Baltic Sea Forum and Screenings 2011

Documentary filmmakers from the Baltic countries, Russia, Poland, Norway and Sweden gather this week in Riga, Latvia. For the 15th time the Forum, that started on the Danish island of Bornholm, organises a meeting between those who have ideas for documentaries and those, who come from tv channels and film funds to look for new documentaries for their audiences. This so-called industry meeting, organised by National Film Centre of Latvia with the support of the EUMEDIA programme, has a very important public addition, a film programme of very high quality, entitled ”Daring Minds”:

A couple of the films have been reviewed on filmkommentaren.dk – ”Steam of Life” from Finland and ”Regretters” from Sweden. Others that have been seen by this blogger are the shocking investigative ”Give us Tomorrow” by Michael Colling and Marty Syjuco, a Shakespearean drama about an innocent man trialed and condemned for murder in a totally corrupt Philippene society – and Estonian Marianna Kaat’s human story ”Pit no.8” from an Ukrainian mining environment, where children work illegally. Also to watch is the Irish ”The Pipe”, a classic David-Goliath story (director Risteard O Domhnaill) about Irish farmers and fisherman, who rise up in protest when Shell tries to build a pipeline for natural gas through their county. Russian Alina Rudnitskaya proves again her big talent with “I will forget this Day”, a cinematically beautiful short film about young women waiting to have an abortion performed. Equally talented is local Kaspars Goba, whose “homo@lv” premiered at the Berlinale this year. This is a clip of the presentation text of the film:

“In the summer of 2005 two guys came up with the idea to organize an unprecedented event – a festive lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people’s parade through the streets of Riga, the capital of Latvia. Little did they know that their good intent would spiral into a chain of inconceivable events lasting several years: the great emotion stirred up would dramatically divide Latvian society; the persons involved would be showered, in turn, with human excrement and holy water, families would be torn apart, jobs lost, and a pastor expelled from the church for free thinking.”

Two more films will be shown – and reported on by filmkommentaren.dk: Cyril Tuschi’s “Khodorkovsky” (photo) and Banksy’s “Exit through the Gift Shop”.

http://www.mediadesklatvia.eu/baltic-sea-forum-for-documentaries-2011/

Sergey Kachin: On the Way Home

A film about an ordinary couple, Aleksay and Valya, it could be a story from everywhere… she sits at home in the house far away from big cities, she knits and sews and waits for the husband to call and come home, next to her is her beloved protector, a dog. He is a long distance truck driver, always, literally, on the road, at home once in a while, tough working conditions, phone calls between them, you sense a good ambience, the filmmaker takes his time in accordance with the life that is presented, nothing really happens apart from the dog getting more and more ill, it dies, is buried, big grief from the side of the woman.

… and sometimes the children and grandchildren pay a visit, it is warmly described, an ordinary family, for once not a film about a Russian famliy with vodka drinking all the time, no this is a non-sensational film about a family divided because of the man’s job. At the end of the film the information is given that Aleksey is seriuosly ill.

The film has a tone, it is well composed, one could maybe have wished for more context as it comes in a fine way towards the end through truck drivers communicating their opinion about Russian politics and social conditions, at the same time as you are with Aleksey in his truck in a long and hopeless queue on the road.

Russia, 56 mins., 2011

http://onthewayhome.eu/

Anne Wivel: Svend

This is a review in Danish language of a new documentary made by Anne Wivel, acclaimed veteran in Danish documentary. For years she followed her husband, politician Svend Auken in his work in- and outside Denmark. Auken, a strongly committed humanist, suffered from a cancer illness but was active until his death in August 2009. The film, that premieres this month, is brilliant.  

