the life of one of its greatest representatives, Sergio Vieira de Mello, who was killed in Iraq earlier this decade.
Pamela Yates’ newest seems to follow in the footsteps of 2005’s ‘State Of Fear’ which examined the reconciliation of Peru after the brutal dictatorship it endured which almost lead to the country’s ruin. Yates is an inquisitive documentarian and while some may find her work journalistic, she eludes cliché and reaches the emotional targets like an archer every time.
At last we can lay off the US politics for a while and get a bit nostalgic. What more can be said about the Doors? Who care – I’m the first guy in line to see: ‘When Your Strange’. Its got 2009’s Joy Division written all over it.
The films screening in Documentary Competition are:
Art & Copy (Director: Doug Pray; Screenwriter: Timothy J. Sexton)
Boy Interrupted (Director: Dana Perry)
The Cove (Director: Louie Psihoyos; Screenwriter: Mark Monroe)
Crude (Director: Joe Berlinger)
Dirt! The Movie (Directors: Bill Benenson and Gene Rosow)
El General (Director: Natalia Almada)
Good Hair (Director: Jeff Stilson)
Over the Hills and Far Away (Director: Michel Orion Scott)
The Reckoning (Director: Pamela Yates; Screenwriters: Peter Kinoy, Paco de Onis, Pamela Yates)
Reporter (Director: Eric Daniel Metzgar)
The September Issue (Director: R.J. Cutler)
Sergio (Director: Greg Barker)
Shouting Fire: Stories from the Edge of Free Speech (Director: Liz Garbus)
We Live in Public (Director and Screenwriter: Ondi Timoner)
When You're Strange (Director and Screenwriter: Tom DiCillo)
William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe (Directors: Sarah Kunstler and Emily Kunstler)
Sundance, not Sundance, advice, etc
By Charlie Phillips 04 December, 2008
I like it when the Sundance line-up is announced, it heralds a new blank page of talked-about (American) films to get your teeth into. So here it is.
For documentaries, I'm particularly interested in We Live in Public (from Dig! director Ondi Timoner) and Boy Interrupted. Art and Copy looks interesting too. Also note Burma VJ and Afghan Star which have already been elsewhere but it's good to see them in there, and of course Rough Aunties, which I've already told you is masterpiece on a plate.
For the drama films, if you're interested, I'm intrigued and over-excited by Paper Hearts, a semi-drama, semi-documentary film by Michael Sera of Juno fame about him and his girlfriend. There's something about that boy which intrigues me, in the way 80s brat packers do, - he's either going to become an all-time movie icon or fade into washed-up nothingness. He could be Rob Lowe, or he could be Anthony Michael Hall. Maybe this film will help us find out. Also look out for the film Humpday, which is somewhere on the outer reaches of the documentary-drama continuum, by possibly doing the US indie thing of casting people to play characters a lot like their real selves. I haven't seen it, obviously, i"m just guessing.
Of course, way more interesting than the actual films announcement is the commentary on it. And so read Eugene Hernandez advice on what to do if you got in and if you didn't, with some superb considered advice on the current landscape of distribution, sales agents and festivals. This is a crucial article to read, so take time to think about it, and take Eugene's advice about making the most of the attention your film gets at festivals. There's no single right answer, you need to do what's right for your film, and basically not be lazy and assume someone will make it all fall into place for you. Don't know if that's inspiring or depressing for you?
The Queen says nothing
By Charlie Phillips 03 December, 2008
There was some talk that Mrs. The Queen would mention something about broadcasting in her big speech today but turns out she didn't so there might not be any big legislation about public service broadcasting for the time being.
Although seeing as her speech doesn't mean a lot, there still might be. And I seem to remember that her favourite TV programme is Cash in the Attic or something similar, so I don't know if she can be trusted with PSB anyway.
In news of people getting on with good stuff, the Centre of Social Media reports that quietly, the BBC rather admirably took a mature stance on fair use of Phil Spector music in The Agony and Ecstasy of Phil Spector, which a great small victory for filmmakers everywhere. Hurrah Auntie.
And in other news of good action-taking, I'm going to go see a new film next week called Us Now about the power of citizen networks - Adam Gee writes about it on the 4ip blog. I'm one of the people who 'owns' Ebbsfleet United, so that part of the doc in particular will be of great interest. Early days for some of these truly-democratic networks but their impact is potentially explosive. Proof you don't need The Queen or Government policy to do your work for you, eh?
And a couple of more bits - interview with Pennebaker and Hegedus from the film mag of choice for the thinking lady and gentleman, Electric Sheep. And finally, a signpost to the All Play All blog from one of the great people who built our Truth is Catching Game at the festival. Particularly take note of why ARG is a bad name for things.
Top docs of 2008
By Hussain Currimbhoy 02 December, 2008
Its only Dec 2 but we might as well call it a day.
No matter how you cut it, 2008 will go down as a brilliant year for documentaries. Regardless of cinema or TV born doc, some future classics have no doubt come out of this year's crop. And the UK has a lot to be proud of too.
The doc market is especially vulnerable to shifts in policy, in government and economics so it will be very interesting to see what 2009 comes up with now that the 'R' word is out there so freely.
But a great doc has an audience behind it which seems to make it impervious to harm. So I've asked around at the doors of some trusted Doc/Fest friends to find out what are the most loved docs of 2008.
Mark Cousins
Filmmaker / writer
UK
1. Waltz with Bashir
2. Of Time and the City
3. Sleep Furiously
4. Sanrizuka - Heta Airport (archive)
5. Rene
Caveh Zahedi
Filmmaker / USA
1. Standard Operating Procedure (Errol Morris)
Errol Morris' latest documentary about Abu Ghraib is arguably the best documentary I have ever seen
2. Waltz with Bashir (Ari Follman)
this animated documentary about the 1983 Sabra and Shatila massacres in Lebanon is arguably the best animated film I've ever seen
3. Intimidades de Shakespeare y Victor Hugo (Yulene Olaizola)
this mind-blowing Mexican documentary begins as a personal documentary about the filmmaker's grandmother and ends up revealing the identity of a serial killer
4. Trouble the Water (Carl Deal and Tia Lessin)
this first-person account of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath provides a devastating indictment of the U.S. government's indifference to the plight of its citizens
5. Terror's Advocate (Barbet Schroeder)
this biographical documentary about Jacques Vergès, the French lawyer who defends known terrorists, is both a history of post-war anti-colonial struggles and a searing psychological examination into the depths and complexities of the human heart
Michelle Carey
Programmer, Melbourne International Film Festival
Australia
Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind (John Gianvito, USA)
A pure document of stone, trees, grass and some minimal descriptive text,
but in it an affecting, richly-woven history of modern America.
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired (Marina Zenovich, USA)
A film clearly the result of a huge amount of preparation and
investigation, and entertaining and nail-biting to boot.
Blind Loves (Juraj Lehotsky, Slovakia)
Fantastical Slovak whimsy at its best.
Dust (Hartmut Bitomsky, Germany/Switzerland)
A film as dry as its subject, exploring the most elemental thing I life –
fascinating!
Lao An (Lina Yang, China)
OK I admit I have a slight case of wrinkly-philia, especially on film, but
here you have love, loss, laughs, fear (his wife!), everything you want
from a good film.
Amir Labaki
Director 'Its All True' Film Festival
Brazil
1. Burma VJ - Reporting From A Closed Country Anders Ostergaard
2. Man on wire
James Marsh
3. René
Helena Trestikova
4. Stranded
Gonzalo Arijon
5. La vie moderne
Raymond Depardon
Ed Lawrenson
Film writer
1. Alone in Four Walls
A poignant, bravely non-judgmental, starkly elegant about a prison for boys in remote rural Russia.
2. Man On Wire
Exquisite and gripping account of one man's attempt to tight-rope across the WTC works as a celebration of the beautiful folly of artistic endeavor and an unspoken lament of the fallen towers.
3. Her Name is Sabine
Made in 2007 but released this year, this documentary by the actress Sandrine Bonhaire is about her sister who has severe learning disabilities: a moving exercise in family love (rippled with Sandrine's nagging sense of guilt), the film is also a tribute to the tender professionalism of the care-home workers who look after Sabine.
4. Taxi to the Dark Side
Alex Gibney's direct, tenacious investigative approach provides a damning indictment of the Bush government's use of torture in the War on Terror. Harrowing, tough-minded, and exhaustively researched.
5. Waltz with Bashir
a dazzling, impressionistic animated documentary-memoir that combines Ari Folman's harrowing recollection of fighting in Israel's 1982 Lebanon campaign with moments of eerie and incongruous visual beauty to probe issues of individual and national guilt.
Toshi Fujiwara
Filmmaker / Japan
1. This is not really eligible, and it is not necessary simply about
"best," but the documentary footage that disturbed me the most this
year was my own footage of Dachau shot 3 years ago. It was done
without having any idea what to do with it, more or less as a
reference archive. Earlier this year a friend of mine, knowing that I
had shot there, asked me if I could edit it for his performance/
installation. Sure, I said. It's only about 15 minutes, I should just
cut out the technical failures like bad camera movements et all, find
the order of the shots and that must be all. So I first watched the
footage again, something that I actually have never even seen since
I've shot. It looked much better than I thought, but there was
something very depressing and disturbing, almost painful to watch. So
I started to edit these old dailies, and it nothing worked. Somehow,
there was nothing left once I edited, or actually just cleaning up
the bad shots. These footage cannot be touched. We ended up using the
original footage, and I still wonder what was there, beneath the
images of ruins, memorials, and a museum. So I need to put as one of
my "5 best," as after all it still leaves the strongest impression in
my mind. Mind you the footage itself has nothing extraordinary, every
tourist who visits Dachau can do the same.
2. Standard Operation Procedure (Errol Morris). Again, the
documentary and the horror. The scariest thing about this latest
Errol Morris film is not the atrocity committed at Abu Ghuraib. It's
the fact that at the end of the film, listening to all these
testimonies of those who were part of the atrocities, we realize we
don't know anything about what actually happened there, and/or what
happened in their minds when they committed these atrocities. Sure,
everybody blames the two non-commissioned officers, but then they
don't appear in the film. So we can never tell if they are actually
telling the truth, or they are just putting all the blame to these
two. And what about the contradicting letter and photograph of
Sabrina? Which one represents her "true self." We hear of the FBI or
CIA or... but what about this mysterious "OGA," standing for "Other
Governmental Agencies"? At the end we are confronted with our won
inaccessibility to the truth, which remains as the source of the
horror of this documentary. However much you shoot, regardless of the
numbers of photographs you have taken, the truth always remain
somewhere out side of the frame.
4. State Legislature (Frederick Wiseman). The master at his work, again.
5. Self and Others (Makoto Sato). This is kind of cheating; the film
is 8 years old already and I have seen it when it was originally
released. But watching again a year after that the director passed
away was a revelation. In a very different way from Errol Morris,
Sato too question the meaning(s) of photography, and through
photography the meaning of cinema.
5. Elle S'appelle Sabine (Sandrine Bonnaire). This is not necessary a
very "good" film--technically it is filled with flaws. Like Bonnaire
herself did most of the camera, and of course she being a fine actor
doesn't mean at all that she is good at using the camera. But then
who else could have filmed her autistic sister with such care and
understanding, even with genuine communications between in front and
behind the camera? And that situation by itself raises a lot of
question about documentary filmmaking. Like when Sandrine is
interviewing a mother of another autistic person, Sabine appears from
the background calling her sister. The interviewed person, for a
second, doesn't know what to do, but Sandrine Bonnaire, here not as a
sister but as a filmmaker, insists on her shooting and ignore Sabine.
The camera and the microphone of course cannot ignore her even if the
filmmaker tries to ignore, tries to concentrates. Incredibly shot.
Charlie Philips
MeetMarket Producer at Doc/Fest
UK
1. The Age of Stupid - because the time for making a polite doc about
environmental catastrophe is long gone, and also because a new model of
crowd sourcing a great documentary is very exciting to me
2. Waltz With Bashir - because it's totally terrifying, very beautiful, a
genuine original and an important act of national self-analysis
3. Rough Aunties - because it's a masterclass both in how to make a
documentary and how to be amazing women who are changing the world
4. Japan: A Story of love and hate - because it's uncompromisingly
depressing about human nature in so many ways and I love that
5. Of Time and The City - because that IS what it's like to be from the
North, and because Terence is from a neglected generation of amazing
art-documentary-makers and it makes me happy people love him again
Samuel Burr
Doc/Fest Youth Jury
1. I'm Not Dead Yet
Elizabeth Stopford
2. The Department Store
Richard Macer
Andreas Koefoed
Filmmaker / Denmark
1. Man on Wire
very funny and well told film - and amazingly touching just to see him walking in the sky,
2. Virginity (by Vitaly Mansky)
shocking film about young Russian girls who are ready to sell their virginity for money and fame.
3. The Beast Within (by Yves Scagliola), strong multiplot film about the relation between man and animal, very strong and also funny ...
4. The Wild Hearts (by Michael Noer)
very funny Danish road movie about friendship and tests of manhood
5. Burma VJ
because it is such an important story.
This is what's happened recently
By Charlie Phillips 01 December, 2008
So I go away for a week and stack up a bunch of things to tell you, which means that I have to unload them in one big wave of my wand, so keep up...
A final word on IDFA first though. One of the highlights were the early evening 'media talks' and especially the confrontation between Franny Armstrong of my year's highlight The Age of Stupid and the team behind Not Evil just Wrong. Scroll to about 38 minutes and watch the explosions. You can probably guess from my previous entries who's side I'm on here, but it's a great spectacle anyway. Who do you think keeps their cool the best? Who comes up with the best hyperbole?
Cracking stuff. And the brilliant Mr. Wintonick is quite right that we need more rightists at documentary festivals.
So back to some more Doc/Fest coverage (will it ever end?) - Nick Bradshaw woke up at 5am to see the Shinsuke Ogawa retrospective - good decision, my friend. And then he also wrote a general report too, which is nice. Plus there's a great photo story from Variety by Ray Pride about our festivities, continuing here
The winners of the rest of the Griersons have been announced and though we congratulate them all, I save a special sloppy kiss for the team behind Here's Johnny, who won 2 awards. Adam Lavis, Kat Mansoor and Will Hood from Animal Monday, take a bow (the sloppy kiss is optional).
In the rest of the world there's moves and shakes in the media. Richard Klein is moving to BBC4, and Tribeca is launching a festival in Doha, for example. And you can read about some of that in a new blog called Mediaville which seems quite interesting for the media gossip demographic. And for a more scattergun DIY fraternity, I push you towards this account by Karina of Spout on DIY filmmaking in an indie apocalypse - I wish I could think of titles like that
And some more interesting things in the world are those awarded Sundance Institute Documentary Grants (I take particular naches from the awards to This is My Picture When I was Dead and Delta Boys - good good people there.) And there's a season of European Art Docs in London at the moment.
And in broader things, take a look at Ctrl Alt Shift which wants you to tell of changing the world (including by film) and Suso for interesting/crazy/important new ideas.
You up to date now?
IDFA Awards
By Hussain Currimbhoy 30 November, 2008
A brief trip to IDFA this year was well worth the 55 minute flight. This is my second visit to IDFA and the buoyant vibe, great parties and convenience of the festival that I remembered from last year remained.
The 21st edition saw some decent highlights of world documentary this year. It was hard to get into a lot of films, as so much of it was well sold out ahead of time, but I did really enjoy 'Love on Delivery' by Janus Metz about Thai women and their now increasingly popular marriages to Danish men in a sleepy sea side town in Denmark. I was torn between who I should be feeling more sorry for: the Thai women who have no choice but to leave their homes in pursuit of a better life (and to provide for their families) or the Danish men who are sincere in their desires for love but often find unemotional partners. Beautifully crafted and researched with the help of an anthropologist, this is one of the great Danish docs of the year.
Another not to be missed Danish doc is, of course, Anders Østergaard's 'Burma VJs' (a double winner as mentioned below) but was surprised not to see the Turkish doc, 'On The Way to School' come away with any prizes. It had the audience in stitches for its almost absurdist situations and was a very rare glimpse into the gradual effects of ethic 'denial' in the Kurdish region of Turkey that I've always been fascinated with.
The high point for me was seeing 'Koyaanisqatsi' by Godfrey Reggio at 10 am one morning after a healthy party. While some of the techniques have lost their power, the emotion is still as strong as when it was released in the early 80s and reminds that humans can be astonishingly brilliant and stupid, love selflessly and hate completely in equal measures while living very close together and being miles apart all at the same time. I was soaring for the rest of the day I can assure you.
The winners have been announced! Check out the list below:
VPRO Joris Ivens Competition Award and The Movies that Matter Human Rights Award:
Burma VJ – Reporting From a Closed Country by Anders Østergaard (Denmark)
Special Jury Award:
Forgetting Dad by Rick Minnich and Matthew Sweetwood (Germany)
Silver Wolf Award
Boris Ryzhy by Aliona van der Horst (the Netherlands)
Silver Wolf Special Jury Award:
Lady Kul el Arab by Ibtisam Mara'ana (Israel)
Silver Cub Competition
Slaves by Hanna Heilbronn and David Aronowitsch (Sweden/Norway/Denmark)
First Appearance Award
Constantin and Elena by Andrei Dascalescu
IDFA Student Award
Shakespeare and Victor Hugo´s Intimacies by Yulene Olaizola (Mexico)
Dioraphte Audience Award
RiP - A Remix Manifesto by Brett Gaylor (Canada)
DOC U! Award
Kassim the Dream by Kief Davidson (USA)
The Dutch Cultural Broadcasting Fund Award for Documentary 2008
Monsters Under the Bed by Sarah Mathilde Domogala
What I liked at IDFA
By Charlie Phillips 28 November, 2008
My last day at IDFA today - feel like I've been here ages, I've even grown a beard (my shaver broke). Not sure whether to keep it.
And a tip for next year if you come to the Forum - go eat and drink at the relatively-nearby Latei - it's ace if you need a break, and full of old crockery and strange objects d'art.
Anyhow, I've had the luxury here of actually seeing some films, so I wanted to direct you to a couple of goodies.
First mention has to go to Rough Aunties, the new film from Kim Longinotto. It's a tearjerker, and no mistake - tears were jerked throughout the entire film, it's a very sad documentary, but equally inspiring, so the tears are worth it. The Rough Aunties are a group of dedicated women in South Africa attacking child abuse, often confronting offenders themselves, taking abused children into their own homes, and defying their own personal tragedies. It's not simply their work which makes them so admirable, but also their collective spirit, forming a public front of female self-dependence in a country where women are often expected to be silent Mothers and nothing else. These women are revolutionary, particularly their founder Jackie who, in one remarkable scene, takes to spontaneously presenting a feminist take on development to a group of local women, assuring them that men will do nothing about injustice. And as usual, Kim Longinotto's abilities as an ob-doc maker are exemplary, giving us access to some of the cruelest and most harrowing scenes you can imagine for a documentary, but always with kindness and for a reason. A doc of complete wonder, it makes so many other documentaries seem so self-indulgent.
But of course other docs are just different. Like Paul Aflao, Tomoe Yoshihara and Sandra Lombardi's Surfing The Waste, a short musical about Dumpster Diving starring the cream of Montreal's local countercultural talent. This pushed all my buttons - subject matter that opposes food wastage and complacency about consumerism, funny and a bit silly approach to a serious project, DIY indie music, and the look of a 90s music video. It's great IDFA programmed this short because it's not a typical festival film, feeling like it's come from another world of art collectives and filmmaking for its own sake and not for a career purpose. Totally charming and with a very good point to it, I loved it.
