Emotional moment when Emma Davie welcomed her audience at the premiere of the film at Munt cinema. She stressed how much her main character, Neil Platt, who died three years ago, wanted the film to be made, to have a focus put on his disease, Motor Neurone Disease and consequently to have more medical research done in that field.

Emma Davie, who made the film with Morag McKinnon, made the audience aware that the family was attending the screening. The main protagonist, however, together with Neil, was not there, his name is Oscar, he is the little boy, who runs around his father, the film could have been entitled ”Letter to Oscar”, which is what Neil is writing, a letter, added with a beautiful ”memory box” for his son to remember his father. Remember Humphrey Jennings ”Diary for Timothy”?

Well, he – Oscar, must be 5-6 years old – now, has a film that is made for him and for a big audience, I am sure.

Here at idfa there are two hit lists of most watched films. One is at ”Docs for Sale”, where buyers come to watch, ”I am Breathing” is number 4 with 44 screenings by November 21. The other is the Audience Award Top 10, where ”I am Breathing” is number 7. Well deserved!

www.idfa.nl

scotdoc.com/idfa

… edition Number 20! In itself a marvellous event where filmmakers from all over the world meet to present their projects, catch up on professional and private matters, it is indeed a clear sign of the both warm and professional climate in the international documentary community. And there are many people around the table, mostly broadcasters but also an increasing number of representatives from funds. AND that is important as the broadcasters basically have no money or little money – you sometimes wonder why they want to sit around the table and express their opinions when they can not help the pitching filmmakers – for creative documentaries.

Creative documentaries… yes, where were they. Or call it artistic documentaries, where were they? Is it a matter of a bad selection from idfa, or is it because the selection is done so it fits to the fact that broadcasters are not interested in creative, artistic documentaries. ”Content is King”, it has been said and that is right, but the form/ the filmmaking, what about that, is it not important?

To be fair: I watched 15 out of 20 presentations in the so-called Central Pitch, and none in the round-table, where more ambitious projects often are to be found. The first morning I was suffering: A noisy tv-interview based doc, ”The Shadow World” about arms trade, a total – sorry for my French – shitty superficial cliché-filled about Stalinists and Russia of today, ”In the Wake of Stalin”, a straight forward interview based, character driven tv programme from Naples, ”Zero Waste”, ”Eurocalypse-Why we are poor now”, scripted by Nick Fraser from BBC, to be directed by Ben Lewis, in the presentation constantly stressed to be funny- it was not, not at all. Two exceptions: the winners of idfa last year with ”Planet of Snails”, came up with a beautiful teaser, ”Like Wind, Yeji and I” (photo), and the Finns had a story from Uganda that had an artistic feel, ”Prior to Farewell”. Funny it was to hear the producer state that the editor of the film will be Danish superstar Niels Pagh Andersen, to calm down eventual doubt: then it can’t go wrong!

The second day, to stay in the positive mood, the Israeli ”The Visual Crash” about media coverage of the 2010 Gaza Flotilla, by Yael Hersonski (”A Film Unfinished”) had a great teaser and artistic ambition (”sophisticated” a man from New York Times called it), and raised a good discussion. An American project, however, about people from Human Rights Watch and their work around the globe, ”The E-Team”, had a disgusting teaser cutting the energetic youngsters with dead corpses accompanied by dramatic music. Only one commissioning editor (thank you Sabine Bubeck from ZDF/arte) objected to this non-ethical approach – the answer from the filmmakers was, ”oh yes, but it is only a trailer”! Content is King, maybe, but ethics demonstrated in the form, please!  

www.idfa.nl

… was the headline of the afternoon session that I attended, run by EDN’s Mikael Opstrup with a (maybe too) small introduction by Jesper Osmund on the nature of what he (good choice) calls pitch trailers. Osmund, who has edited several international documentaries, including ”Big Boys Gone Bananas” (read review below) stressed the simplicity as a principle for constructing a pitch trailer and showed the sweet ”Milk Bar” (Sweden, Ewa Einhorn and Terese Mörnvik, 2007), the effective character-based “The Believers” (final title “Football is God”) (Denmark, Ole Bendtzen, 2009) (Photo, tatooed Maradona) and scene-based “Sofia’s Last Ambulance” (Bulgaria/Croatia, 2012, Ilian Metev).

After the introduction four projects were picked for pitch, one from Colombia, one from Armenia, one from Russia and one from the Netherlands. The idea was that the projects being pitched were to be commented by a panel consisting of Osmund, Sabine Bubeck from ZDF/arte, Stephan Kloos producer and distrbutor, and producer Lise Lense-Møller. I am not sure that the concept is right – to let the panel analyse the technical side of the pitch without talking about the film that is presented. For me it became a clinical, school teacher like session that showed no interest in the content or ambition coming from the young people, who brought their projects to the room. It made the panel grumpy and combined with a looong procedure around the competition set up to find the best pitch, performed by the sympathetic “Cuban Hat” people, it became boring. The Cuban Hat people spent a lot of time explaining and praising what their initiative is about. The winner, after the hat had gone around, got 48$, some slices of ham and a bonbon. Halleluja!

http://www.wgfilm.com/english/productions/productions/milkbar/

http://vimeo.com/footballisgod

http://www.cubanhat.tv/

Was it because people were a bit tired hearing about crowdfunding that there were less people in the auditorium this morning. Or because of all the parties that are offered from the side of idfa? To idfacademy participants who are mostly young, the mature man wrote. Or because it is too American? At least that was the immediate reaction to hearing Elisabeth Holm from Kickstarter, a speedy talking New Yorker, who introduced the crowdfunding organisation in a precise, professional way with numbers and an obvious commitment to documentaries. (You can read in details about Kickstarter on its website). Holm stressed that Kickstarter is not for charity and campaign, but for creative documentaries (and other art forms). And by the way you need an American bank account to qualify to get into Kickstarter, where you get the money if you reach the target you have set for your project. But not if you are lower than that sum.