Udgangspunktet er jo klart fra start. Dette er en film om en mand, som er død. En dansk politikers sidste år, ”filmet og erindret af Anne Wivel”, som skrevet står på lærredet i filmens begyndelse. Anne Wivel som levede med Svend Auken i syv år, fra 2002 til hans død i august 2009. En hustru som filmer sin mand, som er syg af kræft, det kunne gå hen og blive flæbende, det er det ikke, slet slet ikke, det er tværtimod en bevægende og smuk erindring som instruktøren giver sit publikum, og på mange måder også en almenmenneskelig henvendelse, som efterlader én smilende glad over at have mødt et fint, kærligt menneske. Og forpustet for det var dog helt utroligt, hvad Svend Auken nåede af møder, taler og tv-medvirken. Og trist, naturligvis, over at det gik den vej, som det gik. Som han siger, jeg ville jo gerne leve lidt længere.

Svend Aukens engagement i klimapolitik, hans internationale betydning som medlem af diverse bestyrelser, hans retoriske begavelse og talent for at tale til store forsamlinger og gribe dem om hjertet, hvad enten han talte på dansk eller engelsk – er stærkt dokumenteret af Anne Wivel, som fulgte ham på mange rejser verden rundt. Men det er ikke derfor, at denne film om en mand, som var politiker, hæver sig højt over de mange andre politiker-film vi er blevet præsenteret for i de sidste år (Fogh, Khader, Lykketoft f.eks.). Grunden er den enkle, at her bringes vi i selskab med en politiker i sit hjem, i sit sommerhus, i en sommerlejlighed i det sydlige Frankrig, på et hotelværelse med himmelseng i Brønderslev! Med Anne Wivel bag kameraet, i årtier en af dansk dokumentarfilms stærkeste profiler som instruktør og producent.

Og det er jo derfor, at filmen hæver sig. Det er en film, det her, der er foretaget nogle valg ud fra et stort materiale, der er i klipningen fundet en rytme, hvor pauserne i det politiske ”udeliv” spiller en rolle, ind imellem de mange møder, hvor de mange små vidunderligt sigende og smukke dagligdagsøjeblikke træder frem og skaber tonen. Når Svend kommer hjem, står Anne for enden af trappen og filmer ham igen og igen. Man sidder faktisk undervejs og venter på at den scene skal gentage sig. Når Svend småsnakkende til kvinden bag kameraet spejler æg i det lille køkken og varmer mælk i mikroovnen. Det gør han mange gange i filmen. Når han starter en sætning, men ikke kan afslutte den, fordi han læser avis og ikke kan ”multi-taske”. Når han sidder i en stol med sit boardingkort i jakken, strandet i Ålborg lufthavn, maskinen går ikke pga. maskinfejl, så falder man med ham helt ned, stresser af og tager på hotel i Brønderslev. Eller når han bliver hamrende irriteret, fordi taxaen ikke kommer og han skal være i et tv-studie om et øjeblik, tingene skal klappe. Genkendelig hverdagsbeskrivelse.

Anne Wivel er bag kameraet, hun stiller spørgsmål til Svend, svarer når han spørger og beder om reaktioner til sine taler, hun er der hele tiden, men trænger sig ikke på, viser ikke hvor forfærdeligt, det må have været at filme sin mand blive mere og mere syg – for så i én sekvens, Villefranche i Sydfrankrig i januar 2009, at lade kameraets bevægelser skrive et digt om et dejligt rum med udsigt til vand, et rum med smukke ting, musik og stearinlys. Det emmer af kærlighed.      

Danmark, 110 mins., Instruktør & fotograf: Anne Wivel, Klippere: Camilla Skousen og Peter Winther, Komponist: Povl Kristian. Med støtte fra DFI og DR.

Filmen får premiere i 68 DoxBio biografer den 11. september og den 14. September, derefter vises filmen dagligt i 10-15 af biograferne. Hvor og hvornår se

www.doxbio.dk

DOC Discussion/ 8

Comments on the Doc Discussion have been posted on facebook as well. They take different directions. Producers Marie Olesen, Scotland and Sinisa Juricic, Croatia characterise the pitching  as “a fool’s game” and “a showcase of big ego’s from the other side of the table… not a useful tool for film financing”, wheras several acknowledge the contribution of Philippe van Meerbeeck. Mark Daems, producer from Belgium writes: “I’d like to click the ‘like’-button, but in fact I don’t like that Philippe is so close to the truth”.