And it was preceded by Poison Fire, a superb eye-opener about Shell's refusal to end gas flaring in Nigeria. Not the most innovative documentary in the world, but as a slam in the guts against oil dependence it was pretty stunning. Again, a doc where people in 'other' parts of the world are taking their own action because no-one 'outside' will ever help them, it provoked some strange reactions from the audience I sat with. One man seemed to think that if it were just shown to the Dutch minister for development (Shell is a Dutch company) everything would be OK, even berating the filmmaker for not having done so. And then one of my favourite moments of the festival - a questioner bemusedly asked one of the Nigerian activists, Ifie, what she wanted from us - did she want us to stop driving, he asked incredulously. And she replied that if we in Amsterdam et al had to stop driving for 20 years so that her region of Nigeria could be cleaned up and people stop dying there, then yes, she did want that. Good woman.
Finally, and also with an excellent Q and A, was Pizza in Auschwitz. With my controversy hat on, I have to say that there's so many Holocaust documentaries about that audiences are inevitably desensitised to hearing even the worst information about it. Docs about the Holocaust are not different to any other film - if you're tackling the same subject again, you need new ways to tell it, or there's no point. And it's especially important with the Holocaust that new ways to tell it are found. So what an amazing film this is, the story of a charismatic survivor (with a great dress sense) forcing his children on some tourism of death sites from his life. They argue, they joke in hilarious and totally wrong ways, and they really do eat pizza in his old barracks in Birkenau (plus smoke a lot too). It's a funny film, it shows no unnecessary respect, and it renews our thoughts of the Holocaust precisely by confronting us with our tendency to adopt meaningless empty poses of sympathy to survivors who, like this man Danny, don't want sympathy, they just want to live their lives joyfully.
Plus it's almost the first documentary where as somebody Jewish, it's been confirmed to me that even in the darkest place, Jewish families will still argue and not compromise. Love it.
Finally, irrelevantly, but I have to say it before tonight, if you can then watch Newsnight Review tonight on BBC2 because the best young critic in the UK, Jude Rogers is on it for the first time, and she's amazing. Don't know what they'll talk about but she'll be worth it, honest.
IDFA:European Cross-Media action
By Charlie Phillips 24 November, 2008
I'm at IDFA, as I told you, no doubt. In the FORUM today, there was a great 15 minute slot where the commissioners gathered there were asked to give us a quick review of their cross-media activity.
At Doc/Fest, we're a bit obsessed with Crossover and cross-platform thing, but you know what, I realised I didn't 100% know what a lot of these channels were doing - I get so wrapped up in the possible I sometimes forget to check the real. Anyway here's my rundown of today's update:
The various gangs in ARTE are really into cross-media projects and Alex Szalat from ARTE France accompanied the group pitching the remarkable cross-platform project Gaza Sderot, which was for me the undoubted highlight of the day definitely. It's beautifully-designed as well as politically important and easy to use. It's 100% internet at the moment, although a longer documentary may come out of it = although it's so perfect at the moment I don't really think it needs to. One of the other commissioners was pretty, well, scared by it, and didn't understand the economics behind it - which is a bit weird considering how wasteful TV documentary often is by comparison to slender web productions.
Anyway, I digress. Our lovely friend Barbara Truyen was the other big brave new web worlder, with her Holland Doc and other dedications to the cross-platform cause. And other honourable mention goes to Iikka Vehkalahti of YLE in Finland who pronounced himself dedicated to web-only documentary in great quantities.
Our own people were energetic on cross-platforming too - Tabitha Jackson from More 4 spoke about FourDocs of course, and Greg Sanderson from Storyville told everyone how loved the iPlayer is, plus hinted that something exciting was happening in 6 months. That BBC - what will they do next, eh?
Simon Kilmurry from POV rightly pointed to how many great docs they have online, as did Stephen Segaller from Wide Angle, who also use docs for great educational purpose
Meanwhile those dragging their feet were the German channels like ARD and the German ARTE departments, who regretted that by broadcasting law in Germany, online material could only be supportive/extras rather than standalone and innovative. They sounded pretty sad about that.
It was a great brief session, and it made me wonder in which cases the cart leads the horses and vice versa (we're the horses here as viewers you see). In some cases, like the Gaza Sderot example above, it's a great creative idea that blasts all the doors open, but with something like the iPlayer, amazing as it is, it's a great bit of kit that's I suppose quality-neutral.
I'm really hungry for the great cross-platform ideas - or actually ideas that work brilliantly on the single platform of internet. It's really exciting to hear European and international commissioners get so fired up by the artistic potential of web documentary, and not just be into it for being another tentacle to wave about. And it's also exciting that it's all so divergent and anarchic in terms of what stage different territories are at. Even after a few years of rhetoric, it's still a very brave and exciting new world for even the toppermost commissioners.
Have your say on rights clearance
By Charlie Phillips 20 November, 2008
Anyone who came to the legal sessions at Doc/Fest will be aware that getting clearances for using archive, music, et al in your documentary is an absolute minefield in the UK, and indeed the whole of Europe.
We don't have 'Fair Use' and the areas involved are misty grey and confusing. So it's really exciting that we just got word from the Centre For Social Media that they're wanting to get documentary filmmakers to consult on the European Commission’s Green Paper on Copyright in the Knowledge Economy
This Green Paper solicits information from creator communities, for the first time, on the critically important limitations and exceptions to owners’ monopoly rights in copyright law. These limitations and exceptions provide the breathing room for new creators to make new culture using some elements of existing culture.
Documentary filmmakers have long depended upon exceptions and limitations in order to make their work, so it's really important that you feed into this and make sure that doc filmmakers are included in the proposed exceptions to copyright law for all of you, and that these exceptions have a really wide scope.
Don't say you weren't warned next time you come up against the nasty forest of copyright. So what you need to do is read through the PDF linked above and then send your comments to this address - doesn't need to be a big long spiel, just tell them why this is so crucial to documentary people.
And then let us know what you've said, along with the people at CSM - and we'll see what comes of it!
Going to IDFA? Go to this...
By Charlie Phillips 20 November, 2008
So me and the man Hussain will be at IDFA next week - a festival where we're not responsible for everything, what a breath of fresh air!
If you'd like to say hello to us, then you know where we are, just mail to call. We're friendly fellows.
And you will definitely be able to catch me, if not that programmer chap, at the EDN bottle party which is big fun for all. See you there?
Margaret's Myths Diary
By Charlie Phillips 19 November, 2008
A lot of my favourite blogs have gone a bit Oscars-loopy. I don't really get it. But anyway, I'm a curmudgeon.
But putting that aside, look at this report from Margaret Brown - she of Order of Myths fame - on trying new distribution strategies through going to loads of festivals.
We can't wait to see what she says about Doc/Fest - she did win the Youth Jury award so we're hoping it's nice.
Win £5k on FourDocs
By Charlie Phillips 18 November, 2008
A word from Becca down the documentary road at FourDocs on a great competition they got going on...
Pitch your doc film online by 28th Nov and the winner gets £5k to buy any camera they want
FourDocs linked up with Passat earlier this year, who provided a fantastic camera to Eva Weber, for her winning film Solitary Life of Cranes in the FourDocs Short Film Competition at BritDoc this year. They also want to support another visionary director, and are offering £5k of camera equipment to the person with the best online pitch for a documentary film.
You need to submit a visual clip up to 3 minutes which gives us an idea of the longer film you want to make. You can make something like a taster tape, introducing a character or scene, or you can do a photo montage and explain the story, make a mood board or animate a few key moments against a soundtrack. Just imagine that this is the only means you have available to communicate what you want to do - the kind of film you are hoping to make and what it might look like, so don't stick with talking heads!
You can pitch ANY KIND OF DOCUMENTARY FILM, any style, any subject matter, set in any country. It must somehow be connected to the theme of 'Beautifully Engineered' though, and entries must be in by 6pm 28th November. The winner will get £5k to spend on any camera they want. More info here and here
Oscar short list announced
By Hussain Currimbhoy 18 November, 2008
After the election party dies down, the Oscar party at our place is already warming up.
The Oscar short list has been announced over night. Check out the selection:
At the Death House Door by Steve James and Peter Gilbert
The Betrayal (Nerakhoon) by Ellen Kuras and Thavi Phrasavath
Blessed Is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh by Roberta Grossman
Encounters at the End of the World by Werner Herzog
Fuel by Joshua Tickell
The Garden by Scott Hamilton Kennedy
Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts by Scott Hicks
I.O.U.S.A. By Patrick Reardon
In a Dream by Jeremiah Zagar
Made in America by Stacy Peralta
Man on Wire by James Marsh
Pray the Devil Back to Hell by Virginia Reticker
Standard Operating Procedure by Errol Morris
They Killed Sister Dorothy by Daniel Junge
Trouble the Water by Carl Deal
Really great to see British director James Marsh and his unforgettable ‘Man On Wire’ (but not surprising at all) on the short list. My money is on this one to win.
This was a Doc/Fest selection of course, but also really proud to that long term projects ‘The Betrayal’ and ‘In A Dream’ are recognised for their imagery and for being truly cinematic documentaries. ‘IOUSA’ also featured in our selection and is right on the money when it comes to American global melt down.
Though I must say I’m disappointed that ‘Thriller In Manilla’ didn’t get a mention out there or Ross McElwee’s ‘In Paraguay’. After a change in the Oscar’s eligibility rule book on what makes a doc ‘allowed’ in things seem to be harder for doc’s to get a look in. So films like ‘Stranded’ are left out, sadly, leaving the selection very American.
David Schisgall on Doc/Fest, The Fallen, more pics
By Charlie Phillips 17 November, 2008
One of the true highlights of the festival was David Schisgall's sensitively-shocking Very Young Girls and we were also delighted to have him and his team pitching a new project in the Meetmarket.
Now you can read David's thoughts about Doc/Fest on All These Wonderful Things. We aim to please, Mr Schisgall, thank you for those words. We particularly like the lines "The parties were typically British - a low emphasis on food with a correspondingly high emphasis on booze, with expected results." Good old Blighty, rule Britannia!
In other news, did you see The Fallen on the TV this weekend? If you didn't know, it won the Audience Award at Doc/Fest this year, which is so exciting for us - a 3 hour doc about the war dead isn't an easy watch, but Morgan Matthews is a special filmmaker and made this film continuously relevant rather than mawkish or alienating. I'm probably one of the most anti-Army people you could meet, but this doc turned my head a lot - the dead weren't portrayed as faceless 'heroes' but as people who lead valued and amazing family lives, and the point isn't that they died for any debatable political purpose but simply that they died, and left a horrible emotional legacy for those left behind. Truly wonderful documentary-making.
And you can see it here so stop what you're doing and watch it.
And finally for now, wondering what MeetMarket looks like? There's lots of new photos starting here on Flickr. And if you search carefully you can find a really horrible picture of me at one of the parties too.
Doc/Fest Trailer - it's good
By Charlie Phillips 14 November, 2008
So if you didn't see it before the films at the festival, here for your pleasure is the festival trailer. Isn't it good?
And before I sign off, we're chuffed to see ourselves in Indiewire here.
Live from CPH:DOX in Denmark
By Hussain Currimbhoy 13 November, 2008
Writing to you live from Copenhagen's CPH:DOX film festival - a city that has totally caught me off guard! This city of charisma and subtly is like the love child of Stockholm and Amsterdam after a drunken night together. CPH:DOX is a brilliant festival, but we already knew that. 160 docs, 10 concerts art exhibits and seminars make for a non-stop ten days of doc-talk and a good view of a very active filmmaking culture. Even the cab driver has an opinion on docs.
Michael Noer's 'The Wild Hearts' premiered last night followed by a rather raucous party in Copenhagen's ex-slaughterhouse district where we were surrounded by scooters and people climbing over each other in an effort to dance - literally. Though this was part homage to the film and part injections of Tuborg directly into the body. 'The Wild Hearts' is the second doc i've seen by Noer after the rather brilliant cyber-linked and cyber-cast 'Vesterbro'. This is a crazy, all-out testosterone driven doc that makes Jackass look like Diff'rent Strokes.
Jonathan Caouette's masterclass today, 'How to make a film for five hundred bucks' was excellent - though I still don't know how to make a doc for the price of a airfare to New York. Caouette and the aforementioned Noer are having a Youtube duel tonight that I must run to. This is a first for me! Though I imagine its like an iPod match, only the loudest applause wins.
Filipino doc-bending/drama perving auteur Khavn is here with Squatterpunk and The Muzzled Horse Of An Engineer In Search Of Mechanical Saddles (the still of two horses fornicating in the catalogue drew my attention, as does most anything with a horse in it these days thanks to Doc/Fest!). Its well worth a viewing if you don't know Khavn's films - even though he makes a few films a year this is one of his best.
I'm really keen on Burma VJs by Andreas Ostergaard (director of the classic Tintin et Moi). Its the best non-reportage investigation into the Burmese regime that I've seen on film yet. No doubt you'll be hearing a lot about this one. Also dying to see Birdsong by Albert Serra this Sunday - its being touted as 'Pasolini meets Werner Herzog in the story about the three kings'. What more could you ask for?
The thing most of us are excited about is the Patti Smith concert tomorrow night! I know she's suddenly about to make a whole bunch of new fans.
Stay tuned for the winners of the CPH:DOX awards tomorrow!
Klein Speech, Permissions Culture - More reaction
By Charlie Phillips 13 November, 2008
Few of you are asking when we'll be putting the films of the sessions online. Patience, patience, they're coming. But for now, get a bit more up to date with a full transcript of Richard Klein's keynote (complete with a photo of him that's a little unflattering!), which I'm told was an amazing event, a Guardian Review of the Theatrical Docs RIP panel, and Aggie V's analysis of James Boyle's analysis of our unfair and punishing UK copyright laws. Change them now!
And finally for now, courtesy of the Pixelwitch, here's our expert-skating festival director with DA Penne and Hegedus, all giving good face...
The world writes about Doc/Fest
By Charlie Phillips 12 November, 2008
For those of you who missed Doc/Fest or indeed those who were there but (er, like me) missed most of the films and sessions because you were too busy with work and play, there's a lot of information out there to help you catch up.
Broadcast have an excellent summary of commissioners' wishlists arising from their panels
Our friend Mullighan at Shooters tells you well about the films he saw (I'm so jealous he saw that Manics films, I haven't and won't get to see it, at least not for a while)
Nick F continued to write with passion in The Indy - I especially recommend his defence of Broomfield.
The guys from In A Dream (who also pitched in the MM and were really good people) have blogged on no less than CNN, whilst one of our photographers has a brief video of the ceilidh if you're not sure what this mysterious art is.
There's a lovely blog here from someone I don't know (get in touch whoever you are!) and meanwhile, Sean McAllister, who made possibly my favourite film of the festival, Japan:A Story of Love and hate has given over his blog to one of his main characters, Naoki, whose responses are appropriately both beautiful, sad and uplifting, just like his presence in the film. Meanwhile, Becca at FourDocs also writes about Japan... as well as the 'TV films' we showed.
You written about us as well? Please tell...
Lots of photos, and another guest blog
By Charlie Phillips 12 November, 2008
So before I hand over to another guest blogger, a nudge on your shoulder to check our Flickr photostream which has a whole torrent of Doc/Fest photos, some of people looking serious and some of people looking silly. In the latter category, here's me, awarding a prize to the winner of one of the Cross-Platform pitching awards...
I love that suit. Anyway, here's the next guest blog, in a post-festival stylage, courtesy of Ian Francis from 7 inch Cinema, one of the greatest film organisations in the UK. It's a privilege to have him here. And he's totally right about Sleep Furiously, if not the smell of Doc/Fest. We smell like roses, right?
Towards the tail-end of film festivals you get a particular fetid, weary sort of hum. Entering the Showroom on Sunday morning I could feel (smell?) the accumulated hours of watching, drinking and blethering, but there was still a buzz about the place. My day return from Birmingham was repaid tenfold within an hour thanks to Sleep Furiously, Gideon Koppel’s beautifully deliberate portrait of a Welsh village. Minutiae of farming life (I always wondered how they wrapped up hay-bales), snatches of Aphex Twin (the editor’s friend) and a scene cutting between a choir-practice and some waves that had me blubbing like a fool.
Apart from that there was a panel discussion featuring various graphic novelists in person and on Skype, and a film about Burroughs cohort Brion Gysin and his scheme to create a drug-free high with the Dream-Machine. The presence of students eating nachos seemed a good sign that the balance between industry and punters was being maintained. Before running for my train I managed to have a chat with Lorenzo Fonda, whose film Megunica is also showing at our festival in March. Being a nice bloke as well as a really good filmmaker, he gave me a flipbook to take home; the ideal Mr Benn-like souvenir from a strangely unreal day.
Thank you Doc/Fest! Enjoy your sleep.
Ian Francis
7 Inch Cinema [www.7inch.org.uk]
And We're Done...
By Charlie Phillips 10 November, 2008
Doc/Fest 2008 is over, we're all done, we're happy, we're tired, we hope you had a good time.
Seemed from all your comments that this was a mighty fine Doc/Fest. For us on the inside, it's not easy to know how everything went down unless you tell us. I mean, I spent 2 days entirely in the MeetMarket so anything that happened on Friday or Saturday totally passed me by.
So I want to know how it was for you! Tell us everything you saw, heard, did. It's your thoughts and memories that will document Doc/Fest 2008, so bring 'em out.
And if you've got photos too, then email them to info@sidf.co.uk with the subject photo2008 and/or upload them to Flickr and tag them with ‘Sheffield Doc/Fest 2008’.
Nick Fraser blogging on The Indy
By Charlie Phillips 08 November, 2008
There's blogging aplenty going on round these parts, not least on The Independent, where Nick Fraser is writing some great stuff.
And a big mention to to Agnes Varnum's Doc it Out - she's here and she's a-bloggin'.
And on the video side of things, have you seen our vodcasts ?
Are you writing, vlogging or similar about Doc/Fest too at the moment? Tell us!
YOUTH JURY BLOG: The Wild Frontier of Documentary
By Anastasia Vaskova 08 November, 2008
In Submarine Production's recent film, "Molotov Alva and His Search for the Creator: A Second Life Odyssey", the protagonist rejects real life in preference for an existence on Second Life. It culminates with his joyful proclamation that: "Whatever connection I had with that carbon-based world has gone" and yet into this Second Life, he has taken carbon copies, images of those in the outside non-virtual world which he now worships as icons.
This description, given by Femke Wolfing at the 'Non-linear storytelling' event on Thrusday (a part of the Digi-Docs 360 mini-strand at this year's Doc/Fest) seemed to embody an apparent paradox in the online open-platform format. In one sense, online documentary content is a transference of the carbon world into the virtual, but in another, it appears to have a life of its own, a communal narrative space to share content, be it either emotional (the confessional blog) or physical (the collected image) content.
Adam Gee from Channel 4 sees it as "creating an infrastructure for narrative, not narrative itself" and his work with sites such as 'Big Art Mob' and (most recently) 'Embarrassing Bodies' seems to bear this out, judging by the vast amount of user-uploaded content. He sees a new viewing public, reading across narratives, half-watched and impatiently fragmented. But unlike the Molotov Alva character in the Submarine film, this seems to inform their Carbon Life and perhaps even to better it.
