Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 2: Changes, Challenges, Professional Perspectives [1st ed.] 9783030173234, 9783030173241

Table of contents :
Front Matter ....Pages i-xxvii
Introduction—Volume 2: Documentary Film Festivals: Changes, Challenges, Professional Perspectives (Aida Vallejo, Ezra Winton)....Pages 1-10
Front Matter ....Pages 11-11
Introduction to Part I, Vol. 2: Changes and Challenges for Documentary and Film Festivals (Aida Vallejo)....Pages 13-21
IDFA’s Industry Model: Fostering Global Documentary Production and Distribution (Aida Vallejo)....Pages 23-53
Connecting and Sharing Experiences: Chilean Documentary Film Professionals at the Film Festival Circuit (María Paz Peirano)....Pages 55-72
The Invention of Northeastern Europe: The Geopolitics of Programming at Documentary Film Festivals (Ilona Hongisto, Kaisu Hynnä-Granberg, Annu Suvanto)....Pages 73-91
Beyond the Screen: Interactive Documentary Exhibition in the Festival Sphere (Stefano Odorico)....Pages 93-111
Positioning Documentaries at the Cannes International Film Festival: Fahrenheit 9/11 and Beyond (Eulàlia Iglesias)....Pages 113-130
Front Matter ....Pages 131-131
Introduction to Part II, Vol. 2: Professional Perspectives (Ezra Winton)....Pages 133-136
Adapting to New Times: An Interview with Ernesto del Río, Director of the Zinebi International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Bilbao (2000–2017) (Aida Vallejo)....Pages 137-145
Precarity and Resistance: An Interview with Pedro Pimenta, Founder-Director of Dockanema Documentary Film Festival (Mozambique) (Lindiwe Dovey)....Pages 147-156
Notes on Disenchantment: A Conversation with Amir Al-Emary, Former Director of the Ismailia International Film Festival for Documentaries and Shorts (Egypt) (Hassouna Mansouri)....Pages 157-165
Building Networks: An Interview with Sandra J. Ruch, Director Emeritus of the International Documentary Association (Samara Chadwick)....Pages 167-174
Selecting Films for Festivals and Documentary Funds: An Interview with Independent Film Programmer and Advisor Rada Šešić (Jennifer M. J. O’Connell, Annelies van Noortwijk)....Pages 175-184
Training Documentary Professionals: An Interview with Stefano Tealdi, Member of the Executive Board of Documentary Campus Workshop (Enrico Vannucci)....Pages 185-190
A Niche for Creativity: An Interview with Thierry Garrel, Director of the French Department of Documentary Film at TV ARTE (1991–2008) (Sevara Pan)....Pages 191-199
Connecting Festivals, Distributing Films: An Interview with Diana Tabakov, Acquisitions Manager at Doc Alliance Films VOD Platform (Andrea Slováková)....Pages 201-210
Back Matter ....Pages 211-235

Citation preview

FRAMING FILM FESTIVALS

Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 2 Changes, Challenges, Professional Perspectives Edited by Aida Vallejo · Ezra Winton

Framing Film Festivals Series Editors Marijke de Valck Department of Media and Culture Studies Utrecht University Utrecht, The Netherlands Tamara L. Falicov University of Kansas Kansas City, MO, USA

Every day, somewhere in the world a film festival takes place. Most people know about the festival in Cannes, the worlds’ leading film festival, and many will also be familiar with other high profile events, like Venice, the oldest festival; Sundance, America’s vibrant independent scene; and Toronto, a premier market place. In the past decade the study of film festivals has blossomed. A growing number of scholars recognize the significance of film festivals for understanding cinema’s production, distribution, reception and aesthetics, and their work has amounted to a prolific new field in the study of film culture. The Framing Film Festivals series presents the best of contemporary film festival research. Books in the series are academically rigorous, socially relevant, contain critical discourse on festivals, and are intellectually original. Framing Film Festivals offers a dedicated space for academic knowledge dissemination. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14990

Aida Vallejo  •  Ezra Winton Editors

Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 2 Changes, Challenges, Professional Perspectives

Editors Aida Vallejo University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) Leioa, Spain

Ezra Winton ReImagining Value Action Lab Lakehead University Thunder Bay, ON, Canada

Framing Film Festivals ISBN 978-3-030-17323-4    ISBN 978-3-030-17324-1 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17324-1 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface: Vol. 2—By Aida Vallejo and Ezra Winton

This book (indeed books, as there are two volumes that make up this collection) has been elaborated through a long process of hard work and mutual collaboration. As such, it has evolved significantly through the progression of bringing new collaborators on board, expanding to a more accurate, elaborate and thorough engagement with our much-loved topic of research: documentary film festivals. To those who have met us at conferences and festivals where we made flushed proclamations concerning the prospective publication, we can at long last say it is in the world, and do so with a satisfied smile on each of our faces and a feeling of release in our souls. The project’s wide scope has made it worthy of two volumes, Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 1. Methods, History, Politics and Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 2. Changes, Challenges, Professional Perspectives, which form a tandem set that tackles key issues at stake in both Documentary Studies and Film Festival Studies. Both books can be read separately or together as a single collection, but they do not require readers to follow a given order. Nevertheless, the first volume includes some contributions that help to frame the study of documentary film festivals in a wider context, namely a review of the literature that brings together Film Festival Studies and Documentary Studies, an interview with Bill Nichols about this subject of inquiry and a historical chapter about documentary at film festivals. While we might say the first volume is more oriented to the past, the second looks toward the future of documentary film festivals. Across both volumes, historical and political concerns are complemented by the study of recent changes that have occurred v

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in the festival circuit that affect documentary production, distribution, curation, exhibition and reception. Now that we are completing our own stage of prolonged production, we think it’s an appropriate moment to look back and share how we came to research the fascinating topic that has culminated in two books, and to introduce the reader to the personal experiences that brought us here. We hope you enjoy the book before you and find its content as challenging as we did, while also drawing inspiration from fresh insights into the enchanting and dynamic social, political, economic and cultural worlds of documentary film festivals.

A Researcher Navigating a Growing Festival Circuit (Aida Vallejo) In 2004, while still a university student participating in the European Erasmus Exchange program, I visited the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival in Greece. Back then I was stunned by the capacity of feature-­ length documentaries to attract a big audience at a moment when the classical formats associated with Nichols’s expository mode (1991, 34–38) were challenged by new aesthetic forms. The appearance of Bowling for Columbine (Michael Moore, 2002) in movie theatres two years earlier represented a turning point in documentary exhibition and a boost for documentarians to unleash their creativity and go beyond the classic distribution circuit, hitherto primarily controlled by television. A few years later, in 2007, while studying the narrative construction of contemporary documentary at Autonomous University of Madrid, I focused my attention on film festivals as an object of academic study. The shift from textual analysis to contextual concerns in my research seemed a natural step towards understanding the channels of circulation that had given exposure to the feature-length documentary form in previous years. While working as a critic covering some documentary film festivals of different character, such as the veteran Zinebi Documentary and Short Film Festival of Bilbao, the internationally recognised Thessaloniki Documentary Festival and the daring newcomer Punto de Vista de Navarra, I started to reflect upon their role in the circulation of films. Creative documentary had suddenly taken the stage, breathing new life into a genre that was for a long time relegated to television and which had adopted the reportage formats associated with that medium. The spread

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of creative documentary and the extension to feature-length productions provided the necessary input for film festivals to multiply across the globe and maintain a continuous flow of diverse and high-profile films that would fill their programmes, while new digital technologies bolstered production and exhibition, facilitating new recording, editing and projection infrastructures. A preliminary search for documentary showcases inevitably raised questions of context: How many festivals were currently operating worldwide? What was their international relevance? Who were the people behind these events that created an audience for new documentary trends spreading worldwide, such as first-person documentary or—as would be seen later on—animation and interactive documentary? Eager to answer these questions, I embarked on a research project that allowed me to travel throughout the European continent, from Zinebi in my hometown Bilbao (Basque Country, Spain) to Jihlava (Czech Republic); from Dokufest in Prizren (Kosovo) to Helsinki (Finland); from ZagrebDox (Croatia) to IDFA (Amsterdam, the Netherlands). The proliferation of festivals specialising in documentary film cannot be dissociated from the appearance of certain films that laid the foundations for further documentary exhibition. Moreover, several festival founders were also filmmakers themselves. I remember the words of the director of the Documentarist Film Festival, Necati Sönmez, in the cafe of cinema Olympion in Aristotle Square during the Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival (Greece) in 2010, as he spoke about his reasons and inspiration to create his own film festival in Istanbul (Turkey). Les glaneurs et la glaneuse (Agnès Varda, 2000) was indeed the film that pushed him to start a festival in the metropolis divided by the Bosphorus in 2008, a city in which he also worked as a filmmaker. Interestingly, many of these films came from different parts of the world, adding to the cultural and linguistic diversity for which film festivals appeared to serve as a suitable breeding ground. Coming from a region where linguistic policies were a major cultural and political concern, I was curious about subtitling practices on the international circuit. I remember the conversations about technical issues with subtitle projectionists in Punto de Vista, as well as reflecting on the trilingual subtitling practices in Zinebi (in English, Spanish and Basque) and wondering what happens with Basque subtitles once the festival is over, given the limitations of minoritized languages to be used for further exhibition. Archival practices at these events also caught my attention. Quite unforgettably, in my aim to watch films from the first editions of the

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Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival, I had to keep my balance on the back of a motorbike with three boxes of VHS films covering a retrospective on Yugoslavia programmed by the festival during the war in the 1990s. I had found the films by digging in a warehouse in the industrial area on the outskirts of the city, thanks to the kind assistance of Thessaloniki Museum of Cinema staff member Giorgos, who piloted the motorbike. The visit to OSA Archivum in late winter in Budapest turned out to be quite different, where I encountered the newest technology for film storage at an institution that benefits from the strong financial support of the Open Society Foundation.1 Precisely at the moment I arrived (in 2009) they were signing the contract to include the films of Péter Forgács in their collection. Throughout this period, conversations with festival directors, programmers, filmmakers, archivists and industry professionals provided me with rich insights into the backstage of festival practices, but at the same time these experiences brought about an ever-increasing number of new questions: What was the origin of these festivals? How had they developed historically? What was their relation to politics? What were their programming strategies? And what were their archival practices? How were filmmakers using them not only to exhibit films but also to get funding and distribute them? What was their role in the preservation of linguistic diversity? These two volumes provide answers to these questions, inviting the reader to reflect upon the origins, aims and functioning patterns of the documentary festival ecosystem.

A Curator Researching Film Festivals as Sites of Culture and Politics (Ezra Winton) Two decades ago I had an epiphany at a small film event, the World Community Film Festival, in my hometown of Courtenay on Vancouver Island (British Columbia, Canada), that would irrevocably change the course of my life. I had read a review of a film that was playing at the festival, and with a friend headed to the Sid Williams Theatre to whet my curiosity. At the time, I had little interest in documentary and knew nothing about East Timor, nor media ownership concentration and the troubling collusion between corporate power and media institutions, so it is fair to say that Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media (Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick 1992) blew my mind. After the epic

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documentary’s credits rolled, I recall leaping to my feet, grabbing my friend by the arm, and yelling: “LET’S GO!” As I ran up the aisle past the mostly middle-aged and elderly audience members, I felt the unique and rare force of a life-changing, worldview-defining moment take over my entire being. I burst out into the sleepy streets of my town, and rubbing my eyes as they adjusted to the late afternoon light, shrieked to my friend with a kind of strange zeal that doubly infected and gave him cause for apprehension: “WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING—NOW!” And off we went, naively starting an East Timor Alert Network chapter in Courtenay and telling everyone and anyone we could about the insidious ways mainstream media was manufacturing our very own consent—without us even knowing it! It is important to note that this film was a documentary and that the space where I encountered the said documentary was formed by a film festival. Documentary, as fiction film’s naughty and regularly punished cousin, rarely finds space on commercial cinema screens anywhere, let alone in Canada’s Hollywood-owned and dominated market.2 Manufacturing Consent certainly wasn’t enjoying a celebrated run at Courtenay’s local Megaplex alongside Reservoir Dogs, Basic Instinct and The Crying Game. No, this profound paradigm-shifting moment in my life occurred because two traditionally marginalized and alternative media forms and platforms converged in my town to exhibit a film that challenged the status quo to which I had blithely and ignorantly acquiesced to until that point. For me, that moment represents the transformative and explosive potential of the union of socially engaged documentary cinema and the public-facing film festival. Realizing this meant I would end up studying, researching and creating projects that interrogate and celebrate this combustible combination of cultural/political expression with social space into the decades that followed. With that in mind, in 2003 I co-founded (with Svetla Turnin) what is now the documentary world’s largest community and campus-based exhibition network, Cinema Politica, a vast circuit in its own right, which runs parallel to the ever-expanding film festival circuit. As an alternative exhibition network focused on showcasing political and independent (POV) documentaries, Cinema Politica often collaborates and interfaces with many documentary festivals. As such, I have had the privilege to attend and work with festivals like Rencontres Internationales du Documentaire de Montréal (RIDM) and Festival du nouveau cinéma (FNC) in Montreal, Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival (Hot Docs) and

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imagineNATIVE in Toronto, Docudays UA International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival in Kiev, Jeden Svet/One World Human Rights Film Festival in Prague, International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) in Amsterdam, Sofia International Film Festival in Sofia, and many others. Along the way I have published critical pieces about the lack of space provided to activists at large documentary festivals (such as Hot Docs), I’ve sat on juries, and I’ve written countless film reviews thanks to the access to often hard-to-reach films these festivals afforded me. In more recent years I have also taught courses on film festivals and curatorial politics, sometimes with a documentary focus. But it is programming that has sustained my interest in documentary film festivals over the years. The cultural politics of programming—that is critical consideration regarding who decides what gets in, what stays out, and the manner in which each film is presented to the public—is one of the most fascinating and under-studied aspects of film festivals as a wider subject, and documentary festivals in particular. We live in an age of hyper-­ curation, where we constantly accede our own agency in choosing what content flows in the many channels that comprise our mediascapes. Festivals have risen to prominence as traditional (broadcast) television still clings to Palaeolithic conventions and modalities (including running times defined by advertising, suit-and-tie hosts, the erasure of the working classes, and the antiquated laugh track). Yet festivals have also flourished at a time of the rampant proliferation of the so-called new media, where eyeballs all over the world increasingly refocus as they shift from larger to smaller screens. So, on the one hand, documentary film festivals offer an exciting alternative space and experience to story-broke Hollywood and its Megaplexes, as well as traditional television’s craggy conventions. On the other hand, documentary film festivals are thriving in an era of online media consumption that only continues to grow; on this latter point it is perhaps encouraging to see that all over the world audiences still seek out the kind of experience that festivals offer, that is the “event-fullness” of experiencing a (documentary) film with a bunch of strangers in the dark, who later may or may not mingle and discuss the stories they have encountered together, in a social setting. Either way, documentary and film festivals are here to stay—as separately defined cultural and media phenomena, and as intermingling forces that are reflecting and giving shape to our cinemas and cultures on a global scale. For my part, I’m delighted to be along for the ride and hope to be

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running up aisles and screaming outside of festival screenings well into the future. Leioa, Spain Thunder Bay, ON, Canada 

Aida Vallejo Ezra Winton

Notes 1. An initiative of the investor George Soros, who also founded the Central European University to which the archive is associated. 2. It is estimated, according to Acland (2003), that commercial exhibition screens in Canada show less than 3% of Canadian cinema outside the province of Quebec (where numbers are notably higher).

References Acland, Charles. 2003. Screen Traffic: Movies, Multiplexes, and Global Culture. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Nichols, Bill. 1991. Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

Acknowledgments: Vol. 2

This project, which has culminated in a two-volume collection of chapters and interviews, is the result of several years of research, some of it funded by different public institutions and conducted through various research projects. We would like to thank the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), IkerFESTS research project,1 HAUtaldea research project,2 MAC research group, the Department of Education, Universities and Research of the Government of the Basque Country, the ReImagining Value Action Lab (RiVAL) at Lakehead University in Canada, the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (Canada), and the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (National Plan Research Actions I+D+I), funder of @CIN-EMA research project.3 Special thanks to the people whose taxes help to develop independent research, the output of which will hopefully contribute to better understand and improve the social and cultural environments to which they belong. We would like to thank everyone involved in this project, including those who had to drop out during this long way. Enormous thanks to each of the contributing authors of both volumes, who gave their time, hard work and expertise so that this project would come to fruition. We would also like to express deep gratitude to the team at Palgrave Macmillan, and especially the Framing Film Festivals series editors, Marijke de Valck and Tamara L. Falicov, for their support, encouragement and wise advice throughout the review and publication process. We would also like to thank our colleagues who helped us in both obvious and subtle ways to get through this long project, particularly Marijke xiii

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de Valck, Skadi Loist, María Paz Peirano, Thomas Waugh, Lucas Freeman and Liz Czach, all of whom shared their experience and knowledge and helped us with their generous advice. A number of festival organizers, filmmakers, archivists, television and other institutional representatives (and other scholars and practitioners) also helped us track, record and analyze the current state of documentary film festivals worldwide. Over the years of conducting this research and bringing these two volumes to light, we frequented several festivals, all of which are mentioned in our Preface and/or introductions. But needless to say, we are grateful for the opportunities they have afforded the intrepid and weary researcher balancing cinephilia with critical inquiry. Finally, thanks to our families, friends and partners for their support, patience and help. The time we have stolen from them to bring this project to light is not insignificant. In this long process we have seen new people coming into our life while others left in the process. It is to them that we owe our deepest gratitude.

Notes 1. Research project on Film and Audiovisual Festivals in the Basque Country, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). Grant number: EHUA16/31 http://www.ehu.eus/ehusfera/ikerfests/. 2. “Visual Anthropology: a model for creativity and knowledge transference.” University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). Grant number: EHU11/26. http://www.ehu.eus/ehusfera/hautaldea/. 3. “Transnational relations in Hispanic digital cinemas: the axes of Spain, Mexico, and Argentina.” Grant number: CSO2014-52750-P. The project is led by Miguel Fernández Labayen and Josetxo Cerdán Los Arcos at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M). https://uc3m.libguides. com/c.php?g=499893&p=3422753.

Contents

Introduction—Volume 2: Documentary Film Festivals: Changes, Challenges, Professional Perspectives  1 Aida Vallejo and Ezra Winton Part I Changes and Challenges  11 Introduction to Part I, Vol. 2: Changes and Challenges for Documentary and Film Festivals 13 Aida Vallejo IDFA’s Industry Model: Fostering Global Documentary Production and Distribution 23 Aida Vallejo Connecting and Sharing Experiences: Chilean Documentary Film Professionals at the Film Festival Circuit 55 María Paz Peirano The Invention of Northeastern Europe: The Geopolitics of Programming at Documentary Film Festivals 73 Ilona Hongisto, Kaisu Hynnä-Granberg, and Annu Suvanto

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Beyond the Screen: Interactive Documentary Exhibition in the Festival Sphere 93 Stefano Odorico Positioning Documentaries at the Cannes International Film Festival: Fahrenheit 9/11 and Beyond113 Eulàlia Iglesias Part II Professional Perspectives 131 Introduction to Part II, Vol. 2: Professional Perspectives133 Ezra Winton Adapting to New Times: An Interview with Ernesto del Río, Director of the Zinebi International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Bilbao (2000–2017)137 Aida Vallejo Precarity and Resistance: An Interview with Pedro Pimenta, Founder-Director of Dockanema Documentary Film Festival (Mozambique)147 Lindiwe Dovey Notes on Disenchantment: A Conversation with Amir Al-Emary, Former Director of the Ismailia International Film Festival for Documentaries and Shorts (Egypt)157 Hassouna Mansouri Building Networks: An Interview with Sandra J. Ruch, Director Emeritus of the International Documentary Association167 Samara Chadwick Selecting Films for Festivals and Documentary Funds: An Interview with Independent Film Programmer and Advisor Rada Šešić175 Jennifer M. J. O’Connell and Annelies van Noortwijk

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Training Documentary Professionals: An Interview with Stefano Tealdi, Member of the Executive Board of Documentary Campus Workshop185 Enrico Vannucci A Niche for Creativity: An Interview with Thierry Garrel, Director of the French Department of Documentary Film at TV ARTE (1991–2008)191 Sevara Pan Connecting Festivals, Distributing Films: An Interview with Diana Tabakov, Acquisitions Manager at Doc Alliance Films VOD Platform201 Andrea Slováková Index of Festivals211 Index of Subjects217 Index of Films229 Index of Names233

Notes on Contributors

Samara Chadwick  is a documentary filmmaker, programmer, and scholar who spent over 15 years working in the field of non-fiction in Germany, Denmark, Vanuatu, Brazil, Italy, the US and Canada. She has a PhD in Cultural Studies and has programmed films and conferences for HotDocs in Toronto, the 2ANNAS Film Festival in Riga, the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro (MAM), and the Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art/7th Berlin Biennale in Berlin. In 2015–2016 she curated the Market, Conference, Talent Lab and Kino VR programmes of the Montréal International Documentary Festival (RIDM). Since 2017, she is a Senior Programmer for the Points North Institute and the Camden International Film Festival, and is in post-production on her first feature documentary with Parabola Films (Canada), Beauvoir Films (Switzerland) and the National Film Board of Canada. Samara is Project Lead on VR:RV, a German/Canadian Exchange in Virtual Reality, a partnership between the Goethe-Institut Montréal and MUTEK_IMG (among many others). Lindiwe  Dovey  is a film scholar, curator, and filmmaker whose main region of focus has been sub-Saharan Africa. She is Reader in Screen Arts and Industries, and Chair of the Centre for Media and Film Studies, at SOAS University of London, and was the co-founding director of both the Cambridge African Film Festival and Film Africa, London’s African film festival. She has published widely on screen media and film festivals and her most recent book is Curating Africa in the Age of xix

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Film Festivals (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), which launched Palgrave’s Framing Film Festivals series and has been called an “essential read” by Cameron Bailey, the Artistic Director of the Toronto International Film Festival. Ilona Hongisto  is Associate Professor in Film Studies at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU); Adjunct Professor (Docent) in Media Theory and Aesthetics at the University of Turku, Finland; and Adjunct Professor (Docent) in Documentary Film at Aalto University, Finland. Hongisto works across film and media studies, specializing in documentary cinema. Her most recent work focuses on fabulation in post-1989 Eastern European documentary film. Her publications include the monograph Soul of the Documentary: Framing, Expression, Ethics (Amsterdam University Press, 2015) and peer-­reviewed articles in such journals as Studies in Documentary Film, Journal of Scandinavian Cinema, Cultural Studies Review, and Transformations. Kaisu Hynnä-Granberg  is a Doctoral Candidate in Media Studies at the University of Turku, Finland. Her doctoral research focuses on the themes of non-­normative embodiment, social media and affect theory by looking at the body positive movement online and its ways of appealing affectively to its audiences. Eulàlia Iglesias  is a film and TV critic and lecturer at Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Tarragona), where she teaches courses on “Contemporary Aesthetic Trends in Communication” and “Film and TV Theory and Analysis”. She is a member of the editorial board in Caimán—Cuadernos de Cine (former Cahiers du Cinéma España), she regularly contributes to several media such as the Catalan journal Ara, the Spanish digital journal El Confidencial, Time Out Barcelona, Rockdelux, and Sensacine (Allocine in Spain). She is a programming advisor for the D’A—Barcelona International Auteur Film Festival and the Sevilla European Film Festival. Hassouna  Mansouri studied French literature and cinema at the University of Tunis. In the early 90s he started to write about cinema in Tunisian daily newspapers and magazines. He also organized film retrospectives and activities on film criticism. In 1995 he created Le Cercle des Amis de Fassbinder. In 2001 he went on to establish Le Cinephile, the official publication of the Tunisian section of the International Federation of film critics, of which he was president from 2000 to 2006. In the same period, from 2003–2007, he was elected vice-president of Fipresci

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(Fédération Internationale de la Presse Cinématographique), and continues to work for it as director of department in charge of African and Arab Affairs. In 2004, at the occasion of the International Film Festival of Carthage, he created the African Federation of Film Critics. He was the first general secretary of this organisation and he is currently editor of its website: www.africine.org. Mansouri is the author of three monographs on the cinema of the South and has contributed to many collective publications on cinema, and is pursuing a PhD at Cergy-Pontoise University (Cergy-Pontoise). www.baobab-baobabs.blogspot.com. Jennifer M.J. O’Connell  is head of programming of Studium Generale Groningen, a public platform for knowledge and reflection of the University of Groningen and the Hanze University of Applied Sciences. She also headed the International Film Festival Assen and was a junior lecturer in the Department of Arts, Culture and Media at the University of Groningen. Her research focuses on documentary theory and film festival policy. Recent publications include “Toward a Cognitive Definition of First-Person Documentary” in Cognitive Theory and Documentary Film (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018) and two entries on the Netherlands in Women Screenwriters: An International Guide (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). Her research focuses on documentary theory and film festival policy. Stefano  Odorico  is a Reader in Contemporary Screen Media at Leeds Trinity University, Research Fellow in Film and Media at the University of Bremen and Associate Director of IRIS (International Research Centre for Interactive Storytelling, Leeds). His current work focuses primarily on interactive factual platforms and transmedia complexity. He has recently concluded a fully funded three-year research project on Interactive Documentaries (DFG—German Research Foundation). He has published numerous articles in international journals and anthologies on film and media theory, media practice, documentary studies, urban spaces in media, new media and interactive documentaries. He is a cofounder and member of the editorial team of Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media. Sevara Pan  is a film and broadcast journalist. She has written for the leading European magazine on documentary filmmaking DOX and the International Documentary Association’s Documentary Magazine. Pan has also worked on a number of documentary feature-length films, including Vitaly Manski’s award-winning Pipeline and Clara Trischler’s The First Sea.

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María Paz  Peirano is a lecturer in Film and Cultural Studies at Universidad de Chile. As a Social Anthropologist, she explores different aspects of the relationship between anthropology and cinema, understanding film as social practice. Her current research looks at the role of international film festivals as educational hubs for peripheral filmmakers, particularly Latin American directors and producers, the mapping of local film festivals in Chile, and their role in fostering local film culture and new audiences. Recent research includes the analysis of “Chile Films” (1941–1949)—the failed Chilean film industry national project—, the politics of Chilean documentary film after Pinochet’s dictatorship, and women’s film production in Chile, focusing on working conditions and collaborative practices among female directors, producers and technicians. Andrea  Slováková  is a documentary filmmaker, teacher and programmer. She was born in Slovakia but now lives and works in Czech Republic. She studied Mass Media Studies at the Faculty of Social Sciences of Charles University in Prague and graduated from Film Science at the Philosophical Faculty of Charles University, where is finishing her postgraduate studies. She studied documentary filmmaking at Film Academy FAMU in Prague. From 2003 to March 2011 she worked in the management of Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival, in the last years as the director for publishing activities. Currently she continues to program experimental films and is an editor of bimonthly Dok.revue. She publishes articles in different magazines (e.g. Cinepur, Kino Ikon, A2) and was editor-in-chief of the annual anthology of texts on documentary called DO.  She teaches history and methods of documentary film at Masaryk’s University Brno. Annu Suvanto  has a BA in Media Studies from the University of Turku, Finland. She is currently working on her degree in Cultural Management at the Humak University of Applied Sciences. Suvanto is a film festival professional and has held multiple positions in festival production and programming at different film festivals in Finland. Aida Vallejo  is a film historian and social anthropologist who works as an Associate Professor at the University of the Basque Country, where she teaches documentary film theory and practice. She holds a PhD in History of Cinema by Autonomous University of Madrid with a study of docu-

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mentary film festivals in Europe, and a MA on theory and practice of documentary film by Autonomous University of Barcelona. Aida is the founder and coordinator of the Documentary Work-group of the European Network for Cinema and Media Studies (NECS). She has published extensively on documentary and narratology, film festivals and ethnography of the media, and with María Paz Peirano has co-­edited Film Festivals and Anthropology (2017). She has carried out fieldwork at several international festivals, mainly across Europe. Annelies van Noortwijk  is a senior lecturer at the Department of Arts, Culture and Media Studies at the University of Groningen (The Netherlands). Her research concentrates on contemporary documentary practice with a specific interest in questions of engagement, resistance and ethics and the penetration of artistic discourse into non-traditional forms of art. Recent publications include “The Other, the Same. Towards a Metamodern Poetics with Heddy Honigmann,” in Female Authorship and the Documentary Image (2018), “Toward a Cognitive Definition of FirstPerson Documentary” in Cognitive Theory and Documentary Film (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018) and “See Me, Feel Me, Touch Me, Heal Me, La Question de la Mémoire dans le Documentaire à l’Epoque Métamoderne,” in Un Art Documentaire: Enjeux Esthétiques, Politiques et Ethiques (Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2017). Enrico  Vannucci  was born in Sassuolo, Italy, and has been passionate about films since childhood due to his permissive parents letting him watch VHS tapes and going to the cinema together with them. In 2007, he graduated in screenwriting from the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia and was awarded his MA in Film Studies from the University of Bologna in 2008 with a thesis exploring John Frankenheimer and Jonathan Demme’s The Manchurian Candidate. He has been a member of film festival programming teams since 2010 and currently works as a short film advisor for the Venice Film Festival and as a short film curator at the Torino Short Film Market, as well as being a freelance curator. In recent years he has written essays on the short and feature film festival ecosystem that have been published and presented at international conferences. Finally, he has covered major film festivals as a journalist since 2009. Ezra Winton  is a curator, critic and teacher. He is a Visiting Scholar at Lakehead University, where he researches documentary, film festivals, curatorial practices and politics, screen ethics, Canadian cinema and

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Indigenous film and media. He is finishing a book that looks at the commercialization of documentary at film festivals, with Hot Docs as the case study, called Buying In to Doing Good: Documentary Politics and Curatorial Ethics at the Hot Docs Film Festival (McGill-Queen’s University Press), and is co-­editing a collection with Lakota artist Dana Claxton entitled Insiders/Outsiders: The Cultural Politics and Ethics of Indigenous Representation and Participation in Canada’s Media Arts (Wilfrid-Laurier University Press). He is co-editor of Challenge for Change: Activist Documentary at the National Film Board of Canada (MQUP, 2010), Screening Truth to Power: A Reader on Documentary Activism (Cinema Politica, 2014) and is a contributing editor at POV Magazine. He is also co-founder and Director of Programming of Cinema Politica, the world’s largest documentary screening network. Ezra is a settler scholar of Dutch and English ancestry who was born and raised in K’ómoks territory on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. https://twitter.com/ ezrawinton.

List of Images and Figures

IDFA’s Industry Model: Fostering Global Documentary Production and Distribution Image 1 Project presentation at IDFA’s Central Pitch in the 2015 edition of the IDFA Forum. (Image by Aida Vallejo) 32 Image 2 IDFA Academy participants and Industry professionals attend a talk by Victor Kossakovsky and Tom Fassaert at the 2015 edition of the festival. (Image by Aida Vallejo) 42 Image 3 IDFA accredited professionals meet at the Guest meet Guests informal evening gathering at the Café de Jaren near the festival headquarters in the 2015 festival edition. (Image by Aida Vallejo)45

The Invention of Northeastern Europe: The Geopolitics of Programming at Documentary Film Festivals Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3

Distribution of screened films by festival Distribution of screened films by production country The distribution of festival screenings by production country and festival year

80 81 82

Beyond the Screen: Interactive Documentary Exhibition in the Festival Sphere Image 1 Fastnet Film Festival web-site. Courtesy of Fastnet Film Festival - http://www.fastnetshortfilmfestival.com100 Image 2 VR experience of The Enemy at IDFA 2015 104

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Positioning Documentaries at the Cannes International Film Festival: Fahrenheit 9/11 and Beyond Image 1 Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse (The Gleaners and I, Agnès Varda, 2000)119 Image 2 Sacro GRA (Gianfranco Rosi, 2013) 124

Connecting Festivals, Distributing Films: An Interview with Diana Tabakov, Acquisitions Manager at Doc Alliance Films VOD Platform Image 1 Diana Tabakov at the Emerging producers presentation at the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival 2018

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List of Tables

IDFA’s Industry Model: Fostering Global Documentary Production and Distribution Table 1 IDFA Forum projects by type and number of attendees (2003–2018)34 Table 2 Docs for Sale market’s facts and figures (2008–2018) 37 Table 3 IDFA Fund Selected projects in the period 2011–2018 39

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Introduction—Volume 2: Documentary Film Festivals: Changes, Challenges, Professional Perspectives Aida Vallejo and Ezra Winton

This volume is being released at a time when the worldwide proliferation of documentary film festivals is developing in tandem with the increasing international recognition of feature-length documentaries made for the big screen. After suffering television format purgatory for decades, and parallel to the digital revolution around the year 2000, documentary has asserted its cinematographic stake beyond the small screen (see Austin 2007; Hardie 2008). Partly due to a reduction of costs in exhibition and production, the genre has diversified festival and theatrical exhibition spaces while also proving an affordable means for producing featurelength films in the digital era. If we can point to one high-profile exhibition event that has worked to align the festival and documentary stars and cast a bright light on the documentary and festival worlds, that would be the generalist, A. Vallejo (*) University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Leioa, Spain e-mail: [email protected] E. Winton ReImagining Value Action Lab, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, ON, Canada © The Author(s) 2020 A. Vallejo, E. Winton (eds.), Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 2, Framing Film Festivals, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17324-1_1

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industry-focused Cannes Film Festival. The star-studded nexus for Hollywood and art house hits, box-office titans and smouldering indies not only programmed Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine in 2002, but two years later would award the coveted Palme d’Or to the ruck-­ making director for Fahrenheit 9/11, ushering one of the longest standing ovations in the festival’s history as well as global theatrical distribution for the film.1 This was perhaps the genre’s most optimistic moment on the world stage, and flashing forward almost two decades later, the boom in documentary theatrical distribution and exhibition has plateaued (while production has obversely soared).2 Nevertheless, this short history points to the apposing trend to documentary’s anaemic presence in commercial theatrical spaces: the scaling up of documentary at generalist festivals and the sturdy march of documentary-focused film festivals across the globe. These are just some of the concerns that traverse the present collection, focused on recent changes in documentary exhibition at film festivals. As Marijke de Valck notes  in her seminal work (2007), film festivals have become multi-faceted events that serve as meeting points for filmmakers, producers, distributors, critics, curators,  audiences, and stakeholder communities. Documentary festivals play a crucial role in documentary production, curation, distribution, reception and scholarship, and therefore the study of their more recent challenges and developments is key to critically assessing contemporary documentary film. Nevertheless, while one may easily locate studies charting the rise of the film festival or the prominence of the feature-length documentary, there is a dearth of scholarly (or otherwise) material exploring the intersection of these ascending cultural phenomena.3 This volume aims to fill this gap, calling attention to the growing interconnected nature of the documentary festival circuit, analyzing institutional practices and patterns of circulation of films and filmmakers, as well as amplifying the perspectives of professionals that have made of these ephemeral events their workplace and sites for professional development. In what follows, we start by articulating a definition of the documentary festival. Drawing on the work of Nichols, we then elaborate on the discussion started in the introduction of our first volume (where we look at epistemological, socio-political and aesthetic components of this definition). Here, we reflect on the role of the institutional framework in defining documentary festivals as the places of interaction involving the main agents of  documentary (including practitioners, institutions, texts and viewers). Lastly, we summarize the contents of the two sections of this

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volume, the first of which is devoted to academic analysis of recent trends in the documentary festival circuit, and the second to insider accounts of professionals working on the festival circuit.