With a butterfly in the room, flying from screen to screen, Holm showed a clip from a succesful Kickstarter film, T-Rex, about a black female boxer, who went to the Olympics in London, and won a gold medal. The crowdfunding for the film, still not finished, raised $64.507 with 652 backers, with – in general – the most common contribution to be $25. Who are the backers: fans, friends, internet, press, kickstarter community.

What can Kickstarter do for you, Holm said: Engage your community, Share your story, Find new patrons, Retain complete creative control.

There are other crowdfunding platforms. Indiegogo is one and American director Steve James introduced his ”Generation Food” project, that runs there, and Margaret Jangård from WG Films in Malmö Sweden brought up the company’s experience with crowdfunding on ”Big Boys Gone Bananas”, (photo from “Bananas!”) the interesting film on how the American banana company Dole wanted to stop their film. For Jangård using Kickstarter was ”a great marketing tool” for the film.

http://www.kickstarter.com/

www.bigboysgonebananas.com

www.idfa.nl

The programme is ”an intensive four-day training program for emerging filmmakers, producers, and film students”. As coach for the group of filmmakers from the Black Sea Docstories workshop I am there as well and have enjoyed the well composed and organised training initiative led by Meike Statema.

Alan Berliner – see the review of his new film below – was the perfect man to start the Academy with his modest and passionate approach to filmmaking. ”Editing is the greatest joy I have in my life”, he said, at the same time as he said that he had pretty limited technical skills when he sits in front of the buttons with the material. How to use metaphors, he was asked by the young filmmakers and students, the answer was that with ”First Cousin Once Removed” he wanted to poetisise the world of Edward Honig, who had decided to give his brain to science, ”but my aim was to preserve his mind” with the film.

Sean McAllister was the man in the chair te next morning after a screening of his ”The Reluctant Revolutionary” the night before. McAllister showed clips and talked about his looking for characters, a process that can take a long time, as he exemplified with clips from his ”Japan. A Story of Love and Hate” (photo). ”I use film to empower people”, he said with reference to the development of his two male characters in the films mentioned.

Ove Rishøj Jensen from EDN made an excellent inspirational and precise 90 minutes introduction to storytelling models using the film of Geoffrey Smith, ”The English Surgeon” (the classical) and Coco Schrijber’s ”Bloody Mondays and Strawberry Pies” (circular, author driven model) as references.

With some of the filmmakers from the Black Sea countries, I had the pleasure to meet Isabel Arrate from Jan Vrijman Fund, which is now the Idfa Bertha Fund after funding comes from the Bertha Foundation. Arrate explained the rules for the fund that will have its first deadline by February 2013. From Vancouver-based Knowledge Network came Murray Battle, who in a fine way listened to and commented on projects from Georgia and Turkey making it clear what a North-American audience would love to see.

Today saturday and sunday the Academy programme goes into financing and presentation matters.

www.idfa.nl

Famous for his film about his father, ”Nobody’s Business”, clever and funny with an excellent, playful montage, it was simply great to watch the newest documentary by Alan Berliner, also with a family member as main protagonist, also with a playful montage and also a tribute to Life even if it deals with Edward Honig, who has Alzheimer’s disease, sits in his chair through the whole film, with family archive material flasbacks here and there and everywhere, shot over five years, a wonderful experience, because Edward Honig was wonderful to meet, a poet and a translator of poetry, among others Portuguese Pessao, a man on his way away from the Life he had been praising again and again, sitting in this room full of books and papers not knowing why and where and what and who.

Berliner asks and asks and gets moments out of Honig, at the same time as he tells the story about him, twice married, haunted his whole life by feeling guilty for the death of his brother when a child, and treating his sons of second marriage really bad. He gets the second wife and the two children into the film as well as other key witnesses to the life of Honig. As well as the director’s own son in musical sequences with the old man. When Honig answers Berliner, he does it normally with a humourous reaction to his own situation, that makes Berliner make excellent associative sequences (often with trains through tunnels) that loosens up tension and gives us viewers a bit of free time to reflect… well it could be on ”la condition humaine” to use a kliché. There are many films about Alzheimer’s disease, and it is indeed hard to watch what used to be a strong, well formulated man get to the point where he expresses himself with sounds, that Berliner refers to as an inspiration coming from outside the window of the room where he sits. From the birds. ”Remember How to Forget”, Honig says, ”little boy, I like you, take me for a ride in your story”, which is what Berliner has done with respect and a storytelling that is non-chronological with an elegance, that makes you think what a wonderful thing FILM is.

USA, 2012, 78 mins.

http://www.alanberliner.com/#

http://www.idfa.nl/industry/tags/project.aspx?id=F840443F-1331-482A-A23D-5C21E854D304&tab=-