The digital platform, however is being extended well beyond these clear-cut parameters. And whereas Submarine's current work "Energy Wars", empowers an audience (if they can still be called that) to affect the narrative action in a game scenario, the work of Blast Theory takes this even further. They are utilising the 'cultural spaces opened up by mobile technology' not only within a virtual framework but in physical life – in 'Rider Spoke' computers on bike handle bars ask their riders for confessionals and resolutions, determining and defining the rider's experience of the city.
Perhaps this all feels a bit sinister – web platforms with a life of their own and technology which is instructing rather than being utilised. But the work of all the filmmakers at this event was testament to what can be achieved on this horizon-line of documentary. The mimetic blur between life and culture has always existed and if this further smudging merely causes you to rethink the way things are, these platforms are fulfilling an important role.
Visit Blast Theory here and Submarine here
Jon Parker, Youth Jury.
Scenes of a Graphic Nature
By Charlie Phillips 08 November, 2008
In advance of our very very exciting indeed Scenes of a Graphic Nature panel, there's some great coverage in The Bookseller - read it here and here
Sophie Fiennes on PSB
By Charlie Phillips 05 November, 2008
So a special guest blog here as the festival kicks into action on Day 1. Over to
Houses rise and fall, commissioners come and go, and some cling on for dear life, but how can the structure of film funding in the UK change to up the game of the broadcasters and respond to the real challenges that face film makers?
FILMAKERS! Before you cut off your ear, or just give up out of sheer exhaustion, join the debate about the future of PBS in the UK.
I am grateful to the Sheffield Doc/Fest for acting as a necessary provocateur and I look forward to attending the following discussions:
QUESTION TIME: PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING
Filmmakers have a political role to play in defining the shape of PSB things to come. Here is my response to the current climate in UK broadcasting and a suggestion for a new structural model. Click on this link to read a proposal.
Thriller in Manila on the Today Show
By Hussain Currimbhoy 04 November, 2008
Joe Frazier and the director talk about our opening night knock out doc Thriller In Manila :
Thriller in Manila on the Today show
Frazier is very gracious - but wait till you see the film and judge for yourself.
John Dower and producer John Smithson will be here at the festival to present the film and have a Q&A after the film on Wed Nov 5 at 19:00.
Thriller screens again on Saturday Nov 8 at 19:00. Tix are selling out so get in quick!
Move On
By Hussain Currimbhoy 04 November, 2008
Election fever has swept over the Atlantic like storm.
An insight into the shift in the mood in US politics is perfectly placed in MOVE ON, the work-in-progess doc produced by Doc/Fest regular Rita Dagher.
Screening on Thursday Nov 6 at 21:15.
REM's Michael Stipe and DJ/Musician Moby feature in the film and talk about how a some impassioned emails from a young concerned political commentator turned into a powerful force in US politics.
If today's election in the USA goes like we think it will be huge vindication for the grass roots group Moveon.org that has caused a political storm in this seemingly endless election lead up.
Check out the people just took the power back!
Joel Heller from Docs That Inspire on Doc/Fest
By Charlie Phillips 04 November, 2008
Over to Joel Heller from Docs That Inspire for another guest blog...
If you haven't seen Margaret Brown's THE ORDER OF MYTHS, please don't miss it when it screens on the 6th and 7th this week. It's my favorite doc of the year, not only for its masterful editing, humor and poetic voice, but for Brown's skillful handling of a subject as complex as present-day segregation in the deep South.
I felt such a connection to this film, I flew to Mobile, Alabama in July so I could be in the 2,000 seat Saenger Theater when Margaret showed her film for the first time to a hometown audience. I was deeply curious to see how it would play in the Deep South, where politeness and decorum so often come at the expense of truth-telling.
It was amazing evening that stirred reactions in the city as diverse as the opening nights' standing ovation to a anonymous submission published in the local newspaper calling for the film to be "destroyed."
What moved me the most was hearing the palpable sense of relief during the screening among the various participants of the film as their conflicting voices and truths were witnessed by each other...and then what seemed like the entire city engaged in a conversation about the film in the days that followed.
I'll leave it to Margaret to fill you in on the rest of the juicy details. (And Margaret: please bring the juicy details of Sheffield back to Austin!).
Danielle from IndiePix on Doc/Fest
By Charlie Phillips 03 November, 2008
Next guest blogger is one of our favourite people on the international docs scene, Danielle Di Giacomo from Indiepix...
As Americans are (hopefully) celebrating Obama's election, I will be delighting in the stimulating pleasures of what is sure to be an amazing documentary festival in Sheffield. I will be there with my colleague and partner-in-crime at IndiePix Films, Ryan Harrington, to take Meet Market meetings, present on panels, watch films, and of course, rollerskate.
IndiePix will be looking to find films both to acquire for North American distribution (everything from small theatrical to download rights) as well as for potential films to fund for our fledgling (and thriving) IndiePix Studios arms.
I'm particularly excited about the panel I am producing on Distribution (That Old Chestnut, indeed) which will be moderated by the indefatigable Debbie Zimmerman of Women Make Movies and features Ryan. I'll be there with bells on -- it will be held on Saturday at 10:30 am in the Furnival (don't know what that means but it sounds so very Harry Potter-esque). I'll also be presenting on a Newcomers Day panel Thursday at 14:30 about non-traditional, digital opportunities of distribution.
Tireless IndiePix CEO Bob Alexander and COO Sally Plourde will also be at the Fest for the first couple of days. Team IndiePix will be running around like headless chickens, but will be able to take a break and enjoy a cocktail (or seven) at our opening night gala on Wednesday at the Showroom Bar (not just a party, a GALA, folks!). So join us!
The Game
By Charlie Phillips 03 November, 2008
So have you seen that all over the festival, The Truth is Catching? If you're coming to Doc/Fest, you can play The Game...
Over to Jess from Britdoc...
By Charlie Phillips 02 November, 2008
We're letting some guests loose on the blog. First up is Jess Search, chief exec of Britdoc...
The BRITDOC Festival team are doing compulsory morning press ups and star jumps in preparation for this year’s bigger-than-ever event. Our thoughts are with the Sheffield team as we know just how hard they are working right now. It may be 167 miles between their office and ours (I asked Google maps) but we feel their pain (it’s Sunday and they are at work with 1,000,001 things to do).
The Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation are doing a whole bunch of stuff at Doc/Fest this year – the theatrical docs session, sitting down with a dozen Meet Market filmmakers, taking Lee Kern on in the debate, drinking and talking like there is going to be a prize. Most of all I’d like to invite y’all to our SATURDAY SERVICE - an afternoon of looking at how documentaries can create real change – and how documentary filmmakers can work with third sector to fund and distribute work of impact. The Upper Chapel from 2pm.
See you all next week.
Jess Search
Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation
Variety is the spice of Doc/Fest
By Charlie Phillips 02 November, 2008
Look everyone, we're currently featured in Variety - you can get some history on the days of Doc/Fest before Heather...
Loads o peeps Loads o parties
By Heather Croall 01 November, 2008
Here at Sheffield Doc/Fest we really are a fun bunch to party with – it’s just that as we all sit here in the office late on a Saturday night wi'nowt but tea and biscuits and a load of spreadsheets you could be forgiven for thinking that we are a right bunch of sad bastards. But really, we’re not! I promise!
We're just frantically finalising everything before the festival opens in a few days and in amongst it all, I just did a quick check on the number of festival industry delegates we have signed up... and I noticed that we already have 1250 delegates signed up and that means (a) we are nearly sold out! and (b) with a full house, we’re going to have some fabulously fun parties!
This year we’ve pretty much picked any gap we could find in the programme of endless screenings, debates, masterclasses and marketplace meetings and filled them with splendid social events that overflowith with food, drink and networking merriment…so when you print off the PDF of the schedule for your festival planning (on the website now) be sure to mark up your party plans.
The IndiePix Party is in The Showroom Bar on Wednesday night after the opening film – enjoy the bubbles, yummy food and the dancing (tunes from DJ Ralph Razor).
The DFG Newcomers Day drinks reception is in the Site Gallery Café at the end of the fab day long programme for Newcomers.
The BBC Crossplatform Networking Event is on Thursday following the Who’s Who session over in The Hubs where Film and TV producers can come to meet up with digital, interactive and games producers.
A bit later is the Thursday night DFID-CBA dinner for all delegates in the truly gorgeous Wintergarden and Millennium Gallery … and that's followed by a late night karaoke session across the street in The Roebuck Tavern that will no doubt go ‘til all hours (with free pool tables especially for us for the night).
That should take you to around about 2am Thursday with 5 parties already down (pace yourself, sugar).
Friday – get up and get into some sessions and films…there’s loads of them! In between, get some lunch in the Showroom Bar, café or delegate centre - all great places to meet the festival delegates. On Friday and Saturday between 5pm-6pm and 12midnight–1am Tiger Lily are hosting Happy Hours in The Showroom Bar with discounts on wine, beer and vodka.
On Friday Night get along to the City Hall Ballroom for dinner where the Grierson:Sheffield Awards will be presented by The Dynamic Duo (born at Sheffield last year) Roger Graef and Lee Kern. DJ Decksta of Carwash fame will be dropping the tunes after dinner that will get you heading straight for the Light-Up-Saturday-Night-Fever-Dance-Floor… (truly!) it’s the original deal with coloured light squares and it’s even somehow a bit bouncy! For people watching films at The Showroom Cinema as the dinner is served that night we are putting on a latecomers round of food as well.
On Saturday, BBC Nations and Regions are putting on a brilliant Northern Nosh Up 'round lunchtime in Channing Hall (from 1.30-3) Denby Dale Pies and lashings of locally brewed ale will be served. What better lunch could you wish for in November in Sunny Sheffield? That afternoon Britdoc will serve tea as part of their Service in The Chapel.
And on Saturday night it’s… (wait for it)… the World’s First Ceilidh Roller Disco. Yes! That’s right, don’t forget to pack your kilt and your sense of balance. But No! you won’t actually be ceilidh dancing on roller skates – you can do one then the other but not both at once! On one side of the party you get to show off your well honed dancing steps to the best Ceilidh band in Scotland who are coming down from the Highlands to play for us complete with a wonderful dance caller - just get on the floor and do what they say! On the other side of the room you can roller skate the night away – on either 4 wheel skates or inline rollerblade skates (I will most likely be on that side of the room and happy to give a Backward Skating Lesson to anyone who is interested but unfortunately I cant teach anyone how to skate forward or how to stop).
Upstairs at this wondrous Highland Fling of a Night, you will find a great Scottish dinner (including salmon, Scottish beef and of course …Haggis and neaps! (organic and direct from the best Haggis maker in Scotland, Jimmy) and lots of other yummy Scottish fayre. You will also find a wee whiskey bar in the David-Lynch style room upstairs next door to the food, just behind the Standing Stones. Please get your skating done before you hit the whiskey!
Saturday night party is also where you’ll find out who has won the different pitch competitions (Wellcome Trust Pitch, National Film Board X-Media Competition, Crossover Pitch and Channel 4 Pitch).
Read all about the parties here
Throughout the entire festival you can also play the Doc/fest ARG (that’s an interactive location-based game we have commissioned for all festival delegates to play; you will be given your game-card on arrival, it works a bit like an Oyster Card but is loads more fun) The Doc/Fest ARG reveals a story about some changes in infectious disease that are an unexpected consequence of climate change while simultaneously offering the delegates some very fun and innovative ways to network! but I must warn you, you might catch something nasty. The best thing to do is to get playing, watch the weather and Get Infected. The Truth Is Catching.
In the festival delegate centre you will find the Scottish Corner and the German Corner and both of these delegations will be hosting some daytime receptions, along with the East Silver Caravan and Krakow film market reception, so be sure to drop in to the delegate centre often.
All of the functions, receptions and parties mentioned above are included in the price of your delegate pass along with the hundreds of sessions and films too. Looking forward to seeing you next week!
Cultural Legacy of a Bush
By Charlie Phillips 01 November, 2008
As George W prepares to see who'll step into his shoes and his house, there's some pondering about his cultural legacy going on, including the words of Alex Gibney and our estemmed soon-to-be-guest, Naomi Wolf
An Afternoon with Jem Cohen
By Charlie Phillips 31 October, 2008
So y'know that Jem Cohen is pitching in the MeetMarket? Well, prior to coming up here, he's doing a pretty amazing-looking Afternoon with Jem Cohen in London where he'll show films of his own, films that inspired him from the forties, and generally talk about America and the world.
It's like a political address from the MP for great genre-bending documentary. If you're in the area, then you just have to cancel your plans and go.
And if you're not, you can come and talk to him at Doc/Fest anyway in between his pitches and maybe he'll recreate some of it for you.
Doc/Fest takes over The Indie
By Charlie Phillips 31 October, 2008
Today if you purchase a copy of The Independent, you'll find a whole world of Doc/Fest stories, telling you why we're important, what Naomi Wolf might say when she comes to the festival (can you believe Naomi Wolf is coming? It's very good indeed), just how good Thriller in Manilla is, and then Broomfield tells us about his favourite docs.
But don't just read it on there, go buy the paper, there's a great collage of stills from Doc/Fest films, and you can pin it to your wall.
The word on the street
By Hussain Currimbhoy 30 October, 2008
The other day someone asked our MeetMarket producer 'how he was feeling' , which is always a loaded question when we are a less than a week away from the festival and his response summed up exactly how I feel: swaying between excitement and happy anticipation about the festival - and complete terror.
This is Andy, the programme coordinator. This is about 20% of the films Andy is managing at Doc/Fest. Andy seems pretty cool about it, don't you think?
Andy had some Nirvana playing in the car on the way home last night. It seems Kurt Cobain's psychotic gaze is still etched on the psyche of Gen X'ers to this day. I think I know what film in the doc/fest programme Andy Andy will be seeing: Kurt and Courtney by Nick Broomfield. We're doing a retrospective on Broomfield this year (as you all know) featuring three films selected by Nick himself. The retro is still gaining a lot of attention out there! Despite the drop in temperature outside people still want to stop and talk to you about the programme and many are mentioning Nick Broomfield - if you're a fan you must check out the masterclass too on Sat Nov 8 at 16:45 chaired by Jason Wood.
Another high roller: The Manic Street Preachers work-in-progress doc, No Manifesto is selling really well. In fact its our highest seller so far! Armies of young fans are simultaneously excited at the prospect of a Manics film they can fall in love with while slightly perturbed that they have to be 18 to get into the cinema. If you're over 18 get tix fast!
We have so many guests this year I'm going to get a sprain in my wrist from shaking hands all day. To name a few: James Marsh, DA Pennebaker and Chris Hedgedus, Sean McAllister, Louis Theroux, Michael Palin and over 100 other invited filmmakers will be taking over Sheffield and preparing the ground for some great Q&As. Mehrdad Oskouei from Iran, Toshi Fujiwara from Japan, Rachel Landers from Australia... This is just a sample. We're expecting even more guests than last year. Actually, if you are keen to attend the festival and are having trouble finding a hotel room, please get in touch! We may be able to help you!
I'm also especially looking forward to seeing We Are Wizards on the big screen along with a couple of hundred Harry Potter fans. This doc is getting so much talk I'm starting to think everyone I know is secretly a Harry Potter fan and just doesn't have the gumption to tell me.
We're running an Audience Award this year too. You'll get a voting card when you enter the cinema - you tear it, then give it to cinema steward, then we announce the winner on Mon Nov 10. I guess that ought to flush out the Harry Potter fans once and for all.
In the meantime, everyone: tell me what films you are keen to see! And I'll put your responses on the blog!
Get A-Round
By Charlie Phillips 30 October, 2008
We're getting closer to lift-off, so hope you're scouring the website and making your plans for all the films, sessions and parties you need to go to. We're all very excited, myself especially since it's my first Doc/Fest on the other side of the counter.
So to help your preparation, take note that the downloadable Industry Schedule is now there for you to take and make notes on. It's the PDF on the left hand side underneath the menu. Lots to do - you need to take the next week off just to plan really, don't you?
I want to especially make sure you know about the Round Table Session on Sunday for which we now have the full line-up of 5 buyers announced. This is something new we're doing, a bit like an informal mass MeetMarket for big groups. It's an opportunity to hear from buyers in an casual atmosphere with small numbers, and where you can talk in a group rather than being presented to. Numbers are limited, so don't miss out, come in plenty of time or you'll regret it, my friends.
And just quickly and irrelevantly, in the extra-Doc/Fest world, I liked this blog over at FourDocs, where I think Becca hits the nose right on the button about new talent. We should all talk about that some more at the festival - at Doc Day Aft, Newcomers Day, and all after and in between...
Films for the Folks
By Charlie Phillips 27 October, 2008
It's a big question. I asked Hussain which films my parents should some and see at the festival. But don't think of this as a parent-friendly preview, so much as a guide to some docs which would appeal to your non-documentary-knowing friends and family. Not your documentary cynics, but your documentary not-knowings.
By the way, to preempt, I'd add to Hoos' list Of Time and the City, which as I've said before is a classic doc in my world already (by the way, read this and grin at things like But surely he must have had some kind of accent? "My sister May said that I never did. I found it amazing, because when I first heard myself I thought, my God, I sound like the Queen Mother after she'd died." - what a filmmaker)
Anyway, the actual list is Mr Rakowski which is a welcome addition to the canon of Holocaust Survivor stories, whilst being totally original and sensitive; My Mothers Garden, which besides Terence there above, is one of my favourites of the festival. If you're recommending to your parents, then be warned it's not an easy watch, but it pays off in the end and it makes you appreciate what it's like to be lonely and growing old; same can be said for I"m not Dead Yet (which was pitched at MeetMarket 2006 dontchaknow?) and its warnings about what happens when English families don't talk to each other properly for decades (which obviously we don't); In a dream, which is a sweet and inspiring tale of personal art; Man on wire which if they haven't seen, obviously they should because it just is one of the best docs of recent years; our opener, Thriller in manilla, which is a barnstormer and a lot more horrifying and opinion-changing than you might expect - it may be about boxing, but it's not just one for the Dads, honest; The jazz baroness, itself ike jazz in documentary form - a good old storytelling ride.
I think my parents are also seeing The Biggest Chinese Restaurant in The World. In fact, this list could go on for a long time - because there's nothing wrong with taking your parents out of their comfort zone anyway, is there?
Interview with Kim Longinotto and Nick Broomfield
By Charlie Phillips 26 October, 2008
We've been out and about asking Nick and Kim about Doc/Fest, Truth and themselves...
For more on our Nick Broomfield retrospective, take a trip to here
The truth gets out there some more...
By Charlie Phillips 25 October, 2008
This week the Truth has been exploring London's attractions...
Power to the pixel
By Charlie Phillips 22 October, 2008
Today is the start of the two-day Power To the Pixel where lots of fun people will invade the London Film Festival and bring it into the modern age right good.
I'm not there, but I will be here, which is a bit like being there, but in a comfy chair. You can rave about all the technology you like, but what really impresses me at an event or a festival is not coming away with a bad back.
Getting closer...
By Charlie Phillips 20 October, 2008
So me and my marketplace compadre Madeline spent the weekend devising the schedule for the MeetMarket which is no small task, individually putting hundreds and hundreds of meetings into the system. It's a big do. There's obviously a lot of automated system stuff that makes it quicker and shaves off some of the time but the essential bit of matching 200 peoples' preferences for 2 days of meetings basically needs a very-human human in charge of it. And we are those humans.