Towards a Definition of the Documentary Film Festival (Part II) In the first volume of this tandem compendium, we proposed a thorough review of the literature that brings together Film Festival Studies and Documentary Studies. While these are for the most part disparate fields concerned with divergent issues (there is a tendency within Documentary Studies to focus on textual analysis and ethical concerns, while Film Festival Studies has  predominantly looked at institutional and industrial aspects, including distribution, exhibition and production), we believe that Documentary Studies can be enriched by the study of the contexts of documentary exhibition that a focus on film festivals offers. As an underexplored object (and area) of study, it is instructive to manifest a definition of the documentary film festival. With this in mind, we draw on various concepts discussed by Nichols (1991, 2010), which point to key aspects that help guide the focus of each of our two volumes. The first is related to epistemological, socio-political and aesthetic dimensions (2010) (and is discussed at length in our first volume dedicated to methodological, historical and political aspects of documentary film festivals). The second serves as a reference point to the diverse aspects discussed in this volume, namely recent changes that have occurred in the festival circuit and its growing influence in production and distribution. As Nichols notes, the institutional framework is key for defining the documentary genre, and agents involved in this process (including practitioners, institutions, texts and viewers) contribute to it in a constant negotiation (1991, 14–31). Given that film festivals are shared spaces for these agents to co-­ mingle, exchange ideas, chase trends and raise debate, Nichols’s premises are paramount to our definition of the documentary festival. Bringing these two aspects together, we define documentary festivals as public and/or industry events dedicated to the curation and exhibition of the cinematic genre or mode known as documentary, differentiating themselves from events specializing in other film genres and practices, such as fiction or animation. Documentary film festivals are social, cultural and discursive spaces in which multiple sectors, agents and forces of documentary film interact (be they directors, producers, sales agents, funders,

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sponsors, programmers, critics, audiences, and so on) and where creative and economic (and sometimes political) alliances are forged. Specializing in this genre calls for a distinctive frame of interpretation as it selects films that claim a relation to ‘reality’ both in form (with its own conventions, aesthetics and sub-genres) and content (portraying alleged ‘facts’). This involves an intrinsic socio-political dimension and a particular relationship with (and against) mainstream media discourses. In what follows, we will deepen the focus on the institutional aspects that define the documentary festival, looking at specific festival dynamics that have occurred in recent years. Nichols’s classic definition of documentary posits four considerations: “a community of practitioners”, “an institutional practice”, “a corpus of texts” and “a constituency of viewers” (1991, 14–31). These “axes of orientation” highlight the contribution to the documentary definition of four main agents, namely: institutions, filmmakers, films and audiences. The festival’s very nature as a nodal point at which these agents meet, interact and negotiate puts it in a key position as an intermediary among all these defining forces. Moreover, as some chapters in this volume attest,4 a remarkable percentage of work made by documentary professionals takes place intensively during festivals. This includes selecting films for programming, selling or buying documentaries, searching for producers and funders, writing film reviews, initiating collaborations,  facilitating exposure to social and political campaigns and watching films, among others. Although each of the aforementioned agents interpret documentary in particular and divergent ways, it is at the festival site that these various operatives coalesce and bump up against each other. What is at stake, then, is each festival’s capacity to deal with the agendas of all these agents and, accordingly, to what extent the festival is able to privilege its own view (and values) of what the documentary is, and therefore contribute to defining documentary. Documentary festivals articulate their distinctive approach to the genre through multiple strategies. These include film curating—which involves the selection (and rejection) of films, as well as their placement in differentiated program sections (competitive, thematic and retrospectives); the discovery of new films and première presentations; the managing of media coverage and assignment of prizes; the organizing of conferences, round tables and seminars; the publishing of books and specialized texts; and the creation of funding envelopes and industry activities.5 Festivals are the places where a film’s qualities are evaluated and negotiated by programmers, critics, juries and audiences. Documentary festivals contribute to the

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ongoing project of defining the genre not only through their programming and awards, but also through their official discourse. A comparative analysis of contemporary festival programs shows a growing tendency of many events to select the same films. This trend has developed parallel to a multiplication of the number of films showcased. Big “festival hits” such as Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman, 2008) or The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer, 2012) travel from festival to festival, while successful sub-genres—from experimental non-fiction to music documentaries—find accommodation through different program sections catering to themes. Hence, festivals’ differentiated identity is more related to the contextualization of films within their programs, rather than to their selection as a whole. For example, while CPH:DOX in Copenhagen has built a reputation as a showcase of experimental works that navigate the boundaries of fiction and documentary, IDFA’s (Amsterdam) identity is built around curating works that creatively address socio-political issues. Nevertheless, we can see films that participate in both festivals, yet they do so in different sections. Festivals’ contribution to defining documentary is therefore played out  on one hand through the festivals’ curatorial practices—which involves deciding in which section films will be presented (and therefore potentially awarded)—, and on the other hand through the contextualization of the films within the festival’s own discourse—whereby some films that fit into the festival’s definitional framework are privileged over others. It is in this context that genre crossovers and new forms that challenge documentary conventions are being articulated. In many cases, festivals have created a space for these cinematic forms through festivalgenerated or supported concepts such as “the creative documentary,” which is differentiated from the closed format of the journalistic television documentary featuring talking heads and an omniscient voice-over with illustrative images—a mixture of what Nichols has labeled as the “expository” and “participatory” modes (1991). Although there is no consensus about what exactly constitutes “the creative documentary”— neither in the academic, nor in the professional world (other concepts include “auteur documentary” “or feature-length documentary”)—, the main features commonly associated to the creative documentary gravitate between an exploration of the cinematic language both in its aesthetic and narrative dimensions, as well as a cinematographic vocation (a common denominator is that these films are conceived for the big screen). Moreover, the word non-fiction—associated with the documentary

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genre since the 1970s in the academic realm (see Barsam 1973; Barnow 1983; Plantinga 1997)—,6 has been widely used in the festival context to highlight this distinction and reflect on the blurring boundaries of fiction and documentary. While “documentary” still remains as the most common identity label in festival titles, some events have shifted names, erasing the “documentary” word from them. This is the case of today’s FIDMarseille or  Marseille International Film Festival, which started as Biennale Européenne du Documentaire in 1990 and shifted its name to Vue sur le Docs in its second edition, to become FIDMarseille (Festival International du Documentaire de Marseille) in 1999. A diachronic look at the festival catalogues shows that since the 2000s, the word documentary has steadily taken less visibility in the festival’s title, to completely disappear from it, with only the “D” of FIDMarseille remaining. This is a strategy directly related to the curatorial practices of the festival to widen their scope beyond the classic documentary, including new experimental and alternative fictional forms within its program. We argue that the film festival circuit has created a space for the development of this type of documentary (as an alternative exhibition space to television and, to some extent, as a preliminary step for later distribution in movie theaters). For this reason, we focus on contextual analysis and put specialized film festivals in the focus of our study, as they are key events for the creation of cultural networks around creative documentary, and therefore contribute greatly to its definition.

Structure and Contents While our first volume of this collection, Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 1. Methods, History, Politics, is more focused on peering into the past of documentary festivals, this second volume is primarily concentrated on their future. The book is divided into two sections, each prefaced by a short introduction that frames different properties of the documentary festival phenomenon. The first looks at organizational and curatorial practices that define festival programs (that go beyond the screening of films to an ever-extending list of industrial activities or interactive exhibitions), and the second recounts personal experiences of festival professionals and institutions that closely collaborate with festivals. The first section, “Changes and Challenges,” addresses key changes recently experienced by the festival ecosystem that have affected not only circulation, but also new production patterns and aesthetics of

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documentary film. Aida Vallejo looks at the internationally renowned IDFA festival in Amsterdam, focusing on the industry sections developed within its program. Her inquiry is concerned with IDFA’s influence in the development of new film productions, professional careers and other film festivals, and how that has helped to position the festival at the top of the international festival hierarchy. Maria Paz Peirano analyzes the importance of film festivals and markets as a networking place for professionals, following Chilean documentarists at European events. She studies the use of these festivals as promotion platforms for peripheral cinemas as well as the institutional strategies developed to gain international exposure through festival participation. Ilona Hongisto, Kaisu Hynnä-Granberg and Annu Suvanto focus on the relationships between geopolitics and distribution practices in the festival circuit. They address the articulation of a supranational identification, such as “Northeastern Europe”, as strategies for increasing the circulation of films. Stefano Odorico looks at new exhibition practices in the festival sphere, which have appeared in response to new interactive and transmedia documentary works. He reflects on how the traditional exhibition site is reinvented to promote audiovisual products that are originally conceived for virtual space, identifying key events that have included this practice within their programmes. To conclude this section, Eulàlia Iglesias ambles out of the documentary festival circuit to focus on the ways in which A-list festivals have embraced documentary in recent years. She scrutinizes the presence of documentary in the programmes of the Cannes Film Festival over the years, and reflects on the role of major film festivals (mainly devoted to fiction) in the shaping of the definition of the documentary in the age of hybridization of genres. The second section, “Professional perspectives” includes interviews with professionals working in the international festival circuit, and thus deepens the ongoing debates around industrial aspects of documentary film festivals, as well as tackling the organisational challenges they face. The first three interviews focus on film festival directors, and serve to address issues and geographical areas not covered in the rest of the collection, such as the adaptation of older festivals to the changes in feature-­ length documentary production and projection technologies (Ernesto del Río, Bilbao Documentary and Short Film Festival); the organizational challenges imposed by governmental and institutional constrains (Amir Al-Emary, Ismailia International Film Festival for Documentaries and Shorts, Egypt); and the initiatives and financial limitations for building documentary audiences (Pedro Pimenta, Dockanema, Mozambique). The

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remaining interviews draw attention to institutions that are not film festivals, but closely collaborate with them in different aspects. Interviewees include Sandra Ruch (Emeritus Director of IDA—International Documentary Association), Rada Šešić (independent programmer and advisor, working for the Rotterdam Film Festival, Sarajevo Film Festival and IDFA Bertha Fund), Stefano Tealdi (former Secretary of Documentary Campus Workshop), Thierry Garrel (former director of the French Department at TV Arte) and Diana Tabakov (Acquisitions Manager of the online VOD platform specialised on documentary Doc Alliance Films). The fact that some of the interviewees are no longer staff members at the institutions that they speak of adds credence to the “independent” character of their declarations, while also responding to the historical interests this collection addresses as long-term processes.

Conclusions Film festivals are of key importance to the understanding of contemporary film cultures. In the case of documentary this affirmation is even stronger because of the lack of a real commercial distribution network beyond television environments. The aim of this book is to illuminate the role and impact of documentary film festivals in the processes of international circulation and appreciation of documentary film. This volume offers readers interested in researching documentary and/ or festivals new insights to understand the dynamics of documentary film festivals as events that operate on multiple levels, including those of production, curation, distribution and exhibition. On the other hand, readers who herald from industry will find this volume to be a useful reference guide to identify those events that are relevant to their own efforts, and will undoubtedly help to design distribution strategies for documentary. Institutional, organizational and industrial concerns are key for festival operation and are addressed in depth through the case studies presented in this volume. From the impact of film festivals in documentary distribution and production, to funding problems faced by the festivals themselves, the economic aspect of documentary film festivals is a relevant one both for academics and professionals alike. With a shift in curatorial practices that expand festival programs to a wide range of activities—including screenings, exhibitions, conferences, pitching presentations, co-­production fora or even parties—festivals have long ago become much more than a space for watching films. The integration of these practices within the

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documentary festival ecosystem is critically addressed in the following pages, with the aim of contributing to a wider understanding of its recent changes and future challenges.

Notes 1. A moment not without its share of critics and detractors, who felt the film won solely for political, not quality, reasons. Regardless, it was a heightened moment of visibility for documentary at arguably the world’s most prestigious festival. 2. In Canada where one of this publication’s editors is based, it is next to impossible to encounter documentaries in commercial theatres. The country’s cinemas continue to focus on Hollywood fiction (95% of content outside of Quebec). Yet, more documentaries than ever are being produced in Canada. In Europe, the situation differs from country to country but, although the presence of documentary in commercial theatres is scarce, several initiatives have been created to screen documentaries at independent movie theatres and cultural centres. In many cases, they have been started by or in collaboration with documentary festivals. Examples include “El documental del mes” (The Documentary of the Month) taking place in some cities of Spain and Latin America (see López-Gómez et al. 2020, 256, in our first volume), or the BDDN (Balkan Documentary Distribution Network) initiatives in the Balkans (see Vallejo 2014, 75–76). 3. For a thorough revision of scholarly works on film festivals and documentary see the introduction of our first volume (Vallejo and Winton 2020). 4. See Peirano’s chapter on Chilean filmmakers on the European festival circuit and Vallejo’s chapter on IDFA in this volume. 5. In Di Chiara and Re’s reflection on film festivals and historiography (2011) the authors identify some of these practices as key to the formation (and renegotiation) of the film canon. 6. Interestingly, the doctoral thesis by Carl Plantinga that led to the publication of Rhetoric and Representation in Nonfiction Film was entitled A theory of representation in the documentary film (1991).

References Austin, Thomas. 2007. Watching the World: Screen Documentary and Audiences. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Barnow, Erik. 1983. Documentary: A History of the Non-fiction Film. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Barsam, Richard. 1973. Nonfiction Film: A Critical History. New  York: E. P. Dutton.

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De Valck, Marijke. 2007. Film Festivals. From European Geopolitics to Global Cinephilia. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Di Chiara, Francesco, and Valentina Re. 2011. Film Festival/Film History: The Impact of Film Festivals on Cinema Historiography. Il Cinema Ritrovato and Beyond. Cinémas: revue d’études cinématographiques/Cinémas: Journal of Film Studies 21 (2–3): 131–151. Hardie, Amy. 2008. Rollercoasters and Reality: A Study of Big Screen Documentary Audiences 2002–2007. Particip@tions 5: 1. http://www.participations.org/ Volume%205/Issue%201%20-%20special/5_01_hardy.htm. López-Gómez, Antía, Aida Vallejo, Mª Soliña Barreiro, and Amanda Alencar. 2020. Found in Translation: Film Festivals, Documentary and the Preservation of Linguistic Diversity. In Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 1. Methods, History, Politics, ed. Aida Vallejo and Ezra Winton, 241–263. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. Nichols, Bill. 1991. Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. ———. 2010. Introduction to Documentary. Second Edition. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Plantinga, Carl. 1997. Rhetoric and Representation in Nonfiction Film. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vallejo, Aida. 2014. Industry Sections. Documentary Film Festivals between Production and Distribution. Iluminace. Journal of Film Theory, History, and Aesthetics 26 (1): 65–82. Vallejo, Aida, and Ezra Winton. 2020. Introduction–Volume 1: Documentary Film Festivals: Methods, History, Politics. In Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 1. Methods, History, Politics, ed. Aida Vallejo and Ezra Winton, 1–17. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.

PART I

Changes and Challenges

Introduction to Part I, Vol. 2: Changes and Challenges for Documentary and Film Festivals Aida Vallejo

Recent changes in the festival realm have profoundly affected the aim and scope of both documentary film and documentary film festivals. A look at contemporary trends in the documentary festival ecosystem gives us some clues to better understand its functioning patterns, key agents and future challenges. Chapters in this section analyze these aspects, focusing on diverse agents, namely festivals as institutions, professionals and films. The international documentary festival circuit has been subject to structural organizational changes since the 1990s. As noted by Marijke de Valck, these are characterized by “a shift from festival programmers in the 1970s, driven by cinephile passions and an ideology of political participation, to the festival director of the 1990s, who has become a professional cultural entrepreneur who manages the various constituencies of the festival network” (2007, 43). According to Skadi Loist, “larger-scale economic shifts, such as the spread of neoliberal market logic after the end of the

A. Vallejo (*) University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Leioa, Spain e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Vallejo, E. Winton (eds.), Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 2, Framing Film Festivals, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17324-1_2

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Cold War and the rise of the global city paradigm have encouraged an eventization and further proliferation of the circuit” (2016, 60). For documentary festivals, this implies the spread of funding and organizational models based on private non-profit associations (Rhyne 2009), and the incorporation of industry activity (markets, funds, pitching fora, etc.) within the festival program (see De Valck 2007, 108–118; Wong 2011, 129–158; Vallejo 2014a). Other major changes include the digitization process and a global proliferation of events. This has brought us to the current state characterized by a “saturation of the circuit” and the articulation of global peripheries (Vallejo 2014b). This section looks at recent changes in the festival ecosystem, identifying contemporary trends in the documentary realm. Focusing on the challenges faced by documentary (and generalist) film festivals, the following five chapters reflect on three main aspects: industrial concerns, technological issues and curatorial practices. These include studies on the role of film festivals as producers and distributors; the irruption of interactive forms within festival programs; and new documentary trends embraced by A-list film festivals.

Festival Proliferation, Hierarchies and Industry Sections Documentary film festivals have proliferated globally throughout the 2000s. This can be considered as a natural response to the increasing number of productions made yearly as well as cheaper exhibition infrastructures, both facilitated by the availability of new digital equipment. In this frame, documentary festivals have developed strategies to position themselves in the global network of international events, both in relation to major fiction festivals and other parallel circuits such as thematic film festivals. A particular feature of documentary festivals is that they are not so much under pressure by premiere policies and accreditation rules imposed by the International Federation of Film Producers Associations (FIAPF)1, which certainly constrain programming practices and create an ever-­ increasing competitive environment. Conversely, several documentary festival programmes are made of the best films travelling the circuit, functioning mainly as exhibition platforms that fulfil the gap of commercial distribution, rather than creating a space for discovery of new works for international critics for whom world premieres are a pull factor. Moreover, thematically-driven events such as ethnographic film festivals (see Vallejo and Peirano 2017), human rights film festivals (see Tascón 2015) and

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other social-related thematic festivals (e.g. environmental or disabilities) add to the list of film festivals showing mainly documentary works, affording feature-length documentary a remarkable presence on the big screen. In this context, retracing the global circulation of documentary films is becoming increasingly complex, as the circuits of circulation are multiple and rapidly expand in different directions. Film festival studies have noted the necessity to interrogate the extent to which film festivals function as a circuit (of films and people) and if so, of commercial distribution,2 considering the documentary as a parallel circuit. According to Loist “A host of smaller networks now exist to serve specific audiences or ‘minor genres’; these networks operate differently than the general narrative feature film norm and create their own niche markets and industries, building parallel circuits while also being interconnected with the general network” (Loist 2016, 52). Following Loist, the networked nature of the documentary festival circuit can be analysed focusing on two main  agents: films and professionals. Firstly, the documentary festival ecosystem can work as a distribution network for some films, securing revenues in the form of screening fees and/or further distribution deals for theatrical release or television broadcasting. Yet, for most documentaries festivals  mostly act as an exhibition circuit, with films travelling from one place to another, gaining visibility and value through public exposure to key agents and media. Documentary films from specific geographical areas have found in documentary film festivals an exhibition platform that contributes to defining cinemas from certain regions, such as Northeastern Europe, as we see in this section’s contribution by Ilona Hongisto, Kaisu Hynnä-Granberg and Annu Suvanto. In their statistical analysis of the films’ circulation through European documentary festivals, they argue that festival exposure is key for the articulation of documentary aesthetics and themes associated to a specific geopolitical area. Secondly, the circulation of professionals from festival to festival is key to understanding programming patterns at different events as well as the development of documentary productions through the years, thanks to networking practices and long-term professional relationships established within the festival circuit (see Vallejo 2015, 2017). As noted by María Paz Peirano in her chapter in this section, the global circulation of professionals from regions of small production capacity, such as Chile, has increased the visibility of their national cinemas, with remarkable results in festival circulation, funding and awards; as well as an increase in local quality productions. Documentary festival organizers can be considered as a small community who know each other and travel to fellow events, in many cases invited

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as jury members. This practice has been facilitated by a decrease in travelling costs and an increase in the speed and networking possibilities of new communication networks developed since the 1990s, as noted by Giulia Battaglia (2020) in our first volume, where she reflects on the impact of new social media and communications in the development of documentary communities in India. It is worth noting that the presence of women in diverse professional capacities, including that of festival directors, although not yet predominant, is certainly more common in the documentary circuit than at major non-specialized festivals. Yet, the presence of women is more appreciable in networking-related roles, including producers, representatives of institutes of promotion and co-production, as well as intermediaries of all kind (see Seguí 2018). This trend certainly reproduces cultural patterns of gender inequality, where women facilitate and coordinate the creative work (predominantly) made by male auteurs. Documentary festivals have nevertheless expressed their concern about the visibility of women filmmakers, and gender issues have been incorporated to the agenda of festival selection (both for program sections, industrial events and film funds), pioneering the inclusion of special programs dedicated to women filmmakers and/or professionals. This was the case of IDFA’s The Female Gaze in 2014 (see Turnin 2015). This concern has extended to festivals’ organization, with equality campaigns that promote a wider presence of female workers among the festival staff. For example FIPADOC Festival representatives signed the Collectif 50/50 agreement in Biarritz in January 2020, committing to ensure at least 50 per cent of the staff would be women. The diffusion of connections and networking practices that make cooperation a major drive behind the documentary festival circuit does not preclude hierarchies that put certain events in more privileged or powerful positions than others. Most documentary professionals agree that International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) in the Netherlands is one of their most (if not the most) important meeting points globally, and its prominence lies in the industrial activities that have developed parallel to the main exhibition program. The first chapter in this section (Vallejo this volume) presents a study of these industrial activities, following their evolution since the 1990s. I analyze IDFA’s impact in contemporary documentary production and its role as a benchmark for other festivals that modelled their industry programs after it.

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The incorporation of industry activity is precisely one major change in the festival ecosystem since the 2000s, following similar trends started in the 1990s at other major non-specialized festivals. The role of television broadcasters in the documentary festival realm is a distinctive feature of this specialized circuit, with a notable presence of commissioning editors from big channels such as Arte, Al Jazeera or BBC. Finally, the articulation of hierarchies necessarily implies the existence of core-periphery relationships within the documentary festival ecosystem. There is a general trend in which those events considered more peripheral disproportionately rely on major festivals to curate their own programs. In this context, industrial activities play a key role for attracting international professionals and festival representatives, and their capacity to act as referents for specific regions is paramount to determine which festivals are at the top of the hierarchy. Even though documentary film festivals have proliferated globally, post-colonial dynamics still operate as a driving force behind festival participation and international positioning, with a predominance of North American and North Western European festivals in the international circuit.

The Documentary as Testing Ground: New Technologies and Aesthetics Changes in documentary production have been reflected in the programs of both documentary and non-specialized film festivals since the 2000s. While fiction works (and festivals devoted to them) have proven to be more conservative in terms of technological innovation and aesthetic experimentation, documentary film has served as a testing ground for new interactive forms and Virtual Reality experiments; as well as aesthetic and narrative ruptures that challenged conventions of cinema and expanded its scope to new media landscapes. Firstly, documentary film festivals have embraced technological innovations quite naturally. Contrary to fiction productions, which went through —at times quite reluctant—a transition from 35 mm to digital formats, documentary film had already left film as a standard and embraced video since the 1990s. The digital transition was therefore easier and faster within documentary film festivals, and their markets were digitized during the 2000s. Festival exhibition developed in parallel, and profited from the flexibility of digital projection. This involved freedom to collaborate with

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diverse venues and cultural institutions, which didn’t need to grapple with equipment capable of projecting celluloid. New media formats have also been rapidly adopted by the documentary, which has proven to be a fertile breeding ground for interactive forms and Virtual Reality (see Aston et al. 2017). Stefano Odorico’s chapter in this section reflects on how those documentary film festivals that rushed to incorporate these works into their programs adapted their venues and exhibition contexts to new expanded formats that privileged the individual viewing experience, as opposed to the collective audience that defines the essence of a festival. Secondly, although the documentary genre has served as a learning tool for filmmakers since the early years of specialized festivals, in recent decades its role as aesthetic testing ground has grown, blurring its boundaries with the fiction genre and finding a place in the programs of major non-­ specialized events. Eulàlia Iglesias’ chapter in this section looks at the programs of A-list film festivals to interrogate how events such as Cannes have adapted to new trends in documentary film. As she argues, a thorough analysis of the films selected by Cannes shows a very conservative attitude towards documentary, while festivals such as Locarno have been more open to new hybrid forms that have allowed documentaries to compete in equal terms with fiction. A last major trend in programming conditioned by new technologies involves the onset of online submission platforms, such as Withoutabox or Festhome or private viewing platforms, like Vimeo, that have increased the speed of submission of films for competition and eliminated technological problems that other formats such as DVD involved. This has certainly contributed to the ever-increasing number of films that film festivals have to review for selection, which is starting to become a real challenge in terms of time and staff management. In response, many festivals have incorporated submission fees, increasing the costs of documentary productions. In addition, the number of films that are not part of the blind selection (cold submissions) but requested based on their success at other events or their participation in industry sections is increasing, as noted by professionals such as Sean Farnell (in Fischer 2012) or Sky Sitney (in Gann 2012). This can be considered as a result of both a growing interconnection between events, and an increasing influence of the production role of film festivals, which create “festival films” that feed their own programs while meeting their aesthetic demands (see Wong 2011; Falicov 2016).

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Future Challenges for Documentary and Film Festivals The changing landscape of documentary production and exhibition present some challenges for film festivals and filmmakers alike. The industry sections incorporated to festival programmes have certainly increased their capacity to support new productions and attract professionals, but at the same time have created an international hierarchy in which not all festivals can serve as industry nodes. In this frame, the growing interconnectedness of the documentary festival circuit has brought about an increasing awareness of the festivals concerning their position and identity within the global context. This explains why particular events have developed strategies of international positioning, such as the CPH:DOX shift of dates from Autumn to Spring in 2016 in order to be able to compete with IDFA (see Vallejo 2016). Meanwhile, new technologies offer a fertile ground for testing new forms for the documentary, expanding its boundaries even further. Once the digitization process has been completed and implemented at all stages of the film chain from production, to online submission, to exhibition, practical issues can give way to ontological ones. Interactivity provides the ground for exploring new expanded formats, while the film festival site must accommodate its classic understanding of film viewing to these practices. In this context, the delicate art of curating, understood as a mode of craftsmanship that demands a highly self-reflective attitude, will play a major role in finding a balance between the past and future of the documentary film at festivals and beyond.

Notes 1. Fédération Internationale des Associations de Producteurs de Films. 2. Initial positions defending the connectivity of the festival circuit and its role as a distribution network alternative to Hollywood (Elsaesser 2005; De Valck 2007) have been contested by those who put in question its actual connection and distribution role (Iordanova 2009); although in recent years both parts have recognized the limitations of border positions. Nevertheless recent works insist on the importance of the networked nature of the circuit and its evolution through time (Loist 2016).

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References Aston, Judith, Sandra Gaudenzi, and Mandy Rose, eds. 2017. I-Docs: The Evolving Practices of Interactive Documentary. London: Wallflower Press and Columbia University Press. Battaglia, Giulia. 2020. The Development of Documentary Film Festivals in India: A Small-media Phenomenon. In Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 1. Methods, History, Politics, ed. Aida Vallejo and Ezra Winton, 221–239. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. De Valck, Marijke. 2007. Film Festivals: From European Geopolitics to Global Cinephilia. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Elsaesser, Thomas. 2005. Film Festival Networks: The New Topographies of Cinema in Europe. In European Cinema: Face to Face with Hollywood, 82–107. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Reprinted in Dina Iordanova, ed. 2013. The Film Festival Reader. St Andrews: St Andrews Film Studies, 69–96. Falicov, Tamara L. 2016. The ‘Festival Film’: Film Festival Funds as Cultural Intermediaries. In Film Festivals: History, Theory, Method, Practice, ed. Marijke de Valck, Brendan Kredell, and Skadi Loist, 209–229. New York: Routledge. Fischer, Alex. 2012. Hot Docs: A Prescription for Reality: An Interview with Sean Farnell, Former Director of Programming at Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival. In Film Festival Yearbook 4: Film Festivals and Activism, ed. Dina Iordanova and Leshu Torchin, 225–234. St. Andrews: St. Andrews Film Studies. Gann, Jon. 2012. ‘Mediate. Curate. Facilitate.’: Sky Sitney, SILVERDOCS.  In Behind the Screens: Programmers Reveal How Film Festivals Really Work, 149–165. Washington, DC: Reel Plan Press. Iordanova, Dina. 2009. The Film Festival Circuit. In Film Festival Yearbook 1: The Festival Circuit, ed. Dina Iordanova and Ragan Rhyne, 23–39. St. Andrews: St. Andrews Film Studies. Loist, Skadi. 2016. The Film Festival Circuit: Networks, Hierarchies, and Circulation. In Film Festivals: History, Theory, Method, Practice, ed. Marijke de Vack, Brendan Kredell, and Skadi Loist, 49–64. New York: Routledge. Rhyne, Ragan. 2009. Film Festival Circuits and Stakeholders. In Film Festival Yearbook 1: The Festival Circuit, ed. Dina Iordanova and Ragan Rhyne, 9–39. St. Andrews: St. Andrews Film Studies. Seguí, Isabel. 2018. Auteurism, Machismo-Leninismo, and Other Issues. Women’s Labor in Andean Oppositional Film Production. Feminist Media Histories 4 (1): 11–36. Tascón, Sonia M. 2015. Human Rights Film Festivals: Activism in Context. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Turnin, Svetla. 2015. Beyond the Female Gaze and Towards a Documentary Gender Equality. A Female Gaze of Unequal Proportions. POV. Point of View Magazine 99, Fall. http://povmagazine.com/articles/view/beyond-thefemale-gaze-and-towards-a-documentary-gender-equality. Vallejo, Aida. 2014a. Industry Sections. Documentary Film Festivals Between Production and Distribution. Iluminace 26 (1): 65–82. ———. 2014b. Festivales cinematográficos. En el punto de mira de la historiografía fílmica. Secuencias. Revista de Historia del cine 39: 13–42. ———. 2015. Documentary Filmmakers on the Circuit: A Festival Career from Czech Dream to Czech Peace. In Post-1990 Documentary: Reconfiguring Independence, ed. Camille Deprez and Judith Pernin, 171–187. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ———. 2016. Of calendars and industries: IDFA and CPH:DOX. Necsus. European Journal of Media Studies 9 (Spring). http://www.necsus-ejms.org/ calendars-industries-idfa-cphdox/. ———. 2017. Travelling the Circuit: A Multi-sited Ethnography of Documentary Film Festivals in Europe. In Film Festivals and Anthropology, ed. Aida Vallejo and María Paz Peirano, 277–292. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Vallejo, Aida, and María Paz Peirano. 2017. Film Festivals and Anthropology. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Wong, Cindy Hing-Yuk. 2011. Film Festivals: Culture, People, and Power on the Global Screen. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

IDFA’s Industry Model: Fostering Global Documentary Production and Distribution Aida Vallejo

The International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) is considered the most influential documentary film festival in Europe—if not in the world—by film professionals and academics alike.1 Attracting professionals from all corners of the globe IDFA has developed an industrial model that goes far beyond the traditional exhibition role of film festivals to include in its program parallel activities labeled as industry sections. These pitching forums, markets, workshops, industry talks and networking events expand the festival’s influence in film promotion towards production and commercial distribution. Drawing on the works of scholars who have analyzed the relationship of film festivals and film industries (De Valck 2007, 85–121; Taillibert 2009, 59–220; Loist 2011; Wong 2011, 129–158), this chapter looks at IDFA’s industry sections and their impact in the documentary realm. Research conducted includes analysis of professional and academic festival reviews, festival publications—including catalogues, industry guides, annual reports and industry dailies—interviews and fieldwork carried out by the author.2

A. Vallejo (*) University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Leioa, Spain e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Vallejo, E. Winton (eds.), Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 2, Framing Film Festivals, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17324-1_3

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I argue that IDFA has been highly influential in the d ­ evelopment of new film productions, professional careers and industry sections at other international festivals, while crafting an identity as a key industrial event that positions the festival at the top of the international hierarchy. This chapter offers a diachronic view on IDFA’s position in the documentary industry. Firstly, I discuss the economic impact of film festivals and their role as facilitators of documentary production and distribution. Secondly, I look at the history of IDFA as a pioneer of the “industry era” (Vallejo 2014, 30–33). Thirdly, I focus on the industry sections included in its program, providing examples of films and filmmakers that took part in these activities. I analyze the value-addition process created through participation in industry sections and its implications for power relationships between filmmakers and stakeholders. Finally, I discuss the global influence of the festival in the promotion of professional careers, the creation of festival films and the exportation of festival models internationally.