The debate can, and should, go on but in this round the idea is now to ask Louise Rosen and Mikael Opstrup to make some closing remarks that could very well deal with: What can be done, what’s next? Their texts will be brought asap, before that you may want to read what others have to say:

Simon Kilmurry, very active commissioning editor for POV in the US writes: Hi Tue, This is a fascinating discussion, and Louise (Rosen) and Mikael (Opstrup) make some interesting and troubling observations. Another part of the problem, I think, is the sheer volume of work being produced. We are seeing twice as many films as we did 10 years ago. But resources and slots have not increased commensurately. While we have a few more slots at POV, overall broadcast space has diminished. Thanks for sharing this.

Kilmurry kindly refers to two articles about “The Fate of Documentary”, the first one, with that title, to be found in New York, August 16, written by Leslie Stonebraker – to be responded by guest blogger at POV, Heather McIntosh. I quote the end words of her article, but read both articles in full length, through sites below:

“… Documentary is an amazingly flexible, versatile and innovative form, and its makers and believers have been remarkably creative in applying it and bringing it to audiences. The mainstream presence is new, and it will become part of the documentary history as we move through the changes over time. The mainstream presence certainly expands the documentary conversation, but it is such a small part of the rich form with an even deeper and more nuanced history. Not to mention, an even deeper and more nuanced present.”

Photo: Armadillo, Janus Metz, recently broadcast on POV.

http://www.nypress.com/article-22735-the-fate-of-documentary-film.html

http://www.pbs.org/pov/blog/2011/08/the_fate_of_documentary.php

DOC Discussion/ 7

Iikka Vehkalahti writes: Dear Tue and others. I am delighted, that Louise and Mikael took the cat on the table (or how do you say in it real English?).

Anyway, now after one month out from the position of a commissioning editor (who very often has a quite weak position in his or her own organization) and when writing from  Finland, the former “heaven of documentaries” here are some few sentences. I have written during the last months so much about melancholy and the situation in Finland and in the world, that I don´t want to repeat what has already been written – and maybe the situation was very much worse some 20 years ago: There are more documentaries produced in the world than ever?

But what kind of future and possibilities do we have for that kind of films Louise, Mikael and Tue have in their minds?

Feature length documentaries. When aimed for the big screen they should also get the financing from the same sources as any film aimed for big screens. It means public funding ( Art Councils, Film Funds etc…) and cinema distribution in co-operation with tv-stations,  who will also in the future have interest in having well known, brand products for transmission. The budget for these projects is and will not be huge compared to the fiction films, but big compared to the so called normal docs. But their surviving strategy can not depend on the television.

TV-docs. Television is another platform than festival and cinema distribution. It has to be accepted and seriously considered what kind of docs are best for television (not at festivals or in cinemas). Documentaries were very strongly tied with the television distribution some 10-15 years ago. It has changed when festivals and cinema have become players in that field.  We need to go back to television and to make docs, which will conquer the television of today. Instead of using the television as a funding source for films that aim foremost to big screen or festivals.

Personally I would love to see the life and development of the challenging, demanding real documentary films – very often seen only at festivals. The question is; how to arrange the financing of those?  Rich patrons, public funding? Or different kind of production process: “returning to the origins”: man and  camera?  But in every case we need new steps in the area of the distribution.

So many net platforms have been created for the distribution of documentaries. I don´t know any that functions really well. Why?  For two years we have developed and tried different concepts and one of the solutions is to build a co-operation with broadcasters the same way as has been done with the co-production of individual documentaries.

Co-operation would make possible to charge the fee when downloading the films (what is difficult or impossible to the public broadcasters in most of the cases) even if the sum would be quite small (my guess is somewhere between 1, 99 -2, 99 euros). If and when by a real co-operation of different partners a global reach of the platform can be build, can also these docs reach a substantial amount of  audience.