Anyway, as well as doing that this weekend, I managed to watch docs, pretty randomly. The first is a testament to the goodness of youtube - me and the lady (my girlfriend, not Madeline - we marketplace people did spend some time apart this weekend, honestly) searched for "Northern Soul" on youtube to see if we could find some good videos of Northern Soul/Mod dancing. As you do. And look what came up - something that will very much excite any of you out there who have secret soul boy hearts...
If you're not that hot on Northern Soul, this may not seem that exciting, but even if you're not, isn't it a good doc? A bit ropey in parts, forcing the 'industrial North/industrial dancing' parallels repeatedly but it's a fair comparison to make I think - it's no coincidence that Northern Soul prospered (and sort of still does) in places where people were losing their jobs and needed something else exhausting and immersive.
Anyway, then last night, I unintentionally watched Alan Yentob's final episode about guitars, The Story of The Guitar, mainly because the trailer said it would feature The Who (so we'd see guitars getting destroyed) and Johnny Marr from The Smiths (so we'd see guitars being played like no-one else is capable of doing). And it certainly did.
But then there was also a clip of a peculiar video which invaded my dreams last night, so I woke up feeling like I had spent the night on Mars. Actually, Mars in the 60s. You'll see what I mean. Apparently these people changed the face of the guitar...
And if that's not disturbing enough, here's a sneak peak of what we at Doc/Fest all got up to LAST weekend...
Bad Idea...Good idea
By Charlie Phillips 15 October, 2008
There's a lot of good magazines out there on the streets, what with it being very hip to self-publish these days so i hear. And one of those good magazines is Bad Idea, which comes straight outta Dalston, with a take on literature and intelligent pursuits coming from young, clever and opinionated people who write beautifully.
I'm a serious fan of Bad Idea, their magazines always look gorgeous and the range of writers is exceptional, with a selection ranging from pervy to polemicised, and a few things in between (I'm only interested in the pervy and polemic obviously).
Anyway, the point of this nod is to tell you that their website now has a massive amount of regularly-updated often-hilarious and frequently-revelatory stories, articles and general musings and it's becoming quite a regular haunt for me. They seem to really hit the credit crunch business on the button, with a wry take on economic nonsense that's a bit like listening to the dwellers of a liberal Viennese century coffee house in the 1930s. Ideal for me.
And can you argue with any blog that starts a piece with the line "Anyone notice the Bonhams ad in the Telegraph today?" You know you're in damn safe hands there.
Roman Polanski: Wanted And Desired
By Hussain Currimbhoy 12 October, 2008
Tomorrow night is def a night to stay in watch a doc.
Marina Zenovich's ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED screens on BBC 4 at 10:00 pm, Monday Oct 13 - its first screening in the UK after it premiered at Cannes in May.
This is one of the most anticipated docs of the year - one that I'm dying to see and not just because I'm a fan of Polanski. I don't think it will break down any myths or act as a rethink of our attitudes towards a great director. But I've only ever heard fragments of his life story - the connections to the French New Wave, the story of how he got KNIFE IN THE WATER made, his exile from America - this will be a concise history of everything Polanski.
It will be interesting get an account of his life in one hit and to not just be focussing on a dip in a hot tub.
He is one of the very few from that period of cinema still running around today. He doesn't do a lot of interviews any more and he is well into his 70s so this could be one of the few insights into his work.
Doc/Fest T-Shirts - Buy Them while they're hot
By Charlie Phillips 12 October, 2008
And boys and girls, they are HOT!
What you see here is the chance to buy for just £10 a very fine item of clothing with the Doc/Fest horsey on and everything.
Not only will you impress your friends beyond all belief with your support of such a fine festival as ours, but you'll look mighty fine too. These t-shirts are proven to make you better-looking hundred-fold.
It's just £10, and you can order yours NOW before there's a run on them and stocks run out.
Pitch your cross-platform project - deadline TODAY!
By Charlie Phillips 10 October, 2008
So today is the deadline day for getting your cross-platform pitch in for the NFB Cross Media Pitch Competition - get your entry in!
This is a totally unique pitch, aimed at those developing innovative, interactive, socially engaged content with applications for mobile and broadband, where one producer will win a £5,000 co-production development deal with the award-winning people at the National Film Board of Canada. The theme this year is environmental.
We're dedicated to cross-media ideas here at Doc/Fest so this is a pitch we want as many people as possible to apply for, so if you're working on something totally new and groundbreaking, we'll be very excited indeed to see it.
And last year's pitch winners, Grant Keir and Virginia Heath, have gone on to now being selected for this year's MeetMarket so there's a definite line of progress this pitch gets you going on. This pitch is a chance to really be nurtured by people who know and understand what's special about cross-media projects.
So here's the info, and no waiting around, today's the deadline!
Interview with producer of MAN ON WIRE, Simon Chinn
By Hussain Currimbhoy 07 October, 2008
The Doc/Fest programme couldn't be complete without MAN ON WIRE.
Surely, you've seen it - but here's a rare interview with producer, Simon Chinn.
http://www.sbs.com.au/blogarticle/108397/Blog-Man-on-Wire-interview
Truth Out There
By Charlie Phillips 07 October, 2008
The Truth really is out there. Thanks to Optimistic Productions for these.
MeetMarket Project Selection is go
By Charlie Phillips 04 October, 2008
It's all happening now on the website - film schedules (what a programme, Hussain!), packed schedule of sessions, a searchable buyers list. And now, we're delighted to announce the project selection for this year's MeetMarket.
There's 53 amazing projects there, with the standard being so high that we decided to take a few more than we were initially planning to. It's a really cosmopolitan list that we hope reflects the very best of international documentary creativity going on today, with a very strong non-UK European representation there as well as the choicest new US and Canadian ideas. In fact, 18 different countries will be represented by producers at MeetMarket. And it's especially exciting that we have 4 brilliant cross-platform projects in that list.
So now we just wait and see how they all get on at MeetMarket. For those of you who weren't selected, I really hope you'll come to the festival anyway - remember, aside from the MM, all events are open to all delegates, so there are plenty of opportunities to meet buyers and decision-makers.
And just to say that the decision to get down to 53 was so very hard - there were honestly at least 150 projects that could hold their own in the MM easily, and which it was heartbreaking to end up having to put to one side. But that's precisely why I'm so keen that everyone who applied with a great project should come anyway, because there will be people who are interested in your plans, and you can talk to about investment or ask for advice, whether funder, co-producer or general advisor. And as far as possible, if you come to the festival as a delegate and pick up a buyers guide and grab us, we'll try and help you to strategise to do just that. I mean it.
The guys who wrote the book on documentary
By Hussain Currimbhoy 01 October, 2008
8.40pm, two of the most exquisite docs ever made, An Engineer's Assis
tant and On the Road, both by Noriaki Tsuchimoto, are on, again at the BFI Southbank.
If you are around at the BFI at about 8:40 Thursday Oct 9th and you want to see one of the best docs I have ever seen check out ON THE ROAD: A DOCUMENT by Tsuchimoto Noriaki from 1964. Its playing with AN ENGINEER’S ASSISTANT – both will be introduced by Mark Cousins who curated a Tsuchimoto retrospective at Doc/Fest last year. After I saw ON THE ROAD it leapt into my top 5 of all time. Those kinds of films, that just capture so much just in the editing, simply aren’t made any more! Since Tsuchimoto passed away this year the screening is all the more poignient.
Also, this new sense that film critics are becoming the hunted has been taken up by the last Sight & Sound with a cover article featuring the thoughts of some of our most prominent thinkers. To give the matter a little more flesh, a debate at the BFI on Wed Oct 8th at 6:20 will be hosted with the likes of Jean-Michel Frodon, Mark Fisher, Nick James and Mark Cousins to debate what makes a good critic – so head down and let it all out. Bloggers vs critics, author vs authority – this is going to be lively to say the least.
Speaking of Mark Cousins, his new book is out this month too: Widescreen: Watching Real People Elsewhere (released by Wallflower Press) It consists of essays that Mark has written for Prospect Magazine since 2001, and also some unreleased thoughts that will certainly cause a stir. He’s a dedicated man of doc that will have something powerful insights on a genre in flux.
Doc/Fest programme is alive
By Hussain Currimbhoy 01 October, 2008
At last, the film programme is alive and kicking. You can check out the whole programme on our website: www.sheffdocfest.com as of, well now really.
The website is totally revamped from last year so you can do more detailed searches and bask in the slick blackness.
We had over 1500 submissions this year and including the festivals we all visited I can honestly say that we could have filled this programme over 10 times. There is so much amazing documentary out there that we just could not fit into a 5 day programme. The digital revolution is starting to show that ideas are following the ease in which the world can start filming!
Not only are there so many films that we could screen but there are so many that are destined for cinema. Many will find larger audience numbers on the tele, but they were clearly written and shot with a cinema experience in mind. I'm thinking about SLEEP FURIOUSLY, THE BETRAYUAL, AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD, IN A DREAM, FENCE - they are all so different but keep the common denominator of cinema in mind at all times.
I think one of the best things about this year's programme is that we've got a good mix of first time directors and seasoned masters. DA Pennebaker and Chris Hedgedus spring to mind when you think of masters of documentary, but then Ellen Kuras comes along with a debut film that will never leave you, and AUNTIE NIECY, by a 1st year university student, interprets female infertility in ways you that make you guess until the very end. This was the film that made me start thinking that a student doc award was due!
Please send me your thoughts if you have a second to look through.
And my thanks to everyone who entered this year.
See you all at Doc/Fest!
Gawd bless BBC4 and my favourite poets
By Charlie Phillips 28 September, 2008
BBC4 is the only channel which I switch on and regularly catch something awe-inspiring by surprise which makes me stop and concentrate on it rather than do ten things at once.
Like tonight, they're having a night of reruns of the flagship BBC arts strand from the 50s and 60s, Monitor. At this moment (yes I'm doing 2 things at once, OK), they've got John Betjeman interviewing Philip Larkin. My two favourite poets sitting in a room, gossiping and smoking! How could I not have known this film existed??
So, Philip takes John to the local cemetery, in tribute to his on-the-button Toads Revisited, which he recites in that inimitable softly-camp posh Northern voice, then he cycles to the cemetery and we hear Church Going and Philip wanders through the ruins of another church, before cycling to meet John on a boat, and as Philip's hair (or what's left of it) flutters in the sea breeze, John (who's sensibly worn a rain mac and an old hat) tells him proudly that last night he read some of Philip's poems to the local Humbersiders in the pub and they cried. And Philip says..."Another night wasted then". And cut. It's some of the most perfect, surprising and crazy moments of an arts programme I've ever seen or could imagine, and it was just on the telly right now - did you see it??
Now there's one about Peter Blake, gadding about past some teddy bears at the funfair. This is amazing!
Like our Doc/Fest HORSES?
By Charlie Phillips 26 September, 2008
Do you? Not sure what I mean? You might get a better idea here...
Foudocs hints
By Hussain Currimbhoy 25 September, 2008
At the behest of our friend Becca at Fourdocs here's my hottist tips for doc-makers.
http://blogs.channel4.com/fourdocs/2008/09/24/sheffield-programmers-offers-tips-to-documentary-makers/
Will be in touch again after the programme has gone to bed.
Arts Docs n Anti Docs at Doc/Fest
By Heather Croall 24 September, 2008
This year Sheffield Doc/Fest is presenting a strand of programming supported by the Arts Council including Arts Docs, The Anti Doc, sound installations and more ... as part of this Sophie Fiennes has written an essay for our festival catalogue, and here for a sneak preview are some excerpts from Sophie's essay...
Film festivals are places where it is possible to see cutting edge work, and this goes for documentary as much as fiction. So what is the Anti-doc ?
Anti-docs don't have to be political polemics, even if they are quietly anarchic. They are films which are laws unto themselves, films which have not been moulded according to TV formats or reined in by anxious commissioning editors.
The truth is that inner life is barely confinable and madness is exciting because it is often experienced as more real than the world out there. Lee Kern's documentary experiment fuses his schizoid subject's testimonials – descriptions and analysis of the 'shit going on' in his head – with a musical soundtrack of songs. There is no attempt to illustrate this with images, it literally emerges from a black void.
Free from bourgeois conventions, the Anti-Doc encourages playfulness and lateral thinking, as in Miloslav Novak's Peace With Seals. The film's journey to make contact with the Mediterranean Monk Seal is also a quest is to unravel the meaning of a strange dream the filmmaker had while deeply in love. The seal proves to be as mysterious and elusive as love itself, but one of the many attributes of the Anti-Doc, as this film shows, is that it can convert anxiety and romantic confusion into creative, poetic experiment.
....You can read Sophie's essay in full in the festival catalogue in November.
Pixels and Slackers
By Charlie Phillips 23 September, 2008
Power to the Pixel - great name for an event, and a good place to be - so you can go and find out more about all the lovely independent film and new distribution things happening in the world. Lots of the speakers are, er, the same as last year, and many other similar panels, but that's alright, it still looks ace.
On a slightly less progressive note, as well as a less well-named note, Michael Moore's latest movie, Slacker Uprising has got some reviews which are so much bad as bored. Let's hope the bad regimes can still all change without his noble efforts, eh?
Also, hurrah for some words against Mockumentaries. Anyone who's anyone knows that it's all about Anti-Docs these days if you're storming the Winter Palace of Documentary right?
It's a silly name too, Mockumentary. I'm a bit obsessed with names, but y'know, they're important to me. Anyway, this is an old debate so to drag you into the present, and also to give you a vision of just what Sheffield is like, read about local hipster Toddla T and you'll be right up to date.
The Budget Guide to Doc/Fest
By Charlie Phillips 22 September, 2008
For those of you on limited financial resources, we know you're out there. So we've put together a Budget Guide to Doc/Fest which will help you in getting to, and being at, Doc/Fest without losing all your pounds, euros or dollars.
We hope you'll find it useful. I came to the festival for the last 3 years before joining the team and have tried to be frugal every time. Once you've bought your delegate pass, the fun and the important stuff is all totally open to you, remember. You won't necessarily remember that lavish hotel or that gourmet meal, but you will remember the documentaries you saw, the people you met, the docs you talked about, and that's the really important thing to spend your money on.
Plus it's the thing that's money very well spent. So buy your delegate pass, follow the budget guide, and voila, 5 days of frugal documentary amazingness in November.
A post-Toronto preview
By Charlie Phillips 19 September, 2008
I'm a green kind of fellow, and I don't like waste. So in reaction to the fact that my beautifully-crafted preview blog for the brilliant Toronto Doc Blog went to them too late to be of any use (bad me), I'm reproducing it here. It's still interesting right? I mean, at least one of these is at Doc/Fest...
The brief was to highlight your top 3 picks of TIFF docs. So here we are...
Waltz With Bashir – I’ve been banging on for ages about animation and graphic novels as the perfect documentary format, offering a way to get to the places cameras can’t go and tell a deeper and more personal truth. This is kind of the uber-archetype of that, so I’m very excited. Funny how war and conflict are so good for animation and storytelling, they’re definitely the best things to come out of massive death tolls. In fact we’re so keen on that, we’re doing a whole panel on drawn images as documentary at Doc/Fest
Sounds Like Teen Spirit – Do people outside Europe get Eurovision? Because we certainly don’t within Europe. In fact, in the UK, most people don’t even get Europe properly so it’s doubly weird. Anyway, Jamie Jay Johnson is a fine filmmaker from these isles with a great alliterative name and this looks like a great indictment of our obsessions with both decaying celebrity and confused youth, so this could be a classic.
Of Time and The City – Because Terence Davies has been criminally neglected by everyone for years, and finally people have realised he’s a damn genius and this doc will make you cry. You think Liverpool is all Beatles and ferries ‘cross the mersey? It’s not – it’s grimy, horrible, strange, neglected, and really quite beautiful. Only one of its own sons could completely capture that. A man and a city that the rest of the UK pretended didn’t exist are being reborn and it’s brilliant
Green Porno
By Charlie Phillips 18 September, 2008
I overuse the term 'Best Thing Ever' but Isabella Rossellini's Green Porno deserves that accolade. They're a series of very short documentaries about insect lovin' directed by, and deeply featuring, Isabella Rossellini, running about dressed as insects and getting it on with other insects.
They're now showing on the Sundance Channel website and they are brilliant. I particularly recommend spider and bee. With the bee especially, it's amazing and it's also sad. So much effort goes in for so little reward. You get some babies obviously, but the scale of the chase isn't really matched by the actual act and then the aftermath of it all. Hmmm, not unlike human sex then (ho ho).
Apart from the bee of course - he has a really intense conclusion to his aerial adventures which really isn't like human sex at all...is it? Let me know if I'm missing something.
All nature docs should be like these. Short, and with people dressed as creatures. None of this CGI or expensive camera nonsense. Just stick a great lady in a studio and let nature take its course.
London Film Festival for one and all
By Hussain Currimbhoy 16 September, 2008
Coffee sales are up at South Bank - I think The 52nd London Film Festival has announced the programme.
heavy hitters and Cannes specialties like Waltz With Bashir, Religulous, Anvil!, Gonzo: The Life and Work of Hunter S. Thompson are natural attractions but a couple of nice surprises linger in the middle. What is surprising (and surprising in a good way!) is that Waltz and Gonzo are both gala screenings. Most fests are keen to put on the fiction or at best softer docs for galas, but Waltz is more of a crowd eater than a crowd pleaser.
Alina Rudnitskaya's mini retro of Amazons, Besame Mucho and Bitch Academy is the one I'm making a special trip down to London to see as well as Eye of the Sun by Ibrahim El-Batout. Atmosphere and lyricism comes along once in a while in documentary so these are high on my list. Also because they don't have a major UK distributor attached so they probably won't be released in UK cinemas any time soon.
Not Quite Hollywood was the opening night doc at the Melbourne Int. Film Festival this year (indeed a doc as opening night slot? Unheard of.) It traces a section of cinema history that has never really been labeled up until now though we know the films all too well: Mad Max, Malcolm, Alvin Purple... Legend has it that the content triggered cultural cringe on national scale and the government stepped in to try to delay its release over seas.
Also check out Vashti Bunyan: From Here to Before about the singer - songwriter. She was a bit like the female Nick Drake: shy, self taught and too talented for her own good. For fans of the era or the music you can't miss it.
While I'm down I'm also def re-visiting 24 City by Jia Zhangke - known simply as 'the man' these days. His films (docs especially, remember Dong from 2006?) you can only really see on the big screen.
We mustn't forget how the other half live. No matter what you do see Three Monkey by Nuri Ceylan, a truly cinematic experience, Better Things (which along with Of Time and the City, is as 'North' as you can get in this programme) and Synecdoche New York by Charlie Kaufman: I love it and I hate it but i can't even say it.
For doc/fiction line-treaders you can't miss Tulpan by brilliant Russian (and ex-engineer like Ceylan) Sergey Dvortsevoy just to see a sheep give birth on screen.
MeetMarket Closed, lots of submissions
By Charlie Phillips 15 September, 2008
So we've had fun, reaping the harvest of MeetMarket submissions - nearly 400 received!
Thanks to all of you who submitted projects, and we'll be letting you know who's been successful within the next fortnight, so the waiting won't be too long. Our assessment committee will be devoting lots of time to giving their views on the projects so you can rest assured that we'll be giving them full attention and consideration - I'd have it no other way.