Film Festivals Between Production and Distribution Measuring the economic impact of film festivals poses certain challenges. As noted by Marijke de Valck, festivals create a space where the rules of the market are suspended (2007, 37). As a consequence, their exhibition function is often more promotional than commercial, providing exposure and prestige instead of direct revenue. This is evident in their concern with the creation of symbolic value through participation and awards, rather than monetary value—ticket sales normally add to the festival budget instead of going to the filmmakers. As I have argued elsewhere, the economic influence of film festivals affects three different areas: (1) event management, which is played out through festival organization and may involve the transfer of investment in culture on to the tourist industry; (2) exhibition, which contributes to creating new audiences and viewing opportunities, nurturing cinephilia that can further transform into commercial revenue; and (3) film production, which is exerted through funding and training initiatives aimed at filmmakers (Vallejo 2017). Firstly, there is a direct economic impact of film festivals in the tourist sector, which partly explains their proliferation in the age of global city branding and the interest of the host cities in funding them (see Stringer 2001). This is the case with IDFA, which is funded partly by Amsterdam’s city council. The festival contributes to the tourist economy of the city both directly—with a number of guests whose accommodation and/or

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travel costs are covered by the festival budget—and indirectly, attracting more than 2000 professionals to Amsterdam annually. The move of dates of the Awards Ceremony of IDFA’s 2015 edition as a strategy to increase attendance figures in the closing event (with a successful result) demonstrates the importance of industry participants, who normally leave before the official end of the festival, once the main industry activities have finished.3 Secondly, festivals create a more indirect—and therefore difficult to measure—economic impact by way of nurturing cinephilia that can later translate into commercial consumption at movie theatres, on television or online. Despite IDFA’s focus on professionals, a major concern for the festival continues to be that of attracting the non-specialized audience, as evidenced by the festival deploying audience engagement as a recurrent topic in its discourse, and by its annual reports that highlight the number of tickets sold. Professionals holding accreditation can book tickets free of charge for attending regular projections, but there are also dedicated Industry Screenings accessible only to them. It is also worth noting that the presence of professionals at screenings is more concentrated around the core-festival space—gravitating between industry locations of the forum, the market or the industry office in the festival’s headquarters.4 Other peripheral spaces, such as the Eye cinema museum, are more frequented by local audiences and tourists. The classic economic role of film festivals’ value-adding to films has been mostly played out through media exposure and awards. An average of 180 accredited press representatives per year attended IDFA in the 2011–2015 period (IDFA Activity Reports), and the festival invests a remarkable amount of resources in managing information, including the publication of dailies and newsletters. Awards are also a key festival tool for creating (indirect) economic value for films (see De Valck and Soeteman 2010). Named after the politically engaged Dutch documentarist Joris Ivens,5 the main IDFA award is devoted to feature-length documentaries.6 Moreover, new awards have appeared throughout the history of the festival, in part as a strategy by sponsors to gain visibility,7 and the two main IDFA awards—the Joris Ivens and the Silver Wolf Award for Best Mid-­Length Documentary—have been renamed after the VPRO and NPS TV channels due to the sponsorship by the Dutch public television broadcasters.8 This is just another indication of how economic players are gaining visibility in the festival setting, at the expense of the history of d ­ ocumentary film and its filmmakers. Given that television

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remains documentary’s main commercial distribution platform beyond the festival circuit, as I elaborate below, broadcasters have always been major players within IDFA’s industry pursuits. Thirdly, film festivals’ impact in the audiovisual industry has been exerted through a direct intervention in the production and distribution chain. Several scholars have focused on the industrial aspect of film festivals, adding to the academic debate on the networked nature of film festivals and the extent to which they can be considered a distribution circuit.9 Research on festivals’ industry activity corroborates festivals’ active position in film business and certain studies present a taxonomy of activities that comprise their professional program (Loist 2011; Wong 2011, 129–158; Vallejo 2014). These include: (1) markets—film libraries with titles on sale, and trade fairs; (2) pitching sessions—presentations of films in production in search of funding; (3) film funds—usually focused on films from countries of low production capacity; (4) training workshops, professional talks and masterclasses; (5) distribution initiatives—at movie theatres or online; (6) promotional activities; and (7) networking practices. Drawing on these studies, I argue that global documentary distribution is conditioned by industry activity taking place at IDFA. As I elaborate below, although not a direct revenue-source for films, the festival is a key link in the value chain of the contemporary documentary industry. I will deepen discussion of these aspects in the two following sections, firstly by presenting a chronology of the incorporation of industry sections into the festival program, and secondly by looking at their operation and highlighting examples of participant films and filmmakers.

IDFA as a Pioneer of the Industry Era The first edition of the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam took place in Amsterdam (the Netherlands) in 1988, at the Alfa cinema in the Leidseplein area in the city centre. It was founded by “a group of enthusiasts headed by Menno van der Molen and Ally Derks and supported by Jan Vrijman”10 (Sesic 2006, 614). Van der Mollen had been director of the Festikon, a festival focused on educational films organized in Utrecht from 1961 to 1987, where Ally Derks had worked since 1985. When Derks became director of IDFA in 1988, she convened a team that included her fellow Theatre and Film Studies graduate Adriek van Nieuwenhuyzen (De Valck and Soeteman 2010, 295). Since 2007 van Nieuwenhuyzen has been Head of the Industry office of IDFA, and is in

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charge of the FORUM, Docs for Sale and IDFAcademy. She is also a member of the selection committee of the IDFA Bertha Fund and executes networking tasks. Ally Derks has been the festival’s Artistic Director since its inception until the 2016 edition, when Barbara Visser took over her position for a year, followed by the installment of Orwa Nyrabia in 2018. The appearance of IDFA at the end of the 1980s resulted in a privileged position for the festival, which is considered a pioneer of the industry era and the non-profit sector that spread during the 1990s (see Vallejo 2020). Created as a philanthropic initiative patronized by Jan Vrijman, today the festival is a non-profit organization funded, in part, by public institutions, such as the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science of the Netherlands, and the public television broadcasters VPRO and NTR. This organizational structure offers more freedom than institutional festivals created in previous periods with more vertical structures conditioned by governmental mandates—such as Bilbao or Belgrade.11 Among others, this freedom affords for the organization industry activities with their own budgets, which can adapt rapidly to new trends in the global audiovisual business. Moreover, the non-profit status also facilitates the sponsoring of different private and public institutions, according to their interests. IDFA’s program has focused on global socio-political conflicts since the festival’s origins. Started at a historical turning point just before the fall of the Berlin Wall that followed the collapse of the USSR, IDFA’s two first editions included several Soviet films and guests, and since then the festival program has covered a wide range of topics, most of which feature current affairs. As noted in the brief festival history written by journalist Melanie Goodfellow and published on IDFA’s website (2012a), these include the Yugoslav Wars, the Middle East Conflict, the Chechen War and 9/11—and the ensuing Afghanistan War—in the 1998–2002 period, with titles such as Amos Gitai’s Tapuz (1998), and Sergei Bosenko’s Chechensky Gambit (2001); later on the Middle East Conflict in the 2003–2007 period, including Yoav Shamir’s Checkpoint (2003); and, since 2005, environmental issues with a dedicated section featuring films such as Nino Kirtadze’s The Pipeline Next Door (2005). In the frame of the global crisis that dominated the 2008–2012 period, the festival has showcased films about “financial crisis, globalization, immigration, Burma, Iran, Islamic Fundamentalism, the Arab Spring and the digital revolution” (idem), including, among others, Erwin Wagenhofer’s Let’s Make Money (2008). These are creative documentaries of cinematographic quality12 that have found in the documentary festival circuit a privileged exhibition—and at times, production—space. In

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addition, many had their world premiere at IDFA. This is a requirement for films in competition, where they must fulfill the condition of not having been released in the Netherlands, Europe or worldwide. This is one of the many strategies that IDFA has developed through the years to attract an international audience of industry professionals, for whom the festival not only provides a showcase of recently produced films, but also of works in progress presented at industry sections.13 In spite of its distinctive program, IDFA’s film selection hasn’t been as key for its global influence as its industry activity. The festival has pioneered the incorporation of industrial activities within the documentary festival realm, following the example of top-tier festivals mainly devoted to fiction. These had started incorporating markets (trade fairs) from the 1950s—Berlin and Cannes already celebrated a market in 1952 and 1956, respectively—and co-production events since the 1980s. The first of this kind took place in the Netherlands, with the CineMart in Rotterdam in 1983.14 Ten years later, also in the Netherlands,  IDFA begun the first IDFA Forum co-production market, created in collaboration with the European Documentary Network (EDN) in 1993 (Goodfellow 2012b, 1).15 In 1996, the Docs for Sale film market celebrated its first edition, offering distributors and broadcasters attending IDFA a video-library with a wide range of documentary films on sale at a moment when VHS and Betacam formats prevailed.16 Film festivals’ demand for films from diverse geographical regions and the lack of funding for films from countries of low production capacity have prompted the creation of film funds associated to film festivals. Here again Rotterdam was a pioneer, launching the Hubert Bals Fund in 1989, which provides grants to complete their films to filmmakers from Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and parts of Eastern Europe. Other major festivals followed, with the creation of the Sundance Labs (1990), Cine en Construcción at the  San Sebastian International Film Festival (2002), or the World Cinema Fund at the Berlinale (2004), to name but a few.17 IDFA incorporated this model to the documentary realm, fostering the production of documentaries from Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and parts of Eastern Europe through the Jan Vrijman Fund. The fund started in 1998, on the occasion of the festival’s 10th anniversary, and was named after the festival patron that had passed away the year before. In 2012 the fund was renamed the IDFA Bertha Fund, after its new sponsor—the Bertha Fund—that the festival had to secure following the cut in the subsidy from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Ritchie 2012).

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By the end of the 1990s the main industry events, namely the Forum, the market and the film fund, had already been established. This was key for the international positioning of IDFA as a reference for professionals from all over the world. They came both from countries with strong broadcasters and production capacity, as well as from peripheral regions with almost no investment in documentary and scarce or non-existent exhibition infrastructures. The 2000s brought about an ever-increasing number of activities targeted at the growing professional audience of the festival, including master classes, workshops, and eventually conferences. While a projectdevelopment workshop had already been established in 1989 in collaboration with Mediafonds (the Dutch Cultural Media Fund), its impact had been limited to the national context of the Netherlands, mostly because it was devoted to local projects and the working language was Dutch. Nevertheless, following the example of the Berlinale Talent Campus— which was already put in motion by 2002,18 IDFA launched the IDFAcademy in 2003. A training program targeted at international professionals, originally it offered masterclasses by festival guest filmmakers such as Jørgen Leth and Ulrich Seidl, and later developed into a three-day event that was incorporated into the festival program and that included talks, workshops and networking events. In 2008 the IDFAcademy Summer School celebrated its first edition. Following the structure of other international year-long training programs such as Cannes’s La Résidence (created in 2000),19 it offered mentoring opportunities to international filmmakers who develop documentary projects over the course of several months. Mentors have included renowned professionals and internationally acclaimed documentarists, such as Kim Longinotto. Given that festivals have to discover new talent and cannot always award the same auteurs, this is an effective strategy for IDFA to maintain long-term relationships with established filmmakers, in addition to serving as a lure for prospective participants. The year 2007 saw the start of the IDFA Doc Lab, a platform showcasing interactive non-fiction and documentary art, introduced in a period when “social media and smartphones were just taking off, and all around the world new forms of interactive storytelling and digital art were emerging, with documentary artists often leading the way” (Goodfellow 2012a). In 2010 the showcase evolved into a one-day interactive conference, and since 2013 the DocLab Academy puts together a special training program

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that provides access to all events related to interactive documentary taking place during the festival. In addition, the idfa.tv video on demand service was launched in 2008 to offer professionals the possibility to watch films online through the year. The aftermath of the global financial crisis in 2008 brought about several funding cuts in the arts across the sector. The festival response was, among others, to introduce entry fees for festival submissions,20 to find new sponsors such as the Bertha Fund or BankGiro Lottery, and to promote crowdfunding initiatives—such as signing a deal with Indiegogo to use the IDFA label to back documentary projects searching for funding.21 Main industry sections didn’t struggle as much as the festival itself, due to the funding deal with the MEDIA Program of the EU, which covered most of the costs of IDFA Forum, Docs For Sale and IDFA Academy (Benzine 2012). More recent additions to the festival’s industry program include a dedicated industry office created in 2015, minor talks and workshops focused on recent trends in the documentary business and the First Aid Doc Clinic—a free consulting service for documentaries in development. Even though IDFA has followed the example of generalist festivals to incorporate industry activity in its program, it was the first in the documentary realm to do so. This has situated the event in a vantage point in the global hierarchy of documentary festivals, while serving as a model for other industry events developed internationally. Hence, the festival has become a mecca for documentary professionals coming from all corners of the world, who every November travel to Amsterdam to update and exchange information, seek out co-producers, promote and sell their films, acquire new titles and so on, thus creating a network of people that sustains and nurtures global documentary production and distribution.

IDFA’s Industry Sections While three of the industrial activities highlighted in the festival website’s profile—IDFA Forum, Docs for Sale, and the IDFA Bertha Fund—purportedly create direct sources of income for filmmakers provided either by the festival itself or by other agents (such as distributors, broadcasters or film funds), I argue that IDFA’s industry program as a whole can be considered as a more complex interrelated structure of networking and ­business development, rather than a set of isolated sources of income. Moreover, since the outbreak of the 2008 economic crisis, the purpose

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and economic impact of industry activities taking place at IDFA (and other festivals) has changed. In this evolution, the festival function has morphed from a market where films were bought and sold, to a business hub. Value is therefore created as a process of accumulation of professional networks and prestige that multiplies as films participate in the diverse industrial activities organized by IDFA and other festivals on the circuit, and ultimately, in their exhibition programs (see Peirano, this volume). In what follows, I examine the multiple ways in which IDFA’s industry sections create economic value for films and filmmakers. What are the intersections between IDFA’s funding initiatives with the festival selection? What are the geopolitical power relationships behind the selection to participate in industry activities? To what extent is the participation in industry activity worth the investment? A thorough look at the operation modes of the festivals’ industry sections will give some clues to answer to these questions. The Forum The IDFA Forum is a co-financing and co-production event that, in the words of the festival organization “connects independent filmmakers and producers with potential financiers, funds and co-producers to help get their films made.”22 This is one of the most expensive industry activities to run given the costs of inviting decision makers to Amsterdam. It has a dedicated budget and funding bodies, namely the Creative Europe MEDIA program of the European Union and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science of the Netherlands.23 The forum charges fees for submitting and pitching projects (if selected), or attending the event as an observer. This last option is open to a maximum of 350 people annually “due to both the capacity of the venue and to safeguard the intimacy and productivity of the event,” according to the organizers,24 and is aimed at producers (not directors), financers and representatives of institutions such as film funds, digital platforms, film institutes, festivals, markets or NGOs, to name but a few. The original idea of the Forum was that of a public presentation of film projects in development—usually pitched by the producer and director— in front of a panel of prospective funders, including public and commercial television broadcasters and film funds. These pitching sessions have ­developed into a convention comprised of seven minutes of oral presentation with a trailer,25 plus another seven minutes to respond to the questions

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of the funders  (Image 1). Major international broadcasters such as the BBC, ARTE, PBS, Al Jazeera English as well as national public broadcasters have traditionally been the principle decision makers invited to these sessions, where several pre-sales and co-production deals have been made, in many cases helping to bolster professional careers for producers and directors from peripheral regions. This was the case of the Bulgarian documentary production Georgi & the Butterflies (Георги и пеперудите), which was produced by Martichka Bozhilova and presented in the 2004 edition, and “was pitched and fully financed at the IDFA Forum in under 15 minutes” (Turajlic in Moestrup 2012, 6). Nevertheless, the outbreak of the 2008 financial crisis brought about a number of changes that involved a sharp decrease in closing deals during the forum, including pre-sales and co-production deals. This raised criticism from filmmakers, reaching the point where the forum format was labelled as a “dying standard” (Sevcenko 2010). Many filmmakers agree on the importance of pitching their films, which can be a fruitful experience in terms of receiving feedback from experts and industry agents as well as forcing themselves to advance the

Image 1  Project presentation at IDFA’s Central Pitch in the 2015 edition of the IDFA Forum. (Image by Aida Vallejo)

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work and have a clearer idea of its main features, such as topic or style. Meanwhile, others criticize pitching sessions for compromising the creativity and independence of the auteur, while extending the production period and increasing the budget of films (Moestrup 2012, 6–9). The cuts in public budgets in Europe that highly affected television broadcasters had as a consequence the bringing about of a delay in the decisions to invest in films, ending the golden age of closing deals at pitching forums. To adapt to these structural changes, the IDFA Forum has implemented some strategic policies such as creating new pitching formats and inviting new funding bodies and maximizing the hype around the event. Firstly, the Forum has transformed into a multi-layer event in which networking and finding partners becomes more important than securing funding. In addition to the main pitch, Round Table pitches—those specializing in specific formats or themes (such as cross-media or documentary for children in the 2016 edition), One-on-One Meetings and the Rough Cut Project session maximize the opportunities of attending filmmakers to present their work to commissioning editors, buyers, distributors and festival programmers (see Table 1). Secondly, new stakeholders, such as the Ford Foundation and the Tribeca Film Institute, have joined the panel of prospective funders. Thirdly, the performative aspect is gaining importance in the Forum. As IDFA’s industry coordinator van Nieuwenhuijzen remarks: “I wouldn’t mind doing only Round Tables, but the Central Pitches create the sense of an event” (qtd in Goodfellow 2012b, 1). In this context, initiatives such as The Moderator’s Hat, which allows any observer to be eligible to present a pitch if his/her business card is drawn at random, serves to attract the audience and create hype. Although in previous years having a percentage of the budget in place and a link to a broadcaster were obligatory requisites, in the last years the Forum  puts no restrictions to candidate projects in this regard. Nevertheless, a look at the projects presented in past editions  of the Central Pitch, with a remarkable presence of big-budget productions backed by strong national institutions, such as the Danish Film Institute or Chiledoc, reaffirms the hypothesis that the pitching session works more as a promotion platform for big productions on the one hand, and as an opportunity to update a rapidly changing business on the other, rather than being a real funding source for new independent films. In this sense, it is important to note that IDFA is actually an important place for those aiming at professionalization and developing an international career, but not necessarily a source of income for independent filmmakers without

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Table 1  IDFA Forum projects by type and number of attendees (2003–2018)

Projects received Total projects presented Central Pitch Round Table Pitch Individual Meetings projects Work in Progress Screenings Rough Cut Project One-on-one Meetings Docs4Cinema Crossmedia Forum Attendees

Projects received Total projects presented Central Pitch Round Table Pitch Individual Meetings projects Work in Progress Screenings Rough Cut Project One-on-one Meetings Docs4Cinema Crossmedia Forum Attendees

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

177 42 42

189 43 43

198 43 43

214 43 43

325 51 32 19

348 47 29 18

340 43 27 16 8

482 52 22 26 5

ND

ND

ND

ND

ND

7 300+

500

600

ND

ND

ND

ND

ND

497

489

489

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

475 58 22 30 8

398 59 21 29 5

472 51 17 26

444 52 16 28

592 58 16 35 3

534 59 15 37

681 58 16 38

770 51 16 25

5

5

3

600

700

700+ 3

844 5

4 870

7 1000

4 1016

7 1070

552

509

526

560

556

10 602

10 615

11 652

Source: IDFA’s statistics (This information is based on annual reports published by the festival and available online (2008–2018): https://www.idfa.nl/nl/info/feiten-en-cijfers; and a table published by the festival and no longer available online, due to the disappearance of many materials after the festival’s website migration in Spring 2017. ND: no data available)

further intention of entering the world of co-production or international distribution. In 2019, despite the increase in the total number of projects presented at the forum, the central pitch disappeared, and the number of thematic roundtable pitches increased. This confirms the concerns expressed by organizers and filmmakers about the classic pitching format

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and change of the forum’s role for the documentary industry. Moreover, the DocLab Forum for new media projects was presented as an independent event exclusively focused on cross-media works, providing a space for presenting either ideas or demos for webdocs, virtual reality, artificial intelligence projects, physical installations, multimedia journalism, live performances, and so on. A closer look at films participating in the IDFA Forum and the festival program suggests an intimate relationship between both activities. Many projects presented at the forum fit IDFA’s profile, presenting “creative documentaries bringing new stories with international appeal” (Van Nieuwenhuyzen in Bershen 2010). This involves a creative approach to a unique story that is strongly connected to actuality and global socio-­ political issues. Moreover, IDFA backs films presented in the Forum eventually finding a place for them at some section of the festival program. This is highlighted by the festival itself, which includes a list of these films in the industry catalogue. In 2016 most films previously presented at earlier editions of the forum (from 2011 until 2015) found accommodation in secondary sections such as Masters, Panorama or Bests of Fests, with two former Forum participants included in the main competition for feature-­ length documentary: Still Tomorrow (Jian Fan, China, 2016), pitched in 2015, and Los niños (The Grown-Ups, Maite Alberdi, Chile/The Netherlands/France, 2016), pitched in 2014. The Market Docs for Sale is a market with a dedicated catalogue of finished documentary films on sale. It has traditionally consisted of a video-library counting with several computer terminals, only available for Docs for Sale pass-­ holders, where TV buyers, sales agents, distributors and festival programmers can watch films in a row, totally or partially. Additionally, networking spaces and services are offered, with The Docs for Sale Lounge—a meeting space with the walls covered with film posters and flyers all over the place—and a cafe only accessible for pass holders, where filmmakers try to find the appropriate agents to whom they can sell their films. The Docs for Sale catalogue includes information about the films (which are labelled by content, national origins and genre of the films), as well as the contact information of the producer and/or distributor. The Docs for Sale catalogue is composed of films in all sections of the IDFA program and including about 300 titles, plus about another 200

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that are selected exclusively for the market (see Table 2). To be eligible films must fulfill three basic requirements: to be a new production (finished within the previous year), to have English subtitles or voice-over and dialogues in English, and to be a creative documentary (excluding non-­ fiction genres such as nature documentaries, corporate films, travelogues and informational films).26 These requirements offer some clues about how IDFA defines the documentary genre. Although cinema aesthetics and innovative narratives are predominant in IDFA’s main competition, parallel sections of its program include films with more televisual approaches. This is even more apparent in the market selection, where films that do not necessarily meet IDFA’s aesthetic or narrative quality standards may be of interest for buyers, many of which are TV stations. Films that are more reportage-style or not so relevant in thematic or aesthetic terms can therefore still find a place in the market. Docs for Sale is the natural working space for sales agents, not only because they scout for new films to represent, but also because they are selling films already included in their catalogues. For example, most films in the 2015 Docs for Sale catalogue already had a sales agent and/or distributor in place.27 The festival charges fees to films included in Docs for Sale, with special rates or wavers available for projects participating in other IDFA industry sections. Although individual deals to negotiate these fees can be made between the festival and film representatives, there is no information available about these practises, as they involve private deals and strategic collaborations. Recent technological innovations have opened up new possibilities for film markets, due to IT technologies such as online streaming services and databases. On one hand, submission procedures have been facilitated by online streaming platforms such as Vimeo, with which the IDFA festival has a deal.28 This has also provided the infrastructure for the creation of a VOD service for TV buyers, distributors and festival programmers, accessible through subscription only, where films included in the market’s catalogue are available for viewing online throughout the year. Despite the growing number of subscribers of VOD platforms worldwide (see Slovakova this volume), the IDFA platform doesn’t show a significant number of users (see Table 2). Although IDFA’s VOD platform is just a professional tool at the moment, the festival is already taking steps to test the possibilities of turning it into a distribution platform by offering viewing of specific films free and open to the general audience and including direct links to payment options to watch some films through Vimeo.29

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Table 2  Docs for Sale market’s facts and figures (2008–2018)

Titles in catalogue Viewers Viewings at IDFA Titles in IDFA online IDFA online subscribers

Titles in catalogue Viewers Viewings at IDFA Titles in IDFA online IDFA online subscribers

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

486 251 9742 400 125

460 240 9312 650 250

440 268 8053 ND 325

550 294 7159 ND 350

450 284 6675 ND 350

457 302 11,955 965 353

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

454 315 12,639 869 360

488 312 6004 937 365

512 320 4333 989 365

522 310 9660 1014 310

451 619a 9747 958 347

Source: IDFA’s statistics (This information is based on annual reports published by the festival and available online (2008–2018). https://www.idfa.nl/nl/info/feiten-en-cijfers. ND: no data available) a Accredited Docs for Sale guests at IDFA, not all necessarily visiting the Doc for Sale video-library

On the other hand, dedicated software has been installed in the Docs for Sale market to provide viewing statistics and collect opinions and evaluations by professionals. These data are not only used for internal use of the festival. Individual reports are provided to film representatives participating in the market and the Top 10 are published in the festival “industry special” in order to generate buzz. The Fund Formerly known as the Jan Vrijman Fund (until 2012), the IDFA Bertha Fund is an institution that finances documentary projects developed by filmmakers from regions labelled as “development cooperation countries”, including Africa, Asia, Latin America, Middle East and parts of Eastern Europe (IDFA Fund 2012, 6). These projects can be films in development, as well as training and exhibition initiatives, such as festivals (see Table 3). In addition to economic support, fund recipients can participate at IDFA’s industry sections free of charge, and their films are ­automatically included in the Docs for Sale selection. They can also participate in the festival’s training initiatives and get free consultancy for their projects. The Fund can be considered the first stage of an IDFA career, as funded films are usually later presented at the Forum and, eventually, included in

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its program—either in Competition or other sections—as well as in other collaborating festivals, such as Cannes, Berlinale, Thessaloniki, Locarno, Toronto and Pusan (idfa.nl).30 In order to attract new participants, IDFA also points to the fact that “Fund support is generally considered to be a seal of approval” and that “The Fund’s involvement in a project often attracts additional finance” (ibid). While information for industry participants is mostly published in English (in addition to Dutch), it is worth noting that information about the fund is also available in French—but not in Spanish, Arabic or any other language predominant in the candidate regions. Legally, the IDFA Bertha Fund is a separate entity from IDFA, with its own finances, director and staff. Nevertheless, some of the members of the board and (pre-)selection committee work for the festival as well. The IDFA fund initiatives are funded by the Bertha Fund, the MEDIA Program of the EU and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands. This funding scheme affects the selection criteria, as the three institutions have their own agendas. The fact that the MEDIA program demands 80% of the projects to be European productions points to cultural power-­dynamics that can translate into core-periphery relationships, where European countries exert control over representation of global conflicts. These dynamics are expected to grow due to the new funding scheme introduced in 2015 for production—and further developed in 2016 for distribution—, which divided the fund’s activities in two strands: IBF Classic, targeted at filmmakers from the “development cooperation countries”, and IBF Europe, for European co-producers of documentaries from these regions (see Table 3). In addition, a diachronic analysis of the films that were produced by the fund through the years shows that, among the countries of production represented there is a predominance of films from countries with high production capacity, such as Argentina or Brazil in Latin America (as eligible countries), or Germany and France in Europe (as prospective co-producers). The festival’s aim to bolster international documentary production involves issues of geopolitical power and cultural hierarchies. These are articulated by its necessity to cover relevant current affairs and international political conflicts, while using a cinematographic aesthetic and ­creative narrative devices. Production and distribution infrastructures and decisions have traditionally been kept in the hands of European and North-American companies, but new funding opportunities for low production countries risk to reproduce this model. Sustaining creative world

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Table 3  IDFA Fund Selected projects in the period 2011–2018 2011

Classic: Project development Classic: Production and post-production Europe: international co-production Europe: Distribution for International Co-productions Workshops and training Mobile cinemas Documentary festivals Total fund budget

2012

Selected projects

Granted amount

Selected projects

Granted amount

Selected projects

Granted amount

8

37,000

7

35,000

12

57,865

19

225,600

13

202,000

17

285,000

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

5

50,000

3

30,000

0

0

2 8 42

20,000 80,000 442,600

0 7

2014

Classic: Project development Classic: Production and post-production Europe: international co-production Europe: Distribution for International Co-productions Workshops and training Mobile cinemas Documentary festivals Total fund budget

2013

87,000 354,000

2015

0 3

30,000 372,865

2016

Selected projects

Granted amount

Selected projects

Granted amount

Selected projects

Granted amount

7

35,000

9

44,500

8

40,000

22

359,850

14

222,500

15

233,000

n/a

n/a

5

200,000

6

240,000

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

5

150,000

0

0

0

0

0

0

0 3 32

0 40,000 434,850

0 4 32

0 40,000 507,000

0 0 34

0 0 663,000 (continued)

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Table 3 (continued) 2017

Classic: Project development Classic: Production and post-production Europe: International co-production Europe: Distribution for International Co-productions Workshops and training Mobile cinemas Documentary festivals Total fund budget

2018

Selected projects

Granted amount

Selected projects

Granted amount

8 11 6 1

40,000 172,500 240,000 30,000

11 10 6 3

55,000 167,057 240,000 90,000

0 0 0 26

0 0 0 482,500

0 0 0 30

0 0 0 552,057

Source: IDFA Bertha Fund activity reports (2011–2018)

documentary in order to meet the requirements of funders and stakeholders in terms of geographical origins or topics without reproducing post-­ colonial power relationships is a very difficult task, especially taking into account the new EU MEDIA program requirements that apply to the IDFA Bertha Fund. This can lead to a limitation and control over representation of cultural or political diversity not only in IDFA’s program, but also at other festivals across the world whose programmers come to IDFA in search for new content. In addition to geopolitical representations, the fund’s annual reports show a concern with gender inequality in the documentary realm, especially in the areas at which the fund is targeted. Selection figures reflect the active policy of the fund to improve visibility for female filmmakers (including director and producer), thus acting a corrective factor. Finally, the focus on relevant social and political issues is apparent in some figures. For example, some fund recipients appear as anonymous, which points to the fact that they are filmmakers facing censorship or politically difficult conditions that can put in danger either their film or their own personal integrity. Successful projects formerly funded by the IDFA Fund include festivals such as Zagrebdox—which was recipient of the Jan Vrijman fund before Croatia joined the European Union, from the first edition in 2005 until 2007. While other festivals and showcases have been supported by the fund—especially in Latin America and Africa—the fund strand devoted to

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festivals disappeared in 2017, due to financial limitations, according to the festival’s annual report. As for the films, there are many productions supported by the fund that attained international recognition through the festival circuit and eventually found commercial distribution, such as 5 Broken Cameras (Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi, 2011), which was supported with the production and postproduction grant in the “Classic” section; or Sonita (Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami, 2015), which was supported with the development grant in 2013 and the production grant in 2014. These two films received the IDFA audience award; and the special mention for feature-length documentary and the IDFA Young Award, respectively. Training Programs IDFA’s training programs include a wide arrange of activities that profit from the presence of international documentary experts to turn the festival into a creative thinking hub and a space for knowledge exchange and professionalization. They combine under the umbrella of IDFAcademy and include an array of master classes, talks and workshops that take place both during the festival and throughout the year. The IDFAcademy is an intensive four-day training program taking place during the festival that provides a special accreditation for 80 emerging documentary filmmakers and producers. The program, funded by, among others, Creative Europe MEDIA program of the EU, is targeted at mostly European professionals starting their career, with a maximum of two documentaries produced, and with a project in development. The program stresses the aim of internationalization as a requirement for eligibility. It includes plenary sessions, workshops (including guidelines about how to pitch and create trailers for international co-production fora) and master classes in which participants get acquainted with practical issues related to filmmaking (sound, editing, etc.), production and distribution (Image 2). The DocLab Academy follows the same model and offers 25 (documentary) makers and new media professionals a special accreditation that allows them to attend master classes and workshops, including selected modules of the IDFAcademy program, plus the annual conference on interactive documentary and the IDFA Crossmedia Forum, which is the co-production and co-financing market for non-linear projects that takes place during the IDFA Forum. The accreditation also offers the possibility

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Image 2  IDFA Academy participants and Industry professionals attend a talk by Victor Kossakovsky and Tom Fassaert at the 2015 edition of the festival. (Image by Aida Vallejo)

to arrange one-on-one meetings and portfolio reviews by experts in the field. These activities can be considered a way in which the festival curates a professional program for a specific professional audience. In doing so, IDFA gives coherence to its extensive amount of talks and industry activities, while creating a new source of income through accreditation fees. In addition, the festival also organizes more classic workshops in which filmmakers develop their film through different stages. The IDFAcademy Summer School brings together international documentary filmmakers in their early career—those making their first or second feature documentary31—in Amsterdam for one week each summer. Selected filmmakers develop their film projects mentored by internationally renowned tutors, and follow lectures, workshops and discussions with other participants, combining individual coaching with group sessions. Selected projects are either in the script development phase or the rough-cut phase. Participants work to refine their scripts or editing through developing narrative structure, character and/or visual style. The working language is English and a

