Doc/Fest Blog
Tipping Point Film Fund - excellent
By Charlie Phillips 11 July, 2009
Hussain beat me to the announcement of Michael Moore's new doc, which would have got an equally-withering account from me.
I often get accused of snobbyness towards him but it's really not that - poppy presenter-led rabble-rousers definitely have their place. My problem is that his scope is so limited - he makes supposedly-radical political documentaries whose criticisms and suggestions are so narrow that they actually worsen, or at best maintain, a political culture which is superficial, sarcastic and unambitious.
A lot of activist docs are painfully serious, and need humour with the bullet. Moore makes docs at the other end of the scale - all comedy and no bite. He makes complaints which tinker with established order and offer limited changes, if any at all. He's part of the capitalist love-story, and what he criticises is his fellow lovers and not the nature of the love itself.
But (drum roll) I haven't seen the film yet so get back to me later in the year and we'll talk more.
So to the really exciting news in doc land which is the launch of the Tipping Point Film Fund, a new UK initiative to crowd-fund documentaries with big ambitions to change things. It aims to unite "campaigning networks, independent film goers and online social networks, through a mix of regular giving, one-off donations and support from major donors" and I hope so much that it takes off. I'm a massive advocate of crowd-funding (tediously so, I suspect- sorry, world) and this is a perfect opportunity to get people who want to break the dependence on TV funding in the UK to stop talking and start contributing. Or simply, want to get more documentaries made and seen. Plus the Co-op are involved and they're lovely, and Northern too. Go donate, OK?
In a similar vein of new ways of doing things, some of you may have attended Shooting People's Digital Bootcamp last weekend - if you did or didn't, we can all catch up on their wiki, which is full of resources to help you harness the web to get a community who will love, and maybe help make, your film, and then spread the word about how ace it is.
And stirring it up into this pot, it's also interesting to read Chris Anderson's defence of free - which I do really like in theory, but the more I read him on this the less I see a concrete path of action and practicals of the free media economy coming out from it. He's the G8 summit of media analysts, making and predicting exciting headline policies and then waiting for the rest of us to put it into practice so that he can take the credit.
And the BBC is getting some more spikes into this landscape, with an interesting-sounding open source doc series - the method is a great experiment for Auntie, even if the content is TBC, and may be a muddle. I'm excited - especially because it's being approached from a more scientific and educational perspective, with the Open University on board, when it might have been easier to go trashy.
But if all this freedom is getting you down, you should definitely look at the new $1.5m announced by Sundance and Cinereach for cultural exchange and social action films. They're 2 of the best organisations in the world supporting brave new documentaries, and this is another amazing gesture - which, yes, actually involves real grant money. Which is still very useful - along with crowds, free stuff and docs with grand ambitions.