400 is an amazing figure really, considering this is only the 3rd year of MeetMarket. It represents almost three times the number we got last year, which is really exciting. And the quality of projects is stunning too - I really mean that, there's some quite beautiful and brilliant projects. Not sure how the committee are going to get them down to the required 45 but they're going to have to!
This being the first time me, Karolina and Madeline (AKA the Marketplace team) have run MeetMarket, we were delighted by these numbers, if also kind of amused by the way that 300 of those 400 came in on the last 2 days, and actually most of those were on the last day. I don't mean that in a belittling way either - I would totally have sent mine in at 11pm on Friday too if I were applying. And now I appreciate that everyone else does too - it's weirdly comforting. Although next year, hmmm, I might nag you all to submit earlier please.
Anyway, the world has also continued in the rush of final submissions, even if we are all living in a black hole now (right?) and Toronto is nearly over. So for a quick catch-up if you're not up to date, there's a peculiar interview with the director of the aforementioned 'Paris not France', lots of raving about the charming Jamie Jay Johnson's Smells Like Tenn Spirit:A Popumentary, and some artfulness via the delightful Agnes Varda's Les Plages d'Agnes, which is a great title. I think my equivalent would be "Les Fermes Citadines de Charlie"
And Independent Film Week starts this week in the US. Finally, I watched two brilliant things last week - "The Family" on Channel 4 which, yes, was actually really good despite my reservations about it (I'm not always right y'know), and the genius that is Lee Kern's epic destruction of the Big Brother house-leavers on Friday night on C4. One of the funniest things EVER.
Paris, not France
By Charlie Phillips 10 September, 2008
Why am I telling you about the London Film Festival when there's an even bigger story in world documentary? Big apologies to you all.
That story is of course the premiere of Paris, not France, which sounds both a bit rubbish and a lot epoch-defining.
I can't wait to see it.
London Film Fest
By Charlie Phillips 10 September, 2008
The line-up for everyone's favourite Doc-Fest warm-up event, the London Film Festival has been announced just this morning, Read all about it here.
Docs-wise, there's 19 of them, with big gala one being Gonzo, the much-talked-about new doc from Alex Gibney, and the animated doc that's turned critics into rabid dogs of love, Waltz With Bashir.
Other docs showing of note are Anvil!, Of Time and The City (which is an unbelievably good film), Religulous (which I feel I've already seen repeatedly having read loads about it in American blog land), and from the British angle, a doc abour Vashti Bunyan by Kieran Evans which I know nothing about but sounds lovely.
Then there's also a couple of the classic 'not-really-a-doc-but-we'll-claim-it-as-a-doc' films which we all love, like Steve McQueen's Hunger and Francois Begaudeau's Entre Les Murs. The big fiction highlights (if I can mention fiction round here) are the new films from Woody Allen and Steven Soderbergh about the bourgeoisie and Che Guevara respectively.
And the programme mentions a dramatisation of his book by the most French person alive, Michel Houllebecq, which is very exciting. Plus there's a new movie about Joe Meek, who was ace.
Enjoy. And go see Waltz With Bashir if you see nothing else.
Blood Trail preimere at Toronto Int. Film Festival. Interview with director, Richard Parry
By Hussain Currimbhoy 06 September, 2008
Richard Parry’s BLOOD TRAIL chronicles the formative period of American war photographer, Robert King, through 15 years and three war zones. Starting out as a young and rather idealistic college graduate in the Yugoslavian conflict, he's obsessed with being the youngest person to win a Pulitzer prize for photography. Not staying alive. It initially feels like King doesn’t stand a chance in a war zone and who’s only chance at recognition lives in the possibility that he will join a small league of war correspondents who record their own death.
But sticking with the same subject for nearly two decades pays off and King’s instincts and his success grow as he delves in and out of war situations that most of us would have the good sense to avoid in the first place. Creating some incredible imagery out of the horrors of Bosnia, Chechnya, and most recently Iraq, King is clearly not the usual war photographer. Needless to say, BLOOD TRAIL is not your usual war documentary. Surviving the war zone is one thing. But surviving yourself can be just as difficult sometimes.
On the eve of his premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, director Richard Parry found a few minutes to talk to me despite having a spot of root canal not long after arriving Canada.
Hussain Currimbhoy: How is the vibe there at the Toronto FF? Are you feeling confident about the screening?
Richard Parry: It’s massive. I’ve never been to Toronto before but there’s people just everywhere and the catalogue looks like telephone book!
HC: Tomorrow is the actual screening in Toronto. How do you feel? This is your first screening after Britdoc.
RP: I’m looking forward to it, I mean, Britdoc is industry people and industry people are very tight lipped. It’s difficult to know. I mean it wasn’t the best site in the world and it wasn’t the best slot at Britdoc. I really hope here it’s going to be a better litmus test. Hopefully the buyers will be here and the distributors. Americans are much more vocal audience than Brits can be.
HC: Americans can really get into it! And this is the kind of story you just get into from the start. I mean, this kid (Robert King) is so hapless and so much like the average American in some ways. And yet there is something about him that is so honest, he’s just a guy looking for answers in the world. Because he’s so naïve in the beginning, what made you want to follow this guy around for 15 years?
RP: I’ve always made character lead documentaries. I’ve made all kinds of other documentaries before but character lead ones are my favorites. And I really took to Robert. I’ve always hand on heart believed that he’s a great character for documentary. I took the earlier version of the film to everybody and I got rejects from virtually everybody. It was extraordinary. I’m like what is it? Am I just wrong here? Have I just chosen the wrong horse?
HC: You’ve put a lot of eggs into one basket here that’s for sure. The one thing that I like about your attitude film is that you just shoot shoot shoot – but why did you stop after 15 years? Why didn’t you just keep going?
RP:
HC: I say do it. He’s not someone you can get tired of too quick. I can see myself hanging out with him in a bar.
RP: Its like 7 Up!
HC: Exactly! But the fact that you did shoot so much and unlike most documentaries you didn’t really shoot from a script, made me wonder if there was anything that was off limits with him?
RP: Not much. We have a relationship now after 15 years and we’re quite good friends and I really hope he trusts me. He is in some ways jaded about the business and he can get cynical and he’s like, ‘You’re going to stitch me up.’ And I’m like, Robert, its not like that. I don’t know if you’re going to 100% like this film but I think you’ll agree that it’s an honest portrait. And he actually loves the film. Though he doesn’t like the banana scene.
HC: You were in fact in his shoes for a long time as a war correspondent.
RP: I worked for Frontline News where we shot and produced our own stories, then came back and sold them. That was mostly in the 90s. I do have a bit of a name for doing documentaries in difficult situations. But I got out of the business in the late 90s because it was just too crazy, too dangerous and I lost my nerve. You do need to have total self-confidence and after a bit you see too many bad things. I backed out of it whereas Robert seemed pretty comfortable under fire.
HC: Robert seems to love being in the thick of the mess.
RP: He does love it. He’s got a family life now which has changed him and in some ways he’s a little bit isolationist. He’s pulled back into his family. He’s less gregarious than he was in the 90s.
HC: How do you think the fact that you were also a war correspondent effects your approach to the subject and the topic.
RP: I think it’s an insiders view. I really hope it comes across that way. I know a lot of people who still work in that business and I feel like it is a large part of my history. I spent time in Yugoslavia
HC: The approach you had to this film was really unusual. You shoot until you can’t shoot any more and yet I believe you had test screenings for BLOOD TRAIL. Is a very unusual way to make a documentary.
RP: I think if people had picked that film up earlier on, and it never got a UK screening but it did get a few European screenings, if people had picked that film up they would have just put it on the shelf. I felt it never found its feet properly. But I really believed there was a great story in it.
HC: Were any of the scenes ever re-shot as result of audience screenings?
RP: No, no. We didn’t re-shoot anything. We did two test screenings where we had 30 people and 50 people in the second one. It was only for the edit. In a film that is somewhat sporadic, that covers three different periods over 15 years its a bit of a jig saw puzzle to put together.
HC: Some people have a screening with the commissioning editor for example but its rare do a test screening like this.
RP: It’s a real American concept. In some ways we were lacking in any editorial input from a commissioning editor which is good and bad. Bad in the form of not having a good creative eye of a good commissioning editor or a good exec producer to keep a distance from certain scenes.
HC: You had shown an earlier version of BLOOD TRAIL at Doc/Fest called HOLIDAY IN SARAJEVO a few year ago didn’t you?
RP: It was about 10 or12 years ago. It was a 20 minute cut of the Bosnia stuff so you can imagine what it must have been like.
HC: Is any of that in BLOOD TRAIL?
RP: Yes – there’s a lot of footage of that in this film.
HC: That was a long time ago and things have really changed with on-line distribution models and the rise of the Internet. You can have the vibe and the fun of a film festival around you and your film, but how do you feel about the role of the film festival now when trying to launch or sell a film?
RP: The internet still definitely changes things but its still a very social business. I mean I’m sitting here in a lobby and I look around me and there are sales agents and distributors everywhere - they look like old friends who haven’t seen each other since the last festival. But of course the other end of the argument is how much of the money from DVDs or broadcast really reaches the filmmaker’s pocket? And as you know its not very much.
We considered the on-line sales option but we’ve gone for a much more traditional route. We’ve got a US sales agent on board who will be selling the film here hopefully. I was worried though with this film because there is a back lash against Iraq films and it seems the industry is only interested in uplifting films. For documentary its tough times in cinemas. We have had incredible feedback with this film. I mean, Nick Broomfield said it was an amazing film and that it was the best war film he’d ever seen by far. But the industry is very conservative.
HC: It seems like Robert King isn’t the usual war character. You don’t see him as being the typical war photographer. That’s what makes the film is so distinctive.
RP: It’s a coming of age film. It’s a character study. We’ve designed the poster so that it’s not like a macho war film!
HC: So what’s your pick at Toronto his year? What are you dying to see?
RP: Hussain, I haven’t even had a chance to look in the catalogue! So I really can’t make a recommendation. Though I think BLOOD TRAIL looks pretty good.
3MW, the 'miracle'
By Charlie Phillips 04 September, 2008
Look, there's an interesting blog about Channel 4's 3 Minute Wonder, calling it a little miracle.
It's a well-argued piece. Those films are truly brilliant (I was university with Seb Godwin, he ran the film society and was very enigmatic, so it makes me happy to see him doing good) and 3MW is a slot which as he says often feels like the tiny pearl amongst...well, not swine, but definitely the pearl in the pig pen.
But I think he underestimates the potential of its scheduling - one of the reasons it works so well is because it takes you from the misery of the news to the euphoria of the factual format with a total jolt of strangeness. It relies on its surrounding programmes to make you jump out of your comfort zone and it proves that variation makes for a good channel not uniformity of whatever form. I think it's easy to give a lack of credit to its scheduling and indeed to the clever way it's commissioned for that slot. You don't watch 3MWs in a vacuum.
So instead of complaining that it's isolated there, can't we start claiming that Kirsty and Phil only exist because of 3 Minute Wonder and that they only get recommissioned because they are a good foil for 3MW? No?
Prodigal Sons premieres + great interview with Thom Powers
By Hussain Currimbhoy 04 September, 2008
Long time no hear everyone. Apologies for the silence but the programme is coming together so when its done I'll have some stories to tell.
For those of you at Telluride FF I hope you got to see PRODIGAL SONS by Kimberly Reed. Its rough and ready, but is one of the few personal docs that packs a real punch. I heard there were lines around the block for it at the screening at Telluride. If you get a chance to see the next screening I can highly recommend it for film buffs or fans of 1st person insider-doc making. Why? Because Kimberly's adopted brother, Marc, just so happens to be the grandson of Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth. Check out his lumbering gait, his occasionally vicious temper and his stare. Welles is right there.
In the meantime, do check out this great conversation with Thom Powers, programmer of Toronto FF
Here.
Enlightening and engaging advice from a man with some common sense.
Convention
By Charlie Phillips 31 August, 2008
As the world goes crazy for Obama and his declarations to the Democrats in Denver, we're particularly excited in our documentary geek way about Convention, an on-the-fly multi-director doc made at the Democrat Convention by some of the most exciting young filmakers in documentary at the moment.
Led by AJ Schnack (he of blogging fame as well as making docs fame), it's the return of the collaboration doc, like you used to see with a film like Crisis. Not that it happens a lot, because this kind of project requires total teamwork from independent creative people. But when it works, it can be amazing, and I'm really excited about this film. I just hope they've all played together nicely.
Paul Taylor of Rise Films is representing Britain in this endeavour, I'm pleased to see. And remember that you're going to get a whole more perspectives from this side of the ocean on the US elections at Doc/Fest, because of our Regime Change theme...and the results coming out on our opening party. Now that could be an even bigger hoedown than Doc/Fest opening parties usually are - or a lot of commiserating with the promise of 5 days of superb documentary distraction.
In both the case of "Convention" and the elections themselves, we'll see...
Watch Me Disappear
By Charlie Phillips 26 August, 2008
So, for those of us in England and Wales, the bank holiday has passed, and with it, the Edinburgh TV Festival and also a superb and affecting doc shown on Friday night about dying alone.
More on that in a second (well, below) but to keep you up on the TV Festival news, there was a hefty debate about whether there too many documentaries on British TV, and whether those that are there aren't serious enough. Top of the firing line was Channel 4, whose head of docs, Hamish Mykura, was called to defend a showreel of C4's documentary clips, by the eminent doc-maker Peter Taylor.
Peter Taylor is someone I really admire, not just an excellent filmmaker, but also a fine writer and an interesting thinker. I think that the fact he got commissioned to do The Age of Terror, exception to the rule as it is, shows that there is a place on British TV for the serious meat. I know that sounds a bit trite, but to me it's crazy to suggest there's nothing serious on British TV, whether Channel 4 or otherwise. I suppose the real problem is scheduling, with people like Taylor no doubt fearing that their more serious docs are pushed to the margins, whether digital channels or late-night zones for documentary night owls and drunkards.
It always amazes me how these kind of discussions only seem to come out in face-offs at festivals and conventions, and then disappear into the ether. We obviously encourage that to some extent at Doc/Fest and we want to set the documentary agenda for the coming year, but we also want the debates we stimulate to continue until the next festival as well. Because there's only a limited depth you can reach in an hour-long session. And for that matter, in a few minutes of clip reel. Anyone who's been to documentary panels has seen these reels repeatedly, and they rarely show the slow and considered documentary bits, so personally I think you can ignore them and get to the talk as soon as possible.
Anyway, anyone who doubts the seriousness of TV should have watched Lucy Cohen's remarkable Watch Me Disappear in Channel 4's First Cut slot on Friday night. This was a half-hour documentary at 7.30pm on a Friday about those who die alone and are buried alone. I don't want to make your day a bummer but as soon as you even think about that idea, it's heartbreaking. And this was a disturbing and deeply sad film which felt a million miles from everything around it in the schedules. There was no hope or redeeming thoughts, just deep sadness about those who live and die without friends or family and who, in an age of constant contact with anyone, have no-one meaningful in their lives. And whose lives, being honest, had no significance to anyone, even to themselves, and who are forgotten in history.
It's an amazing subject to tackle, and it was a beautiful restrained film. There's an interview with the director Lucy Cohen on the 4Talent website which is really interesting, even if it doesn't (and couldn't) convey the joyless and depressing experience of watching the doc.
And I mean that as a compliment by the way. This doc does exactly what the First Cut strand is there to do, and is a great showcase for a superb new documentary talent. And y'know, just to reiterate, this was pretty serious and it was on in prime-time.
Back to Edinburgh briefly, if you can handle it. The Broadcast website has some very good reports and opinions, plus I'd draw your attention to the collection of commissioning wishlists arising from the festival if you want to know what most of the major UK channels revealed (or didn't reveal) there.
Paper Cinema
By Charlie Phillips 22 August, 2008
So bearing in mind that the song-and-dance of the Edinburgh TV fest is on at the moment, with all the big people of the British TV whirl, and also in the spirit of Hoos' drawing of your attentions to lovely Mark and Tilda's cupcake cacophonies in Nairn (oh why must I be chained to my desk and not to a cushion in deepest Scotland?), let me direct you towards The Paper Cinema, about as low-tech as film showing can get in these high-end times.
Now I saw these people do their show at Glastonbury last year, huddling for warmth at 3am in the cinema tent. It was amazing, the only quiet time of the festival, and they created an oasis of prettiness and storytelling, only broken by a drunken klezmer band falling on top of their intricate paper models during the show.
They're true mavericks and they understand the heart of cinema lies in storytelling and brief but elaborate mises-en-scene. It's a bit like cinema never progressed past the silent era (which certainly plays well to my nostalgic tendencies) but they also bring a very modern darkness and apocalyptic fear to the set. It's all a bit scary.
But don't just take my word for it - Lyn Gardner, the UK's most adventurous theatre writer (in my opinion) thinks so too and she knows her onions. They don't do documentary but they do do good narrative and that's why it's cinema, theatre, art and performance all at once in a fragile melange.
Now, actually, if you're in Edinburgh for the TV festival...you've missed it because the show's finished. But never fear, it's coming to London in a few weeks. Get yourselves there, and make sure you don't invite a drunken klezmer band.
The school of life
By Charlie Phillips 19 August, 2008
Last night, me and a couple of other documentary-related people went to a sneak preview of the courses at The School of Life, a new institution, shop and building that's all about lessons in life. If you feel like you need some intellectual and practical inspiration then this is the place for you. There's courses in play, work, family, love and more, and it's an inspiring place to be with clever ideas for living a more fulfilled life flying around the room.
The idea is that the information absorbed at the School of Life will fill a hole we feel in our lives if we haven't got religion or faith in leaders that gives us a design for living. But I was sitting there, and it sounds a bit corny, but I do feel like watching films already does that for me - documentaries in particular. Not that they tell me how to live or what to think but they give me a sense of self-sufficiency and make me clearer on what I feel about things. I love reading books, listening to m usic, going on walks, and many other things that also take me to an 'ecstatic' state (this is partly what it was about last night) but not like documentaries can.
And then funnily enough, I saw today that a friend of Doc/Fest, Ingrid Kopp, wrote a similar thing on her blog recently too.
They did mention last night that the School of Life will include films somehow in some way as well as all the book-reading and talking, but it seems to be more of an afterthought, as if films couldn't be considered as psychologically- or therapeutically-stimulating as reading books, and will offer light relief. I don't think that's true at all - admittedly, the ratio of ecstasy to mundaneness is probably more favourable with books than films generally. But with documentary, that's not so true - it's rare I see a documentary and don't feel some kind of mental revelation or reassessment. It's rare I see a documentary which is just about me passing some time in the dark.
So what I'm saying is that documentaries are my School of Life, and they often come for free or good-as-free, and arrive when I want them, something that paid-for weekly courses never could. But that's not to do down the School of Life, which has a lot going for it - they've got a beautiful mural going across one wall, for one thing.
Hot Youth and Ballet
By Charlie Phillips 14 August, 2008
This week we've been down with the youth, as part of our Youth Jury 'Hothouse' week at Channel 4, which is part of the whole Youth Jury programme we've organised this year with the great people at the Grierson Trust and 4Talent.
This year the Youth Jury is about way more than just giving awards, although that's one of the really exciting bits. The people have been attracted from all across the UK, from all kinds of backgrounds (cartoonists, physicists, comedians - and yes, they're all under 23. Scary.) and they'll be doing everything they want at the festival - some marketing, some interviewing, some information-gathering and probably some teaching too by the looks of it. Whatever they want to do to make the festival a good place for their fellow young documentary experts we're going to let them do.