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fee must be paid by participants, excluding those who have already received a grant from the IDFA Bertha Fund, which covers all the expenses.32 As with other industrial activities, the festival usually includes productions developed in this workshop in the official program, normally in parallel sections, but at times also reaching the main competition. For example, Ukrainian Sheriffs (Roman Bondarchuk, Ukraine/Latvia/Germany, 2015) participated in the IDFA Competition for Feature-Length Documentary in 2015, after participating in the 2014 summer school. Long-lasting workshops taking place at different stages throughout the year have also been organized by IDFA.  These have adopted different names over the festival’s history, due to its dependence on external funding: IDFA Documentaire workshop (1989–2010); IDFA-MEDIAFONDS workshop (2011–2015). The IDFA & NPO-fonds Workshop for documentary development, started in 2017, lasts about six months during which time participants meet intermittently with tutors, producers and broadcasters in order to develop a documentary project. Participants compete for a development fund and are put in contact with prospective funders and exhibitors.33 The working language is Dutch, which explains the limited influence of its productions in the international documentary scene, as compared with films developed at other international co-­ production workshops, such as Documentary Campus.34 In past editions, IDFA has also served as a platform to showcase the results of other workshops such as the European VISIONS (Sesic 2006, 615). In addition, the festival has run the topic-driven Kids & Docs Workshop to develop documentaries for children. This highlights the festival’s concern for film literacy, developed since 1997 through special prizes, screenings at primary and secondary schools and special contests to develop ideas for documentaries (Sesic 2006, 615). Finally, other activities not directly labeled as training have been developed by the festival, with the aim of transferring and exchanging knowledge within the documentary sector while testing out new trends. On one hand, minor industry talks and sessions have been organized for accredited professionals since 2015, discussing diverse issues related to funding (crowdsourcing), distribution (film rights, new VOD platforms), documentary forms (VR, web-series), or professional profiles (producer of marketing and distribution, publicist), among others. On the other hand, new hybrid initiatives between laboratory and research are developing, such as the one organized within the IDFA DocLab Immersive Network. The Immersive Network Research & Beta Lab is a “place to test and fine-tune

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works-in progress” created in collaboration with the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (HvA), in order to analyse audience responses to interactive works.35 Looking at IDFA’s professional catalogue over the years, it is apparent that training initiatives have increased their presence in the festival industry program. This is certainly an efficient strategy to get the most of the festival’s guests and create new accreditation profiles (and therefore sources of income) and, at the same time, to serve as an intermediary between newcomers and established professionals, becoming a key place for the open debate of the past and future of documentary. Networking Events The decrease in opportunities to get effective funding at the festival site since the outbreak of the 2008 economic crisis has led to exploiting the possibilities of professional relationships as a value in itself. Helping to find co-production partners and/or future distributors and exhibitors is presently a key aspect of IDFA’s industry program and a major strategy to attract professionals from all around the world. De Valck and Soeteman already noted that for documentary filmmakers it is not as much about being awarded, but being selected for IDFA  “[t]hat matters, not only because the invitation already adds (modest) value, but mostly because it grants them access to the professional (network) opportunities of the event” (2010, 297). Selection “grants filmmakers the opportunity to make use of IDFA’s industrial and professional services, and gives them access to the peer community of documentary filmmakers, merits that are more tangible than prestige” (Idem, 204). One can therefore conclude that the process of value-addition that takes place at the festival does not only operate at the practical level of getting direct funding, but also at a second, more intangible level of prospective partnerships and deals that will materialize later. As a festival aware of this issue, IDFA has gone beyond the traditional role of gatekeeper (through the accreditation system), to an institution that develops a set of events and services that facilitate professional ­networking. These include arranging one-on-one meetings and professional consultancies, and a set of social events—including breakfasts, happy hours, lunches or parties—that are closed to the general public and only available to specific accreditation or invitation holders. For example, the IDFA Forum organizes a two-hour lunch in a central Amsterdam restaurant in order to provide a relaxed space for professionals to talk among

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themselves and find prospective partners. It is interesting to note that each event is aimed at bringing together different festival participants in a specific atmosphere. While the breakfasts with filmmakers are intended to bring together members of the press and documentary filmmakers in a calmed atmosphere (and, incidentally, making them get up early after the party nights), the successful Guests meet Guests evening sessions are open to all accreditation pass-holders and bring together all kinds of professionals to an overcrowded bar where they get to know each other while having a glass of wine, sponsored each day by a different documentary institute, film fund or broadcaster (Image 3). Parties are organized by different associations, such as distributors or the European Documentary Network, which organizes the “bottle party” in which each attendee brings a bottle of—expectedly alcoholic—drink to share with the rest. Since 2015 IDFA has also arranged an industry office at the festival’s headquarters where members of its staff are available to give information and respond to queries by accredited professionals. Moreover, the festival

Image 3  IDFA accredited professionals meet at the Guest meet Guests informal evening gathering at the Café de Jaren near the festival headquarters in the 2015 festival edition. (Image by Aida Vallejo)

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has introduced a service of matchmakers at the IDFA Forum: festival staff whose role involves the facilitation of interaction between participants, and can be contacted through the IDFA Forum information desk. In addition, the First Aid Doc Clinic is a service providing personal and free consultancy for filmmakers who can get advice from industry professionals about different aspects of their films—from narrative style to distribution strategies. Finally, the festival uses social media (with for example, dedicated Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Youtube accounts) to spread news and information about social events. It has also traditionally published a printed delegate guide (with the profile and contact information of accredited professionals) that helps attendees know who is attending the festival, and more recently, an online search engine that helps to navigate through the list of guests and get their contact information. Other more traditional ways of putting guests in contact are the physical post office boxes at the Docs for Sale market where distributors can contact filmmakers to offer deals. For example, this is the way in which Heino Deckert of Deckert Distribution contacted Slovak filmmaker Peter Kerekeš to distribute his film 66 Sezon (66 Seasons) in 2003.36 Awareness of the importance of making contacts has grown among documentary professionals in recent years and, in response, IDFA has increasingly managed the relationships within the event to foster encounters between industry and creativity. Profiting from the presence of guests with a long experience in documentary production and distribution, the festival has become efficient in promoting knowledge exchange among its visitors, and this contributes to its standing as an industry event of international impact.

Conclusions: IDFA’s Global Influence on Documentary and Film Festivals A diachronic view of IDFA’s incorporation of industry activity into its program can shed light on wider historical processes that, since the 1990s, took place in the festival circuit, and more specifically in the documentary realm. In this context, one can see the interconnections and mutual influences between festivals, where major events have served as models for IDFA, and the Amsterdam festival has subsequently become an example for documentary film festivals, not only in Europe, but also worldwide with events such as the Hot Docs pitching forum having been modeled after the IDFA Forum (De Koning in Mallet 2016).

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The growing importance of networking practices in the festival’s professional program demonstrates their influence in the capacity of the festival to attract international industry representatives. IDFA has historically been a meeting and reference point for documentary filmmakers, but more importantly, for festival organizers, programmers, producers and distributors from all around the world—with a significant predominance of European and North American representatives. Interestingly, the festival appears as a necessary “site of passage”—as De Valck (2007) has argued in reference to van Gennep’s anthropological concept—that has nurtured  the cultural elite that today controls feature-length documentary production and exhibition travelling the international documentary film festival circuit. Moreover, in a business predominantly composed of small production companies, and marked by growing uncertainty and structural changes  for funding and distribution, professionals develop two major strategies in order for their companies (or projects) to survive: (1) getting to know and build upon long-term relationships with key players in this sector, and (2)  updating and agreeing on present and future trends. IDFA’s industry program, with a growing number of networking sessions, training activities and industry talks, aims to fulfill this task. The historical role of the festival as a mere exhibition platform to bring new stories to the audience has extended to a wide range of functions, including promotion, production and distribution. Although industry activity and professional participation can run parallel to the “official” festival activities aimed at the common audience, programming and industrial events are entangled in a complex and long-term process of mutual influence. This affects film projects born out of the festival’s industry activities, which will come back to the festival either to be included in the program or the market, participate in further activities, or just be distributed through the professional networks previously established at IDFA. In this framework, the festival faces many challenges, as it has to make its several agendas compatible, while keeping its independence. Among others, this involves supporting films developed in the festival’s industry programs without compromising independent programming, contributing to an economically sustainable business, and dealing with global cultural hierarchies. These are but a few of the challenges involved in the incorporation of industry activity to festival programs, which makes IDFA—and other documentary festivals worldwide—a vibrant and evolving site for the creation of documentary projects, professional careers and documentary cultures.

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Notes 1. Betsy A. McLane notes that “The most significant documentary festival in Europe in the twenty-first century is the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam” (2012, 360), while in the Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film edited by Ian Aitken (2006) IDFA is, together with Hot Docs (Toronto) and Cinéma du Réel (Paris), the only entry devoted to film festivals. 2. I attended the 2015 edition of the festival with a press accreditation. In addition, the festival organization kindly provided me with access to events and spaces restricted for industry accreditation, including the IDFA Forum, Docs for Sale market, IDFA Academy, industry talks and office and the DocLab conference an exhibitions, as well as with  pdf copies of the catalogues of previous editions. Special thanks go to Yorinde Segal, Eva Laurillard, Michel Langendijk, Cathalijne de Wilde and Marloes den Hoed. I also want to thank Paul Pawels and the European Documentary Network team for providing me with access to former issues of the DOX magazine and Marijke de Valck for her help with Dutch bibliographic references. Research was funded by the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU. 3. During the 2015 closing ceremony, festival director Ally Derks pointed to the fact that this year the ceremony was full, while in previous years, the audience was scarce. For a review of the 2015 edition of the festival see Vallejo (2016). 4. Festival venues have changed through the years. In 2015 the industry office was located at the NH Carlton hotel, strategically positioned between the FORUM location at Compagnietheater, the Docs for Sale market at Arti et Amicitiae, the main movie theatres Pathé Tuschinski and the multiplex Pathé de Munt, and the professionals meeting place: Café de Jaren. 5. For a recent study of Iven’s politically committed work see Waugh (2016). 6. Marijke de Valck and Mimi Soeteman (2010) have studied the process of value-addition at the festival, which they based on jury decisions behind IDFA’s Joris Ivens Award—the main competition dedicated to feature-­ length documentaries. 7. De Valck and Soeteman relate the television standard of 55 minutes time-­ slots to the creation of new awards, such as the Silver Wolf Award for the best documentary under 60 minutes, which was established in 1995, and the Silver Cub for the best film of less than 30 minutes, established in 2005 (2010, 300). 8. The VPRO label doesn’t appear in all mentions by the festival. In 2016 the award that officially held the name of the tv channel was the VPRO IDFA Audience Award.

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9. While Thomas Elsaesser (2005) and De Valck (2007) have defined the festival circuit as a distribution network alternative to Hollywood, Dina Iordanova has put into question the interconnectedness of the circuit, arguing that festivals are exhibition venues rather than distribution nodes (2009). Nevertheless, in recent years both parts have recognized the limitations of border positions, acknowledging the limitations of film festivals as a sustainable way to get commercial revenue for films, while insisting in their key role in the production-distribution-exhibition chain. 10. Journalist and filmmaker whose real name was Jan Hulsebos. For more, see the biographic film De werkelijkheid van Jan Vrijman (Fabie Hulsebos, 2006, Netherlands). 11. See Vallejo’s chapter on the origins and development of the documentary festival circuit (2020, 81) in our first volume. 12. In “Tien Jaar IDFA: De permanente strijd tussen actueel en creatief” [Ten years of IDFA: a permanent battle between topicality and creativity] (1997) Miryam Van Lier contributes to this debate through a history of IDFA. For a deeper debate on how documentary festivals contribute to the definition of the creative documentary see the main introduction to this and our previous volume.  Thanks to Marijke de Valck for her help with Dutch bibliography. 13. See interview to programmer Rada Šešić in O’Connell and van Noortwijk (this volume). 14. Later replicated by the Berlinale Co-production market (2004), the Producers Network at the Marché in Cannes (2004), and at newer festival players such as Rome and Dubai (Loist 2011, 396–397). 15. At that time these organizations were called “FORUM” and “the Documentary”, respectively. The latter adopted the name European Documentary Network in 1996. This office for the promotion of documentary based in Copenhagen (Denmark) was started and funded by the MEDIA program of the European Union, a major funder of industry activities at IDFA and other documentary festivals. 16. For an analysis of research challenges in festival archives related to film formats see Barnes (2020) in our first volume, and the interview to Bilbao Documentary and Short Film Festival director Ernesto del Río (this volume). 17. For a compiled list of international film funds associated with particular film festivals see Falicov (2016, 222–226). 18. For a study of training initiatives at European film festivals see De Valck (2013). 19. Similar workshops organized by independent associations had already spread in previous years, especially in the European context, partly due to the availability of EU funding. These included EAVE for producers (1988, Luxemburg) and others specialized in documentary, such as Atelier Varan

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Paris (1981, France), Documentary in Europe (2000, Italy) or Documentary Campus (2001, Germany). For an interview to Documentary Campus Workshop Executive Board member Stefano Tealdi see Vanucci (this volume). 20. Originally the fee per film submission was 30€. In 2017 the submission fee was 40€ plus VAT and in 2019 €50 plus VAT. https://www.idfa.nl/en/ info/faq-submitting-your-film. 21. While crowdfunding campaigns proliferated in 2012, by 2017 it is apparent they cannot substitute the sources of income that documentary had before 2008. 22. Introduction to industry activity on IDFA’s web-site (no longer available). 23. In the 2017 edition Creative Europe MEDIA appears as funder of both the IDFA Forum (together with the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science of the Netherlands) and the IDFA Bertha Fund (together with the Bertha Foundation). 24. Regulations of the 2017 edition. 25. A one- or two-minutes video clip to give a sense of the visual style, characters and/or main story of the film. 26. See regulations: https://www.idfa.nl/en/info/faq-docs-for-sale. 27. Distributors with a significant presence in 2015 are: Taskovksi Films, Andana Films, Autlook Filmsales, Cargo Film & Releasing, CAT&Docs, Cinephil, Deckert Distribution, Doc & Film International, Dogwoof, DR Danish Broadcasting Corporation, Go2Film Distribution and Marketing, Joruneyman Pictures, NPO Sales, NEW DOCS, National Film Board of Canada, Rise and Shine, SVT or Wide House or Films Transit International. 28. https://www.idfa.nl/en/info/faq-docs-for-sale (accessed 6 July 2017). 29. Accessible by subscription only at a cost of 150 euros (+ 21% VAT). Films are available only for two years. https://www.idfa.nl/en/info/faq-docsfor-sale (accessed 6 July 2017). 30. https://www.idfa.nl/en/info/about-the-idfa-bertha-fund. 31. The program explicitly excludes film school students. https://www.idfa. nl/en/info/summer-school (accessed 6 July 2017). 32. In 2017 this was 1000€ per project plus travel costs. https://www.idfa.nl/ en/info/summer-school (accessed 6 July 2017). 33. https://www.idfa.nl/en/info/idfacademy-npo-fonds-workshop. 34. http://www.mediafonds.nl/idfamediafondsworkshop. See interview to Stefano Tealdi in Vanucci (this volume). 35. https://www.idfa.nl/en/info/idfa-doclab-immersive-network (accessed 6 July 2017). 36. Interview by the author to Peter Kerekeš via Skype (Bilbao–Bratislava, 29 April 2011).

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References Aitken, Ian, ed. 2006. Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film. New York: Routledge. Barnes, Heather L. 2020. The Data-driven Festival: Recordkeeping and Archival Practices. In Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 1. Methods, History, Politics, ed. Aida Vallejo and Ezra Winton, 53–59. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. De Valck, Marijke. 2007. Film Festivals: From European Geopolitics to Global Cinephilia. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. ———. 2013. Sites of Initiation: Film Training Programs at Film Festivals. In The Education of the Filmmaker in Europe, Australia, and Asia, ed. Mette Hjort, 127–145. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. De Valck, Marijke, and Mimi Soeteman. 2010. ‘And the Winner is…’: Looking Behind the Scenes of Film Festival Competitions. International Journal of Cultural Studies 13 (3): 290–307. Elsaesser, Thomas. 2005. Film Festival Networks: The New Topographies of Cinema in Europe. In European Cinema: Face to Face with Hollywood, 82–107. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Falicov, Tamara L. 2016. The ‘Festival Film’: Film Festival Funds as Cultural Intermediaries. In Film Festivals: History, Theory, Method, Practice, ed. Marijke de Valck, Brendan Kredell, and Skadi Loist, 209–229. London and New York: Routledge. Iordanova, Dina. 2009. The Film Festival Circuit. In Film Festival Yearbook 1: The Festival Circuit, ed. Dina Iordanova and Ragan Rhyne, 23–39. St. Andrews: St. Andrews Film Studies. Loist, Skadi. 2011. On the Relationships Between Film Festivals and Industry. In Busan Cinema Forum: Seeking the Path of Asian Cinema: East Asia, ed. Yong-­ Kwan Lee, 381–402. Busan: Busan Cinema Forum; Busan International Film Festival. McLane, Betsy A. 2012. A New History of Documentary Film. New  York: Continuum. Sesic, Rada. 2006. IDFA Amsterdam. In Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film, ed. Ian Aitken, 614–615. New York: Routledge. Stringer, Julian. 2001. Global Cities and International Film Festival Economy. In Cinema and the City: Film and Urban Societies in a Global Context, ed. Mark Shiel and Tony Fitzmaurice, 134–144. Oxford: Blackwell. Taillibert, Christel. 2009. Tribulations festivalières: les festivals de cinéma et audiovisuel en France. Paris: Editions L’Harmattan. Vallejo, Aida. 2014. Industry Sections. Documentary Film Festivals Between Production and Distribution. Iluminace. Journal of Film Theory, History, and Aesthetics 26 (1): 65–82. ———. 2016. Of Calendars and Industries: IDFA and CPH:DOX. Necsus. European Journal of Media Studies 9. http://www.necsus-ejms.org/ calendars-industries-idfa-cphdox/.

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———. 2017. L’impact économique des festivals de cinéma. Entre la communauté cinéphile et l’industrie audiovisuelle. Les cahiers de Champs Visuels 14/15: 61–98. ———. 2020. The Rise of Documentary Festivals. In Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 1. Methods, History, Politics, ed. Aida Vallejo and Ezra Winton, 77–99. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. Van Lier, Miryam. 1997. Tien Jaar IDFA: De permanente strijd tussen actueel en creatief. [Ten Years of IDFA: A Permanent Battle Between Topicality and Creativity]. In Feit, Fictie, Fake: Documentaire in Beweging, ed. Jos van der Burg, Mark Duursman, and François Stienen, 76–93. Amsterdam: Uitgeverij International Theatre & Film Books. Waugh, Thomas. 2016. The Conscience of Cinema. The Works of Joris Ivens 1926–1989. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Wong, Cindy Hing-Yuk. 2011. Film Festivals: Culture, People, and Power on the Global Screen. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Press Reviews Benzine, Adam. 2012. IDFA ‘12: Making Progress at the Forum. Realscreen, November 16. http://realscreen.com/2012/11/16/idfa-12-making-progress-at-the-forum/. Bershen, Wanda. 2010. Pitch Fests: Selling Your Project in Seven Minutes or Less. Documentary Magazine, May 17. http://www.documentary.org/magazine/ pitch-fests-selling-your-project-seven-minutes-or-less. Mallet, Whitney. 2016. The Changing Face of Documentary Distribution: The 17th Annual Hot Docs Forum. Filmmaker Magazine, May 5. http://filmmakermagazine.com/98417-the-changing-face-documentary-distribution-the17th-annual-hot-docs-forum/#.WWswMidLe00. Moestrup, Steffen. 2012/2013. Pitching Is Dead. Long Live Pitching. Dox: European Documentary Film Magazine 96 (Winter): 6–9. Ritchie, Kevin. 2012. Fraser, Tykwer to Speak at IDFA Congress on Dutch Docs. Realscreen, October 30. http://realscreen.com/2012/10/30/fraser-tykwerto-speak-at-idfa-congress-on-dutch-docs/. Sevcenko, Melanie. 2010. The Pitch Is a Dying Standard. Dox: European Documentary Film Magazine 88 (Winter), 30–31.

IDFA’s Official Publications Goodfellow, Melanie. 2012a. History. The Development of IDFA since the Start of the Festival in 1988. IDFA. https://www.idfa.nl/en/info/history. ———. 2012b. Forum Turns 20. IDFA Special. English Edition 3 (19–20, Nov.): 1.

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IDFA Activity Reports (2008–2018). [In Dutch]. https://www.idfa.nl/nl/info/ feiten-en-cijfers. IDFA Bertha Fund Activity Reports (2012–2018). IDFA Fund. 2012. A Visual History. 15 Years of the IDFA Fund [Slide Report]. IDFA. https://issuu.com/idfa/docs/www.idfa.nl.

Connecting and Sharing Experiences: Chilean Documentary Film Professionals at the Film Festival Circuit María Paz Peirano

Over the last decade, the production and circulation of Chilean documentary film has noticeably increased. Chilean films have achieved wide international recognition as a result of both national and international trends. Conditions in Chile have changed in such a way as to facilitate the production of a diversity of documentary films. Moreover, international film festivals and markets have played a major role in both the production and circulation of Chilean cinema, particularly documentary films, which find limited distribution in  local commercial cinemas and on television. Similarly to the case of other ‘peripheral’ cinemas (Iordanova et al. 2010), festivals have collaborated in the value-added process of films (De Valck 2007; Vallejo 2015; Wong 2011), and have also contributed to the expansion of small internal markets such as Chile’s. This chapter explores these transnational developments, looking into the ways in which global and local trends are intertwined. In particular, it aims to elucidate the ways in which Chilean agents have been able to take advantage of the film festival circuit in order to produce, fund, promote, and distribute their work. M. P. Peirano (*) Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile © The Author(s) 2020 A. Vallejo, E. Winton (eds.), Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 2, Framing Film Festivals, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17324-1_4

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This chapter is based on a multi-sited ethnography (Marcus 1995) on the production context of contemporary Chilean cinema. The research tracked some of the transnational film practices involved in Chilean documentary production and distribution. This involved participant observation at both Chilean and European film festivals; it also entailed conducting several interviews with filmmakers, film producers, and festival agents.1 The research focuses on the lived experiences of Chilean film professionals (filmmakers and film producers) in those settings, and as such this chapter aims to reflect the standpoint of these ‘peripheral’ agents in the international festival circuit. The chapter starts by considering the historical changes in national cultural policies that have led to an increasing level of documentary film production in Chile in the last decade. I discuss the development of national institutions that have had an impact on the visibility of Chilean documentary film (particularly the organisation of documentary producers, ChileDoc), as well as on the recent professionalization of the field. I then focus on the participation of Chilean film professionals at international festivals, and consider the impact of these events on the circulation of documentary films, exploring the ways in which documentary filmmakers and producers build international networks based on social practices of trust and reciprocity in the market spaces of the festival circuit. Finally, the chapter emphasises the importance of the festival experience in the learning process of Chilean filmmakers and producers, and sheds light on the local and global assemblages that have facilitated both the production and international circulation of Chilean documentaries in recent years.

Historical Background: Chilean Documentary Film and National Cultural Policies Chilean film is recognized worldwide, and Chilean documentary has held a respected position in film circles, particularly with regards to political films. For example, the prestigious festival Cinéma du Réel in Paris included a thorough retrospective of Chilean documentary film in March 2013, showing the works of several established Chilean filmmakers, such as Pedro Chaskel, Patricio Guzmán, Marilú Mallet, Carmen Castillo, and Ignacio Agüero. Indeed, Chilean documentary filmmaking is known for its strong tradition, highly rooted in the “Nuevo Cine Chileno” ­movement of the 1960s, when there was a turn towards realism and non-­industrial auteur cinema (Corro et al. 2007).

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After its brief position as a ‘revolutionary art’ sponsored by Salvador Allende’s socialist government (1970–1973), Chilean cinema suffered an important downturn after the military coup (1973) when the majority of film directors were forced to work in exile, mainly in Europe. Chilean cinema drew the attention of international audiences, and names such as Patricio Guzmán garnered outstanding recognition abroad. Meanwhile, during the military regime (1973–1990), only a few productions were made and exhibited in Chile. The state had legally abandoned any support for local cinema,2 and documentary films were a form of urgent, underground cinema, which was willing to denounce the abuses of Augusto Pinochet’s regime. Human Rights NGOs and other international organizations sponsored several militant documentary films up to the early 1990s (Liñero 2010). With the restoration of a democratic government in 1990, Chilean films began growing in number, while also gaining recognition abroad. Even when there was a decrease in the aforementioned international funding to Chilean filmmakers, production still increased thanks to the major sponsorship of the Chilean state (Mouesca 2005; Trejo 2009). This was a result of diverse changes in Chilean legislation regarding the promotion of national film production. Noticeably, these changes were driven by the struggle of film professionals. Their political endeavour led to the creation of the National Council of Audiovisual Art and Industry of Chile (Consejo Nacional del Arte y la Industria Audiovisual, CAIA), along with a special programme for the promotion of the audio-visual industry including, since 2004, a specific fund allocated to the audio-visual sector (Fondo de Fomento Audiovisual, FFA). The programme has had an impact on both the level of production and the increasing visibility of Chilean documentary film. The CAIA offers a special support for participation in festivals and international awards (Programa de apoyo para la participación en festivales y premios internacionales). The fund sponsors filmmakers and/ or producers to travel to renowned international documentary film festivals worldwide. By 2017, it was accepting applications for attendance at 127 film festivals, 23 of which specialize in documentary film: IDFA (Amsterdam), Thessaloniki (Greece), Festival dei Popoli (Florence), Cinema du Réel (Paris), É tudo Verdade (Brazil), Visions du Réel (Nyon), Hot Docs (Toronto), RIDM (Montreal), Full Frame (Durham, NC), DocumentaMadrid (Spain), DocsBarcelona (Spain), Silverdocs-­ AFI/Discovery Channel (USA), Transcinema (Lima), Yamagata (Japan),

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DOK Leipzig (Germany), DOK.Fest (Munich, Germany), Doclisboa (Portugal), DocsDF (Mexico), Flahertiana (Perm-Russia), Punto de Vista (Navarra), Santiago Álvarez in Memoriam (Santiago de Cuba), Docudays (Kiev-Ukraine), FIDBA (Buenos Aires) and CPH:DOX (Copenhagen). A complementary program supports attendance at 16 International Film Markets, four of which are exclusively for documentary films: Doc Outlook at Vision du Réel, Dok Market at DOK Leipzig, Docs for Sale at IDFA and, since 2015, Doc Shop at Hot Docs. The aim of the programme is to strengthen the local industry by supporting “the presence of recent Chilean films in the festivals for whom they have been selected [and] improve the commercialisation opportunities of these films.”3 In the case of documentary filmmakers and producers, this means that they can apply to go to both the festivals mentioned above and non-specialized festivals—those with relevant documentary sidebars and/or important market spaces, such as Cannes, Berlin, Guadalajara, La Habana, FIDMarseille and Clermont-Ferrand.

State Policy and Professional Initiatives: CinemaChile and ChileDoc While the Chilean state sponsors film professionals’ participation in film festivals, their trips are co-organized by two private organizations, CinemaChile and ChileDoc. As a rule, the governmental institution ProChile, which promotes Chilean industries abroad, works together with CinemaChile in the larger film markets, where they have an exhibition stand. CinemaChile is an agency that promotes Chilean film production, and is linked to the Association of Chilean Film and TV Producers (Asociación de Productores de Cine y Televisión de Chile, APCT). The sectorial brand CinemaChile represents Chilean cinema and independent television productions in the world’s major film markets and festivals. In the case of specialized documentary markets, such as IDFA, DOK Leipzig, or Hot Docs, Chilean participation is organized by ChileDoc. The latter is a non-profit organization created by a group of Chilean documentary producers in 2010, and is sponsored by the Chilean government through a special grant.4 ChileDoc, which become the sectorial brand for Chilean documentaries in 2018, aims to enhance the distribution of Chilean documentary films, and also pursues the creation of international professional networks as well as the promotion of Chilean documentary film abroad.

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Both CinemaChile and ChileDoc were created by film professionals who had already gained experience at international festivals and markets. They give support to filmmakers and producers travelling to festivals, and provide some guidance for those who have not been to festivals before. They put together the so-called ‘Chilean mission’, the delegation of Chilean film professionals participating in international film festivals and markets.5 CinemaChile manages an annual catalogue of Chilean film (including documentaries), which is distributed among international agents at festivals as a promotional tool.6 Moreover, both organizations facilitate encounters between Chilean filmmakers and producers, and between Chilean and other film professionals worldwide. ChileDoc has had a particularly pivotal role in the establishment of national and international professional networks for documentary film. The organization seeks to create a local network, expanded through its transnational connections, which attempts to bring together “a community of documentary filmmakers and producers”.7 This ‘community’ encompasses the relatively small world of independent documentary film, including Chileans, Latin Americans, and other international agents. To achieve its goal, ChileDoc works in partnership with diverse national and international institutions. As mentioned above, it works alongside Chilean state institutions8 and collaborates with private initiatives like CinemaChile. Internationally, it makes connections with festivals and markets such as DOK Leipzig, Visions du Réel, and DocMontevideo,9 and it has also created the international industry meeting Conecta, taking place in Santiago (Chile) since 2016. ChileDoc also maintains tie-ins with the EURODOC network, whose training program emphasises the transfer of skills regarding global production strategies.10 In 2009 the co-founder of ChileDoc, Paola Castillo, was the first Latin American to be invited to participate in such a training programme. This inspired her idea of creating ChileDoc later that year, when the Chilean government offered funding possibilities for the formation of audio-visual networks. ChileDoc provides a space for professional development in documentary film. It keeps an on-line record of the latest Chilean documentary films, and follows up the development of new projects, which it helps to promote worldwide.11 The organization puts together workshops, open talks and lectures, as well as training sessions with consulting producers, both in Chile and abroad. These events enable participants to establish direct relationships with the guests, and have dealt with ‘hot’ topics such

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as financing alternatives or mass distribution of content. ChileDoc has invited important ‘players’ in the documentary field with whom the organization has established a relationship, such as international distributors, sales agents, commissioning editors from television, and festival programmers.12 As a result, the programme has facilitated the commercial training of Chilean producers, strengthening their management and business experience. This emphasis on the training process is an attempt to professionalize the field even more, thus aiming to expand, at a local level, the learning outcomes originated in transnational settings. International festivals facilitate being up-to-date in the documentary film business. Festivals’ formal industry settings work as spaces for professional training, and social encounters contribute to the participants’ learning process. Indeed, most directors and producers have learnt about the documentary film business through their direct experience in those settings. Therefore, even when ‘being there’ is still irreplaceable, organizations such as ChileDoc have tried to bring the festival experience closer to those who have not yet had the opportunity to attend. Chilean producers are also willing to help less-­ experienced professionals going to the festivals for the first time. More experienced professionals can serve as guides inside the film festivals, as the larger events can be quite confusing (even overwhelming) for neophytes.

Building International Networks: Chilean Film Professionals and Film Circulation at International Festivals The renewed interest of Chilean documentary filmmakers in international film festivals (along with the relatively new figure of the documentary producer) coincided with transformations experienced by the festivals themselves. During the last decade, festivals have tended to open more spaces for market exchanges (Peranson 2009; Vallejo 2014). The importance of not only film exhibition but also co-production meetings, training panels, pitching forums, and the like has attracted the attention of film professionals. The possibilities to both establish economic exchanges inside the markets and develop professional networks in those settings motivate film professionals to congregate regularly in different documentary film festivals around the world.