Iikka Vehkalahti, filmmaker and for many years commissioning editor at YLE, Finland. Famous for his international orientation and pioneer work with for instance Steps for the Future”. Now visiting professor at School of Communication, Media and Theatre at the University in Tampere, Finland. Photo of Viktor Kossakovsky, director of “Belovs”, documentary film favourite of Vehkalahti.

DOC Discussion/ 6

Doug Aubrey writes: Hi Tue, here are some personal comments that I would like to share with you…

I’m glad to see that some of the more – shall we call them – mature protagonists are addressing the issue of the ‘State of the Docs’ across the generation gap at last.

However I have to say that what’s happened is also as a result of the old pitching forum system being hijacked to become a ‘Dragon’s Den’ or ‘Apprentice’ style reality TV show where it’s simply all about money, greed and exploitation – rather than a rigorous platform for a filmmaker’s creative, cultural and political issues to be tested. Indeed one Doc-maker I spoke with compared pitching at IDFA now to being like a performer in a pole dancing bar full of businessmen – only without the dignity!

Still perhaps the worse example of this, is what’s happening at the SIDF (Sheffield, ed.) with its speed pitching, its 1 minute trailer et al culture that favours celebrity filmmakers, shallow ideas and geek/nerd film-making; More to the point it – like many festivals – is rapidly ceasing to be the place where you see difficult, challenging and even experimental works. Instead you can witness 100’s of new film students/ emerging filmmakers (some with a lot of talent) sidling up to TV executives, who mostly are interested in hanging around bars – understandably, far from the maddening crowd – with their pals from the ‘travelling circus’, or hiding in the toilets. They have 12-50 strands to fill a year – with est 2000 films on offer – so somehow sympathise…

SIDF’s trade event calls itself the Meet market for a very ironic reason that’s probably lost in translation (and which the Americans will never understand anyway! – it being a Canadian invention and aw).

Another example of what’s happening, is the evident demise of EIFF (Edinburgh,

ed.)  this year from a through-bred film fest into a delegate/trades event with a few films attached. That the doc programme was curated by/ co-programmed with SIDF should say it all. Anyone ever heard of travelling ‘best of’ programmes?

I’m sorry if I may sound bitter and angry – but it’s because I am.

I have spent the best part of nearly 2 decades working on my current project ‘Minefield’, and instead of smoothing along in the fast lane, am now told instead of a simple: ‘I like/don’t like your film’, ‘it’s not for our marketing mix’, ‘never mind our season’, ‘your content is  not frontline enough for our edgy ‘Diversity’ strand’ etc etc, by privileged young TV execs with very little life – or filmmaking experience!

Sadly the Documentary scene has allowed itself to be hijacked (in the UK at least) by both an economic and cultural elite – who represent a privileged, orthodox and conservative gaze – rather than an auteur, angry or impassioned view on the world.

They make films that deal – mainly with eco issues – that subscribe to a mono-cultural format (the ‘monoform’ as Peter Watkins might say).

Dox are increasingly  both made and commissioned by an elite who – although some do have talent –  for the most part have no financial woes in these hard times, so can in many cases work for very little…. Some even go on to become commissioners after making very few films, in some cases they are “trained” on fast-track schemes to become TV Executives. Weird that, how they can’t understand why we aren’t all like them, but maybe a reason, I think, why many documentaries are now little better than social/war/celebrity porn.

The makers and commissioners have not empathy with and in some case hate their subjects (the worst recent example of this was BBC Scotland’s ‘The Scheme’).

For the most part TV Commissioning and many festivals  are now in the hands of brand managers not filmmakers or Doc lovers even.

Let’s reclaim the territory we’ve lost and find new spaces by all means necessary!

Rise like Lions after slumber

In unvanquishable number  –

Shake your chains to earth like dew

Which in sleep had fallen on you –

Ye are many – they are few

(Percy B Shelley)

Doug Aubrey is a filmmaker from Scotland with an impressive filmography, many times awarded for his work. About his “Minefield” project – http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/875948233/minefield

DOC Discussion/ 5

Philippe Van Meerbeeck writes:

Dear friends, My heart bleeds when I read your lines. They talk about a past that will not come back. ‘Television is dead but doesn’t know it’: when I said this in 2005 to a room full of filmmakers, my good friend Tue looked cross, probably thinking: ‘there goes my audience’. Six years later, it is a fact.