And we can trust them to do that because this week so far has proved that they're astute in analysing factual films, they're opinionated and they're not scared of an intelligent discussion. Sitting listening to their debates today over some key new international documentaries, it was as good, and even a lot fresher, than you get in a lot of late-night festival bars, I can tell you.
They're a special bunch and a reason in themselves for you to come to the festival - documentary is darn exciting when you're first immersed in it and we all need a reminder of that. Honestly, I feel reinvigorated by listening to them talk documentary with such enthusiasm, and it's a shame really that (as some of them said) most of the docs they've been watching would be inaccessible to their peers who don't get the chance to be on the Doc/Fest youth jury - even if a few of the docs get cinema releases, they ain't coming to Ayrshire.
But then, that's their task, isn't it? To get their fellow youngs to come to Doc/Fest in droves and watch these films there. We're looking forward to hearing their sparky documentary discussion in the Showroom bar...well, the ones old enough to drink anyway.
And why do I mention ballet in the blog title? Because one of last year's MeetMarketeers, Vida Ballet, has been given a Gucci Tribeca Grant. Well done to Beadie Finzi, Giorgia Lo Savio and all the team at Tigerlily
Finally, and irrelevantly, do you think frolleagues are a problem? I think in documentary, and especially at docs festivals, you get a lot of frolleaguing. There's nowt wrong wrong with it in my eyes.
The Ballerina Ballroom Cinema of Dreams
By Hussain Currimbhoy 14 August, 2008
Tilda Swinton, Joel Cohen and Doc/Fest brother Mark Cousins have their own film festival coming up this month.
From August 15, in the coastal town of Nairn, a little town hall has been rented, some hi-end projectors have been set up, and some classics of cinema, in all forms and ages, have been hand selected to screen.
Its £3. Or free if you bring a try of cakes.
The list of films will be impressive but expect some silent Ozu titles (something from the 20s or 30s phase when Ozu was with Shochiku like I WAS BORN BUT… or PASSING FANCY), a bit of SINGING IN THE RAIN, some animation by none other than one of the best Canadian filmmakers to live and breathe, Norman McLaren, the video Spike Jones directed for Bjork’s ITS OH SO QUIET and other family oriented favorites.
Joel Cohen will have two slots reserved for his personal picks. What’s the bet he throws on some long lost Orson Wells audition tapes?
There is a young and family audience in mind here to foster an interest in classic cinema beyond the YouTube cube. I would normally see of these films in cinematheques, so its good to see micr-cinema being used to bring it back to the old school as opposed to lo-budget shakey-visions and the otherwise unscreenable. Some bean bags, some cakes, some camping – this is the way micro-cinema should be! They said micro-cinema was going to take off any day now several years ago then on the 8th day YouTube was created.
I’m considering a trip up to this beautiful micro-cinema retreat. Micro-cinema keeps people together. As opposed to YouTube. I tend to crowd around the computer screen over the Saturday night film on tele when the story is starting to lag and suddenly pops out “ has any one seen this?!”
Will keep you posted on any classic documentaries that Cinema of Dreams releases.
The new wave of British feature docs celebrated
By Charlie Phillips 11 August, 2008
Hopefully you've all seen Man on Wire now - it's a remarkable feature documentary that's been given a welcome wide cinema release. It's all very exciting, especially seeing the column inches it's had in newspaper and magazine film sections.
And those columns have also busied themselves with hailing a new wave of feature documentaries, which those of us working in British documentaries do tend to always hear when a doc gets a cinema release, but actually I think it's pretty relevant right now. There's some really special documentaries getting themselves out there, and that article is quite right to point out that this something to be proud of and to build on.
And despite the worry that documentaries tend to do badly at the box office, I can report from the frontline that I went to see Man on Wire at the cinema on Saturday evening and it was packed. As it should be. And if you haven't gone to see it yet, you should, not just because it's a special film but also because docs at the cinema need cherishing so that there'll be more of them as a matter of course year-round.
Halonen denied visa
By Hussain Currimbhoy 08 August, 2008
Finnish documentarian Arto Halonen won't be attending the opening ceremony for the Beijing games, everyone. His visa was denied by China because of his late 90s doc "Karmapa – Two Ways of Divinity".
Check out a few links to it:
Arto will be attending Sheffield Doc/Fest this year to present the UK premiere of his film SHADOW OF THE HOLY BOOK.
We can ask him all about it then!
Getting funds from Nike and Amnesty
By Charlie Phillips 07 August, 2008
So the big news in documentary is that the wonderful DIY art doc Beautiful Losers has revealed they're going into partnership with Nike to release their film.
It kind of fits because there was already a relationship going on between Nike and some of the artists in the film, so thought it might immediately seem disturbing to some, actually it's not that surprising. If you've seen the film you'll know that none of the artists have a particular problem with taking corporate money to work with as long as it doesn't affect their visions, and they all make work which is informed by brand-saturated urban landscapes. I don't want to speak of them as a seamless unit because they're not, but they did (and do still in some cases) all make art that's about immediate reactions to their daily lives and if you're a young American artist in a big city your daily life is substantially about encounters with brands every minute of the day everywhere you go. So, it might be a bit annoying as a viewer to have Nike surrounding this doc, but as a creator, I can see that it isn't really an ethical dilemma.
Plus I really like the sound of the workshops (mentioned in that above article) they're organising for people. You come out of that film wondering where the next generation of DIY artists will come from, bearing in mind it's really hard to live on your artist wits in London, New York, and the like anymore - a single tube ticket is £4 and that's not helping your bohemian lifestyle. So if these workshops in any way help to foster new art talent, and indeed new documentary talent, then I'm OK with that.
But obviously this Nike-ing of documentary distribution has caused some forelock-tugging as you'd expect. For me, it's just often a bit annoying when you can see all too blatantly who from any background has funded a film if they insist on too great a presence in the doc, whether it's Nike, Nestlé or New Labour. I was reading this report about the Good Pitch at Britdoc and the idea of NGOs and diverse funders supporting documentary, and whilst the question of whether collaborating with charities 'can be trusted' is a bit melodramatic, it did make me wonder whether getting any cash from a source not used to funding documentaries might mean that you have unwelcome fingers in your editorial pie. Although it could also mean that you get more open-minded funders who are willing to defer to you as the creative person with the expertise, as opposed to their ignorance of filmmaking (that'd be nice wouldn't it?).
I think it shows the ever-greater need with any funder from anywhere (traditional or new) to really state a claim for your independence as a documentary-maker and to be confident in negotiations. That there's new sources of documentary funds is really exciting, it just means that if you're a lone wolf filmmaker you either need to be a really good businessperson as well or if you're not, you need to get a really good producer to do that for you.
Plus even more important you need to be aware of your own ethics too and think now about who you'd be happy to accept funding from and why. Arguably, documentary-makers have always had a need for greater awareness of political and moral events than other filmmakers and that's ever more the case now. So if it's a fact that Nike or Amnesty are willing to give you money for your film, then you should get reading up on them and decide what your view is towards them in case they come knocking at the door...
One minute to win it
By Charlie Phillips 06 August, 2008
The submissions for MeetMarket are coming in like hot cakes - thanks to those of you that have either submitted projects or enquired about submission so far, we're really excited.
But a word on trailer length in anticipation of more project submissions coming in now - your trailer really does have to be one-minute long and it has to be on a video site that generates an embed code. You can see our submission guidelines for the full run-down on what we need from you, plus check our Marketplace Overview page for some information on embedding video.
We're not being fussy here, you see, it's that we genuinely believe that you can sell your documentary visually in one minute and that it's really inspiring for a funder to see you doing so. Your trailer is your visual elevator pitch and we ask for a minute so that we know that the whole of that time will be scrutinised in detail rather than a longer trailer which will just be skimmed over.
At the workshops recently, we talked a lot about trailers and always cut through peoples' cynicism about the possibilities of one minute by showing some of the best from last year. And there were 6 that we showed every time, all of which went on to get funding of some sort, which communicated open-ended stories and skilled filmmaking technique in moving and amusing one minutes. So it can be done, trust me.
Obviously, we're human and we understand you're busy people, so we have some room for flexibility, but you need to speak to me far in advance of the September 12th deadline date if you're not sure about the one-minute trailer and you and we can find a solution, honest.
The Genius of Charles Darwin
By Charlie Phillips 05 August, 2008
I was really pleased last night to catch The Genius of Charles Darwin on Channel 4, hosted by the formidable science machine, Richard Dawkins.
For me, quality science programming on TV always needs celebrating, and this was a pleasure to watch, with some hardcore biology and physics mixed in with some human interest to watch the knowledge pill down. We saw Dawkins pleading with a group of teenagers on a beach to think about evolution, and I actually found it really moving, such was Dawkins' fervour whilst a strong sea breeze blew his hair in multiple directions. Some of them still seemed dubious afterwards, claiming that they still didn't totally 'believe' in evolution (when it's proven fact, it's not something you 'believe' in surely?) and yet he'd really got them thinking in the most direct way, and it was very exciting. No messing, just a man and some teenagers on a beach talking science.
Presenter-led documentaries often get sneering reviews, but when you have a presenter like Dawkins you know you're getting informed and charismatic presenting which actually helps you to understand a subject better. Yes, he's obviously got a certain agenda, but it's a science programme, and surely it's important for those to have an 'agenda' that's about transmitting facts and knowledge, not speculation and random opinion?
Toronto blogs
By Charlie Phillips 04 August, 2008
We're not the only festival with a blog you know - Toronto have relaunched some very swish ones too in advance of their festival. Especially like the Midnight Madness one. I like film blogs with a jaunty tone.
Speaking of relaunched things, I'd be in trouble if I didn't alert you to the rebirth of FourDocs, which is now totally bloggified and all web 2.0-fied too. It's weird when something you worked on every day becomes something different, like seeing your child grow up and leave home. But to force that simile further, it's a positive process, and it shows that you made something with a mind of its own that always wants to change and do new things...anyway, what I'm trying to say is that I like its new look and I think it's brilliant that it's a genuine opportunity for DIY filmmakers working in the ether to get noticed by Kate Vogel, who arguably commissions the most innovative docs strand on the telly. And you might even see the odd guest spot from me on FourDocs occasionally.
On a totally unrelated note, I was also having a look today at Filmmaker magazine's guide to the top 25 new faces in independent film, most of whom I only know a little about (which is perhaps how it should be to make these lists have any purpose), and I was thinking about who would be in a UK documentary equivalent. I'm not going to tell you now who I started jotting down, but wouldn't it be a good idea if someone compiled that list and put it up for discussion? I'd love to see that.
Oscilloscope Laboratories: not just a great soundtrack
By Hussain Currimbhoy 04 August, 2008
Many congrats to Caroline Suh , director of doc FRONTRUNNERS, and Irena Salina's FLOW FOR THE LOVE OF WATER that has just been picked up by Oscilloscope Laboratories - get to know this name: its the new distribution arm of the 'lab' ignited by Beastie Boy Ad Rock ( Adam Yauch to the now quivering documentary world) and former Think Film executive David Fenkel.
Oscilloscope Laboratories has a recording studio, produces films, helps artists, distributes indie film - namely docs - and pretty much aides the production of anything else artistic in the world that we are in short supply of:
http://www.oscilloscope.net/
FRONTRUNNERS will have its EU premiere with us at Doc/Fest. But if you're dropping through the USA be sure to catch them:
15-Oct
New York, Film Forum
24-Oct
Boston, Brattle Theatre
Los Angeles, Nuart
Berkeley, Shattuck
San Francisco, Lumiere
Philadelphia, Ritz at Bourse
Denver, Starz Film Center
FLOW: FOR THE LOVE OF WATER will also feature in the Doc/Fest programme.
Oscilloscope Laboratories could be an important development for documentary. I'm as excited as I am interested to see what a star name with street credibility combined with ex-high end indie film experience does to docs in the USA.
Yauch directed and is now distributing GUNNIN’ FOR THAT #1 SPOT, the basketball doc that surprisingly not a heck of a lot people are talking about. But hopefully the 'Lab' will actually engage in constructive experiments in documentary making and production, keep them as independent as possible and not just rely on a great soundtrack.
Pitching Cross Platform Projects
By Heather Croall 02 August, 2008
We recently completed the series of Pitch Training workshops around the UK - the aim of the workshops is to help producers make the most of the marketplace opportunities at Doc/Fest. As Charlie said in his blog post, the workshops were a great success and we will be doing lots of them again next year. In Charlie's post he pointed out that a cross platform project had been pitched at one of the workshops and it highlighted the need for producers to be trained in pitching cross platform projects, not just film and TV projects.
In that area at the moment we do run the amazing 5 day residential Crossover Labs www.crossoverlabs.org and they are completely aimed at getting producers from film, TV, games, animation, new media and other disciplines to work together to create innovative cross platform projects as well as new production methods and production models. An aim of Crossover is to spark multidisciplinary teams that bring the best of interactivity and the best of storytelling to create new projects for new audiences. So far, we have run Crossover in Australia and the UK - the next one is in Scandinavia then a back in the UK and others to be announced.
The Crossover Lab process is an intense journey and has the potential to be a truly life-changing experience for responsive individuals who are open to exploring completely new ways of working and developing projects. It's a massive challenge to convince producers to put aside their tried, tested (and successful) ways of developing projects and instead explore something completely new with others who work in different fields and different ways. Its an ambitious goal but it has really worked for so many of the Crossover Lab participants so far - on the website you can see what people have said about their Crossover experience. The labs are held in remote country hotels so that people are truly get away from their daily routines and immerse themselves in the process, but they are also held in those stunning locations because we realise that when we are about to take people so far out of their working comfort zones its better if we put them in a very comfy environment first! Beautiful landscape, good food and great hotel - all these things stop them from running away when the lab methodologies becomes too much of a challenge for them!
On the final day we bring in lots of commissioners and decision makers and the participants pitch them the ideas that have come out of the lab. When we first did Crossover about 5 years ago, there were very few commissioners with any money for cross platform projects but the situation is really changing and with new initiatives such as 4IP just around the corner, it is hopefully about to get a whole lot better. So when the digital wave hits (again(!).. only this time with funding) we hope that producers who have been through Crossover will have the right kinda surfboard to get on it.
The numbers on each lab are limited and selection is by application (online). Submissions now open www.crossoverlabs.org
XO XO XO
Friday documentary news
By Charlie Phillips 01 August, 2008
This is the first, and maybe only, of a Friday documentary news bulletin I'm initiating for the Doc/Fest blog. Enjoy.
First up, a plug for the Branchage Festival in Jersey at the end of September. They've having a London Launch Party on Monday where you can find me, and it's being organised by Xanthe Hamilton, an excellent documentary-maker in her own right, and a native of the strange and wonderful little island of Jersey. I think it's amazing they're doing a film festival there, and we wish them the best of luck. Good design work too.
Nearly as cool as Jersey is Andy Warhol and to celebrate that, the ICA are having a Shoot Yr Idols art documentaries season featuring some new and rare screenings of films about the fluffy haired man's circle. I'll be there for as much of it as I can, being of the delusion that I am myself in part a little bit Warholian.
Sticking to extremes, a word to say that you can now apply for Cinema Extreme, the flagship UK film council shorts scheme for directors with directorial flair and original visions. They are very much open to documentary directors, and would indeed like more documentary applications, so if you're a rare talent (and I know you all are), then explore the opportunity. Mind though, the deadline for applications is September 12th, like The MeetMarket, so pace yourself and get both applications in on time.
Further bits - you can see who got Sundance support recently, and it's a fine selection ; The Guardian has described documentary pitching in good layman's terms, and the Docsider blog continues to be great, including a reference to Julian Schnabel's new film about Lou Reed as "a horrifically lyrical rendition of children's screams for several minutes" - which is my kind of documentary.
Toronto Film Fest in the Blue corner, Venice in the red corner
By Hussain Currimbhoy 30 July, 2008
Couldn’t resist the boxing analogy since boxing docs are coming back with a vengence.
Except at Toronto and Venice Film Festivals.
Both film festivals have both released their documentary programmes. After cross examinations I was at once proud to be Canadian but also kinda wished I could be Italian for one day.
Both programmes will promote salivation. In this corner with a 65 year heritage and a lean 17 documentaries on show is Venice. Some docs to cancel dinner plans about are definitely Pasolini’s La Rabbia from 1963, Les Plages d’Agnes by Agnes Varda, Avi Mograbi’s Z32 and a new one by this new chap called Ross McElwee: In Paraguay. ;)
Mograbi has always been a favourite; playing both sides of the fence to get raise the ire of friends and enemies alike. Always makes for great street scenes – and that’s reason enough to love him.
There’s a strong Italian focus – of both old and new - in Venice’s documentary line up and rightly so. Can’t know the present without understanding the past.
Doc/Fest has two very distinctive independent Italian productions lined up so I’m starting to think Italy’s investment in getting cinema out beyond The Boot is starting to pay off.
Check out the doc list:
Les Plages d’Agnes/ Agnes Varda
Bajo el Signo de las Sombras (1984) / Ferran Alberich (Spain)
La Rabbia (1963) / Pier Paolo Pasolini (Italy)
Pusique nous sommes nes / Jean-Pierre Duret, Andrea Santana (France, Brazil)
Women / Huang Wenhai / (China, Switzerland)
In Paraguay/Ross McElwee (U.S.)
Z32 /Avi Mograbi (France. Israel)
Below Sea Level / Gianfranco Rosi (Italy, U.S.)
Los Herederos / Eugenio Polgovsky (Mexico)
L’Exil et le royaume / Andrei Schtakleff, Jonathan Le Fourn
Verso Est / Laura Angiulli (Italy, Bosnia)
ThyssenKrupp Blues / Pietro Balla, Monica Repetto (Italy)
La Fabbrica dei Tedeschi / Mimmo Calopresti (Italy)
Soltanto un nome nei titoli di testa / Daniele Di Biasio (Italy)
Antonioni su Antonioni / Carlo di Carlo (Italy)
Venezia ’68 / Antonello Sarno (Italy)
Valentino: The Last Emperor / Matt Tyrnauer (Italy)
I’m also itching to see Abbas Kiarostami’s Shirin - especially since I last heard he was taking a hiatus from cinema to direct opera. (sigh of relief heard from here-)
Jia Zhangke’s new co-production Cry Me A River is an eager piece – if anything because you don’t hear of directors dancing between feature and short forms so readily as Jia. Venice is in love with Jia like America is with Obama so stay tuned for a couple of critic’s awards.
In this corner, weighing in with 33 docs in the programme, (with a few more up the sleeve yet to be released) and coached by none other than Thom Powers, you have manifold choices from Thailand to the UK that are def going to see some packed houses.
Canadian feature, Examined Life is worth the admission if you’re into Zizek spouting and spitting and making an initially outlandish arguments about anything seem totally logical. It’s a rare doc because it discusses philosophy in a way that actually gives some kind of defined application to life. No easy feat.
World premiere of Weijun Chen’s The Biggest Chinese Restaurant in the World will again be a bit of revolution for Chinese documentary judging by his last one Please Vote For Me. At last, not another doc about a Chinese river. He’s also a very sweet guy, should you get the chance to meet him don’t hesitate to say hello.
Blind Love is an interesting one because the whole time you are asking: ‘Is this a documentary??’ so well choreographed and designed it makes a life that would appear hard to bear to most of us rather beautiful. Be on the look out for it at London Film Festival no doubt.