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For Chilean film professionals the festival circuit is, firstly, a relatively stable showcase for their documentary films. Despite the fact that the total level of production has considerably increased in the last decade,13 documentary films do not normally get much distribution in Chile. They are rarely released in commercial showcases, and even exhibition in art houses (such as Cine Arte Alameda, the Cineteca Nacional—National cinematheque—or Sala Condell in Valparaíso) is rather limited. Moreover, for the last 15 years, Chilean television has hardly broadcasted any Chilean documentary films, or has done so in very poor conditions, amounting to a marginal window for the exhibition of local cinema.14 Taking this into account, the Chilean network of documentary film ChileDoc created MiraDoc, a distribution platform that, since 2013, works together with an alternative network of showcases. This project aims to promote the exhibition of around six new documentary films a year in different regions of the country, which normally do not have access to screenings of Chilean cinema. In this local context, Chilean film festivals are still the most relevant spaces for the exhibition of documentary films, especially for those films that do not participate in MiraDoc. The Santiago Documentary Film Festival (Festival de Cine Documental de Santiago, FIDOCS), founded by filmmaker Patricio Guzmán in 1997, is a widely recognised festival in Latin America, and it has been an important hub for encounters between Chilean documentary filmmakers and producers. It also has served as a local node for meeting international figures, since it has hosted renowned international guests as members of the jury, and/or as speakers in master classes.15 In recent years, other specialised documentary film festivals emerged in different regions of the country, such as Antofagasta (Antofadocs), Puerto Varas (Surdocs) and Chiloé (Fedochi). Non-­ specialised film festivals, like those in Santiago (SANFIC), Valdivia (FICValdivia), and Iquique (FICIQQ), also serve as meeting points for documentary film professionals. However, the reach of these exhibition places is still limited. Thus, international film festivals in other Latin American countries, Europe, and the USA constitute significant places for expanding the possibilities of Chilean documentary film. Filmmakers there connect with broader audiences, from whom they also get valuable feedback. Since they are confronted with diverse audiences in different countries the Q&As turn into significant moments in their personal learning process. Thus, filmmakers

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have the opportunity to get to know their audiences, gaining a unique experience for future projects. Besides the exhibition of films, there are a number of other reasons why documentary filmmakers are willing to participate in international film festivals. Festivals like IDFA, DOK Leipzig, and Visions du Réel have turned into relevant spaces for positioning Chilean documentary film, since they have become a key vehicle for securing the films’ international circulation, and, hopefully, further distribution. Indeed, both Marijke de Valck (2007) and Tamara Falicov (2010) have suggested that peripheral films supported by festivals have used these spaces as nodes for industrial support which transcend national boundaries—something that nowadays seems to aid the viability of those national cinemas that lack a large domestic market. This is particularly relevant for documentary filmmakers facing precarious distribution and exhibition conditions in their countries. Filmmakers’ participation in documentary festivals is crucial in order to ‘exist’ in the world market, and so to be recognized on the circuit (Ambrós 2009). Having a film selected in festivals’ bars and competitions helps create a ‘snowball effect’, whereby films picked for one festival are more likely to be picked for others, even more so if they manage to win awards. The most prestigious film festivals constitute significant starting points for a film’s journey around the circuit. Securing a place at an event means a great start for its commercial life, and subsequent participation at other festivals keeps adding to the film’s accumulative credentials, particularly during the two years following its première. The case of The Last Station (La última estación, Vergara & Soto, 2012) exemplifies the above. Funded by the IDFA Bertha Fund (2007), the film began its world circulation in 2012, premiering at the official selection of DOK Leipzig (2012), where it received an excellent critical reception. Even when the filmmakers were invited to premiere at IDFA, they decided to do so in Leipzig instead. There they had the opportunity to participate in the official competition, which was deemed to be better for the film. Moreover, since the film was a German co-production, it made more sense to premiere in Leipzig, for the future negotiations over the film. The film was shown out of competition at IDFA (2012) anyway, and after that it also travelled to CPH:DOX (Copenhagen), Edinburgh, Hot Docs (Canada), DocsBarcelona, La Habana and Lima, among several other festivals. It also won awards in New  York (‘Cinema Eye Honors’), Pärnu (Estonia), Palermo (‘Sole Luna’), and Guadalajara (Mexico), plus the audience award at FIDOCS (Chile). Thus, the film received considerable

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international attention—the British Film Institute listed it in second place for Best Non-Fiction Films in 2013—and it accumulated credentials that facilitated both its future exchanges and its access to local audiences. Film festivals have not only contributed to fostering the increasing international prestige of Chilean films, but have also sponsored Chilean production through direct funding.16 The awards of the festivals’ official competitions could help to recover some of the films’ costs. Moreover, the awards for works in progress and the festival funds for film production have both contributed to local filmmaking. For example, between 2001 and 2013,17 the Bertha IDFA Fund (formerly the Jan Vrijman Fund) sponsored almost 20 Chilean documentary films, including Nema Problema (Leighton & Foxley, 2001), The City of Photographers (Moreno, 2006), Alice in the Land (Larraín, 2008), The Chileans Building (Aguiló, 2010), and La última estación (Vergara & Soto, 2011).18 Similarly, Visions du Réel collaborates with the Visions Sud Est fund, which supports non-­ European films, including those from Latin America. The fund has helped to finance Chilean documentary films such as News (Perut & Osnovikoff, 2009) and The Lifeguard (Alberdi, 2012), and has guaranteed their distribution in Switzerland.19 Even when Chilean documentaries do not fully depend on these funds, the funding possibilities imply that the snowball effect continues to operate. When a film is internationally funded, it hopefully increases both its quality and its prestige, which could imply that the film will be selected for more film festivals. In turn, when a film is selected for a festival, it increases the filmmakers’ chances of accessing further forms of funding, whether directly (facilitating connections with co-production partners or other funding bodies) or indirectly (accumulating prestige). In the case of The Lifeguard (El Salvavidas), for example, the Visions Sud Est fund complemented the national forms of finance for the film (CORFO and FFA). The film had its world premiere at IDFA in 2011 (official competition), and it was then selected for numerous international festivals such as DOK Leipzig, Edinburgh, and Guadalajara, where it received a special jury award. This allowed the director Maite Alberdi to gain not only recognition but also experience. While she travelled with the film around the circuit, she was at the same time working on her next project, Tea Time (La Once), which she exchanged at international film markets. La Once was financed by national funds, along with funds from ITVS, IDFA Bertha Fund, the POV award for development, a Cuban Hat prize, and the best pitch at IDFA Forum 2011. The film finally had its international premiere

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at IDFA in 2014, where it won the Best Woman Director award. The trajectories of both films were thus entwined, and both the films’ credentials and the director’s learning process are linked to her path around the film circuit.

Building Reciprocity Practices: Industry Meetings & More As seen above, participation at international film festivals has an impact not only on the films themselves but also on the industry professionals involved with them. Filmmakers establish social networks, particularly when they participate in the ‘industry’ sections of the festivals. There, professionals meet the most relevant agents in the field and do ‘the real’ business: exchanging films and enhancing the possibilities for further agreements. This is particularly important for documentary films that do not get much of a chance at commercial markets inside the country, but have the potential to circulate abroad—not only at festivals and art-house cinemas, but also on international TV channels constantly searching the festival markets for new and creative non-fiction cultural content. Needless to say, Chilean professionals do not necessarily attend all the festivals for which their films are selected. Film directors and producers tend to take into account the importance of the events, both in terms of international prestige and in relation to Chilean production. Some filmmakers actually organise their year’s calendars with consideration for the date of relevant festivals, and they might make production plans accordingly. Attendance at certain festivals is also related to the initiative of such events. Festivals invite some professionals not only to exhibit their films but also in other capacities: as members of the jury, or as guest speakers, for example. This reflects the mutual exchanges between festivals and documentary film professionals. For instance, DOK Leipzig had a special focus on Latin America in its 2012 edition, and invited representatives from Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Uruguay and Ecuador to discuss matters of production, distribution and exhibition in the region. Producers Paola Castillo and Flor Rubina, the founders of ChileDoc, were guest speakers at two events: an Industry Talk (‘Latin America. What’s going on: Documentaries rising’), and an international panel (Dok Summit) on ‘L.A. Confidence: Latin American Documentary Today.’ Both producers

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had already met the festival organizers, and by then the festival had become a strategic partner of ChileDoc. Indeed, the Chilean organization also co-­ organized with CinemaChile the first official Chilean ‘mission’ to the festival that year.20 Those formal encounters evidence the exchange of knowledge and ideas that nurture the relationships between Chilean ­professionals and festival organizers. They also reveal the importance of previously established networks, which come into play at such industry events. Specific connections to some festivals impact filmmakers’ presence at one or another festival. In addition to official Chilean alliances with certain festivals, some filmmakers and producers have created their own, personal relationships with specific festivals (and other professionals). This leads them, for example, to prefer to negotiate their attendance and/or premieres with those festivals before others. Such relationships among film professionals are the basis of their professional networks. These bonds are grounded on a tacit reciprocity, which means a balanced exchange of duties. Similarly to what David Graeber (2001) has understood as ‘open’ reciprocity, relationships created at festivals imply a mutual commitment that, however, is not indelible. Quite the opposite: the relationship is developed through time; hence it must be actualized through constant interactions. Regular encounters at festivals help to build relatively long-­ term relationships, and imply building trust, which is the basis for keeping the business alive. In the words of Chilean producer Paola Castillo: I think the market is not just “the market”, it is much more: it is looking for partners, those people who like your work, who are in tune with you […]. It implies being up to date, you know? Increasing your ‘who’s who’, which in the long run also implies choosing better partners […] The world of cinema is very small, and you begin to realise the faces are repeating all the time, always the same people. So creating networks depends on really getting to know each other: it is a matter of sympathy, of human relations. Whom one chooses to work with is a mix, it is someone I trust and want to spend time with.21

Festivals’ informal and formal social spaces are specifically designed to facilitate such face-to-face interactions. Informal events, such as evening parties and cocktails, are important spaces to meet significant business partners. International festival programmers, filmmakers, producers, distributors and sales agents, along with commissioning editors and representatives of film funds, all gather together at these spaces, which help

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them to create and reinforce social bonds.22 Industry spaces are also relevant social hubs. For example, the open, semi-formal meeting spaces that festivals organize (such as IDFA’s ‘Guests meet Guests’ or DOK Leipzig’s ‘Get Together’) provide the opportunity to access relevant agents, who would not otherwise be approachable. Co-production meeting spaces, in turn, create networking opportunities with international producers and buyers. Moreover, pitching forums, labs, and markets are platforms for professionals to sell films and exchange ideas with key figures in the field. Consequently, these settings facilitate securing the attention from the right audience, as well as encountering the most appropriate partners. As a result, large festival markets are arguably ‘the place to be’ for many filmmakers and producers, since they are strategic hubs for gaining visibility in the world film market. In fact, in some cases the attendance at these spaces is restricted to certain participants who pay extra fees. This is, for example, the case for IDFA, which is deemed to be a ‘hot spot’ in the world of documentary film. IDFA’s international co-financing and co-­ production market (IDFA Forum) is a huge meeting place, where key figures in the documentary field congregate every year.23 For this reason, Chilean producers try to attend as frequently as possible, both in order to encounter other international professionals, and to keep track of market dynamics. Notwithstanding the above, some filmmakers still prefer to attend smaller festivals in order to make contacts, and to promote and exchange their films. Smaller festivals not only enable closer face-to-face encounters with the attendants, but also facilitate meeting specific partners. For example, filmmakers with ‘riskier’ films learn to look for more specialised festivals, which are willing to promote innovative filmmaking. For example, for some documentary filmmakers IDFA would be too much of a conventional space, where films have to adapt to more ‘mainstream’ requisites (even when at the same time it is a place for creative documentary films). From this point of view, the festival would be suitable for those films that are deemed to be easier to sell, for they would appeal to broader audiences. That is partly the reason why, for some Chilean film professionals, festivals like Visions du Réel and DOK Leipzig could be considered preferable partners. Arguably, they look for what a number of Chilean filmmakers are making, that is, more experimental and aesthetically sophisticated documentaries. As mentioned above, television rarely supports Chilean filmmaking, which gives Chilean projects an unexpected advantage: since

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they do not have to meet popular broadcasting’s requirements, filmmakers have substantial creative freedom that allows for an authorial signature in documentary filmmaking. Chilean film production is then sustained by other forms of support, mainly the aforementioned national and international funds for so-called “creative” documentary films that are likely to participate in film festivals. These conditions of production can also explain, in part, the recent success of Chilean films on this international circuit.

Conclusions The transnational exchanges and developments discussed in this chapter reveal the role that international film festivals play in peripheral documentary film production. In the case of Chilean cinema, documentaries are more visible not only because the level of production has increased, but also because they have been circulating more broadly over recent years. This is linked to the changes in Chilean domestic conditions of production and also, to a great extent, to the experience gained by Chilean film professionals at international festivals and markets. Travelling around the international circuit has given them deeper understanding of the international sphere, and a consequent accumulation of knowledge. Producers and directors have capitalized on both their expertise on the circuit and the professional networks they have constructed there. As a result, these experiences have become key inputs for local production practices, and have had a significant impact on certain institutional strategies like ChileDoc, which are eager to develop Chilean documentary film. Filmmakers and producers face difficulties concerning local exhibition, and while they have taken advantage of Chilean cultural policies, they have also found international film festivals to be inspiring, valuable nodes for the expansion of documentary film—particularly for the kind of authorial, creative films the international circuit is looking for. As a result, they are on the verge of enhancing Chilean documentary film even more, not only regarding its international circulation but also its local market. Thus, the full impact of professionals’ connections with international film festivals and transnational networks is yet to be seen. On the other hand, Chilean documentary film still has to overcome several limitations. Even now, production conditions are not stable enough to lead to its full professionalization. Moreover, local audiences still do not have easy access to Chilean documentary films (or international

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documentaries, for that matter), which are not directed at mass audiences. And, except from some notable cases such as the aforementioned La Once, only small niche audiences get to see the creative documentaries that circulate in the international circuit. These limitations are an ongoing concern for those involved in Chilean film production. Hopefully this will continue to change with the work that Chilean filmmakers, producers and professional organizations have started, trying to incorporate international and national models into their professional practices. Despite the obstacles, the possibilities for Chilean documentary film are wide open.

Notes 1. This text is part of my doctoral research, sponsored by both the University of Kent Postgraduate Research Scholarship, and Becas Chile, National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research CONICYT, Chile. The ethnographic fieldwork was conducted between 2011 and 2014. This chapter would not exist without those Chilean professionals who generously helped me during this research: Maite Alberdi, Constanza Arena, Isabel Arrate, Felipe Blanco, Raúl Camargo, Paola Castillo, Juan Manuel Egaña, Viviana Erpel, María Paz Gonzalez, Ricardo Greene, Germán Liñero, Gonzalo Maza, Christopher Murray, Tiziana Panizza, Amalric de Pontcharra, Christian Ramírez, Flor Rubina, Cristián Soto, and Catalina Vergara. 2. This was made by means of decree n. 825 (1974) that set Chilean Cinema under the regulations of a free market. 3. http://chileaudiovisual.cultura.gob.cl. 4. ChileDoc was created by means of the project ‘ChileDoc Creates Networks’ (ChileDoc Crea Redes). It received a government grant managed by the CAIA, through a special fund set up to support ‘Audiovisual Platforms and International Networks’ (Programa de Apoyo a Plataformas o Redes Internacionales en el Ámbito Audiovisual), both in 2010 and 2013. The sectorial brand ChileDoc was launched on 16th October 2018, in alliance with ProChile. See http://www.chiledoc.cl. 5. The official Chilean delegation includes all those filmmakers and producers who have been granted state funding, although CinemaChile also keeps a record of any other Chilean professionals who are participating in international film festivals. Those who travel by their own means are anyway treated as part of the ‘mission’: they are included in the catalogue, receive advice, and can also use the facilities of the Chilean stand at the markets, when there is one. 6. Chilean film directors and producers also get some copies of these catalogues as needed. 7. See http://www.chiledoc.cl.

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8. ChileDoc collaborates with the CAIA, the Department of Cultural Affairs (DIRAC), and the Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 9. These connections have implied an increasing participation of Chilean documentaries in film markets. For example, 10 Chilean documentaries took part in DokMarket (DOK Leipzig’s film market) in 2012, and another 12 ­participated in 2013; 7 documentary films participated in DOCM (Doc Market Outlook) of Visions du Réel in 2014; and 9 took part in the meetings of DocMontevideo market in 2014. See www.chiledoc.cl and www. docmontevideo.com. 10. EURODOC is a network and European training programme for both documentary film producers and commissioning editors from funding institutions and television. It facilitates meetings and relations among documentary film professionals, and also organises training sessions and master classes with major players in the audio-visual world, in order to help professionals to keep track of the changes in the global market of documentary film. It has the support of the MEDIA programme and the European Community, the Centre National du Cinéma et de l’Image Animée and Procirep. It also relies on the sponsorship of the partners hosting the sessions. See http://www.eurodoc-net.com/. 11. This information is available at the organization’s website www.chiledoc.cl, which promotes those Chilean films registered in the network. The website disseminates ChileDoc’s activities (master classes, talks, etc.), which are also announced by the means of a newsletter, via a mailing list. 12. According to ChileDoc, between 2010 and 2015 more than 180 Chilean filmmakers met with international guests. Among others, ChileDoc has invited to Chile producer and distributor Heino Deckert, DOK Leipzig Officer Class Danielsen; Executive Director of POV, PBS, Simon Kilmurry; EURODOC tutor Jacques Bidou; Sales Agent Irena Taskovski; Bruni Burres from the Sundance Documentary Film Program; and Phil Cox, director of WorldView and Native Voice. They have also invited, for the training programs, Claire Aguilar (ITVS, USA); Luciano Barisone (Visions du Réel, Nyon, Switzerland); Bruni Burres (Sundance Documentary Film Program, United States), Luis González (DocMontevideo, Uruguay); Gema Juárez (Gema Films and DNA, Argentina); Kristiina Pervilä (Millenium Films, Finland), Claudia Rodriíguez (RTVC, Colombia); and Jenny Westergard (YLE, Finland). See http://www.chiledoc.cl. 13. By 2010 an average of 30 documentaries a year were premiered, three times as many as a decade earlier (ChileDoc 2014, 13), which is also related to the broader expansion of Chilean cinema in this period. Between 2004 and 2013, 11 to 25 Chilean films (feature and documentary) were premiered every year. In contrast, between 1990 and 2003 Chilean film production averaged around 6 films per year. Source: CAEM Chile (http:// www.caem.cl).

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14. This restricted access to Chilean films is not only limited to documentaries but also fiction films, and the problem of local distribution is an important concern for all Chilean film professionals. For more details regarding the issues of distribution and exhibition of Chilean and other South American films see Falicov (2007) and Ross (2010). 15. FIDOCS has invited several international figures in recent years, for example, Haruka Hama (coordinator of the Yamagata Film Festival), Theodore Grouya (Director American Documentary Film Festival), Javier PackerComyn (Artistic Director Festival Cinéma du Réel) Film critic (and exDirector of BAFICI) Quintín; and filmmakers Ginette Lavigne, Mariana Otero, Juan Carlos Rulfo, Richard Dindo, and Cao Guimarães, among others. They have delivered master classes and/or served as members of the jury either for official competitions or for the festival’s work in progress (Primer Corte). 16. The impact of festival funding on Latin American film production have been examined more widely by Tamara Falicov (2010), Miriam Ross (2011), and Minerva Campos (2012, 2013). 17. Given the volume of applications received, since 2014 IDFA does not longer sponsor certain Latin-American countries, which count on other forms of support for documentary film. Those countries are Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Chile. Thus, the fund prioritises other countries in clear disadvantage with respect to more professionalised ones, which can afford higher quality films. 18. The fund also financed other activities for networking and film promotion, like the ‘Latin Documentary Filmmakers Summit’ (Fusión Latina— Encuentro documental con países vecinos) in 2001. It also contributes to the international exhibition of films, since every year the festival shows a selection of the documentaries supported by the fund (‘IDFA Harvest’). 19. See http://www.visionssudest.ch. 20. The relationship between DOK Leipzig and the Chilean organisations has continued to develop more recently. For the 2014 edition, the festival has invited Chilean filmmakers to participate in the event, waiving the registration fees. See http://www.cinemachile.cl, and http://chiledoc.cl. 21. Extract from personal interview (December 2013). Translated from Spanish by the author. 22. Besides the events organised by the festivals, there are sometimes also social gatherings that are hosted by the same participants. CinemaChile and ChileDocs, for example, have organised cocktail parties at IDFA, DokLeipizig, and Visions du Réel (‘Magic Hour’). 23. In fact, in 2013 a total of 51 projects were presented in different pitch setups, which led to hundreds of meetings between the pitch teams and decision makers at the market. See: http://www.idfa.nl.

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References Ambrós, Jordi. 2009. Financiación y difusión: mercados y festivales de documental. In Doc 21. Panorama del reciente cine documental en España, coords., María Inmaculada, Sánchez Alarcón, and Marta Díaz Estévez, 223–244. Gerona: Luces de Gálibo. Campos, Minerva. 2012. El circuito de financiación de los cines latinoamericanos. Cinémas d’Amérique Latine ARCALT 20: 172–180. ———. 2013. La América Latina de ‘Cine en construcción’: Implicaciones del apoyo económico de los festivales internacionales. Archivos de la Filmoteca 71: 13–26. ChileDoc. 2014. Comienzo del despegue: estado de la distribución y comercialización de documentales en Chile entre 2000–2010. Santiago: ChileDoc. Corro, Pablo, Carolina Larraín, Maite Alberdi, and Camila Van Diest. 2007. Teorías del cine documental chileno. Santiago: Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. De Valck, Marijke. 2007. Film Festivals: From European Geopolitics to Global Cinephilia. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Falicov, Tamara. 2007. Programa Ibermedia: Co-production and the Cultural Politics of Constructing an Ibero-American Audiovisual Space. Spectator 27 (2): 21–30. ———. 2010. Migrating from South to North: The Role of Film Festivals in Funding and Shaping Global South Film and Video. In Locating Migrating Media, ed. Greg Elmer, Charles H.  Davis, Janine Marchessault, and John McCullough, 3–21. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Graeber, David. 2001. Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of Our Own Dreams. New York and Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Iordanova, Dina, David Martin-Jones, and Belén Vidal. 2010. Cinema at the Periphery. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press. Liñero, Germán. 2010. Apuntes para una historia del video en Chile. Santiago: Ocho Libros. Marcus, George. 1995. Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-sited Ethnography. Annual Review of Anthropology 24: 95–117. Mouesca, Jacqueline. 2005. El documental chileno. Santiago de Chile: LOM. Peranson, Mark. 2009. First You Get the Power, Then You Get the Money: Two Models of Film Festival. In Dekalog 3: On Film Festivals, ed. Richard Porton, 23–37. London: Wallflower. Ross, Miriam. 2010. South American Cinematic Culture: Policy, Production, Distribution and Exhibition. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ———. 2011. The Film Festival as Producer: Latin American Films and Rotterdam’s Hubert Bals Fund. Screen 52 (2): 261–267. Trejo, Roberto. 2009. Cine, Neoliberalismo y Cultura: Crítica de la economía política del cine chileno contemporáneo. Santiago de Chile: Editorial ARCIS.

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Vallejo, Aida. 2014. Industry Sections. Documentary Film Festivals between Production and Distribution. Iluminace 26 (1): 65–82. ———. 2015. Documentary Filmmakers on the Circuit. A Festival Career from Czech Dream to Czech Peace. In Defining Independent Documentaries: Case Studies in the Post-1990 Context, ed. Camille Deprez and Judith Pernin. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Wong, Cindy. 2011. Film Festivals: Culture, People, and Power on the Global Screen. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

The Invention of Northeastern Europe: The Geopolitics of Programming at Documentary Film Festivals Ilona Hongisto, Kaisu Hynnä-Granberg, and Annu Suvanto

Over the past two decades, the number of European documentary film festivals has grown dramatically. Simultaneously, numerous cinemas have had to close their doors in the face of economic pressure. As everyday screenings diminish, festival screenings increase. In the documentary context, film festivals have in fact become key sites in a film’s life cycle. They play a part in the gestation of ideas, securing production funds, sealing distribution deals and, finally, screening the finished product.

I. Hongisto (*) Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway e-mail: [email protected] K. Hynnä-Granberg University of Turku, Turku, Finland e-mail: [email protected] A. Suvanto Humak University of Applied Sciences, Helsinki, Finland © The Author(s) 2020 A. Vallejo, E. Winton (eds.), Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 2, Framing Film Festivals, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17324-1_5

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In Europe, the upsurge of documentary film festivals coincides with the intense and still ongoing socio-political transition period launched with the revolutions of 1989. With the dissolution of Cold War borders, documentary film festivals became one of the public platforms where the relationship between the East and the West, the North and the South was problematized, discussed, and re-imagined. “The Invention of Northeastern Europe” refers to the newly emerged possibility of imagining the region beyond the bounds of the Cold War. As such, it is a nod to the artistic efforts undertaken to envision the continent in new ways but, more precisely, it also gestures to the role of documentary film festivals in these imaginations.1 In this setting, the importance and cultural role of documentary festivals extends beyond the mere exhibition of films. Although film festivals in general have become major players in the business of exhibiting films, documentary film festivals operate in a register that is particularly responsive to prevailing social, political and environmental situations. Panels and debates that add to the programming are just one example of how documentary festivals intertwine exhibition with the larger cultural sphere. Moreover, all major European documentary film festivals have pitching forums for new projects and for those seeking distributors that coincide with the screening of films. These industry forums function as harbingers of what gets made and distributed in the first place. To this background, our aim in this chapter is to discuss how European documentary film festivals’ curatorial practices are linked to the post-1989 European transition period and the overall process of redefining the identity of the region. Here, we will proceed along three separate yet fundamentally connected lines of inquiry. First, we will discuss the industry networks that condition festival screenings with an emphasis on the trajectories that are available for Northeastern European documentaries. Then, we will analyze the programming history of selected European documentary festivals to map the region in terms of festival visibility. Finally, we will focus on the discursive framings of the screened films in order to show some of the patterns at play in defining the region.

Europe Reconfigured The fall of the Soviet Union and the Berlin wall, the unification of Germany and the division of Yugoslavia changed the geopolitical map of Europe. The borders of the Cold War gave in and new clusters and divisive lines began to emerge. The 1993 Maastricht treaty envisioned a union that promised free movement of people, capital and goods within Europe.

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Simultaneously, the outside realm of the union’s borders gained a stronger presence. The double bind between unification and division activated a discussion of Europe as borderland, as Etienne Balibar (2009) put it. Two particularly interesting features in this discussion are the genealogy of the East–West-division and the concept of difference at the heart of the idea of Europe. Historians emphasized that the division between East and West extends well beyond the Cold War to the Enlightenment period when Eastern Europe was considered a buffer zone between Western civilization and barbarism (Wolff 1994). Conversely, Iver B. Neuman (1996) noted that Western liberalism is ‘the other’ in post-Soviet Russian self-definitions. Political philosophers have imbued the notion of the other with a further meaning as Europe’s internal condition. For example, Jacques Derrida (1992, 9–11) argues that difference is a fundamental feature of any definition of culture or identity. According to Derrida, Europe cannot be reduced to itself—to a singular identity—because it is by definition always already other. In this way, Derrida directs the focus to the discourses that determine Europe at a given time. At the center of the discussion is the dissonance between the idea of Europe and its point of reference. In Film Studies, difference and otherness have been equally central in accounts of cinemas of the East. They have been used in discussions of “the other Europe” (Iordanova 2002), problematized in a Derridean spirit in relation to the presumed idea of Europe and its others (Galt 2006), as well as reclaimed in an effort to hold on to the particular cultural heritage of the East in the face of supra-national production cultures (Imre 2012). Importantly, more emphasis has also been placed in pointing out the internal differences of the region. Instead of focusing on a generic “Eastern Europe”, researchers tackle more narrow regions from the Balkans (Galt 2006; Ravetto-Biagioli 2012) and Central Eastern Europe (Iordanova 2002) to the Baltic countries (Sukaityte 2010). With the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc, Eastern Europe as a research area requires geographical and terminological specification (see e.g. Mazierska 2010). Our focus on Northeastern Europe emanates from a similar emphasis on new regional clusters that challenge the longstanding division to East and West. As such, the Northeast is a manifold assemblage of nation states, languages and cultures that have distinct relations to “the East”. We have included such diverse countries as Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Russia and Finland in our analysis. Together these countries form the Eastern nook of the Baltic Sea, although they are usually placed in

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other geographical interest areas: Germany associates with Central Europe and Poland with Central Eastern Europe; Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania form the Baltic countries; Finland tends to be discussed as part of Scandinavia or the Nordic countries, and Russia usually does not belong to Europe at all.

Networks Behind the Festival Stage The 1990s signals the beginning of the third phase in film festival history— a period distinguished by non-profit organizations and specialized festivals—such as those dedicated to the documentary (Vallejo 2014; de Valck 2007). Many festivals began to move away from state sponsorship and other funding tools came to replace the reliance on national resources. One of the central funding bodies for European film festivals, the EU’s MEDIA program, was launched in 1991. The program has gone through four cycles with a mandate in enhancing production, distribution and exhibition structures—and thus promoting and preserving European audiovisual heritage. In Eastern Europe, the program was deployed to teach filmmakers and producers the basics of film agreements (Iordanova 1998, 48). In addition, The Council of Europe launched Eurimages in 1989 to support co-operation between professionals established in different European countries. Like MEDIA, Eurimages is heavily involved in the running of various film festivals (Wong 2011, 147). In simple terms, the intervention of European funding tools meant more co-productions and more international documentary film festivals. Moreover, Aida Vallejo (2014, 77–78) notes that EU funding typically depends on how many international industry professionals festivals are able to attract. In order to secure funds, festivals invest in industry sections and market events with an eye on international participants. International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA, 1988–) was the first to launch an industry forum in 1991, and IDFA Forum quickly became a model for other documentary festivals that copied the structure of filmmakers and producers pitching their projects in front of financers, distributors, and an audience of observers (Vilhjálmsdóttir 2011, 39–41).2 With approximately 50 selected projects per year, it continues to dominate the European pitching market. Competing events at DOK Leipzig (The Art of Pitching, 2001–) and at Visions du Réel (Pitching du Réel, 2006–) take in approximately 15 and 10 projects respectively.3

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Whereas especially the IDFA Forum works as a pathway from European markets to an international arena, there are noteworthy regional instances that promote films to the European market. In Eastern Europe, the EU’s MEDIA program is complemented by the Visegrad Fund.4 The Bratislava based funding body was founded in 2000 by the governments of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and the Slovak Republic with the aim of encouraging cooperation among the citizens and institutions of the region. It, for example, funds Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival (Czech Republic, 1997–). Consequently, Jihlava hosts the Visegrad Accelerator platform for film professionals and, since 2011, the platform has included its own Inspiration Forum where filmmakers from the region can get financial support for their documentaries. It has to be noted, however, that there are significant differences between these pathways as the industry sections as such do not come with production and distribution funds. According to Steffen Moestrup (2012, 8–9), real possibilities for significant international funding are only available at the major events—IDFA, Hot Docs (Toronto) and Sheffield International Documentary Festival (UK)—as these are the events the most powerful industry professionals attend. The hierarchy makes some industry events more attractive than others, which turns the less attractive events into testing grounds and practice fields. This posits a three-tier ladder for industry sections: from regional competitions to the European stage and finally to events that may open up to international markets.5 Competition has led to the development of adjacent initiatives that enhance the chances of promising projects. For example, the Copenhagen-­ based European Documentary Network (EDN) offers its members financial advice and organizes workshops and seminars. EDN has been particularly active in Southern and Eastern Europe, where it has set up events in collaboration with local professionals with the aim of opening both European and international financing markets to projects from these regions. It has, for example, run the Baltic Sea Forum for Documentaries in cooperation with the National Film Centre of Latvia and Baltic Films since 2004.6 Baltic Sea Forum selects 24 projects annually and works especially with representatives from Baltic, Nordic and European television broadcasters. The work of the Baltic Sea Forum aligns with that of the Nordisk Forum, the main funding event for documentary professionals from the Nordic countries. The forum has taken place in conjunction with the Nordisk Panorama festival ever since 1994 and it focuses especially on

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co-­financing.7 One particularly interesting feature of the forum is that every year a delegation of producers from a “guest territory” is invited to participate. In 2014, the invited delegation was from the Balkans. The organization behind both events is Filmkontakt Nord (1991)—an organization founded by filmmakers for filmmakers. In sum, Baltic Sea Forum and Nordisk Forum enhance smaller scale regional co-operation in preparation for international markets. Organizations such as EDN work across regions to help projects climb the industry ladders and the biggest festival forums are the final gate to international sales. These networks behind the festival stage show that ever since the 1990s documentary film festivals have become “field-­configuring events” (Rüling 2009, 49–51). They play a part in the life of a film from its initiation to subsequent circulation years later. For example Mila Turajlic, the director of the successful Cinema Komunisto (Serbia, 2010), notes that she took her project to nine market events before securing funding (Moestrup 2012, 8). Subsequently, the film had its world premiere at IDFA in 2010, and has since been screened at numerous European festivals.

The Visibility of Northeastern Europe The networks behind the festival stage work in relation to the screenings that make up the visible façade of a film festival. In this section, we are interested in the visibility of Northeastern Europe at European film festivals between the years 1990 and 2010. We have gone through the programming history of 10 festivals and analyzed the visibility of Northeastern Europe by production country, film festival and festival year. Our aim in working with the programming history has been to identify some of the exhibition patterns of Northeastern European documentaries. The 10 festivals were chosen on the basis of their operative years and geographical location. Some initially included festivals had to be left out, as their programming history was not available at the time the research was conducted.8 The festivals that were included in our survey are Cinéma du Réel (Paris, France 1978–), Doclisboa—Lisbon International Documentary Film Festival (Lisbon, Portugal 2002–), DocPoint—Helsinki Documentary Film Festival (Helsinki, Finland 2002–), DOK Leipzig—The International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film9 (Leipzig, Germany 1955–), FIDMarseille—Festival International de Cinéma10 (Marseille, France 1990–), IDFA—International Documentary Festival Amsterdam

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(Amsterdam, the Netherlands 1988–), Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival (Jihlava, Czech Republic 1997–), Planete+DOC (Warsaw and Wroclaw,11 Poland 2004–), Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival12 (Thessaloniki, Greece 1999–) and Visions du Réel—Festival International de Cinéma13 (Nyon, Switzerland 1969–). These festivals are among the most significant in Europe, but there are noteworthy differences in their exhibition volumes. For example, IDFA— one of the biggest documentary film festivals in the world, if not the biggest—has screened 5185 films during the time period looked at in this chapter. The number of screenings per festival has gone up from about a 100 in the early 1990s to about 300 screenings in the late 2000s.14 Cinéma du Réel, on the other hand, has a total exhibition volume of 2510 for the same time period, with about 100 screenings per festival up until 2008, when the yearly volume went up to 200 screened films.15 Although our survey covers 20 years beginning from 1990, many of the festivals were founded only in the 2000s. Then again, DOK Leipzig was founded in 1955, but programming information was available only from 2005 onwards. The scope of the survey was limited also in the cases of FIDMarseille (est. 1990), Jihlava (est. 1997) and Visions du Réel (est. 1969), as their programming information was available only from 2002, 2001, and 1995 respectively. Based on our survey, visualized in Fig.  1, there have been 1539 Northeastern European screenings at the chosen festivals during the period of 1990–2010. One fourth of the screenings (357) have taken place at IDFA. There are at least three factors that need to be taken into account when analyzing the distribution of the screenings between the festivals. First, only Cinéma du Réel, DOK Leipzig, FIDMarseille, IDFA and Visions du Réel have existed for the whole duration examined in the survey. Of these five festivals only Cinéma du Réel and IDFA have kept archives of their programming history that cover the whole twenty years. This has an effect on their proportional sizes, although Cinéma du Réel nevertheless falls behind DocPoint and DOK Leipzig. Second, the relative strength of DocPoint and DOK Leipzig has to do with the strong national mandates of these two festivals. Two thirds of the programming at DocPoint and DOK Leipzig during the period covered was Finnish and German respectively. Third, behind the four biggest portions, the distribution is surprisingly regular. Even the two festivals smallest in screening numbers and farthest from the Northeast—Doclisboa and FIDMarseille— have screened a substantial number of films from this region.

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Fig. 1  Distribution of screened films by festival

The distribution of screened films by their production country, visualized in Fig. 2, is not as even. Over 50 % of the data—555 of the 1082 films screened at the festivals—have been produced in Germany.16 In addition to the national mandate of DOK Leipzig and the festival’s third biggest overall screening volume (15%), Germany has the highest number of films at all festivals apart from DocPoint. This reflects the country’s overall production volume. Exact production numbers were not available at the time of writing this chapter, but national statistics of theatrical releases give away some information about production volumes. According to statistics from the German Federal Film Board (FFA), the number of documentaries circulating in film theatres is manifold compared to, for example, Finland. According to the Finnish Film Foundation (SES), only one Finnish feature length documentary made it to local theatres in 2000. In Germany, 19 films were shown in theatres that year. In 2010, 9 Finnish films did the rounds in theatres whereas FFA recorded 70 German films in national theatrical distribution (FFA 2014; SES 2014).