Television is alive and kicking, we never watched more television but feature doc is almost gone. Agents, buyers, schedulers will tell: hardly any slots and little money. That market dried up, the audience went elsewhere. They have reason to.

The days of choosing between one or two national channels are over. Cable, digital tv, VOD, IPTV, Netflix, i-Player, Google TV: today you can access almost any content ‘right here, right now’. In that jungle, the only way for linear (= live) television to make a difference is create events: big audiovisual ceremonies hyped as ‘must see’ because in need of huge audiences, they’re expensive.

Second track are series: a linear tv audience behaves like addicts: the same kind of soup in the same plate on the same hour, every day. Series saved television, and Hollywood by the way. One-off feature docs are a nuisance in a horizontal programme schedule. Little audience, little budget, midnight slot: that’s the logic of tv programming today. The days of the omnipotent commissioning ‘moguls’ are over: channel managers and controllers decide where the budgets go. They’re not at your pitching table.

The cry for feature docs can be compared with the one for art programs on tv. The ‘happy few’ complain there are not enough, yet they do not watch

because they have other access: they read the magazines, go to the openings and meet the artists. Most art programs reach a ‘niche’ audience: small, fragmented but committed.

‘Know your niche’ is important today. In the old days of linear tv, an audience was always a number (total amount of viewers) and a percentage (marketshare). Today intricate social dynamics are involved: your audience moves continuously from one media (e.g. print) to another (audio/video) and vice versa, and from one screen (mobile, tablet) to others (lap/desktop, flatscreen) and vice versa. And it wants to access, share and take your ‘content’ with it, in one integrated flow.

Look at your Facebook page: you can access, share and distribute text, music, pictures, video. Soon you’ll be able to screen films, connecting your tablet or laptop with a bigger screen. Social media will become your main interface with the (virtual) world, as it already is for the Y generation.

And feature doc in all this? The age of dino-docs may be over and yes, we’re in a limbo between the old and the new. Documentary needs to adapt but will not disappear: stories that matter will always be told. But they will be told differently for changing audiences interacting with different screen. So more hybrid and shortform stories in the future, since these function better on the new screens. Storytelling that needs new grammar, new tools, new skills. But once a storyteller, always a storyteller: documentary will survive.

Philippe Van Meerbeeck, Doc fan & Strategic Policy Advisor at VRT, Belgium

Photo chosen by PVM: Don’t Look Back, Pennebaker, 1967.

Jesper Andersen: At vise film er ikke nok

”Da John Stewart var vært ved Oscar-uddelingen i 2008, lavede han sjov med, at man nu kunne se “Lawrence af Arabien” på sin iPhone. Men der er millioner af unge, som ikke synes, det er morsomt, og som ikke ville have noget imod at se en klassiker på denne måde.” Det slår Jesper Andersen (Cinemateket i København) fast i en grundig og omfattende rapport, han har skrevet på baggrund af en rejse til 13 filmmuseer og samtaler med 20 af deres programfolk, ”interessen for film udspiller sig – med internettet og dvd-filmen – på flere medier end tidligere, hvilket er en stor udfordring for filmmuseer og cinemateker”, fortsætter han, og det er bare én af udfordringerne, viser hans nøgterne rejsenotater.