The right hook in the arsenal is clearly Waltz With Bashir. This was the talk of Cannes and was suspected of winning but clearly it’s doing incredibly well without the main prize. I would not be surprised if it appeared in the top five box office earners for documentaries in 2009. In fact, it will be in cinematheques and retros for years to come. Just check out the last scene to know what I mean!
I prefer the programme layout to Venice because it would attract non-documentary audience a bit easier I feel.
Documentary list is below, but remember there are a few more yet to be announced:
A Time to Stir / Paul Cronin (USA)
Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love / Chai Vasarhelyi (USA)
Valentino: The Last Emperor / Matt Tyrnauer (USA)
Les Plages d'Agnès / Agnès Varda (France)
After the Race / Nikolaus Geyrhalter (Austria)
American Swing / Matthew Kaufman (USA)
At the Edge of the World/ Dan Stone (USA)
The Biggest Chinese Restaurant in the World / Weijun Chen (China)
Blood Trail / Richard Parry (UK) <- Hooray for the UK
Citizen Juling Ing K, Kraisak Choonhavan and Manit Sriwanichpoom; (Thailand)
The Dungeon Master / Keven McAlester (USA)
Food, Inc. / Robert Kenner (USA)
From Mother to Daughter / Andrea Zambelli (Italy)
Harvard Beats Yale 29-29 / Kevin Rafferty (USA)
It Might Get Loud / Davis Guggenheim (USA)
Killing Kasztner/ Gaylen Ross (USA)
More Than a Game / Kristopher Belman (USA)
The Real Shaolin / Alexander Sebastien Lee, (China/USA)
Sea Point Days / François Verster, (S Africa)
Soul Power / Jeffrey Levy-Hinte (USA)
Unmistaken Child / Nati Baratz (Israel)
Witch Hunt/ Dana Nachman and Don Hardy (USA)
Yes Madam, Sir / Megan Doneman (Australia/India)
Peace Mission Dorothee Wenner (Germany)
Shakespeare and Victor Hugo's Intimacies / Yulene Olaizola (Mexico)
Upstream Battle / Ben Kempas (Germany)
Previously announced:
Religulous (Larry Charles, USA)
Every Little Step (James Stern and Adam Del Deo, USA)
Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman, Israel/France/Germany)
Blind Loves (Juraj Lehotský, Slovakia)
Examined Life (Astra Taylor, Canada),
La Mémoire des anges (Luc Bourdon, Canada)
Under Rich Earth (Malcolm Rogge, Canada)
Toronto FF wins with TKO!
Sheffield great, regional workshops done
By Charlie Phillips 30 July, 2008
So the Sheffield workshop is now done and very successfully dusted, and our marketplace pitching workshops are for the time being put to bed. There will of course be two more with Christina for some of those of you selected for the MeetMarket, but for now, we bid farewell to the regional tour.
As is probably obvious from my blogs, I've enjoyed these workshops. And been inspired by them - the feedback from attendees has been continuously positive and we've got to hear about strong documentary projects on budgies, rats, body modification, Elvis and more more more. We'll be back next year with them bigger, better, and longer. And we want to come to all your regions, so tell your local screen agency!
Back to Sheffield though - our homecoming you might say, although I haven't been home much recently as you can tell so the idea's a bit redundant with me. Another great bunch of produces and directors, and despite a sweltering room in the Showroom, we had some fascinating pitches, including one from Jeannie Finlay, of whom I'm a great admirer, and who I'm sure won't mind me saying went from red-faced nerves to a confident textbook public pitcher in a matter of hours.
And I'm especially glad we were treated to a pitch from one of our board members Grant Keir (it was coincidence he came out the hat, I promise), along with Virginia Heath from Vita Nova. They were pitching a cross-platform project, leading to a great discussion between us all about whether it was possible to pitch a crossover project in the allotted 5 minutes, bearing in mind you may also have to explain to some decision-makers what that there t'internet is.
Back from Britdoc
By Charlie Phillips 28 July, 2008
Well done to our chums at Britdoc for a great festival in the sun last week. What is with their festival that attracts extremes of weather, whether good or bad?
Highlight for me was probably the Alternative Distribution panel, which turned into a bit of argy-bargey between Jamie King and the audience. What started as informative rundown from various good people on the video sites they like soon became a moral debate on what some peoples' unwillingness to pay for video means for us all. I've heard this many times before, but I think what was unique here was the frisson between these four people with very good (albeit unproven) money-making models and this one person with a model of voluntary donation, and the eventual conclusion that no-one was right or wrong, just that some things work best for some people watching some films.
It seems obvious that no size fits all when all film niches are served, but in the continuing uncertainty of whether 'free' film and video is taking us en route to media anarchy, it was impressive to see a lack of 'I have the ultimate solution" attitude from anyone on the panel. Except perhaps Jamie K at times, with his correct fear that all this technology could be used for nefarious purposes if we don't have these debates. He's a brave man to keep taking the flak.
That was the the second event I went to at Britdoc and it set the tone for some excellent panel sessions - the one on interviewing technique was a brave and fascinating one, featuring sparkling and wry monologues from panelist Kate Adie, who I now wish even more got on our screens and radios a lot more. She was joined by a policeman (with a voice exactly like all the other policemen I've ever spoken to, spookily), a barrister (who was also very barrister-like), a psychiatrist (ditto) and an ex-policeman who advises on police TV shows. This was a great sideways look at an aspect of doc-making often forgotten in conversations about craft, and crossed the areas of ethics and style with great wit and rigour.
I also thought the Good Pitch was a brilliant innovation, inviting not-for-profits, charities and campaign groups around a table to discuss changing the world through documentary outreach. Leila Sansour's Bethlehem project was especially special and very humbling indeed. More projects to change the world please! And it all made for a cracking atmosphere of goodwill in the room.
As for films, I am ashamed to say I only saw one - Jerry Rothwell's Heavy Load, which was fun and heartwarming, and spun an ace yarn.
So finally, check the winners, and someone else's views, including those of legend of comedy Larry Charles, on indiewire and I say again to the Britdoc team, thanks for a good time!
Snag Films and new distribution
By Charlie Phillips 22 July, 2008
There's a new launch in the US to distribute documentaries online, called Snag Films, and it's committing itself especially to docs that have a link to the not-for-profit sector, and are being nice to people. They've got a very impressive mission statement and lots of impressive faces involved.
And at least one of the people involved is going to be at Britdoc where I head tomorrow, where I suspect they'll be one of the talks of the town. I can tell you what I find. At the moment, I love the idea, and I also respect their DIY credentials for having bought Indiewire, which is basically my quick medicinal daily dose of all documentary information, and I respect a lot.
So they're committed to showcasing new creativity and ingenuity and financing it through what's annoyingly called 'filmanthropy' and I think that's a brilliant idealistic aim, if only because it will bring some of the more shy and obscure documentary directors to a more mainstream audience. I say that with some comments in mind that have come out of the workshops we've done - that there's some filmmakers with a great community of documentary and cross-media people around them who win trust through a long period of developing a good idea with like-minded people. But they're not so good at the wham-bam of year-round pitching to a single person. Because the kind of thing Snag are doing is more about gradual accumulative respect and communal niches, it's a real democratiser I hope. And it doesn't require filmmakers to feel like they're being someone entirely not themselves, fitting a personal formula for the sake of it.
Well that's the theory. For it to work, it'll need to stay high-profile, which it definitely is at the moment...well, it is on some important blogs anyway, and I've read some beautifully-written comments about it. I don't know if that's really high-profile though but generally, it's best anyway if these things wash into public consciousness over time rather than explode excitingly and then crash and burn. As I say, I'll see if Britdoc is abuzz about it or something else. Probably the main buzz will be the weather, which is forecast to be hot and lovely.
One good thing that's come of Snag already is that I have a new blog called Docsider to read, written by a Rabbi. You can't have too many sources of information can you?
Doc/Fest hearts the Highlands
By Charlie Phillips 21 July, 2008
I'm back from Inverness now, in a bit of a daze after an all-night ride on the sleeper train back to London. The ride was absolutely humbling, seeing hundreds of red deer going about their business on the wild landscape in the dusk as we left Inverness behind.
Don't you think train windows are just totally like cinema screens? You get this kind of vivid reality but in carefully-cut segments and rapid new and evermore-engaging scenes. When you travel on the sleeper, it's absolutely like a documentary all-nighter, with the natural world seemingly directed as a cleverly-edited verite classic. Like a long, hypnotic and gripping nature film as directed by Albert Maysles, and all for free. Train windows as the new documentary medium anyone? Perhaps I'll submit it as a festival session...
Leaving my poetic thoughts aside though (phew), the workshop was great. We had the most participants yet for a single workshop - 35 - and also the most widespread. I may be proud of my journeying but the Shetlanders we had got to Inverness after about 24 hours traveling and even those up from Glasgow and Edinburgh had made the trip equivalent to London to Newcastle.
This meant that for me there was a very special atmosphere, and you really saw that when we tried a new ice-breaking game on the evening before the main workshop. I won't spoil it for those coming to the final workshop in Sheffield, but I can say that it's about appreciating yourself as a documentary-making human. Because remember when you pitch to the docs market, you sell yourself as much as your project, and that goes for the biggest doc-makers too.
We had some impressive project ideas in the room, and we were particularly enamoured with the pitch given by Sonja Henrici about sustainable living, which had an almost-surreal dreamlike atmosphere of a world gone strange. Sonja is well-known to us as the main lady behind the Scottish Documentary Institute and she did an impressive and very well-prepared pitch with a stunning trailer.
Thanks to Amanda at the Highlands and Islands Enterprise for making this happen - I really feel we got to some superb talent way up North and I hope that we're going to see a Scottish revolution at Doc/Fest this year - and see Hussain's blog too.
Session curating: bottom up style
By Heather Croall 19 July, 2008
Next week we have our board and advisory meeting that will decide most of the session programme for this year's festival. Before I had ever been to Sheffield I'd heard lots about the fabulous and lively level of debate in the Doc/Fest industry panels, so when I came to work here I was keen to see how the session programme got created.
I discovered it involves a whole lota people from all over the place having an input. The festival is run by a tiny tiny team but it is the input of the amazing Advisory Committee that I think has helped deliver many great sessions at Sheffield.
When I took the role as festival director, quite a few people said to me that the first thing I should do is "get rid of the Advisory Committee" because it was too big, a shambles! But the more I looked into what the advisory committee had been doing for the past 15 years, the more I came to think that it was one of the best things the festival had going... even if it was unwieldy and chaotic. The thing that stands out about the Doc/Fest Advisory Committee is its size - it's big, like, massive! ...its got about 50 members. Its a mix of film directors, producers, EP's, film lecturers, commissioning editors and more. you can see who they are here And while it is a big group to wrangle, I just thought it was great that so many people got involved in the festival - a chance for lots of voices from all sides of the industry to have a say in the festival programme and actually, rather than make the committee smaller since I took the job, more people have joined it! (in general I am known for my approach of "The More The Merrier", so why not take it over to the committee too?) - the new members are mainly young filmmakers and people representing more diverse sectors of the industry... including interactive sector, community sector and regional based people. All sorts. We love it!
The festival advisory meet about every 6 weeks in London to discuss the range of topics they'd like to see addressed at the festival; lots of suggestions for speakers and session are captured at each meeting and this list grows and grows until the selections are made (right about now).
Sometimes 40 people turn up to the meeting, sometimes it is only 15 - which makes the process fairly unpredictable and mildly chaotic, but people give whatever time they can and that's fine. Many of the committee members also donate their time to be session producers for the festival. Its all hugely appreciated by the Doc/Fest team and me and, ultimately, by the delegates who get to attend sessions that have been put together with lots of love well in advance.
Last year we introduced an online submit-a-session-idea process that allowed people beyond the Advisory Committee to put forward ideas for the festival. Some fabulous panels last year came through that online system so we've continued it this year and dozens of top ideas have come in. Next week, the advisory will meet and, over much tea, coffee and biscuits, we will thrash out all the ideas on the table and make the selection of the sessions for this years festival.
The year round process with the advisory means that the ownership of Sheffield Doc/Fest is shared widely in the industry ... and it's truly a heartfelt ownership for many people - they know they have really helped shape the festival sessions over the years. It offers a Bottom-Up style to programming rather than Top-Down- a bit of a facebook approach to it all ... and because of all that, Sheffield Doc/Fest belongs to many, not just the small team that put it together.
After we select the sessions at the meeting next week, the hard work of actually making the panels begins...and in advance, here is a 'thanks!' for all those contributions from everyone. There's still time to help by being a session producer, please let us know if you are keen... the other thing the sessions need is insightful and challenging questions from the audience at the festival. Hopefully you'll want to involved in it all.
Wonderland/Awesome/Doxwise
By Charlie Phillips 15 July, 2008
Just been having a browse around two of the 'new generation' film and video websites, Wonderland, and From Here To Awesome, both of which are intimately tied to things going on in the 'real' world, trying to use the web to generate interest and money (hurrah) for making more films, and create a real community whilst doing it.
Wonderland is really interesting - you have to prove yourself to a panel in order to be part of the club, making it the antithesis of the 'anyone can do it' attitude of most internet screening. This is good but it also means that in terms of documentary there's not a lot on there at the moment - I always feel like documentary-makers are generally more cautious about where they submit their films than fiction-makers, although it could just be there's less of them. Anyway, it's good to see MeetMarket alumnus Jes Benstock's Holocaust Tourist on there, and these are still early days. It's a really good name for a website as well.
The bit I really like is the Stream magazine, which is a guide to how to use new distribution channels for your film, and is well-written and nicely barnstorming. And it has a link to an article about a new UK film site "aimed at the lads market" that I didn't know about, the Film Lounge. Probably not my cup of tea.
From Here To Awesome is from everybody hip in the world and has been bubbling along for a while. They've just selected their showcase of top features to support in offline screenings, including a good doc called Meditate and Destroy. And they're doing a conference too called DIY Days which looks fun.
And before I forget, was also checking out Doxwise from Denmark, which is a documentary series on Myspace and has some really raw and interesting moments. And it's unique in being a progressive web documentary project that isn't American. It's made by Michael Noer, who made Vesterbro last year, which was an intense documentary which felt entirely honest and showed how flawed people in love are.
Guess these are all the tips of icebergs, which is pretty exciting. What's particularly good about Doxwise is that it plays with the form of documentary and responds to how the film is being watched with a personal short sharp shock.
Bar-doc-necchia
By Charlie Phillips 14 July, 2008
I bet that pun has never been made before...anyway, I've left Bardonecchia now and I have to say it was one of the best festivals/workshops/pitching sessions (cos it's all of those) I've been to. Useful, inspiring and very fun - it's how a film festival should be.
I was thinking last night in the bath about why it was so good, and yes, it's partly that it's a stunning location under mountains, sun and occasionally apocalyptic rain. But it's mainly that the numbers are small and the people are young, whether young in age or young at heart. So there's a real community feel, and crucially, new and exciting ideas flowing everywhere. The pitch sessions I attended were almost all 100% original and visibly passion projects of the producers. The whole event feels fresh, and the talk between events buzzes with interest in exchanging ideas and freely-offered tips for project development and contacts. There's no pretension, just good people with great creations to offer to the world.
It also has a great party in a chalet on the mountains, although I had the horrifying realisation that I'm now so soaked in London snobbyness that I can't dance to bad pop music anymore. And I mean bad pop music here, really bad.
But that's a small and totally irrelevant point. A big public thanks from me to Stefano from Doc in Europe and also EDN who organise it with him. On which note, a quick plug from me on their behalf to say that they are a vital organisation to join if you really want to immerse yourself in the European co-production scene, and the money is well spent. And they've got a special offer on at the moment so take it up.
So that's my final Eurotrip for a bit, but I will of course be in Inverness this Wednesday and Thursday for the next workshop - this one is going to be really special - those of you going are in for a right treat. You'll see what I mean...
Paradise
By Charlie Phillips 11 July, 2008
Saw a new stange and wonderful doc called Paradise this afternoon - what a doc! It made me laugh out loud, and there aren't many documentaries that do that. It's about an old couple, married for 65 years, deciding on wallpaper. Yes, it is literally about watching paste dry, but it's gripping, beautiful and funny.
And strangely political too, like a testament to living just however you want to, and being totally independent. Brilliant film!
Doc in Europe update
By Charlie Phillips 10 July, 2008
This is a good place to be - small enough so that you get to talk to everyone, big enough that there's the quality that impresses.
I was very impressed by the Matchmaking this morning - good casual collaborative format, and some real standout doc ideas from Marina Delvecchio and also the trio behing "Kubat's Triangle", both of which in their way are looking at how utopias rise, fall and possibly rise again in our imaginations. And a beautiful vignette of a project about a strawberry seller in Italy which reminded me of ten things at once yet was all its own. And it was pitched bloody remarkably for someone speaking in their 2nd language (English always wins the day at doc events!)
And then a great masterclass from Alexandru Soloman, a Romanian doc filmmaker who has a brilliant eye for the ironies of post-Communist Eastern Europe - and great enthusiasm and love for filmmaking, a real joy to see. In fact, this place seems to be full of people with love for making films, and I will never complain about that.
Being more workshop than festival, this place is a true melting-pot of ideas, and everyone is totally on the ball. I've had some inspiring conversations and even got to wax lyrical myself on the merits of veganism (don't encourage me). Maybe it's the drama of the looming mountains above, but I feel like we're all in a crucible of working on everyones' ideas together, and there's no pride, just devotion to working out to how best get good ideas on screen. Admittedly, we could do with a few more commissioners and buyers here, but actually the low number means that those here are more relaxed and more able to get into the detail of projects one-on-one, gladly with enthusiasm, like human beings.
Which of course they, and we, all are.
Apparently it's going to rain tomorrow, so you may get a less thoughtful and more moaning post tomorrow from me. Sorry in advance.
Edinburgh International Film Fest comes and goes
By Hussain Currimbhoy 09 July, 2008
Came back from Edinburgh International Film Festival last week and I gotta say that I think I want to move there. This was my first time past Manchester and I was totally taken by the place. There is a very specific light, attitude and film festival there that has to be seen to be believed.
The festival changed its dates to get away from the throng of other festivals that engulf the city in august (like the Fringe) but I had no complaints. No one I talked to had a bad word to say about the date shift and I thought it could only make the festival stand out and be its own without other events to compromise its impact.
The cinemas were close enough together and even though I was there only for the tail end people still had a smile on their face and were helpful.
Of course I was smiling the most after Shirley Clarke’s masterpiece, Portrait of Jason, which is on my top three films of all time list (after Close Up by Abbas Kiarostami and Tsai Ming Liang’s The River). I thought because I missed the retro at Cinema du Reel earlier this year I would have missed it forever. Thank god for EIFF.
For those who haven’t seen it check out the DVD if you can:
It was Clarke at the height of her career; it was America in the prime of its independent filmmaking life. The film will break you up!
The best thing I saw that was new was THE NEW TEN COMMANDMENTS guided by Nick Higgins. I say guided because it’s an omnibus collection with Irvine Welsh, Mark Cousins (Doc/Fest Japanese strand curator no less), Douglas Gordon (director of the brilliant ZIDANE), Kenny Glenaan, Nick Higgins, Sana Bilgrami, Alice Nelson, Tilda Swinton, Doug Aubrey, David Graham Scott and Anna Jones.