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Fig. 2  Distribution of screened films by production country

Behind Germany, the production countries form two groups. Although Finland has 6% more films than Russia and 8% more than Poland, this is largely on account of the national emphasis at DocPoint. At all other festivals, Finland and Russia are neck and neck in the amount of films shown. In the three-level hierarchy between the production countries, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania form a joint front. During the years accounted for in the survey, 23 Estonian, 21 Lithuanian and 19 Latvian documentaries have gone through the festival circuit. Although the number of films that have been shown at international festivals is pretty even between these three countries, there are remarkable differences in production volumes. Estonia produces three times the number of films compared to Latvia and Lithuania. In 2000, Estonia recorded 45, Lithuania 13 and Latvia 10 documentary films and in 2010, the numbers were 34, 11 and 19 respectively (Baltic Films 2004–2010). The fact that Finland places high in the distribution of films by production country is quite interesting given that the country’s production numbers are not higher than those of Estonia. In 2010, there were 28 documentaries produced in Finland against 34 in Estonia. Over a longer

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time period, Estonia seems to have been even more active a production country. During 1990–2010, the Finnish Film Foundation has supported the production of 505 documentaries, whereas Estonia boasts 617 films over the shorter time period of 1995–2010. Latvia and Lithuania fall behind both Finland and Estonia with production numbers at 224 for Latvia (1995–2010) and at 168 for Lithuania (1996–2010) (SES 2014; Baltic Films 2004–2010).17 The distribution of festival screenings by production country and festival year supports the above interpretations and brings forth some important additions. The low numbers of the early years represented in Fig. 3 are partially due to the young age of some of the festivals and especially due to the lack of programming history for those years. This, however, affects all the production countries equally and thus does not change the dynamics between the countries. The chart reveals that Germany set itself apart only during the last five years. The time period matches a significant push in German film industry funds. Whereas neighboring countries struggled with cutbacks and downsizing, Germany put 250 million euros in film production and distribution in 2005 and continued with an upward trend in the following years (Rahayel 2006).

Fig. 3  The distribution of festival screenings by production country and festival year

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The Baltic countries had a similar upward trend in production and distribution funds during the 2000s, but this is not reflected as clearly in the chart. In 2000, Estonia supported its film industry with 2 million euros and in 2005 the support had grown to 4.5 million. During the same time period, Latvia went from 1.4 to 2.9 million in state support. The upward trend was slower in Lithuania, with industry support went from 1.0 million in 2002 to 1.3 in 2005, and finally to 2.9 million in 2008. Interestingly enough, the upward trend came to a halt in 2008 when support reached its peak. For example, in Latvia funding came down from 6.1 million in 2008 to 1.9 million in 2010 (Baltic Films 2004–2010). Apart from Finland, the chart shows an overall decrease in the number of screened films during the last years of the survey. Figure 3 also displays a much closer relationship between Germany and Finland than Fig. 2 originally suggested. Although there are far fever Finnish films in the European documentary film festival circuit, they tend to screen at more festivals. In 1990–2010, 120 German to 79 Finnish films screened at two or more festivals. In other words, Finnish documentaries are proportionally more often “festival films” than their German counterparts.

Singular Nations and Significant Authors The visibility of Northeastern Europe at documentary film festivals comes with multiple strategies of presentation. Here, we are particularly interested in the discursive gestures with which the exhibited films are associated with the Eastern question and how the transition period is offered as an interpretative frame for festival audiences. Discursive framing attaches and detaches the programmed films to and from particular cultural signifiers and thus impacts the viewing experience on the level of meaning making. In the festival context, programming is the foundational discursive gesture that positions the screened films in interpretative frames. Marijke de Valck (2007, 167–175) notes that programming has had a particularly important role ever since the 1970s, when national cinemas gave in to international art films. Then, programmers became gatekeepers in charge of deciding what films were worth seeing (de Valck 2012, 26). In addition, festival programming began to shape film criticism and research with its lineages of trends—styles, themes, authors—that provide tools with which film histories can be structured (Ruoff 2012, 3, 10).18

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In this section, we will offer an overview of how the films in our corpus are framed at the festivals in question. Instead of commenting on the choices of particular programmers, we will focus on how the corpus is demarcated to screening series that provide the films with interpretative frames. We are interested in the extent to which programming at documentary films festivals engages with geopolitical postulations and new visions of the region. In this light, it is interesting to note that from the 1539 screenings in our corpus, 453 were presented in themed series. Overall, the corpus intersects with 96 thematic series, excluding competitions.19 It is equally noteworthy that the vast majority of the series focus on an individual nation or an auteur. For example, in its 1997 edition Cinéma du Réel presented retrospectives of each of the Baltic countries as separate entities. “A la rencontre des pays Baltes” showcased 28 films from Lithuania and 21 from Latvia and 17 from Estonia, the oldest being the Estonian Ruhnu saar from 1931. Germany was represented in the 2007 edition of the same festival with “Histoire(s) allemande(s)” with screenings of such films as Between the Devil and the Blue Sea (Romuald Karmakar, 2005) and It Should Have Been Nice after That (Karin Jurschick, 2000). In 2008, Planete+Doc included a series titled “The 1968 Revolt in German Documentaries” in its program. Finland, Russia and Poland have been addressed as singular nations in “Finland, Film Country” (Visions du Réel, 2002), “Post-Soviet Russian Documentary” (Doclisboa, 2005), and “Polish Heart” (DocPoint, 2010). The series were respectively spearheaded by such festival favourites as Mother’s of Life (Markku Lehmuskallio and Anastasia Lapsui, 2002), Bread Day (Sergei Dvortsevoy, 1998) and Chemo (Pawel Lozinski, 2009). In addition to framing screened films through the lens of singular nations, authorship has also been a prevalent method in delineating films to audiences. The German auteur Werner Herzog has had five retrospectives over the years and the Finnish director Pirjo Honkasalo has had three. Retrospectives have also been dedicated to, for example, the Russian auteur Sergey Dvortsevoy, the Polish filmmaker Andrzej Fidyk, Latvian director Herz Mark and the Lithuanian documentary filmmaker Audrius Stonys. In our corpus, Estonia is the only country that has not had one of its filmmakers featured in a retrospective.20 Based on these findings, the discussed festivals seem to rely on rather traditional discursive delineations. Nationality and authorship have, undoubtedly, been key markers in cultural debates that involve small

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nations and geopolitically charged areas, and given the political history of Eastern Europe, it is quite understandable that what has been emphasized after the dissolution of the Eastern bloc is individual countries (of which some are newly independent). This is also evident in the sponsorship of some of the screening series. For example, Polish Docs Spotlight (Thessaloniki, 2010) was sponsored by the Polish embassy and Andrzej Fidyk’s retrospective at the same festival was supported by Polish television, Telewizja Polska. Both of these institutions—along with the production company WFDIF and the Polish National Film Archive Filmoteka Narodowa—came together to support the tribute to Krzysztof Kieslowski at the same festival. In a similar fashion, the Goethe institute in Warsaw supported two historical series on German documentaries at Planete+DOC in 2008 and 2009. Thus, whereas the festivals themselves no longer generally function as clear showcases of national cinema, national signifiers and formulations are boosted in sponsored programming.21 However, a few examples from our corpus gesture toward new associations and visions of the region. In 2005, DocPoint launched a screening series titled DOCview. The aim of the series was to “screen documentary pearls from countries that line the shores of the Gulf of Finland” (DocPoint 2005, 127). During the first three years of the series, most of the screened films were Russian and the overall number was very small; three Russian films and one Latvian. In 2008, the series had grown to 10 films and included works from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. In 2009, the name of the series was changed to North by Northeast and its scope broadened yet again. Now films from Russia, the Baltic countries, Poland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark were screened under the same banner. In the festival catalogue, DocPoint representative Elizabeth Marschan notes that although the countries in question have drastically distinct recent histories, their remote location in the Northeast draws them together (DocPoint 2009, 46). Another example is the 2006 DOK Leipzig screening series “Traces of Poetry—Baltic Documentary Films since 1991.” The series included 23 films from the three countries and according to the catalogue description, aimed at “bringing out the richness of the films from the region” (DOK Leipzig 2006, 108–110). Here, the poetic became a common denominator between Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, bringing together such films as Egg Lady (Una Celma, Latvia 2000), Diary (Oksana Buraja, Lithuania 2003) and To Shure (Hannes & Renita Lintrop, Estonia 1990).

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Three other series are worth mentioning in this context, as they are quite overt responses to the post-1989 transition period in Europe. All three series focus on Central Europe and its particular consistencies. Films from Poland, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia made up the “Central Europe” program at Jihlava in 2001 and 2002, and Visions du Réel hosted a series titled “Central Europe Dreams: The Cultural Scene of Poland, Slovakia, The Czech Republic and Hungary” in 2004. In this example, the geographical delineation aligns with the shared prospect of EU membership (Visions du Réel 2004, 139). Finally, the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall served as the occasion for three special programs devoted to the events of 1989. “M(a)U(e)R—1989 Revolution in Polish and German Documentary Films,” “Mur de Berlin: 20 Years Later” and “Transit 89. Gdansk-Leipzig-­ Bukarest” screened at Planete+DOC, Visions du Réel and DOK Leipzig, respectively, and together took a decidedly local perspective to the events of 1989. These examples bring forth some of the discursive gestures with which films are grouped in festival programming. Individual nations and authors prevail over new visions of the region, although there are examples of the latter as well. However, as only 453 of the 1539 screenings have taken place in the above-described series, the impact of screening series as discursive frames should not be overestimated.

Conclusions In this chapter, we have explored three layers of inquiry related to curatorial practices developed by European documentary film festivals since the 90s: the networks of production and distribution that intertwine with festival exhibition, the visibility of Northeastern Europe in terms of festival screenings, and the discursive framings with which the screened films are positioned in festival programming. These areas of inquiry align with the post-1989 transition period in Europe and the related emergence of new geopolitical areas of interest. Although it would be too hasty a conclusion to claim that Northeastern Europe has thus been invented, our research nevertheless offers insight into how the consistency and vision of this region takes form at the festival circuit. In this sense, the invention of Northeastern Europe is not a finished feat, but an ongoing process. Our inquiry has opened up a number of subsequent questions that merit further research in relation to the formation of Northeastern Europe.

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One such topic is the dynamic between national markers and transnational production cultures. Our study indicates that whereas production and distribution tend to pull documentary film projects to a supranational sphere of allocations and negotiations, programming often pushes the finished films back to national grounds. This calls for further research on the presence of the national at the international documentary film festival circuit. Similarly, in the spirit of the term ‘festival circuit’ it is worthwhile to return to our festival data and explore the links between documentary festivals in more detail. This includes looking more closely into the travels of particular films and the patterns of movement between festivals. Research on festival lineages and likely exhibition trajectories would add a further layer into “the invention of Northeastern Europe” at European documentary film festivals.

Notes 1. The work presented in this chapter was conducted in 2012–2013 and it belongs to Ilona Hongisto’s larger research project on post-Soviet Northeastern European documentary cinema funded by the Academy of Finland (grant number 265933). Kaisu Hynnä-Granberg and Annu Suvanto worked as research assistants on the film festival sections in Hongisto’s project. The authors would like to thank Varpu Rantala for her help in creating the data visualizations. 2. IDFA Forum was likely modelled on the “matchmaking market” at Film Festival Rotterdam launched in 1983. This forum presented pre-selected filmmakers and projects to potential financers. In 1988, Rotterdam introduced the Hubert Bals Fund that supports projects from “cinema-­ developing-­countries” (de Valck 2012, 33–34). As Miriam Ross (2011) notes, the problem with funding tools directed explicitly at “developing countries” comes with an inbuilt conception of these countries and their cultures. Although HBF has been instrumental in the making of many seminal projects, the demands of funding may also result in projects that reflect the expectations and understandings of the festival circuit rather than those of the culture itself. 3. For more information on the pitching forums, see IDFA Forum, http:// www.idfa.nl/industry/forum.aspx; The Art of Pitching, http://www. documentary-campus.com/v2/page/symposia/symposia_previous; Pitching du Réel, http://www.visionsdureel.ch/docm/pitching-du-reel. 4. On the Visegrad Fund, see http://visegradfund.org. 5. Mark Peranson (2009) makes an analytical distinction between business festivals and audience festivals. Speaking in the context of international film

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festivals, he notes that buyers attend business festivals such as Cannes or Berlin whereas audience festivals such as Vancouver International Film Festival have only little business presence. 6. The Baltic Sea Forum for Documentaries was launched in 1997 by the Baltic Media Centre. The EDN became involved in 2004 when it overtook the organization. On the Baltic Sea Forum for Documentaries, see http:// www.mediadesklatvia.eu/baltic-sea-docs-2014. On the EDN, see http:// www.edn.dk. 7. On the Nordisk Forum, see http://www.nordiskpanorama.com/Nordisk. Forum-146. 8. These are OneWorld—International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival (Prague, Czech Republic 1998–), Doc/Fest—Sheffield International Documentary Festival (Sheffield, UK 1994–), Belgrade Documentary and Short Film Festival (Belgrade, Serbia 2004–) and CPH:DOX—Copenhagen International Documentary Festival (Copenhagen, Denmark 2003–). The inclusion of CPH:DOX would have been particularly interesting as they have worked extensively with Eastern European themes and they also partake in Doc Alliance—a web-based project aimed to promote the digital distribution of European documentary films. Other Doc Alliance members are DOK Leipzig, Doclisboa, FIDMarseille, Jihlava, Planete+DOC and Visions du Réel. See www. dafilms.org. 9. Initially titled All-German Leipzig Week for Cultural and Documentary Film. The current DOK Leipzig screens animations alongside documentary films. 10. Since 2006, FIDMarseille has included both fiction films and documentaries in its program. 11. The main Planete+DOC event is in Warsaw, but Wroclaw hosts a smaller related event the following week. 12. Established in 1960 as “Week of Greek Cinema”, the festival became international in 1992. Thessaloniki International Film Festival first screened both fiction and documentary films and in 1999, a specialized documentary festival branched out from the joint event. 13. Initially titled “Nyon International Documentary Film Festival”. Visions du Réel has been in use since 1995. 14. IDFA statistics: http://www.idfa.nl/nl.aspx. 15. Cinéma du Réel statistics: http://www.cinemadureel.org/en. 16. The number of screenings (1539) is different from produced films (1082) as many films have been screened at multiple festivals. Chart 1 r­ epresents all screenings, whereas chart 2 accounts for each feature length work only once.

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17. The numbers include both feature and short length films. The Finnish number is based on statistics from the Finnish Film Foundation that include only films supported by the foundation. A few films—especially student works—are left outside the yearly statistics. 18. In the third phase of documentary film festivals, as we have indicated, the programmers are by no means the only gatekeepers to what gets screened. The complex networks of funding and distribution manage the pool from which films are chosen. Especially at smaller festivals agents and distributors play a bigger part in the composition of the festival program (cf. Peranson 2009, 30). 19. The 96 series have a total number far greater than 453, but this chapter accounts only for films produced and distributed between 1990–2010. 20. Werner Herzog retrospectives have been screened at IDFA (1999), Thessaloniki (2002), DocPoint (2004), FIDMarseille (2005) and Planete+DOC (2010). Pirjo Honkasalo retrospectives have taken place at DocPoint (2004), Thessaloniki (2005) and IDFA (2010). Sergey Dvortsevoy has had retrospectives at Planete+DOC (2008) and Visions du Réel (2009), Andrzej Fidyk at Thessaloniki (2010), Herz Mark at Jihlava (2004) and Audrius Stonys at Jihlava (2001). 21. Sponsoring typically takes place in one of two ways: either cultural institutes or other similar institutions offer a collection of films to be screened, or the festival groups films together and finds an appropriate sponsor for the screening series.

References Balibar, Etienne. 2009. Europe as Borderland. Society and Space 27: 190–215. Derrida, Jacques. 1992. The Other Heading: Reflections on Today’s Europe. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. De Valck, Marijke. 2007. Film Festivals: From European Geopolitics to Global Cinephilia. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. ———. 2012. Finding Audiences for Films: Festival Programming in Historical Perspective. In Coming Soon to a Festival Near You: Programming Film Festivals, ed. Jeffrey Ruoff, 25–40. St. Andrews: University of St. Andrews. Galt, Rosalind. 2006. The New European Cinema. Redrawing the Map. New York: Columbia University Press. Imre, Anikó. 2012. Introduction. Eastern European Cinema from No End to the End (As We Know It). In A Companion to Eastern European Cinemas, ed. Anikó Imre, 1–21. Somerset: Wiley-Blackwell. Iordanova, Dina. 1998. East Europe’s Cinema Industries since 1989: Financing Structure and Studios. The Public 6 (2): 45–60. ———. 2002. Cinema of the Other Europe. London: Wallflower Press.

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Mazierska, Ewa. 2010. Eastern European Cinema: Old and New Approaches. Studies in Eastern European Cinema 1 (1): 5–16. Moestrup, Steffen. 2012. Pitching Is Dead, Long Live Pitching. DOX— Documentary Film Magazine 96: 8–11. Neuman, Iver B. 1996. Russia and the Idea of Europe. A Study in Identity and International Relations. London: Routledge. Peranson, Mark. 2009. First You Get the Power, Then You Get the Money: Two Models of Film Festivals. In Dekalog 3: On Film Festivals, ed. Richard Porton, 23–37. London: Wallflower. Rahayel, Oliver. 2006. Funding Film in Germany. Berlin: Goethe Institute. http://www.goethe.de/kue/flm/fim/en1394196.htm. Ravetto-Biagioli, Kriss. 2012. Laughing into an Abyss. Cinema and Balkanization. In A Companion to Eastern European Cinemas, ed. Anikó Imre, 77–100. Somerset: Wiley-Blackwell. Ross, Miriam. 2011. The Film Festival as Producer: Latin American Films and Rotterdam’s Hubert Bals Fund. Screen 52 (2): 261–267. Rüling, Charles-Clemens. 2009. Festivals as Field-configuring Events: The Annecy International Animated Film Festival and Market. In Film Festival Yearbook 1: The Festival Circuit, ed. Dina Iordanova and Ruby Cheung, 49–66. St Andrews: University of St Andrews. Ruoff, Jeffrey. 2012. Introduction: Programming Film Festivals. In Coming Soon to a Festival Near You: Programming Film Festivals, ed. Jeffrey Ruoff, 1–21. St. Andrews: St. Andrews Film Studies. Sukaityte, Renata, ed. 2010. Baltic Cinemas after the 90s: Shifting (Hi)Stories and (Id)Entities. Acta Academiae Artium Vilnensis 56. Vallejo, Aida. 2014. Industry Sections: Documentary Film Festivals between Production and Distribution. Iluminace 26 (1): 65–82. Vilhjálmsdóttir, Linda. 2011. A Documentary Film Festival Circuit and Film Festivals as Field-Configuring Events, Adapting to Digitalization. “…To Get Together And To Really Talk About Strategies”. Unpublished MA thesis in Cultural Management, Bifröst University. Wolff, Larry. 1994. Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of Enlightenment. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Wong, Cindy. 2011. Film Festivals: Culture, People, and Power on the Global Screen. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Catalogues

and

Statistics

Baltic Films: Facts and Figures  2004–2010. Accessed April 23, 2014. http:// www.efsa.ee/index.php?page=66&. DocPoint. 2005. Lattunen, Tuija (ed.). Tampere: Tammer-Paino. ———. 2009. Remes, Mikko (ed.). Tampere: Hämeen Kirjapaino Oy.

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DOK Leipzig. 2006. Steer, Patricia; Lukas, Claudia & Linde, Ingo (eds). Leipzig: Jütte-Messedruck Leipzig GmbH. Finnish Film Foundation (SES 2014): dokumenttituotanto 1990–2010. Personal communication with Reetta Hautamäki (12.3.2014). German Federal Film Board (FFA 2014): German documentary production 1990–2010. Personal communication with Witt Ann-Malen (11.3.2014). Visions du Réel. 2004. Morgenthaler, Brigitte (ed.). Geneve: SRO-Kundig.

Beyond the Screen: Interactive Documentary Exhibition in the Festival Sphere Stefano Odorico

In a transmedia context,1 the challenge of distributing, receiving, locating and relocating information quickly and efficaciously becomes of primary importance. In recent years, audio-visual production has introduced different degrees of interaction and immersion that allow the user to interact, participate and get involved. In an attempt to break the linearity of traditional formats, production companies have created new platforms (mostly web based) for interactive use, capable of collecting, remixing and dispensing various types of content. Hence, productions such as interactive documentaries are growing increasingly popular and are widely defined as documentary transmedia platforms, realized with the use of contemporary digital technology. They are a combination of the classic concept of linear documentary form, with its several modes of representing reality (see Bruzzi 2006; Rosenthal et al. 2005; Nichols 2001), and the digital medium, with its interactive applications that allow multiple levels of storytelling, interactivity, user participation and collaboration in the creation of content (see Aarseth 1994, 1997; Aston and Gaudenzi 2011, 2012; Nash et al. 2014; Odorico 2015).

S. Odorico (*) Leeds Trinity University, Leeds, UK © The Author(s) 2020 A. Vallejo, E. Winton (eds.), Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 2, Framing Film Festivals, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17324-1_6

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In the context of the film festival the interactive documentary form is currently breaking its way through, ‘forcing’ classic documentary festival programmes to change their formats in order to include transmedia exhibitions and, at the same time, it is incentivising the creation of new and alternative events which adopt ‘new media’ as their main focus. Thus, the importance of analysing this contemporary documentary form within (but not limited to) the documentary film festival sphere is key. From this backdrop, this chapter will provide an overview of the film festival as it relates to documentary, interactivity and transmedia. Firstly, this essay will analyze the specificities of the interactive documentary form, in relation to transmedia and interactivity. It will then go on to reflect on how practices of participation, interaction and relocation are key elements to re-think exhibition practices at film festivals, using the small-scale Schull Film Festival as an example. Finally, this chapter will describe how several film festivals are currently including interactive documentaries in their programs without sacrificing their traditional event-­ experience for their audiences. Three different types of events, focusing on specific case-studies, will be analyzed: (1) regular documentary festivals (IDFA), (2) interactive documentary festivals (Sheffield Doc/Fest), and (3) Symposia/festivals/labs ( i-Docs symposium).

I-docs: Documentary, Interactivity and Transmedia The recent development of transmedia storytelling is a challenge affecting film production and distribution worldwide. New media theorist Henry Jenkins attempts to define the term in his popular book Convergence Culture: ‘A transmedia story unfolds across multiple media platforms with each new text making a distinctive and valuable contribution to the whole’ (Jenkins 2006, 97). More recently Jenkins writes: ‘Transmedia storytelling represents a process where integral elements of a fiction get dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels for the purpose of creating a unified and coordinated entertainment experience. Ideally, each medium makes its own unique contribution to the unfolding of the story’ (Jenkins 2009). Jenkins has given this new phenomenon a name and, without entering into a debate about their validity, these quotations highlight the fact that, due to its dynamic and complex nature, transmedia defies simple categorization. This challenging process of delineation becomes even more complicated when it is combined with the notion of interactivity and the classic documentary film form.

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An increasingly demanding documentary marketplace has, over the years, forced filmmakers and documentary producers to conceptualize and develop new approaches to engaging with audiences. These creative projects often involve a process of encouraging active participation and collaboration rather than the more passive way of consumption of linear documentary texts.2 Their diffusion has created and (re)educated a new contemporary form of audience. As a result of this, the transmedia documentary form is actively involved in rethinking how new digital technologies and contemporary platforms (social networks, forums etc.) can be used for audience activation and for promoting open conversations about specific topics that matter to all of us: the users. The number of identifiably transmedia interactive documentaries is increasing each year (especially since 2008). However, it is the recent interest (the reasons for which are various, including multiple possibilities of distribution, popularity, innovative platforms etc.) of international broadcasters such as, ARTE (Franco-German TV network), BBC etc. that has opened the medium up to a wider audience. The reasons for this increase in popularity go beyond the broadcasters’ investments and can be found also at an institutional level with festival and national film boards involved in the promotion of the format. In fact, many of these interactive projects have been presented at film festivals and have been funded by television channels, newspapers etc., thus gaining notoriety and visibility. Numerous public and private institutions are supporting these productions, including: the NFB (the National Film Board of Canada), France 24 (French broadcaster that offers an annual web-documentary prize), IDFA (International Documentary Film Festival, Amsterdam), and IDFA DocLab (Showcase for new forms of digital documentary storytelling since 2007). Furthermore, an additional factor that can be considered responsible for the relative contemporary success of these projects, can be found in the viewer’s constant quest for truth as a fundamental element of the documentary form. The users of interactive documentaries in fact use interactivity to ‘get closer to the touch’—being able, for example, to interact with the documentary content (expand it, amend it and question it), communicate with the main contributors involved in the project (interviewees, director etc.) and interact with other users through discussion and the exchange of opinions on the project itself. Hence, users potentially experience a richer perception of truth. Furthermore, transmedia helps the documentary form to exist outside the institutional context both in terms of space and time. The Internet

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enables the interactive documentary to reach audiences all over the world at any time depending on their own needs, following alternative and more contemporary distribution rules. According to Chuck Tryon, in 2011 Angelica Das, writing for “Future of Film” (Tribeca Film Festival) argues that: “transmedia storytelling becomes a way of creating a sense of audience engagement with a documentary project, often months or years before that final documentary project is completed, while also potentially extending the life of a documentary project well after its initial appearance in festivals, theatres, or online” (Tyron 2011). Examples of these interactive documentaries presented at festivals, conferences, workshops worldwide include, among others: Capturing Reality (2008); Journey at the End of the Coal (2009); The Iron Curtain Diary 1989–2009 (2009); Interview Project (2009); Out my Window (2010); Prison Valley (2010); One Millionth Tower (2011); In Situ (2011); Bear 71 (2012), and Fort McMoney (2013).3 In general, the majority of these productions are based on online interactive platforms that recreate the ‘documentary value’ that is the main characteristic of classic and linear non-fiction films.4 Almost always, interactive documentaries are characterized by the presence of specific recurring elements, including: interactive menus, maps, timelines, audio-visual content, hyperlinks, user-forums, and links to social networks. In the context of this chapter, I refer to ‘interactive’ as an audio-visual text presented in a variety of digital formats (and platforms) and designed to offer users’ participation and immersive experiences (Murray 1997). Interactive documentary storytelling covers several possible ways of telling factual stories in an audio-visual context, presenting them not as linear plotlines, but as fragmented interactive experiences. Hence,  in terms of film production and reception, the collaboration becomes more dynamic between producer, director and audiences (i-docs also require a large number of participants in the production process, including: designers, coders etc.), in a process of transferring the documentary  cinematic language into new complex forms of describing and representing reality. The most significant difference between classic formats of linear documentary and interactive documentaries is that, whereby in linear films sequences and content are fixed and, usually, are created  in post-­ production, in interactive productions we (as interactor) can take advantage  of what can be defined as ‘random access’. “In other words, the viewer/user can access the narration from a number of different ‘windows’, thus the content and order of the narration are changeable.

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Furthermore, the user has at his/her disposal a large variety of media to play with and to integrate with the main narrative structure. These types of documentaries demand the audience’s participation and interaction and, most of the time, are made up of different layers in which various modes of view are present. Interactive documentaries use a fixed model to organize their data in a digital space and invite the audience to move through this data space and explore the content. As a result, anything resembling classic continuity editing is almost absent in interactive documentaries and rather fragmentation is dominant” (Odorico 2005, 216). The audience moves through the material and gains access to information through participation in the digital space, thus interacting with the documentary and becoming cognitively (and physically) engaged. Hence, interactive documentaries represent a contemporary documentary experience of participation /vision/interaction that moves away from the canonical relationship with ordinary media and from the classic filmic approach. However, it is paramount to remember a very simple concept: in front of a TV or a cinema screen we are historically trained to sit back, watch and absorb linear content. Online or in an immersive environment, on the other hand, we are trained to browse, to jump from content to content and to participate, to take action rather than merely receive content. Therefore, interactive documentaries position themselves (for both production and post-production) in a sort of intermediate zone between ‘the real’ and ‘digital technology.’ For Galloway, interactive documentaries are: “any documentary that uses interactivity as a core part of its delivery mechanism” (Galloway et al. 2014, 330). However, this delivery mechanism could also be problematic in specific contexts, i.e. film festivals, because it forces institutions to investigate and create new forms of exploration of the medium itself. A large variety of online platforms fit under the umbrella of the loose term ‘interactive documentaries’, also known as i-docs as defined and theorized by the i-Docs community of scholars.5 Sandra Gaudenzi, a pioneer in interactive documentary studies, divides interactive documentary production into four groups: four different modes of interactivity between reality, user, producer and project itself that create different perceptions of reality and different experiential paths for the users to take. These modes are: the conversational (user in conversation with the computer), the hypertext (users explore the environment by clicking on pre-existing links), the participative (users participate in the production process) and the experiential (users experience an alternative physical space through the use of a number of different senses). With regard to this categorization, Gaudenzi asserts:

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While experiential i-docs can add layers to the felt perception of reality, to create an embodied experience for the participants, conversational i-docs can use 3D worlds to recreate scenarios, therefore playing with options of reality. Participative i-docs allow people to have a voice and to participate in the construction of reality, while hypertext i-docs can construct multiple pathways through a set ‘reality’ to provide a range of perspectives on a common set of themes or issues. (Aston and Gaudenzi 2012, 128)

Currently, the interactive documentary form (i-docs) can not be considered as a genre on its own, but it is widely defined as a complex cinematic form, which presents some sub-genres and complex articulations capable of creating multiple models of representation and languages of the real (Nichols 2001). Furthermore, also in terms of diffusion, distribution and especially exhibition (film festivals), interactive documentaries present many similarities with linear documentaries.

Politics of Relocation: New Exhibition Experiences In general, film festivals are unique and fascinating events, real meeting points for people passionate about cinematic art and willing to lock themselves for hours and days inside dark cinema theatres. They are events during which the film projection is usually followed by a Q&A session with the presence of the director in the room. Hence, festivals reach far beyond the mere viewing of a film, as events they become highly emotional experiences that absorb the audiences entirely. The moving images of the films, the high expectations, the sense of community, the crowd, the general festive atmosphere and the massive (especially for the big festivals) presence of journalists are all part of the tapestry that is the festival. According to Marijke de Valck “[f]estivals are an opportunity to meet international people, to compare strategies and exchange ideas with the aim to improve the business aspect; an alternative way, therefore, to propose cinematic products” (De Valck 2007, 93). As physical spaces and real events, film festivals have the ability to experiment with different forms of communication in combination with the use of contemporary technologies. In other words, they engage with their audiences using, among other things, elements of interaction and participation (and often collaboration), thus introducing new forms of entertainment.

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The Schull Film Festival, a small-scale short film festival based in the south west of Ireland, could be considered an interesting example of this dynamic. Recently, due to the economic crisis that affected the Republic of Ireland (on top of a number of massive cuts to arts funding), the Schull festival saw its main cinema venue, a local hotel, close down. Despite this major setback, the festival organizers decided to keep the event alive, re-­ thinking completely the audience’s experience in terms of relocation and with the use of new technologies. This links to Francesco Casetti’s concept of relocation, which can be expressed as the need for the cinema audience (in a process of gaining experience) to leave the regular ‘old school’ film theatre in order to search and experience new environments, locations and devices. In this context, Casetti defines film festivals as events anchored in the past: There are also new environments and devices that attempt, as much as possible, to conserve the traits of traditional film watching (this is the case with home theatre, in which spectators watch a film seated on a couch, lights dimmed and silence enforced, punctiliously recreating the most traditional viewing experience). And there is also the theatre that refuses new modes of vision in order to conserve, as much as possible, the traditional film watching environment (as happens particularly during ceremonial situations, such as a festival, a debut or a film series aimed at true cinephiles, during which the spectator is invited to see a film and nothing else). (Casetti 2011, 9)

What the Schull Film Festival’s organizers did (instead of moving online) was to transform the entire village into a sort of distributed cinema with the use of internet and mobile devices. Quoting the official website (Image 1): A Short Film Festival without a Cinema. We use ‘Distributed Cinema’: Schull’s very own dedicated server to short film. […] Films are available to view with a smart phone, laptop or tablet anywhere on Main Street Schull, over the 5 days of the festival, 24 hours a day. From a bookshop, to an art gallery, marquees, numerous local pubs and restaurants, the town hall or take the ferry to the Long Island Cinema, films are screened in every corner of the village. Truly our village is our screen. (Fastnet)

In other words, with ‘Distributed Cinema’ Schull’s server for short films, anyone with a smartphone, laptop or tablet can access the films in competition through Wi-Fi anywhere on Main Street during the entire duration of the festival. However, the phenomenon of the internet festival

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Image 1  Fastnet Film Festival web-site. Courtesy of Fastnet Film Festival - http:// www.fastnetshortfilmfestival.com

is largely diffused as pertinently explained by Simone Kurtzke in her doctoral dissertation “Webfilm Theory” (2007), in which she asserts: ­ “‘Internet film festival’ is used in a narrower sense: it refers to internet-­ only film festivals that focus on films that have been made specifically for the Internet as exhibition medium” (Kurtzke 2007, 183). The Schull festival example demonstrates how the concept of relocation  (Harbord 2002) could re-define a filmic event in relation to new projects and new audiences. Cinema, through the years, has constantly relocated itself and so have the festivals. As for the Irish event, relocation is vital for festivals that deal with transmediality. In fact, in order to present transmedia projects to their audiences and due to their ‘atypical’ filmic nature, festivals have to find alternative ways to bring these projects to their festival-goers and they do so mainly with the use of specific screen and media set ups such as installations (similarly to museums and galleries). In the documentary field, installation and truth have always been topics of discussion because, obviously, the concept of truth in documentary film is dependent on the different modes of distribution and exhibition of the films themselves. In other words, the process and experience of vision affects the perception of truth by the audience. What is interesting, in this sense, is the discussion (called Freedoms and Accountabilities), between Cahal McLaughlin, Sergei Dvortsevoy, Clarisse

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Hahan and Ann-Sofi Siden developed during the conference: Truth or Dare: Art and Documentary, which took place in February 2006 at the Whitechapel Art Gallery and Tate Modern. The report of the discussion is included in the book outcome of that conference which deals, among other issues, with the concept of documentary and art in terms of exhibition spaces and multiple screens. Elizabeth Cowie (University of Kent), as member of the public during the discussion, pertinently asserts: The question which is central to documentary is the performances of the participants and the relationship with overhearing and overseeing and how they are being addressed. The issue is one of interactivity, of walking through and/or editing, and of what we are going to hear and see and the relationship of being addressed. (Pearce and McLaughlin 2007, 45)

Furthermore, in addition to participation, interaction and relocation, within the festival world, interactive documentaries embrace and expand on the features already existing within them, including the use of augmented reality. Hence, in discussing the festival exhibition of interactive documentaries it is important to include also the concept of ‘augmented space.’ Lev Manovich (2001; 2006) defines this as space in which multimedia information overlaps with a more aesthetic and cultural approach towards art. In other words, installations and spaces specifically dedicated to the vision and use of i-docs. These are spaces in which the audience feels free to move around, to play with the projects and to feel part of them. This entails a new level of experience of a space that expands the human perception, more like a total 360-degree environment rather than two-­dimensional walls or cinema screen. The spectator is surrounded by the project itself and this, in basic terms, is the main difference between the classic concept of the standard film festival and the new transmedia experimentations. Nowadays, a number of festivals are exposing interactive documentary in augmented spaces of vision/interaction, such as the Sheffield Doc/Fest.