“Den bedste måde at bevare film er at vise dem,” mente den berømte grundlægger af Cinémathèque Française, Henri Langlois. Andersen anfører citatet som indledning, og tilføjer fra Langlois’ indlæg på filmmuseernes/filmarkivernes skelsættende kongres i København i 1948, at ”de (cinematekerne) ikke kun skal opbevare (eller sagde han ’bevare’?) film, men også arbejde for at udbrede kendskabet til filmhistorien og filmkunsten.” Det er dette formidlingsaspekt, Jesper Andersen undersøger i en række museer, og hans eget museum prøver bestemt at løbe i front. På Filmstriben.dk er man ligesom simpelthen begyndt forfra med at udstille samlingen på en ny platform. Ti danske film fra forrige århundredes første årtier digitaliseret og lagt på bibliotekernes web-udlån, alle klenodier vel, som Dreyers ”Blade af Satans bog”, 1920, 157 minutter! Det lover godt, men der er langt frem til 2011, og der er formodentlig langt til den del af udlandet, som ikke er USA.

Det med de nye vinduer er imidlertid blot én af udfordringerne for Jesper Andersen og hans kolleger, programredaktørerne på cinematekerne. Han tager i sin rapport fat på en lang række flere hurdler. Det bliver et stort problem katalog. Jeg kan kun anbefale den rapport varmt.

http://www.dfi.dk/Filmhuset/Cinemateket/Rapport-At-vise-film-er-ikke-nok.aspx

http://www.filmstriben.dk/fjernleje/page/article.aspx?id=1431

Doc Discussion/ 4

Jorge Yetano writes: I was reading the posts from Louise Rosen and Mikael Opstrup, and I must say, I have been reflecting on the subject myself for some time now, like most of us, just trying to guess which way things are going to develop, so I can’t help myself commenting. Many problems have been pointed out, the most decisive are: the drastic reduction of TV funding and the saturation of the market, yes, but I also sense other signs. This is more or less how I see it:  talent is now everywhere, where somebody can buy a cheap, tiny, high-performance camera. Cheap tiny high-performance cameras do not make good documentaries, but in talented hands, these cameras will become story-telling devices, and these devices are now in the hands of thousands. That is a fact, and it means there is no longer a centre or a direction that stories from all over the world will take. They just apperar, it is the urge to tell the story going on around you, if you live in a country with poverty, armed conflict or other kinds of trouble, including everyday life. People are telling their own stories, you can see it on the internet: there is no need anymore to go to, say, Venezuela for a documentary if there are cameras in talented hands telling the story in Venezuela. If you want stories you just need the right venues to find them (Storydoc (www.storydoc.gr) was an example). So all of this gives me a feeling (only a feeling) that we are heading towards an “ecology” of documentary. Cameras in talented hands will tell the stories that are around them: local or very local issues, low budgets and deep knowledge of the reality to be filmed (specialization), will be the normal conditions. These stories, if well made, will have a universal sense. Surely talent and storytelling will remain the keys to successful films but the art will become somewhat more like a handicraft if you wish. It actually does sound a little like going back to the origins, but hopefully there will always be a place for bigger documentary productions.

Jorge Yetano is an independent film-maker and producer, based in Zaragoza, Spain, who is currently working, along with his brother Miguel, on the feature-length documentary ON THE SHORE, a visual essay on the origin of summer holidays on the spanish mediterranean coast and it’s consequences in present time. Photo from the production.

Doc Discussion/ 1

If you surf around on websites announcing workshops and pitching fora you might very easily get the impression that everything is fine with documentary financing and coproductions between the countries.

It is not, and it should be discussed.

This is what Louise Rosen wrote to Mikael Opstrup from EDN and me, who thought that her precisely written worries should be shared by others – and eventually commented by other players in the international documentary sector. You are very welcome to join the discussion. We bring the letters below in Doc Discussion 2 & 3.

Louise Rosen is a media executive with over 25 years experience in all areas of the international television and film business. She runs an agency specializing in the financing and distribution of documentaries with particular focus on pre-sales and co-productions, and she has been invited to tutor and lecture all over the world.

Mikael Opstrup was a producer of international documentaries since the 90’s. He worked as production Adviser at The Danish Film Institute 1998-2002 and was from 2002 – 2008 co-owner of Final Cut Productions in Copenhagen. He is now Head of Studies at EDN.

http://www.louiserosenltd.com/

www.edn.dk