What do they all have in common? They are some of Scotland’s best filmmakers, visual artists and writers. With the 60th anniversary of the UN Bill of Human Rights celebrated this year each film takes one ‘right’ and interprets it through the prism of Scotland. Most everyone I spoke to loved Douglas Gordon’s segment – not a word spoken yet the tension in the room was palpable – and Alice Nelson’s ‘Right to Privacy’ about a guy who was arrested in Scotland for getting intimate with his bicycle was hysterical. They were not just a look at rights that effect everyone in the UK and really, the world, but – and not to say they were patriotic – they were also a very Scottish look at what it means to be a Scot in contemporary Scotland.
Doc/Fest is assembling a special celebration on Scottish docs this year with a Scottish party (judging by the parties I attended at EIFF our will be crazy), a collection of short and feature films, Scottish speakers on some panels and a Scottish delegation.
BYO Whiskey.
Doc/Fest already has a handful of shorts from the Scottish Documentary Institute that are some of the best short docs I’ve seen in ages. But when I asked around for an explanation of this phenomenon everyone said: ‘we’ve always made brill’ docs just no one has paid attention!’
I sat down with Finlay Pretsell from the Scottish Documentary Institute and picked his brain. Stay tuned to read the transcript this week!
hussain
I'm going to Docs in the Alps
By Charlie Phillips 08 July, 2008
Quick note to say that I'm going to Doc in Europe tomorrow in what sounds like a mountain idyll in Northern Italy. I'll give you full reports back as I go. And if you're going, let me know
Documentaries, amazing people and the Alps - this festival malarkey ain't bad sometimes, you know...
Greenwald speaks to the world and other good onlining
By Charlie Phillips 07 July, 2008
Robert Greenwald does interesting things with his Brave New Films whether you agree with his politics or not and indeed, whether you like his documentaries or not. And I enjoyed reading this mini-profile of the agitator, mainly for a small insight into how we works and thinks. I know a lot about his films but not so much about him. And he makes it sound so easy to do new things - good man.
And speaking of people with revolutionary agendas, do you know the Centre for Social Media? Despite being a mine of intelligent information about the legalities of online video, fair use, democratic media, and other buzzwords, etc, their articles are satisyfingly and unfashionably very long indeed. When you're used to skimming blogs like me, these kind of things feel like War and Peace. But boy are they good - there's a brilliant essay on The Rise And Fall of the British Public Service Publisher which they linked to in the newsletter today but ummm, I can't find it on the website so you'll have to have a little dig.
By the way, in my own contribution to increasing the wordiness of the internet, I'll be responding to requests from out there for notes from all the pitch workshops for those of you who can't make it to them physically. There'll be a summary of all the pointers from them in August, when they're all done and dusted.
That Old Chestnut!
By Heather Croall 03 July, 2008
At Sunny Side I spoke in a session about festivals – the panel had reps from Leipzig, Hot Docs, Sheffield, CPH Docs, IDFA, Silverdocs, Jihlava and Nyon. We outlined the different elements and focuses of our events - the marketplace activities, the film programmes, the industry panels, the videotheque libraries and so on.
Questions were invited from the audience, and the topic immediately turned to premiere rules. The elephant in the room that noone had talked about. Why not get down to it?
In general, the festivals on the panel all had fairly specific not-too-demanding premiere rules (if they had any at all) – a Toronto premiere is required at HotDocs, a German premiere at Leipzig, etc. IDFA had the widest reaching premiere rules on the panel and "very strict rules" for the films in competition.
This is something we all know and I can't count the number of times I have been in this very discussion with filmmakers, distributors and commissioners. It is always cropping up. So what's new? what's the solution? how do we make it easier for the filmmakers to navigate?
One issue is making sure filmmakers understand all the different rules and how they relate to their own situation. For example – you can screen in your own country (maximum 2 fests) and still be invited to competition at IDFA, and there's similar caveats at many festivals - someone else has probably drawn up a road map to festival rules on their blog to help make sense of all this… I don't want to get into the details here.
The problem is not so much the IDFA rules in isolation. Partly the problem is the bottle neck of so many Euro based doc festivals all together in the Autumn (Leipzig, Sheffield, CPH and IDFA all in about 6 weeks) and on top of that, the chronological order of those Autumn festivals– unfortunately the festival with the strictest premiere rules, IDFA, comes last in the calendar. So other Autumn doc fests (like CPH Docs, Sheffield and Leipzig) feel the impact of the IDFA prem rules without actually making similar style asks on filmmakers. If we came immediately after IDFA, life might be easier for the filmmaker, but unfortunately that's not how it is. So what to do? All flip dates? So IDFA would be the first in the Autumn?...then CPH, Leipzig, Sheffield follow? Well, it could make life easier… But its not as simple as it sounds to just move dates of long established festivals when they have existing relationships with local authorities, funders, sponsors, venues, etc. And then there's Christmas.
Ultimately, filmmakers have to make the choice – each festival does things differently and you choose where you want to go. If filmmakers want to go for Leipzig, CPH Docs and Sheffield as a triangle of festivals in the Autumn, rather than wait for IDFA, that's an option. But it's still a choice of one OR the other - unfortunately that's just the way it is.
One of the sad things that often happens is that filmmakers call us in late September to say they didn't get selected for IDFA so they want their film in Sheffield afterall– but our programme at that point is already locked and at the printer (so is CPHdocs and Leipzig) and they miss out.
So, the premiere rules present a dilemma with many layers and there's no quick fix on it - I think the more we all discuss it, the better. Filmmakers in the end have to make the call; mapping a festival strategy can be a massively confusing process and in the words of a classic 70's sitcom theme tune "The world don't move to the beat of just one drum.
What might be right for you, may not be…" You know the rest… "It takes, Diff'rent Strokes to move the world."
There are many filmmakers who waited for that big premiere and got the bang they wanted, some filmmakers wait for the one big fest and feel disappointed when they are lost in the sea of films. Other filmmakers take a long burn approach and watch their profile build and build at many festivals… Last year, The English Surgeon was voted best doc at Sheffield and 6 months later won at Hot Docs and then won at Silverdocs and is still going strong.
So, there is no one golden rule that fits all films, and the different premiere rules aren't going away soon – so talk about it out loud and find out what worked for others and what might work best for you.
Back at our festivals session in La Rochelle, I don't think the Q and A even moved on from the Premiere questions at all for questions on any other issue - so it's obviously a hot topic for filmmakers.
Changing technologies and the growing number of distribution platforms will be another key issue in the development of this debate.
It's a regular question in the film festival exam. Premiere Rules. Discuss.
By the way, thanks to everyone who came to our Sheffield Doc/Fest Tea Party at Sunny Side - I smuggled 150 Bakewell Tarts into France in my suitcase and lashings of Yorkshire Tea (did I break any EU laws?)And what a lovely time we had! I have a feeling Tea Parties might be The New Cocktail, and Sheffield Doc/Fest will be having more of them… we'll let you know when the next one is.
Documentaries - in crisis? Doing well? Getting 5 stars?
By Charlie Phillips 03 July, 2008
Wow, now 2gether has a posh polar explorer talking about blogging from the snow! Best thing ever.
Anyway, wanted to draw your attention to 3 ends of the documentary distribution wagon, partly because they're darn interesting and partly because they show that no matter how many words you devote to the good/bad/middling health of documentary, something will always contradict you.
So, here's the bad news - Docs aren't making enough at the box office and all the American distributors are dying or being absorbed. And if you think that's just an American thing, then have you heard that Tartan in the UK has also closed down? This is undoubtedly a bit rubbish, but as that Newsweek article says, documentaries are still well-watched on TV and that's particularly important considering the reliance UK documentarists have always had to place on television.
And for me, that's kind of the point - we've never had very good cinema distribution of documentaries so this isn't a shocker. Although, that doesn't mean we shouldn't, and that's where the importance of decent use of the Film Council's Digital Screen Network is so important. So look to initiatives like Joiningthedots working with Picturehouse to bring documentaries to the big screen and support them because the pressures on independent cinemas to just keep the doors open mean they can't be charitable to documentaries for the sake of it.
But like with joiningthedots, there is a future for filmmakers for new ways of distributing documentaries without placing yourself totally at the mercy of the credit crunch (etc, etc). This is the good-er news - I was really interested to see that a Sundance winner is self-distributing. It's not a documentary, but it is a model that could work especially well with the fleet-footed self-marketing that documentary producers are particularly good at (right?). I'll be interested to see how well it works, and whether it changes the rights models of the indie and not-so-indie parts of the docs market.
And so getting more maverick, and even more good-est, I was really pleased to see that one of the most maverick, Guy Maddin got 5 stars in Time Out for his new docu-fantasia, My Winnipeg. It's beautiful and it's a whole new strange version of documentary for you. It's an autobiography in black and white, obsessed with Mothers and the cold. And it looks like it was shot in the 1940s but it wasn't . So if you really want to support docs on the big screen, this is your chance. Just don't think too much about the obituary for Tartan that I just spotted is also on the Time Out site.
Let's get 2gether - Doc/Fest news round-up
By Charlie Phillips 02 July, 2008
Well, it's my newsround anyway so it'll have to do.
I'm more than a bit tetchy that I'm not at 2gether today, especially since it's happening (at most) 30 seconds from the Doc/Fest London home. Although check out that website - you don't need to be there with reliable live streaming like that and, best of all, a beautiful young Twitter Feed full of observations on the day.
I think with this sort of brave new ideas thing, you either get excited about it or you need someone to make you excited. I don't have the space here to properly say why it matters just so much that as we speak people are pushing the boundaries of factual film, text, art and redefining what documentary means, but I will elaborate another time. Quickly and bluntly though, it's Channel 4 sponsoring a "festival of ideas, popular technologies and progress" and if you work in broadcasting and don't think that's really important, then...you're wrong my friend.
Anyway, other stuff - there's more from Sunnyside like the crisis in world public service broadcasting, and the hope that it's not dying, it's just being redefined...which is probably true. Great stuff from Paulo Markun, from Brazil's Fundação Padre Anchieta, who totally laid bare why PSB matters to us all, and not just if you're in an allegedly more unstable country like Brazil.
Plus over the last 2 days, we had the two London Pitch Workshops which were a real inspiration - such great ideas out there and such devotion to quality creative documentary. I have to gush - we have some great documentary-makers in London, and it's a crying shame that not everyone gets a fair crack of the ship. I mean, we find it hard enough to find space for more than a few attendees to pitch, and devote time to their ideas and presentations, so how enough time can ever be given by UK commissioners to talented people is bewildering to me and a bit sad too.
And by the way, Yorkshire people, get signed up for the Sheffield workshop on July 29th - I want an extra-special workshop in our back garden!
Well, time to go back to the 2gether web feed...and by the way, wondering why I'm not actually there if I love it so much? It's 9 days since I was last in the office,
I think I need to be here. Sometimes even in the digital age, you need to be in an uncomfortable chair with backache.
Greenwashing documentaries
By Charlie Phillips 27 June, 2008
Yesterday at Sunnyside, I went to the panel on "green programmes" and it was a case of high hopes and good intentions, but muddled outcomes. I don't mean that to criticise any of the people on the panel, all of whom I think are great, but I think we need to look at two key issues which were not the focus of this panel - firstly, ask more from documentaries than to just point out the issues we already know and advocate assuming a non-life-changing solution will just come ; and second, countering the dispassionate stance of standing aside as if the mechanics of the documentary industry itself played no role in climate chaos.
So the first - much was talked about regarding people tiring of images of withered plants, deserts and dead birds. Now that's true, but it's no improvement to replace them with happy animals and delighted multinational energy company executives telling us they're spearheading a solution. People, we're genuinely in crisis and any environmental documentary or series that tells you that we need anything other than a immediate change in lifestyle, and advocates anything other than an extremely depressed attitude to (Western?) humanity, is for me suspicious. And dangerously time-wasting.
I'm not saying there aren't many ways to approach this, but this happy-clappy attitude to 'green' docs serves to do little beyond offering easy 'awareness'. We don't need 'awareness' - if you're not aware already, then you need to get up to speed fast, turn off the telly and look out the window, and then take action. And two more things - a. just cos your documentary has lots of the colour green in it doesn't make it Green and b. if your doc is sponsored by a car company, I think you've been duped.
Second point - as the Green Code Project are leading on, the documentary world itself needs to take decisions on its own contribution to climate change. The infrastructure of going from development to screen, with all the travel and power therein, needs assessing - just like in every other industry. That's the real green revolution that, for me, documentary people can spearhead. We're doing something ourselves with our Carbon Neutrality here at Doc/Fest but it's no more than a start and I certainly think there's way more we can do...so we will - hold me to it, I've got plans, all of your ideas welcome.
PS Totally irrelevant, but on a less hectoring and more fun note, I'm sitting in a session here, above where the headphone man translates from French to English. I can only see his hands waving and gesticulating madly, emerging from the darkness, and it's kind of amazing, and really quite bizarre
Getting docs info online - where to go
By Charlie Phillips 26 June, 2008
So I'm really into this blogging malarkey. Yes, partly because I like writing and I have opinions so I write, but also because blogs are pretty much my major source of information about what's happening in documentary.
My Firefox bookmarks toolbar is taken up with a massive array of dropdown blog feeds, some of which I scan speedily (a photographic memory helps with being an avid blog reader) and some of which I treasure like fine informational wine. It's kind of amazing how you can spend ten minutes blog-checking and suddenly feel like you've participated in hours of gossiping and knowledge-gathering. It's also amazing how much obscure new film information you can amass, so that when you come to places like this (sorry, I'm still at Sunnyside), someone can mention a small Puerto Rican film to you and you genuinely know exactly what they're talking about.
Anyway blogs are also about finding the nuggets of gold in the sludge, it has to be said, so here's my regular 'fine wine' blogs of choice:
Spout Blog, where Karina Longworth blogs a billion times a day with funny and intelligent slices of coolness.
GreenCine Daily, which is my major source of world film information, with a report on seemingly every single festival in the world however small and links to, well, every news and magazine article about film too. Honestly. Amazing.
All These Wonderful Things by AJ Schnack, which is at the longer-form end of things and more considered and occasional, but always very in-the-know.
The Guardian's film blogs which are for me the best British film bloggings you can get (although to be fair there isn't a lot of competition) and react really quickly to breaking news.
And finally The Lipster, which is a sort of feminist culture blog with some of the cleverest and most entertaining writing you see anywhere on or offline, always making you nod fervently in agreement, and being brilliant at recontextualising old bits of film culture with modern-day developments. And they also seem to write particularly well on documentary from a UK perspective, which is a rare find in the land of blogs as you may have noticed.
Sunnysiders
By Charlie Phillips 25 June, 2008
As Heather said yesterday, we're at Sunnyside this week, soaking up the sunny weather and having strong coffee. Lots of coffee.
Ignoring the weirdness of my prison-like hotel, it's a fascinating place to be. All the factions of the international docs world have their stands (or in our case, squashed-in table) and use their charms to allure passing trade. We call MeetMarket speed-dating or match-making for documentary people but this is one step further - personal sales booths for your documentary credentials. It's a bit like a Moroccan Bazaar for factual people's wares.
One tip if you happen to be here, or just like to have your finger on the pulse - go see The Age of Stupid, the new movie from uber-doctivist (documentary activist - get it?) Franny Armstrong. I banged on about it for ages in my last place and having now seen the final piece, I can tell you that you will cry, you will feel like you need to change the world and you will feel really very depressed and hopeless at the end.
It's a total slap in the face, I love it. Anyway, back to the coffee...
Workshopping
By Charlie Phillips 24 June, 2008
As you may have seen, we've launched a series of regional Marketplace workshops for this year's Doc/Fest Marketplace events. I started writing this late at night after our first one, in Belfast, and we've now done Cardiff as well.
And I can say for sure it was a success - we had 8 participants in Belfast all with great ideas on a massive range of subjects. Special mention goes to Derville Quigley, whose budgie documentary was pitched to me and Karolina in an almost anti-pitch relaxed style which we really adored.
So why are we doing these 6 workshops? It's for lots of reasons, but it's also for the simple reason that we want more people from outside London to apply to the MeetMarket and take part in the wonders of the Doc/Fest Marketplace. Last year we had more projects submitted from Holland than from Hull and though all selected are there on merit, in terms of applications we can make a better drive for non-London UK project submissions.
Look, I'm a Yorkshireman born and bred, so you can let me be firm about this sort of thing. So there's still time to apply for our Inverness and Sheffield workshops - check out the regional pitch workshops page for how to be at these workshops, and I'll keep updating you on how they've gone (more on Cardiff soon too)
By the way welcome from me to the Doc/Fest blog. Hope you'll keep checking in on all of us writing here - some of it will be Doc/Fest related and some of it really won't be, but hopefully it'll all be interesting if you follow the world of documentary. Let us know what you think...
Packing for Sunny Side
By Heather Croall 23 June, 2008
Just packing for Sunny Side of the Doc - if you are going please come see us in the UK village.
I'll be talking on the festivals panel and we are putting on a brunch at the Sheffield stand on Thursday morning at 10am. Definitely serving coffee and croissants, if your lucky we might even have Yorkshire Tea and Bakewell Tart.
I should be getting to la Rochelle Tuesday evening if all goes well - this year I have
been evacuated from an airport due to fire, evacuated due to discovery of an unexploded WWII bomb in the area, grounded in an icestorm and delayed by 5 hours due to a man running across the tarmac at Heathrow 'wearing a backpack'. Hopefully no delays this time. See you there.
Tips to submitting your film to a film festival
By Hussain Currimbhoy 20 June, 2008
This is my first time as programmer of Sheffield Doc/Fest. It’s also my first blog – welcome!
This is the year we hit Hotdocs in Toronto, Visions du Reel in Nyon, Cannes, Thessaloniki Documentary film festival in Greece and the London Romanian Film Festival. So many amazing documentaries, I’ll start thinking of the films as stray pets – I want to take them all home with me.
I’m getting the sensation that we’ll have enough. It’s right in the middle of the viewing season now and we have 10 people, some as far away as Australia, viewing scores of documentaries on our behalf. The number of entrants are higher than average. I think we’ll break a record or two with the number of films received. The quality of the filmmaking is higher than I expected too – great, but it makes the choices a lot harder...
In an attempt to stand out from the crowd some one sent in their documentary with a brand new syringe, needle and swab kit inside the DVD case. I dropped the package like a hot potato. I realised the film was about heroin abuse, and this was some kind of themed marketing gimmick for us to take a closer look at the film. I started to imagine what it would be like if I left that on my desk and a visitor dropped by the programmer’s desk.
Tips to submitting your film to a film festival:
1) Don’t put anything inside film packaging that makes the addressee drop it like a hot potato.
2) Make sure you put the name of the film on the front of our DVD in ink.
3) Try not to leave the DVD blank.
4) Make sure the ink dries before you put it in the case and post it.
5) Ensure you send it to the right festival
6) For your entry fee try not to send cash to accompany your film
There are some of course that are challenging viewing. So much on the war on terror and the ‘constantly changing social landscape of China’. Can you imagine what will happen if Obama wins? We’ll have to start a new festival called ‘Regime Change’ to handle the number of films coming in.
So many docs have a great character or a setting but no way to bring it out. Or the reverse is true. But just when I’m getting a bit despondent, something pops out that is unassuming and forthright and humble. The enthusiasm levels jump up again. I can almost rely on it.