Documentary Festivals Go Interactive (Or At Least They Try To) The presence of interactivity at documentary film festivals is interesting to monitor and map how, in recent years, several of these events have begun to recognize and incorporate transmedia and interactivity in their programmes/competitions. Transmedia have found a place in festival

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l­ine-­ups all around the world: “I think passive viewing and active viewing are changing. You see it in our own cultural habits, where you watch TV and have a second screen on Twitter or are interacting on Facebook,” said Genna Terranova, director of programming for the Tribeca Film Festival. “Now you’re starting to see independent projects harnessing all these tools and creating stories that live on multiple platforms” (Anderson 2013). Festivals that deal with transmedia interactive documentaries in a broader sense differ from one another in the manner in which interactivity is presented to the public. All over the world documentary festivals understand the importance of interactivity and are now dedicating sections or, sometimes, an entire festival to the subject. Currently, there are more and more traditional film festivals that are showing interactive work but there are also festivals that are solely based on interactive work. Many of them are not film events, but they include interactive documentaries because they are becoming the new trend. In general, there are three main groups (which often overlap): (1) Regular documentary festivals with sub sections dedicated to interactivity; (2) Festivals exclusively dedicated to interactivity or that invest a lot of resources on interactivity; (3) Symposia/festivals/ labs. Important events that fit into the three above categories, which I elaborate on below, include: Tribeca Film Festival (Storyscapes program), DocsBarcelona, NYFF (New York Film Festival—Convergence), DocS.21 (Festival Documental de Narrativas Digitales), BFI London Film (Cross-­ Media Forum), Mozilla Festival, Festival de Cine Creative Commons Bogotá, I-Docs, Hot Docs, Webdox, Sundance Film Festival (New Frontier), Sheffield Doc/Fest, SXSW Interactive, Visa pour l’image Perpignan, FILMTERACTIVE Lodz and Antenna International Documentary Festival Australia. 1. Regular documentary festivals: following international trends IDFA (International Film Festival Amsterdam), which belongs to the first group, is one of the most renowned documentary festivals in the world. Although it focuses largely on standard linear production, in recent years with the introduction of the IDFA DocLab, it has also started to present interactive projects to its audience. As Siobhan O’Flynn mentions in her article “Documentary’s metamorphic form: Webdoc, interactive, transmedia, participatory and beyond:”

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A visit to the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) […] attests to the vibrancy and variation of form found in interactive documentaries (i-docs) produced in the past decade. What is also clear in surveying the featured works is that there is no single template for production in terms of either design of the interfaces and interactivity of the design of multi-platform distributed documentaries. (2012, 141)

This is something that is also clearly stated by IDFA on its official website: “throughout the year, IDFA DocLab showcases interactive webdocs and other new forms of digital storytelling that expand the documentary genre beyond linear filmmaking” (IDFA). Since 2008, the IDFA film festival gives space and a platform to interactive documentary production through its IDFA Doc Lab, which investigates the future of the documentary form and non-linear narratives. Sponsored, among others, by MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), the lab is entirely dedicated to interactive documentary. Documentary film festivals are important events, not only for the opportunity they give audiences to watch new non-fiction productions but also for the presence of the industry. Particularly at big events such as the IDFA (Amsterdam, Holland) or Hot Docs (Toronto, Canada), the industry is largely present with producers, commissioning editors, press, sales agents and distributors taking part. Nowadays, in order to catch up with contemporary interactive documentaries realized with innovative technologies and new artistic forms in general, festivals are modifying the process of showing these projects. The ways these contemporary projects can be shown are numerous and are still undergoing constant experimentation; many challenges are presented, not least because the projects themselves are often ongoing or endless. It can also be said that interactive documentary, while it opens up a whole world of communication with those involved in the creation of the film and the online community of viewers, reduces the experiential physical space which is, most of the time, the screen of a personal computer. It is often a solitary experience and the challenge for festivals is to effectively deliver this to a collective audience. Nonetheless, transmediality seems to be the direction that many festivals are moving in at the moment. In general, these new documentary forms inevitably create new forms of consumption, influenced also by the overwhelming speed with which new technology arrives on the market. Hence, documentary film festivals worldwide are currently experimenting with the inclusion of new documentary projects in order to keep up to

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Image 2  VR experience of The Enemy at IDFA 2015

date with new developments of the documentary form itself and accurately represent the full scope of the documentary landscape. This inclusion opens up new ways of thinking about cinephilia and festivals (Image 2). A pioneering  example of IDFA and its innovative ways of exhibition was represented by the installation of Out My Window (2010), a popular interactive documentary created by Katerina Cizek and produced by the National Film Board of Canada. At IDFA, in November 2010, the interactive digital artist Priam Givord led the creation of an eight-meter-wide lattice structure of screens onto which Cizek’s work was projected. This was done in order to recreate a 360-degree interactive transmedia space for visitors to explore the project physically, as they would normally do virtually online (the main feature of Cizek’s interactive documentary is that it allows the audience to perform 360 degree movements within private apartments of people living in a number of cities all over the world). Motion sensors positioned in the IDFA room responded to the audience’s interaction, enabling the visitors to move freely within the project and creating individual narratives. Furthermore, the creator watched and analyzed how people played with the installation and modified her project accordingly.6

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2. Interactive documentary festivals Sheffield Doc/Fest, which belongs to the second group, is a regular film festival in its format but it also invests largely in transmedia, dedicating entire sessions and spaces to interactive documentaries (the Crossover Lounge) and a marketplace that offers traditional pitching opportunities for both linear and interactive productions. As mentioned in the web site of Doc/Fest: “Since 2009 the festival has presented the Crossover Summit which explores new approaches to commissioning content aimed at maximizing audience engagement. The Festival continues to be innovative, exciting and different—leading the way in digital and interactive programming” (Sheffield Doc/Fest). With features like the cyber cinema and the crossover market, the Sheffield Doc/Fest (within the Crossover Summit) is rethinking the concept of ‘the festival’ as we know it and covers nearly every aspect of the interactive documentary form: production, development, distribution and marketing in relation to a wide range of technologies, devices and platforms. As mentioned above, the Sheffield festival was one of the first festivals to deal with interactivity, experimenting in both different ways of screening and engaging the audience. According to Hussain Currimbhoy, former Director of Programming at the festival: the festival director Heather started this [considering the inclusion of interactive documentaries] about 10 years ago, in order to create groups and networks of people who were interested in interactive productions, she got people together to create new stuff.

Furthermore, Currimbhoy, states: “We included interactive documentary for the first time as part of the program in 2007/2008, treating them like regular documentaries.” I consider the use of the term ‘regular’ quite interesting in these terms, as it highlights the fact that interactivity is still an issue for many festivals. Doc/fest defines itself as ‘non-regular’ and ‘non-traditional’ festival. Quoting Currimbhoy again: “Well, the whole thing with Doc/Fest, we really aren’t a traditional film fest, […] the point of this festival is to expand the definition of documentary”. In order to do so the experimentation with interactivity becomes vital. When he was asked how they dealt, at the beginning, with the issue of ‘screening’ interactive documentaries, he answered:

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we did try to screen them in the cinema once but it just didn’t work, it wasn’t a really enjoyable experience. They just aren’t meant to be seen in cinemas. The vast majority of the ones that I’ve seen don’t really work well in cinemas and this is the reason why we decided to work with the Site art gallery, which is next door to us.

In other words, as above, we are also dealing in this case with the concept of ‘relocation’: The gallery is a space where you enter and you are prepared to take a risk, to try new things, to look at film and art and visual language in a whole new way. So we set up some computers in the space on site and opened them to the public for free so the audience interacts with these interactive documentaries in their own way. The filmmakers hang around, they can talk to you, they can engage with you and see your reaction and talk about how you felt about the whole experience… In the last couple of years we’ve started to expand it out of the cinema spaces entirely. So we had interactive films like Coral: Rekindling Venus7 which is more of an art piece which we showed in the middle of Sheffield in a big open garden and that was for the public to engage with, to walk by and to see for free. It came very high in the audience prize, it was something people came out of and saw again and again because it was so different.

This was a very interesting point of our discussion, the concept of rethinking the festival without forcing the auteurs and the audience to experience more traditional forms of usership. In these terms, the manner in which Currimbhoy concluded the interview was very interesting: “basically you have to adapt to what the artists are doing. The artists don’t have to adapt to what we’re doing, or what the festivals are doing. What I mean is that we have to make their work the primary concern.” In order to individuate fruitful ways to include interactivity in their programs, Currimbhoy makes this final point: “…we have to make their work the primary concern.” This should be considered of primary importance for documentary film festivals. So, in order not to lose their shifting roles in the distribution and exhibition landscape; relocation, alternative spaces, installations and explanatory sessions are all important in introducing interactive documentary to a festival’s program. However, above all, the audience has to feel integrated, immersed and actively participative, thus experiencing the whole project as originally defined and conceptualized by the filmmaker, without modifying and destroying the nature of the project itself.

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3. Symposia/festivals/labs (i-Docs) I-Docs symposium, which belongs to the third group, is a lab/symposium that runs every two years. It aims to expand and theorize the concept of i-docs, which includes any digital documentary platform that allows interactivity, participation and immersion (interactive documentaries, VR documentaries, 360 productions etc…). According to the official website: “i-Docs is an international lab/symposium dedicated solely to the rapidly evolving field of interactive documentary—an event to showcase recent projects and discuss the artistic, economic and political implications of new forms of factual representation” (i-docs 2014). Originally conceived by Judith Aston, Jonathan Dovey and Sandra Gaudenzi, the first i-Docs symposium was held in 2011. It was convened in the University of the West of England’s Digital Culture Research Centre (DCRC) with ongoing event management support from Nick Triggs. The team has subsequently expanded, in particular to include Mandy Rose, who joined i-Docs as co-convenor in 2014. It takes place in Bristol (UK) at the Watershed Media Centre. While, originally, it had the general format of a conference (the main venue is a traditional cinema theatre) with delegates presenting the latest projects in the field and giving talks on the topic of i-Docs, recent years have seen the opening up of spaces for showcasing projects and interacting with them. I-Docs provides a space for academics, professionals and people passionate about the topic of interactive documentaries to watch new interesting projects and to share thoughts and ideas. Other key interactive symposia/labs are, among others: WebDox (Docville, Leuven, Belgium) and the Interactive Documentary Conference (IDFA). Both of these events are run as collateral events of main documentary festivals such as, Docville and IDFA.

Conclusions Interactive documentaries are currently ‘invading’ the festival sphere, changing the festivals’ approach towards transmedia filmmaking. How are they supposed to show these contemporary projects? In a theatre? In an open space? Is it supposed to be a frontal screening or a more complex visual and participative experience? Furthermore, the main problem is the individuality of the experience that, as described above, clashes with the traditional main concept of the film festival: a place for communal screening experiences. However, this is a problem only in part because it depends

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on the transmedia documentary screened, on its levels of interactivity and the potential for users’ immersion. These are questions that festival directors are trying to answer. The exciting thing about transmedia exhibition is that no one can really tell (at the moment) what it should and should not be. It is still an evolving process; a stimulating work in progress that is open to experimentation and creativity (such as Cizek’s 360-degree project). In terms of film festivals, the process of moving away from seeing the traditional film theatre as the primary site of exhibition alters the conceptualization of what can be programmed and broadens cinema’s scope. In other words, the borders of the cinematic frame, established by the material configurations of the screen in the theatre, can now be changed. Gabriele Pedullà (2012), in his research on the way in which the architecture of the film theatre has had a lasting impact on how cinema has been conceived and created, has argued that the diminishing importance of the theatrical site (including festivals) will change the way in which films are produced. He asserts: Following the auditorium’s decline, the style of film will change as well, and with it possibly the type of pleasure and aesthetic experience sought from moving images. Divested of the big screen, cinema of the future will inevitably be different from what we have had until now. (Pedullà 2012, 6)

If we add the use of digital technologies in representing factual events to Pedullà’s idea, we can clearly see how important interactive documentaries are becoming in the context of film festivals and, in general, how interactive documentaries will become more and more popular in the very near future. Hence, boundaries are broken and the shift to new forms of exhibition is dynamic and fluid. This chapter represents a preliminary step in this field; future researchers of interactive documentaries in relation to festivals must continue to track the concept of relocation while simultaneously comparing the traditional festivals and their ability to include pertinently interactive projects, with contemporary festivals and their ability to expand ways of sharing the interactive form. Bringing these projects into the physical spaces of the festivals institutionalizes them and inviting the audience to become an active part of the works reflects the most important effects of contemporary transmedia storytelling: the diversification of approaches, a deeper connection with the content shown and, as a consequence, the ability to expand and re-mix these projects with new elements brought in by the audience.

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Notes 1. See Jenkins (2009) for a definition of the term. 2. This is not to say that the audiences of classic linear forms adopt a passive attitude towards the films displayed. When we talk about active participation here we refer to the ways the documentary works are displayed/screened and not to reception as a cognitive process of interpretation. 3. All these documentaries have been presented at festivals worldwide. In particular, Prison Valley has been awarded with, among others: –– World Press Photo (Amsterdam): first prize of the interactive category for the multimedia contest; –– AIB (England): Best cross-media/online production; –– Grimme Online Award (Germany): knowledge and education award (best execution); –– Visa pour l’image RFI/France 24 (Perpignan, France): best web documentary; –– Sheffield (England): Innovation Award (special mention); –– FWA: Site of the day; –– Film festival Bellaria (Italy): Best Crossmedia program. And it has been presented at a large number of festivals, including: –– –– –– –– ––

Power to the Pixel (London, England); États Généraux du Documentaire (Lussas, France); DocLab at South by SouthWest (Austin, Texas); Input Festival (Budapest, Hungary and Sydney, Australia); Rio International Film Festival 2010 (Brazil).

4. ‘Documentary value’ was the concept John Grierson used in 1926 when reviewing Robert Flaherty’s Moana (1926) for a New  York newspaper. This is usually credited as being the first occasion on which the word ‘documentary’ was applied, in English, to this specific sort of film (Winston 2008, 11). 5. See http://i-docs.org. 6. In 2012 IDFA Doc Lab started the Interactive Documentary Conference, as a collateral ‘academic’ event. See Vallejo’s chapter on IDFA in this volume. 7. Coral: Rekindling Venus is a fully immersive transmedia experience. Director: Lynette Wallworth (Australia, 2012), see http://coralrekindlingvenus. com/.

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References Aarseth, Espen J. 1994. Nonlinearity and Literary Theory. In Hypertext/Text/ Theory, ed. George P.  Landow, 51–86. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press. ———. 1997. Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Anderson, John. 2013. As You Watch, Invasion of the Platforms Tribeca Film Festival Recognizes Transmedia. The New  York Times, April 14. http://www.nytimes. com/2013/04/14/movies/tribeca-film-festival-recognizes-transmedia. html?_r=4&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1398240283-3nESoLFHAdVAQi+2pBiHgA&. Aston, Judith, and Sandra Gaudenzi. 2011. The i-doc as a Relational Object. I-docs. http://i-docs.org/2011/09/08/the-i-doc-as-a-relational-object/. ———. 2012. Interactive Documentary: Setting the Field. Studies in Documentary Film 6 (2): 125–139. Bruzzi, Stella. 2006. New Documentary. New York: Routledge. Casetti, Francesco. 2011. Back to the Motherland: The Film Theatre in the Postmedia Age. Screen 52 (1): 1–12. De Valck, Marijke. 2007. Film Festivals: From European Geopolitics to Global Cinephilia. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. ———. 2008. Screening the Future of Film Festivals: A Long Tale of Convergence and Digitization. Film International 6 (4): 15–23. Fastnet Short Film Festival Website. 2014. Home page of www.fastnetshortfilmfestival.com. http://www.fastnetshortfilmfestival.com. Galloway, Dayna, Kenneth B.  McAlpine, and Paul Harris. 2014. From Michael Moore to JFK Reloaded: Towards a Working Model on Interactive Documentary. Journal of Media Practice 8 (3): 325–339. Harbord, Janet. 2002. Film Festivals: Media Events and the Spaces of Flow. In Film Cultures, 59–75. London: Sage. IDFA. 2014. DocLab. http://www.doclab.org/. i-Docs. 2014. About i-Docs. i-docs.org. http://i-docs.org/about-idocs/. Jenkins, Henry. 2006. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York University Press. ———. 2009. Transmedia Storytelling 101. The Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins. http://henryjenkins.org/2007/03/transmedia_storytelling_101.html. Kurtzke, Simone. 2007. Webfilm Theory. PhD diss., Queen Margaret University, School of Social Sciences, Media and Communication. http://etheses.qmu. ac.uk/79/1/SimoneKurtzke.pdf. Manovich, Lev. 2001. The Language of New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ———. 2006. The Poetics of Augmented Space. Visual Communication 5 (2): 219–240. Murray, Janet H. 1997. Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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Nash, K., Craig Hight, and Catherine Summerhayes, eds. 2014. New Documentary Ecologies. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Nichols, Bill. 2001. Introduction to Documentary. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Odorico, Stefano. 2015. Between Interactivity, Reality and Participation: The Interactive Documentary Form. MEI – Mediation and Information 39: 213–227. O’Flynn, Siobhan. 2012. Documentary’s Metamorphic Form: Webdoc, Interactive, Transmedia, Participatory and Beyond. Studies in Documentary Film 6 (2): 141–157. Pearce, Gail, and Cahal McLaughlin, eds. 2007. Truth or Dare: Art and Documentary. Bristol: Intellect Books. Pedullà, Gabriele. 2012. In Broad Daylight: Movies and Spectators After the Cinema. London: Verso. Rosenthal, Alan, and John Corner, eds. 2005. New Challenges for Documentary: Second Edition. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Sheffield Doc/Fest. 2008. Home Page of sheffdocfest.com. https://sheffdocfest.com/. Tyron, Chuck. 2011. Digital Distribution, Participatory Culture, and the Transmedia Documentary. Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media Jump Cut 53. http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/jc53.2011/TryonWebDoc/. Winston, Brian. 2008. Claiming the Real II. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Positioning Documentaries at the Cannes International Film Festival: Fahrenheit 9/11 and Beyond Eulàlia Iglesias

Major international film festivals such as Cannes, Venice and Berlin are considered the great global cinematographic showcases for international cinema. These annual events gather the top representatives both from the industry and the specialist press to present a series of films produced throughout the world and selected according to their artistic relevance. The hybridization of genres that has blurred the boundaries of fiction and documentary in recent years, has injected a breath of fresh air into auteur cinema. Nevertheless, the documentary label still works against this practice, and major festivals have timidly started to include documentary films in official competitive sections, in what can be considered a first step towards the acknowledgement of the right of these films to compete with feature-fiction on equal terms. This chapter reflects on the place that documentary films hold at major film festivals, taking Cannes as a case study. I argue that documentary has been persistently discriminated against in Cannes’ main competition (the section that attracts wide international media attention), pushing documentaries to parallel sections. Drawing on first-hand information collected E. Iglesias (*) Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Spain © The Author(s) 2020 A. Vallejo, E. Winton (eds.), Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 2, Framing Film Festivals, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17324-1_7

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at the festival, which I have covered as a film critic since 1999,1 this chapter retraces documentary films screened in subsequent editions. How many and what kinds of documentaries were usually programmed at Cannes? In which sections? And what were the guidelines for the inclusion of a documentary in the Official Selection? The chapter opens with a look at the diverse sections composing Cannes’ programme, reflecting on the impact of the competitive section in its media reception. I then focus on Cannes’ programming strategies regarding documentary. I identify parallel sections in which documentary has found accommodation and investigate the selection criteria, which differ from those applied to fiction features. Political, economic and aesthetic concerns are explored as well, giving an account of the different agendas to which the festival serves. Finally, I look at other major film festivals such as Venice or Berlin, and focus on Locarno’s distinctive approach to documentary, as it offers an alternative space for this genre, which is currently undergoing unprecedented expansion and formal experimentation.

Dreaming with the Palme d’Or: The Importance of Competitive Sections In 2004, Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore won the Palme d’Or in the Cannes Film Festival. Only once before had a documentary film taken the top prize at the most important film festival in the world, when, almost half a century earlier, in 1956, the underwater immersion of Le monde du silence (The Silent World) by Louis Malle and Jacques-Yves Cousteau earned the prestigious award.2 The prize given to Moore’s documentary is still, therefore, an exception in the history of a festival that seeks to promote auteur cinema and diversity in cinematography. During the decoration ceremony in 2005, when he was appointed Commandeur in the Ordre de la Légion d’honneur, then festival president Gilles Jacob reflected on the role of Cannes in the discovery and promotion of cinematic uniqueness: …Who would have thought when I started that the festival would grow so big, sometimes feeling huge beyond imagining; who would have thought that its film auteurs would be celebrated like nowhere else on earth (…), or that it would be able to keep to its course throughout even the most difficult times. The festival has been (and still is) a discoverer, a career accelerator, a watching post of fashions, genres and artists…3

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In ‘Discovering Form, Inferring Meaning: New Cinemas and the Film Festival Circuit’ Bill Nichols analyzes the experience of attendees at festivals when discovering new films. Nichols equates the average viewer’s expectations at a film festival to a tourist who wants to scratch beneath the surface: …to grasp the meaning of things as those who present them would, to step outside our (inescapable) status as outsiders and diagnosticians to attain a more intimate, more authentic form of experience. (…) A festival allows us a “back region” glimpse into another culture through the film-makers and actors it presents in person. An encounter with the unfamiliar, the experience of something strange, the discovery of new voices and visions serve as a major incitement for the festival-goer. (Nichols 1994, 17)

As Nichols states, festivals guarantee the exhibition of films from multiple nationalities, those which the US quasi-monopoly on movies makes impossible to see in cinemas in most European countries. They also add the possibility of an alternative distribution circuit to that of Hollywood (De Valck 2007; Elsaesser 2005). However, while most major events accomplish this goal of offering a look at contemporary cinema (which is always rich and diverse where the geographical origin of the films is concerned), the big festivals still have unfinished business with respect to the diversity of film genres. In the twenty-first century, Cannes continues to identify, with few exceptions, independent films with fiction. Fahrenheit 9/11 is not simply one of only two documentary films to win the Palme d’Or, it is also one of the few non-fiction films that have actually competed for the prize. According to the festival’s own definition, The Official Selection serves to highlight the diversity of cinematic creation through its different sections, the two most important of which are the Competition and Un Certain Regard. Films that are representative of “auteur cinema with a wide audience appeal” are presented in Competition, and Un Certain Regard focuses on works that have an original aim and aesthetic. The Official Selection also includes Out of Competition films, Special Screenings and Midnight Screenings, Cannes Classics and the Cinéfondation selection targeting film schools.4

Other events organized parallel to the festival by independent institutions include La Semaine de la critique (the Critics’ Week), an initiative of

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the Association Française de la Critique de Cinéma started in 1961; and the Quinzaine des réalisateurs (Directors Fortnight), an independent section organized by the Société des Réalisateurs de Films de France (SRF) since 1969.5 Since 2015 the Civil Society of Multimedia Authors (Société Civile des Auteurs Multimédia—SCAM), awards L’Œil d’or to the best documentary appearing in one of these sections. In this chapter I focus on Cannes’ Official Selection and its most important section, the Competition, reflecting on how documentary has been steadily shuffled into non-competitive sections, such as Out of Competition, Special Screenings, or to competitive parallel sections such as Un Certain Regard,6 the Critics’ Week and Directors Fortnight.7 These sections have proved to be more open to new trends in documentary film, but given their secondary position in the festival, their influence remains limited.8 Cannes can be considered as several festivals in one, with different programmes aimed at different audiences, all of them composed by professionals. Although diverse sections are covered by media outlets with specific profiles (from mass media television to cinephile journals), I argue that the section in which a film is programmed will influence the media attention it attracts, especially a documentary not backed by any famous figure or star. Critic, programmer and editor Mark Peranson notes: A competition becomes a kind of ‘mini-festival’ selected by the programmers to guide critics to write their “think pieces”, and to appeal to those viewers who would rather not be confronted with the possibility of choice and the probability of originality. In the final analysis, a competition mainly serves other interest groups such as sales agents, distributors and the all-­ important big money sponsors, who love the presence of celebrities. (Peranson 2009, 36)

Given that the Official Selection Competition can be regarded as the heart of Cannes and is therefore the most covered section by general media, a look at its programming practices can help to shed light on the difficulties documentaries face in attaining wider recognition within the so-called A-category festivals.9 Moreover, as the Cannes Film Festival is an event aimed towards professionals, and not accessible to the wider public, its role in the formation of media exposure is worthy of attention.10 Lastly, the festival’s tight accreditation system gives power to the festival organization to influence the processes of canonization and reception

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of film, and therefore has a noteworthy impact in the public recognition of documentary practices.

Cannes’ Programming Strategies: Documentary on the Fringe During Cannes’ early years, it was common to find two or three documentaries in the festival’s Official Selection. Back then, there was not yet any alternative section: all movies (over thirty titles) came together in a single programme, competing for the Grand Prix and, from 1955, for the Palme d’Or. By the mid-fifties, some films began to be programmed out of competition, some of which were documentaries. From 1963, the number of titles in the Official Selection was reduced, which also led to the documentaries in the running for the Palme d’Or to begin to disappear. Between the middle of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s, non-fiction in the competitive section was already an exception, with sporadic appearances such as the hybrid Mondo Cane (A Dog’s Life, Paolo Cavara, Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi, 1962), the auteur documentary Calcutta (Louis Malle, 1969), the animal documentary La Griffe et la dent (The Claw and the Tooth, François Bel and Gérard Vienne, 1976), or the observational piece El sol del membrillo (Dream of Light, Víctor Erice, 1992). Ten years later, Moore made his first appearance in the competition with Bowling for Columbine (2002), and in 2004, together with Fahrenheit 9/11, another non-fiction film: Mondovino (World of Wine, Jonathan Nossiter), managed to sneak in late in the race for the Palme d’Or. By the second half of the 1960s, non-fiction had already found its place in the Out of Competition section. Positioning a small number of documentaries in this section became the general trend until the opening of Un Certain Regard in 1978 and, especially, with the creation of the Special Screenings in 2007, where most documentaries are included today. Meanwhile, Out of Competition has become a sort of promotion platform for Hollywood (Jungen 2014) Non-fiction cinema is also found in Cannes Classics, an area created in 2004 which is dedicated to recovering restored historical films, including both major documentary films in the history of cinema (rarely) and documentary films with cinema as its theme, such as biographical documentaries dedicated to key figures in the history of cinema, such as Pierre

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Rissient: homme de cinéma (Todd McCarthy, 2010) or Toscan (Isabelle Partiot-Pieri, 2010). Although the French competition has included some top film titles and filmmakers from the documentary field (Claude Lanzmann, Rithy Panh and Raymond Depardon for instance), the festival has not been able to profit from its international influence to give exposure to new trends in non-fiction film since the 2000s, characterized by formal experimentation and auteurist views associated with Cannes’ identity. There has hardly been any space in Cannes competition for found-footage films or film essays (Chris Marker was always turned down by the festival which, during his career, only played his film on Akira Kurosawa, A.K. (1985), in Un Certain Regard); or for ‘fake’ documentary films; or for the multiple variations of first-person cinema (no Jonas Mekas film has even been shown in Cannes); or for direct cinema (one of the few films by Frederick Wiseman screened at the festival, La dernière lettre, appeared in 2002, Out of Competition)11; or for the wide range of musical documentary films of all types12; or for the new experiments with the observational, such as those created at the Sensory Ethnography Lab at Harvard University. And not to mention the systematic absence of any experimental director, except for the sui generis figure of Jean-Luc Godard, whose films would hardly be in the festival if the director were not so tied to the concept of auteur cinema, which still heavily influences the selection criteria of the Cannes programme. If we look at contemporary programming practices, where do we find documentaries in the Cannes Official Selection? The best way is to bypass the Competition and look for them in the Special Screenings or Out of Competition. The official Out of Competition section at Cannes has shown major contemporary documentary films such as Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse (The Gleaners & I, Agnès Varda, 2000) (Image 1), Sobibor, 14 Octubre 1943, 16 Heures (Sobibor, Lanzmann, 2001), Être et avoir (To Be and to Have, Nicolas Philibert, 2002), S1, la machine de mort khèmre rouge (S21: The Khmer Rouge Death Machine, Panh, 2003), The Fog of War (Errol Morris, 2003), and An Inconvenient Truth (Davis Guggenheim, 2006). From 2007 on, the Special Screening section offered a new space for documentary films, which from then on appeared more rarely in the Out of Competition section.13 At the introductory press conference at the 67th Festival on April 17th 2014, the general director Thierry Frémaux described the festival’s Special Screenings as those dedicated to documentary films and films linked more directly to the modern world.14 This sec-

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Image 1  Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse (The Gleaners and I, Agnès Varda, 2000)

tion doesn’t get as much attention from the accredited press as the Competition, given its non-competitive status. Among the documentary films screened within it: Bunt. Delo Litvinenko (Rebellion: the Litvinenko Case, Andrei Nekrasov, 2007), Inside Job (Charles Ferguson, 2010), or In film nist (This is not a Film, Mojtaba Mirtahmasb & Jafar Panahi, 2011).15 Despite the efforts made by those in charge of the Cannes Film Festival to encompass all sections in an “official programme” and advocate that there is no distinction between the films In Competition and those programmed in the Un Certain Regard or Special Screenings, for most accredited journalists at the festival (or to be more accurate, for the media for which they work), the Cannes In Competition section is the only one that matters. Furthermore, only the films competing for the Palme d’Or hold press conferences (with some exceptions from the Out of Competition flock), but in almost no cases do the films appearing in Un Certain Regard or Special Screenings offer such events. That opens an interesting dilemma regarding the place of documentaries in top festivals like Cannes. Which is the best choice, to be present at the Cannes Film Festival in a non-­ competitive section or opt for a lesser-known event, a specialized festival for example, where the film will be included in the competitive section?

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For many established filmmakers, the answer is clear: Cannes remains the best global showcase for a movie, even if shown within a secondary section.

Fitting Cannes’ Selection Criteria: Auteurs, Glamour, or Social Concerns? What features must a documentary meet to be programmed for Cannes? The aforementioned film titles allow us to infer three more or less distinct lines with regards to the documentary selection policy: the director, the subject, and the sponsor. A first factor which appears to influence when it comes to including a documentary in the programme is its director. Cannes is a festival which continues largely due to the politique des auteurs promoted by the critics of Cahiers du Cinéma in the fifties (Jungen 2014). The festival celebrates cinema as an art form for which the director is ultimately responsible. And there has been a regular roster of auteurs, from Pedro Almodóvar to Ken Loach, whose films are programmed on a regular basis. The festival favourite stars are also present in Cannes when they shoot a documentary. This has been the case so far in the twenty-first century for some favourite “cannoises” like Emir Kusturica or Fatih Akin. These authors, discovered at Cannes, get their non-fiction works to enter the festival programme, but see them relegated to secondary sections, despite the fact that the rest of their earlier (and later) fiction films are shown in the Official Sections.16 The French festival also features some of the most prominent documentary filmmakers, although the organization finds difficulties in giving them the same treatment as their counterparts in fiction. Several examples confirm this hypothesis. Until 2014, Depardon had presented eight films at Cannes. Only one competed for the Palme d’Or: La captive du desert (Captive of the Desert, 1990), a fiction film. The rest were divided between Un Certain Regard (UCR), Out of Competition and Special Screenings. Lanzmann had three titles at the festival, none of them In Competition. Panh debuted at Cannes with his fiction feature Neak sre (Rise People, 1994), which competed for the Palme d’Or. He has not been able to compete for it with any of his five subsequent films which have been Out of Competition, Special Screenings or UCR. Alain Cavalier participated for the first time at Cannes with the unorthodox biopic Thérèse (1986), again with the experimental fiction Libera Me (1993) and came back with Pater

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(2011). His two most strictly documentary films, Le filmeur (2005) and Irène (2009) were shown in UCR. Nicolas Philibert’s Être et avoir (2002) was shown as Out of Competition with Retour en Normandie (Back to Normandie, 2007) in Special Screenings. Although having worked in the documentary film field, carving out an international reputation since 1999, Sergei Loznitsa did not even exist for Cannes until he shot his first fiction film, Schaste moe (My Joy, 2010) which, in addition to aspiring to the Palme d’Or, also competed for the Caméra d’Or, the prize for best debut. The Ukrainian appeared in the Official Section again with V tumane (In the Fog, 2012). His subsequent observational documentary about the conflicts in his country of origin, Maïdan (2014), was predictably shown in Special Screenings. A second factor which appears to influence how a documentary is selected in Cannes is the sponsorship by a Hollywood star or a renowned director. These characters act as a commercial lure for the film and they usually attend the festival as the film’s ambassador. This was the case, for example, with Trashed (2012), a film by Candida Brady denouncing the proliferation of landfills worldwide. This environmentalist report was as interesting as many others that were never shown in Cannes. The film’s presence at the festival can be explained by the fact that Jeremy Irons was its promoter and executive producer. In similar fashion, The 11th Hour (2007) by Leila Conners Petersen and Nadia Conners is a film on climate change produced and narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio, who also visited the French Riviera to promote it. The third selection criterion for documentaries in Cannes lies in the topic that they tackle, no matter the prestige or fame of the authors. Since the beginning of the century, each year, the festival has included at least one or two films on topical issues (wars, political conflicts, social unrest, environmental threats, etc.). This allows the festival to function as a “window on the world” as well. A good example is the inclusion into the Special Screenings section of titles such as Inside Job (2010) by Charles Ferguson, which exposes those responsible for the global financial crisis; or Silvered Water, Syria Self-Portrait by Ossama Mohammed & Wiam Simav Bedirxan (2014) about the war in that Middle Eastern country. Documentary discrimination in Cannes also takes place in the regulations. To participate in the festival, the film duration must be either a quarter of an hour (for shorts), or at least an hour long (for other films). As spelled out in the Pre-selection Terms, “The Festival de Cannes does not accept films that have a duration between 15 and 60 minutes.”17 This

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automatically excludes an enormous amount of non-fiction films that do not fit in with commercial standards or, on the contrary, are intended for television broadcasting and thus last about 50 minutes. This also means that it will be almost impossible to see the new trends of more radical non-­ fiction, especially related to experimental cinema.

Between Politics, Aesthetics and Industry The Palme d’Or given to Fahrenheit 9/11 by a jury chaired by Quentin Tarantino, was not devoid of controversy. Some commentators felt that the prize was awarded due to political reasons. In the press room, where many journalists were listening to the announcement of the list of winners, some boos were heard. This point of view was fuelled by Jacob’s statement the following year. During the presentation of the jury, Jacob commented that, without undermining the North American filmmaker’s talent, “in this case, it was a question of a satirical tract that was awarded a prize more for political than cinematographic reasons, no matter what the jury said”. He added that it was an “out of the ordinary event that probably won’t be repeated.”18 Marjike de Valck supports this statement as well, reflecting on the historical context, as the Cannes Film Festival gained the world’s attention with Fahrenheit 9/11, a film which openly criticized George W. Bush’s policies, in the middle of the war in Iraq and with the presidential elections that year in the USA (2007, 85–86). This controversy was deepened when Disney, owner of the film’s production company, Miramax, refused to distribute it in their home country. Moreover, there are also economic and industrial factors which influenced the success of Fahrenheit 9/11. The strong relationship between its producer, Miramax, and the Cannes Film Festival has been remarkable since Thierry Frémaux was put in charge of its programming. The fact that Quentin Tarantino was a good friend of Miramax’s founder Harvey Weinstein, who produces and distributes all his films, must not be underestimated. De Valck uses the example of Fahrenheit 9/11 to illustrate the role of festivals in providing a network which is both alternative and complementary to the interests of the industry as a whole (2007, 85–121). When Fahrenheit 9/11 won the award, Cannes set the agenda and forced the Hollywood premiere of the documentary in the USA. Although the influence of the Palme d’Or usually has a small influence in box-office results in the USA, in this case the international recognition helped the film to

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become a blockbuster (Jungen 2014, 216–217). The festival award certainly contributed to the profits of the production/distribution company, Miramax, which, although presented as “independent,” reproduces the forms of the industry. As Alisa Perren states, “while Miramax led the way in transforming Hollywood aesthetics, economics, and structure during the 90s, the company has now become a crucial part of the system” (Perren 2001, 38). While it is difficult to assess the influence of production companies and international sales agencies in programming the festival, in recent years Cannes tries to maintain a good relationship with the biggest names in this “independent” industry alternative to Hollywood that has become a system in its own way. Finally, it is worth noting that the industrial activities organized by Cannes have also paid special attention to the documentary format in the last decade. The Cannes Market19 launched the Doc Corner in 2012, a space dedicated to sales agents and festival programmers and which is symptomatic of the growing importance of documentary in cinema, when understood as a business. In 2014, the Doc Corner featured a digital library where around 300 feature-length documentary films (each a minimum of 70 minutes long) produced in the past year could be watched. Through a close look at the Cannes Film Festival’s programming from a historical perspective, we see that among the different agendas to which the festival serves, the political and economic prevail in regard to documentary. Despite aesthetic changes that have occurred since 2000 in the non-fiction realm, Cannes continues to focus on fiction features for its main competition. This can be explained by the traditional association of documentary with social concerns (privileging thematic over aesthetic criteria), as well as the strong position of television broadcasters in its production.

From Berlin to Locarno: Opening New Paths for Documentary Films at Major Film Festivals The Cannes Film Festival’s discriminatory policy towards the documentary film has been the standard, followed by two other major festivals, namely Venice and Berlin. Nevertheless, recent trends in the festival circuit reveal a more open attitude towards documentary, especially in new hybrid forms.

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Cannes’ 2008 edition saw the introduction into the Official Selection films which combined non-fiction and fiction techniques, such as Er shi si cheng ji (24 City, Jia Zhangke), Vals im Bashir (Waltz with Bashir, Ari Folman), and even Entre les murs (The Class, Laurent Cantet). Since then, the presence of docu-fiction has become regular in the arthouse circuit. At the same time, this also reinforces the impression that Cannes is interested in documentary as long as it connects auteur cinema with the tradition of social realism. In Venice’s Biennale, The Golden Lion for Sacro GRA by Gianfranco Rosi (Image 2) in 2013 marked the first time a documentary took the grand prize at the Italian festival.20 This award led to a series of interesting reflections on the criteria used by a prestigious contest when selecting a documentary film. On one hand, the merit deserved by Rosi’s film was recognized when a reality hidden to us was made visible. On the other hand, it was criticized as being, aesthetically, rather conventional at a moment when the documentary film is experiencing one of its golden ages regarding creativity. The Berlinale underlined its commitment to documentary in a press release issued in 2014 that specified the different sections of the programme or events focused on documentary films. Although the official competition is still reserved for conventional fiction, some hybrids have

Image 2  Sacro GRA (Gianfranco Rosi, 2013)

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found their way in, such as Cesare deve morire (Caesar Must Die) by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, which won the Golden Bear in 2012, or Epizoda u zivotu beraca zeljeza (An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker, 2013) by Danis Tanović. Meanwhile, similar to Cannes’ sidebar the Quinzaine, at Berlinale documentary films and experimental cinema have found places in the rest of the sections, especially in the International Forum of New Cinema. This forum has included, in the last ten years, titles such as Wide Awake by Alan Berliner (2004), Là-bas (Down there, 2006) by Chantal Akerman, My Winnipeg (2007) by Guy Maddin, Sweetgrass (Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Ilisa Barbash, 2009), Double Tide by Sharon Lockhart (2010), The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye by Marie Losier (2011), Bestiaire by Denis Côté (2012) or Stemple Pass by James Benning (2013). Berlin also reserves a space for this cinematic model in its market: Meet the Docs has been developed in conjunction with the European Documentary Network (EDN) since 2009 and is the meeting point for industry representatives, including screenings and talks. The Berlinale also has a specific programme within the Berlinale Talents specifically for documentary films, the Doc Station. The Locarno International Film Festival appears as a pioneer in positioning documentary and fiction on the same level, and offers a programming model which differs from the “big three” (Cannes, Venice and Berlin). This Swiss veteran (held since 1946) combines outdoor screenings of out of competition films in the Piazza Grande (with a capacity of 8000 spectators), with a more typical programme for an A-category event, including an international competition and another alternative section nicknamed Cineasti del Presente (Filmmakers of the Present), dedicated to filmmakers presenting their first or second film. The films included in this section are those specifically considered as “the most hybrid and up-­ to-­date forms of cinematic creativity.”21 None of these three sections discriminates against documentaries, which are mixed together in the programme with fiction and experimental films. The incorporation of alternative films into the festival’s international competition was underlined by the appointment of Olivier Père as the festival’s artistic director from 2010 to 2012, who had previously been in charge of the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes (2004–2009). As a result, in Locarno there are a greater number of filmmakers who are young, making their debut or who have not reached that category of acclaimed director. There are also more directors working in film forms beyond conventional fiction. For example, in 2013 the international competition included two

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works of first-person cinema: E agora? Lembra-me (What Now? Remind Me) by Joaquim Pinto and Sangue (Blood) by Pippo Delbono, with a new work from a couple of filmmakers specialising in found footage, Pays Barbare (Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi), and the observational documentary film Tableau Noir (Yves Yersin).22 Even so, it is long overdue for a documentary to win that acclaimed and historic international competition prize, the Golden Leopard.

Conclusions The arrival of the twenty-first century coincided with a boom of documentary filmmaking due to multiple factors. Not only has the number of non-fiction productions increased, but also the academic, theoretical and practical studies devoted to the field has as well. In parallel, festivals specializing in documentary films have spread and gained importance globally. One would expect, then, that major renowned festivals would be involved in this “normalization” of the documentary film, welcoming it smoothly into their official sections. The award in 2004 of the Palme d’Or at Cannes to Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 seemed to fit this trend. But this long-awaited opening of major festivals to non-fiction has remained an exception. The most influential international film festivals accredited by FIAPF (the International Federation of Film Producers Associations): Berlin, Venice and, especially, Cannes, continue to marginalise their documentary films by underrepresentation in the competitive sections. Cannes bases much of its media coverage on the most glamorous side of cinema. Photographers and TV cameras focus on the red carpet (in the slang of the festival, the “montée des marches”) upon which the cast and crew of the films in the official competition sections parade, under strict dress code. And so, some trademarks of the Cannes Film Festival give prominence to aspects of cinema (the glamour, the celebrities and so on) that usually have little to do with the documentary. This could be one explanation for the approach that Cannes has taken towards documentary film: treating it as a second-rate cinema. This discrimination is particularly evident when we see how different films by one director are programmed according to whether they are fiction or non-­ fiction, either in the official competitive section or in a sidebar. In other cases, the inclusion of a documentary film in the programme is due not to issues of cinematic interest but to the urgency of the theme of the film or

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the commercial influence of some of the names involved in the project. We can therefore conclude that documentary films are programmed for reasons that have nothing to do with their cinematic interest, which is supposed to be Cannes’ self-declared purpose. While the contemporary cinematic canon increasingly tends to avoid establishing boundaries between fiction and non-fiction, while the presence of the documentary has become standard in other major competitions (such as at the Locarno Festival), and while its presence is no longer unusual in commercial cinemas, the most important festival in the world still treats the documentary film as an exception to its programming. Cannes seems to focus increasingly on a particular type of easily marketable films for the global art-house circuit: English-spoken realistic dramas with an appeal for international audiences. If this trend is consolidated, the space for the documentary at Cannes will remain residual as the festival focus remains firmly with the fictional feature films.

Notes 1. From 2008 to 2013, I wrote an annual report focused specifically on documentaries for Blogs & Docs, a Spanish website specialised in non-fiction cinema. I began to analyse not only the films per se but also the role of documentary in the festival. This essay is, in part, an extension of those articles, where I tried to elucidate the politics of Cannes concerning documentaries. 2. Although founded in 1939, the Cannes Film Festival did not take place regularly until after the Second World War in 1946. The Palme d’Or, such as it is, was not granted until 1955. In the early years, the winner was given the so-called Grand Prix. 3. Gilles Jacob has been president of the festival from 2001 to 2014, and a general delegate since 1978. For information about his decoration ceremony see the festival’s website http://www.festival-cannes.fr/en/ archives/evenementPresentation/id/4293364/title/evenementOthers/ year/1.html. 4. http://www.festival-cannes.fr/en/about/whoWeAre.html. 5. See http://www.semainedelacritique.com/historique.php; http://www. quinzaine-realisateurs.com/archives/1969/. 6. Created in 1978 by Gilles Jacob, Un Certain Regard started to be competitive in 1998.

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7. Directors’ Fortnight website. Online. Available at: http://www.quinzainerealisateurs.com/l-oeil-d-or-decerne-a-allende-mi-abuelo-allende-l14199. html. 8. An analysis of all the films programmed in La Quinzaine and La Semaine is beyond the scope of this chapter. Although these two sections have proved more open to documentary films than the competition, here we want to focus on the Cannes International Film Festival organization, which work with specific criteria and programmers, setting aside these two sections which work independently and have their own history, structure and programming strategies. 9. Although not official, the term “A-category” has been used to label those festivals granted an accreditation by FIAPF (the International Federation of Film Producers Associations). In the professional realm many voices claim that the term is no longer in use. 10. For a study of media practices in Venice see De Valck (2007, 122–161). 11. Boxing Gym (2010) and National Gallery (2014) played at the Directors’ fortnight. 12. Nevertheless, classics such as Woodstock (Michael Wadleigh, 1970) and Gimme Shelter (Albert Maysles, David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin, 1970) found a space out of the competition in 1970 and 1971, respectively. 13. Some exceptions include Autobiografia lui Nicolae Ceausescu (The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu, Andrei Ujica, 2010), or Le dernier des injustes (The Last of the Unjust, Lanzmann, 2013). For an exhaustive list of documentaries programmed in Cannes Out of Competition or Special Sessions from 1999 to 2008 see Iglesias (2008). 14. http://www.festival-cannes.fr/e/archives/cms/pressConf.html. 15. Other films appearing in Special Screenings include Of Time and the City (Terence Davies, 2008), Duch, le maître des forges de l’enfer (Duch, Master of the Forges of Hell, Panh, 2011), Journal de France (Raymond Depardon & Claudine Nougaret, 2012), Seduced and Abandoned (James Toback, 2013), and Maïdan (Sergei Loznitsa, 2014). 16. Examples include: Emir Kusturica (Maradona by Kusturica, 2008, Out of Competition), Fatih Akin (Crossing the Bridge—The Sound of Istanbul, 2005, Out of Competition; Der Müll im Garten Eden—Polluting Paradise, 2012, Special Screenings), Terence Davies (Of Time and the City, 2008, Special Screenings), Wim Wenders (The Soul of a Man, 2003, Out of Competition; Chambre 666, 1982, presented in 2006 Out of Competition; The Salt of the Earth, 2014, Un Certain Regard), Martin Scorsese (Il mio viaggio in Italia/My Voyage to Italy, 2001, Out of Competition), Abbas Kiarostami (A.B.C. Africa, 2001, Out of Competition; Five, 2004, Out of

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Competition) and Nanni Moretti (The Last Customer, 2003, Out of Competition). 17. http://www.festival-cannes.fr/en/festivalServices/officialSelectionPreselection.html. 18. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4538803.stm. 19. The Cannes Market, launched in 1959, exemplifies how A-category film festivals have developed parallel pathways promoting film as art but also as a business. Some 30,000 members of the film industry from around the world flock each year to the French Riviera, attracted to this Market which operates in parallel but is also linked to the official program. 20. Venice 2013 had another documentary in competition, The Unknown Known by Errol Morris. 21. 67th Film Festival of Locarno (6–16/08/2014). Rules and Regulations for Participation. http://www.pardolive.ch/dms/2014/pdfs/regolamenti/rules-regulations-2014.pdf. 22. In Filmmakers of the Present, there were also many observational or hybrid works, some with almost experimental elements: Costa da Morte by Lois Patiño, L’Harmonie by Blaise Harrison, Manakamana, a work which arose from Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab by Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez, and The Ugly One by Eric Baudelaire. And there was even room for the documentary in the Piazza Grande where L’expérience Blocher by Jean-Stéphane Bron and Sur le chemin de l’école by Pascal Plisson were screened.

References De Valck, Marijke. 2007. Film Festival: From European Geopolitics to Global Cinephilia. Amsterdam: University Press. Elsaesser, Thomas. 2005. Film Festival Networks: The New Topographies of Cinema in Europe. In European Cinema: Face to Face with Hollywood, 82–107. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Reprinted in Dina Iordanova, ed. 2013. The Film Festival Reader. St. Andrews: St. Andrews Film Studies, 69–96. Iglesias, Eulàlia. 2008. Documental, no ficción e hibridaciones en el Festival de Cannes. Blogs&Docs. http://www.blogsandocs.com/?p=111. ———. 2009. Cannes 2009. Las excepciones del retorno a la ficción. Blogs&Docs. http://www.blogsandocs.com/?p=422. ———. 2010. Cannes 2010. Sesiones especiales. Blogs&Docs. http://www.blogsandocs.com/?p=586. ———. 2011. Documentales en Cannes 2011: En el cajón de sastre. Blogs&Docs. http://www.blogsandocs.com/?p=999. Jungen, Christian. 2014. Hollywood in Cannes: A Love-hate Relationship. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

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Nichols, Bill. 1994. Discovering Form, Inferring Meaning: New Cinemas and the Film Festival Circuit. Film Quarterly 47 (3): 16–30. Peranson, Mark. 2009. First You Get the Power, Then You Get the Money: Two Models of Film Festivals. In Dekalog 3: On Film Festivals, ed. Richard Porton, 23–37. London: Wallflower Press. Perren, Alisa. 2001. Sex Lies and Marketing: Miramax and Development of the Indie Quality Blockbuster. Film Quarterly 55 (2): 30–39.

PART II

Professional Perspectives

Introduction to Part II, Vol. 2: Professional Perspectives Ezra Winton

In their introductory text on the varied interview methodologies available to researchers, Andrea Fontana and James H. Frey get to the heart of the matter in their opening sentence: “Asking questions and getting answers is a much harder task than it may seem at first” (1994, 361). I can attest to the veracity of this reflection, and would add that getting the right answers is the hardest task of all. And by right, I mean to say that ideally the interview—which I think of as a guided or structured conversation with clear objectives and a purpose that is serving the researcher’s larger scholarly project (that in turn, hopefully serves the work or project of the interviewee)—yields useful knowledge that can usher new perspectives on the object of study, provide valuable evidence to support argumentation, and generally bring detailed texture to the contours of what is often a fuzzy and slippery site of inquiry (at least this is true of festival studies). While researching for my PhD dissertation several years ago I found out the hard way that simply asking questions you think are the right questions, may not always elicit the kinds of responses one expects. I had sat down with the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival’s top management staff in Toronto, and asked them one by one, E. Winton (*) ReImagining Value Action Lab, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, ON, Canada © The Author(s) 2020 A. Vallejo, E. Winton (eds.), Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 2, Framing Film Festivals, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17324-1_8

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in each one-hour interview, a question that I naively thought would magically unlock the Pandora’s box that concealed the festival’s complex blending of ‘doing business’ and screening political art. “Which do you think is more important at Hot Docs: the business side or the art side?”—This query, as it turned out, yielded the consistent, brief, and foreclosing reply: “Neither.” Variations were slight, including answers about finding balance and mentions of a mysterious “Chinese Wall” between programming and corporate sponsorship, but ultimately, I got the message: Hot Docs management wasn’t about to serve me up a platter of their delectable insider perspectives and opinions on the inner workings and tensions of the festival. They could sense my agenda from forty theatre rows away, and being the clever, attentive and intuitive folks that they are, delivered the requisite “party line,” thus sending me off with nothing to show for the time spent. It was a lesson in fieldwork, and interviewing especially, that comes to mind when reading the insightful interviews contained in this section of this volume, where interviewers ask important and incisive questions that in part get to the question “How do festivals work?”—a question used as the basis for Gann’s collection of interviews with festival programmers (2012). This section, “Professional Perspectives,” is chalk full of conversations where the interviewer is asking the right question, and as it follows, the interviewee is giving robust responses that bring definition to the aforementioned texture of the many imbricated contours of the documentary film festival as a site, or field, of inquiry. As human members in the animal kingdom we learn from each other, which has been the case for millennia. And so, the eight chapters that follow deepen and expand our collective knowledge of the documentary industry, the festival world, and the myriad intersecting points that converge between the two. Invaluable insights into programming practices, the work of freelancers, the future of industry features like the pitch session, the pressure to have premieres, the ever-expanding  festival event and product spinoffs, the impacts of social movements on festivals, mentoring and talent campus confidentials and more, all dot the textual landscape of the diverse and representative conversations that follow. Taken together, these exchanges are part archive, part thick description, and part narrated experience. They articulate the particularities of the intersecting documentary and festival worlds, and offer a rich compendium of cultural knowledge and practice.

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The Experience of Art and Truth On a last note, the interviewees are of course folks working in the documentary festival world, and as such they are delegates from a cultural, political, social and economic field that is markedly different from the larger fiction film field—perhaps a cozier, more collaborative (that is, less competitive), less star-studded (that is, more grounded) space of play. But ultimately, the documentary film world—and its festival outposts by extension—is, to paraphrase Nichols, about the world, not a world (2010, xi). This representational predilection for depicting actuality has its own set of unique component parts, including smaller production budgets, the use of certain technologies, deployment of aesthetic codes and conventions (including a very relevant strategy for this section—the documentary interview), and particular discursive elements such as argumentation-­ through-­juxtaposition (where a subject’s words are reinforced or called into question with accompanying imagery). These truth-telling strategies often rely on formal and ideological assumptions about documentary as the vessel for truth-delivery, and as such, those working in the field carry enormous responsibility and demand intense accountability around their work. The work of all art may be to expose the truth, but with documentary this raison d’être is more widely perceived and accepted. The nature of this field of practice, that is the documentary film world, calls to mind Gadamer, whose interventions on ‘truth and method’ argued against the fantasy of objectivity in favour of bias and subjectivity as a meaningful and positive aspect of all human knowledge and understanding. He writes: Just as in the experience of art we are concerned with truths that go essentially beyond the range of methodical knowledge, so the same thing is true of the whole of human sciences: in them our historical tradition in all its forms is certainly made the object of investigation, but at the same time truth comes to speech in it. Fundamentally, the experience of historical tradition reaches far beyond those aspects of it that can be objectively investigated. It is true or untrue not only in the sense of concerning which historical criticism decides, but always mediates truth in which one must try to share. (2004 [1975], xxii; original emphasis)

And so, following Gadamer, we hope this next section of eight interviews helps to recognize an “experience of truth” (Ibid.), where documentary’s

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trademark dialogic form comes to life in deep conversations that reflect the ways in which subjective truth comes to speech in our object of study: in this case, the documentary film festival.

References Fontana, Andrea, and James Frey. 1994. The Art of Science. In The Handbook of Qualitative Research, ed. Norman K. Denzin and Yvonne S. Lincoln, 361–376. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 2004 [1975]. Truth and Method, Second Revised Edition. Translated by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G.  Marshall. London and New York: Continuum. Gann, Jon. 2012. Behind the Screens: Programmers Reveal How Film Festivals Really Work. Washington, DC: Reel Plan Press. Nichols, Bill. 2010. Introduction to Documentary. Second Edition. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Adapting to New Times: An Interview with Ernesto del Río, Director of the Zinebi International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Bilbao (2000–2017) Aida Vallejo

Founded in 1959, the International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Bilbao started as an initiative of the “Basque institute of Spanish Culture”, an institution created by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Francoist dictatorship to promote Spanish culture in the former colonial territories. Promoted by the local bourgeoisie in an attempt to enrich Bilbao’s cultural life, the then so-called “International Contest of Iberoamerican and Philippine Documentary” was created in the shadow of the San Sebastian International Film Festival (which appeared six years before in a nearby seaside resort frequented by high society and royalty), and followed the example of the Oberhausen Short Film Festival (appeared in 1954). Today, the festival is organized by the local municipality, and funded by public institutions, including the cultural departments of local, regional and state governments.1

A. Vallejo (*) University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Leioa, Spain e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Vallejo, E. Winton (eds.), Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 2, Framing Film Festivals, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17324-1_9

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With a trajectory of more than half a century, the event has gone through several organizational, aesthetic, and technological changes. Caught between its international and local dimensions, the festival has fostered many Spanish filmmaker-careers during the 1960s, hosted Latin American political films of the ‘70s (with guests such as Manoel de Oliveira or Fernando Birri), and bolstered the emerging Basque Cinema of the ‘80s. Meanwhile, the presence of documentary in the programme has experienced several fluctuations, encompassing the changes in production from short to feature-documentary. After collaborating intermittently in the Selection Committee since the end of the 1970s, Ernesto del Río became the festival director in 2000. A filmmaker himself, after 18 years leading the event he is going into retirement.2 Under his direction the festival saw the arrival of the digital era and adopted the name Zinebi, an acronym that served as a trademark that helped to consolidate its identity in the age of the internet. In this interview, he shares his memories about the changes the festival went through, as well as his main concerns for the future of its organization, archival practices and programming policies.3 Aida Vallejo: How does the festival play with the three identities historically associated to it: Latin American, Spanish and Basque? Ernesto del Río: Today, the festival still plays with these three identities. But we try to make the festival more cosmopolitan, we still support Basque and Spanish cinema, also Latin American certainly with a special dedication, but what we did when I arrived here was to open the selection and programming to a lot of countries—more than 90 in fact. We always try to get more contacts and build relationships. Perhaps that makes Zinebi similar to other festivals? Yes, well… this festival has the problem of being a little bit hybrid, so to speak. Because on the one hand we show short-films (including documentaries, fictions and animations) in competition. And then we have feature-documentary in parallel sections. When we invite a filmmaker, we try to show his/her documentary work, which is usually less well-known than the fictional output.

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What are your programming policies regarding documentaries? Although we travel to other festivals such as Clermont-Ferrand, Berlin, Cannes, Rotterdam or BAFICI in search of new trends, all our selection comes from submitted films. In the competitive section, short-­documentary is less represented than fiction. This format is not as developed in Spain as it is Germany, Eastern Europe or the USA. I think that the outburst of feature-length documentary has eclipsed short-documentaries, which were most common in previous periods, before the appearance of digital. We usually programme feature-length documentaries in parallel sections, showing productions from the previous year. We bring them from festivals we consider interesting, such as Berlin, Tribeca, Sundance, South by Southwest, Marseille, BAFICI, Hot Docs, Rotterdam… to have a panorama. Those films always ask for a screening fee. All have a distributor. This is new also, beginning from 2006 or 2007, when documentaries slowly started to make some money from festivals. Some ask for 1000 euros, and we can afford a maximum of 500 euros, otherwise we don’t show the film. When I arrived here in 2000 it was very easy to program the festival, because up to 2003–2004 there were plenty of feature-documentaries available. I was showing as many as I could, those which I saw as “making noise.” We were premiering films that nobody was showing in Spain, or at major international film festivals. They were not in competition, but filmmakers were sending them all the same. I could bring whatever I wanted, as there weren’t so many festivals then. But they messed with me because in 3–4 years, many festivals started to emerge. Before, I had everything very well sorted out and I had access to all the documentaries I asked for, and then all that disappeared…. What happened with documentary was a crazy thing. Because 2004 is when Michael Moore received the Palme d’Or in Cannes… Yes, and in Spain this is the moment when Jose Luis Guerín makes En Construcción (Work in Progress 2001), which won the Golden Shell in the San Sebastian Film Festival. In Zinebi we took a gamble which actually failed. In 2003, we made a competition of feature-documentaries, with an award, but attendance was very low. Perhaps we were ahead of our time,

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and there was not enough audience for the two contests: the traditional one for shorts, which everybody attended, and the feature-documentary. Perhaps we should have held on for one more year and grow it. But that would have involved double work. Besides, a short-film festival is more difficult to organize, because the number of production companies, film copies or filmmakers involved is much bigger. Then, we had to make the selection also for feature-documentaries and, to be honest, that overwhelmed us a bit. It’s not easy to organize two contests. So I said to myself, “well this involves us getting into a mess which we are not obliged to get into.” And I got scared, as this would involve costs which were not included in our budget. In which sense was it more expensive to focus on documentary? Inviting guests? Programming? Yes, more films, more guests. Well, and more juries, because there are two contests. In 2003 we had a specific jury for documentary, including Marc Recha and the Portuguese Pedro Costa, who made those hybrids between fiction and documentary which were emerging at that time. But we didn’t have the courage to go on with that trend. Perhaps we were wrong. Now that I see it in retrospect, I think we should have gone on with the documentary contest, and perhaps we could have consolidated it in order to build an audience. Since 2004 many festivals have appeared in Spain, such as DocumentaMadrid, or  Punto de Vista in Pamplona (Navarra). How has that affected Zinebi? Do you collaborate with them? They don’t directly compete with us, because we work with shorts and they focus on feature-documentaries. As for Punto de Vista, I think it is very endogamous. A meeting of the people who make a very specific kind of film in Spain, with a very particular way to understand documentary. And I think that this is a problem with cinema, that people don’t see it. It becomes a closed circuit. And that is what happens now with this new Spanish Cinema: nobody sees it. Beyond those who are involved in this professional network of about 300 people that go to the festivals in Spain, there is nobody else. And from there you don’t reach the general public, and for me the most important thing is to reach the public.

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But I think that the problem for Zinebi is also that it grows in the shadow of San Sebastian, and wants to imitate it by bringing famous people. Institutionally there was always an interest in bringing in some celebrity. And that’s what appears in the newspapers. Perhaps I would have liked to do something more closely related to Punto de Vista… The problem is that at the end you make a festival for the press, another for politicians, another for those who come to present the films, and another for the wider public. And you fill the gaps in the best way you can. Punto de Vista is not required to do this. In the case of Zinebi many conditions are predetermined. If you create a festival from the beginning you can do it as you wish. What is the relationship between Zinebi and San Sebastian International Film Festival? San Sebastian is a very institutionalized festival, for consolidated cinema—for filmmakers with consolidated careers. The bad thing about Zinebi is that filmmakers come here when they are unknown, but once they become famous they don’t make shorts anymore and run to feature festivals. As for documentarists, San Sebastian has also attracted their attention, mainly due to its capacity to attract industry agents. Several Basque feature-documentaries such as Nömadak Tx (Raúl de la Fuente, Pablo Iraburu, Harkaitz Martinez and Igor Otxoa, 2006), Bertsolari (Asier Altuna, 2011) or The Search for Emak Bakia (Oskar Alegria, 2012) have premiered at San Sebastian. We showed some of them here in Bilbao afterwards, but they went there first. There is a preference for San Sebastian since they created the “Zinemira” contest for Basque productions in 2009. But I think this is a mistake on the part of filmmakers, because in San Sebastian you compete with a lot of films and here in Zinebi it is easier to get exposure in the media. But certainly, San Sebastian has steadily taken films from us. The documentary pitching forum “Lau Haizetara” also takes place in San Sebastian instead of here in Zinebi. Didn’t the organizers4 contact you first? No, they organized it directly in collaboration with San Sebastian. Look, do you know what happens? We have a problem because our festival

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is accredited by FIAPF [the International Federation of Film Producers Associations] as a short film festival. It has specialized, and people associate the festival with shorts. And the audience from Bilbao has that idea of the festival. But from abroad, people think that this is a great documentary festival, but this is not entirely true in the sense that we are not competitive in documentary. Filmmakers from abroad certainly recognize it because it is so old. It’s the second oldest in the world with the term “documentary” incorporated in the name. But all feature-documentaries are shown in non-competitive sections and it is the competitive sections that give you more exposure. And FIAPF doesn’t impose any restrictions regarding documentary premières? Because you are showing films that already travelled the festival circuit? No, FIAPF puts conditions only for competitive sections. In parallel sections, you can do whatever you want. They distinguish between world, international, and national premières, otherwise it would be impossible. You can’t imagine the amount of festivals, film cycles, etc. celebrated in the world. There are more than 20,000 events. It’s crazy. Another interesting phenomenon related to this proliferation is that movie theatres are closing but festival screenings are selling out. That’s another abnormal phenomenon, because the same film in San Sebastian fills the cinema but if you show it in the commercial movie theatre nobody goes. The problem is that the festival is an event that fails to create a public, people don’t continue to attend cinemas. It only works as a special event out of the ordinary during that week. Does the festival work just as a punctual event, or it serves to create new audiences? Does it serve to promote filmmakers? Sure. But I am concerned about the public, how to create publics for the cinema both in festivals and commercial movie theatres. How to make people pay. They pay for other things but not for cinema. How can cinema reach again a status of cultural phenomenon that it had in the golden age of the festival, when we watched films like La batalla de Chile (The Battle of Chile, Patricio Guzmán, 1975) or Woodstock (Michael Wadleigh, 1970)? In the 1970s the festival was complementary to the cine-club life. Vibrant debates took place after the screenings and

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continued in the bars. The problem we have now, and here I pose a general crisis of the audiovisual sector, is that cinema stopped being a significant cultural place. There is not a clear prescription for what is good or not. Young people don’t go to the cinema, they watch it all on the internet. Perhaps they comment on something afterwards, but there is no encounter and celebration, or coming together. I go to the movie ­theatre and there are no young people. I am around 60 and I am one of the youngest, so you can imagine… There is some hope, though. In Madrid, there are starting to appear some small movie theatres like Artistic Metropol, with about 80 seats. They show documentaries, films not shown in commercial cinemas, and they are full. And now that I am going into retirement, it is my aim to start something similar here in Bilbao. To show throughout the year films that are different. So now that you are leaving the direction of the festival, what is the future for its organization? Are there any plans to give way to a generational renewal? This is my last year in Zinebi. I don’t want to go on here, I agree that we have to give way to new people. Well, we already included younger people in the Selection Committee. And the parallel and special thematic cycles are proposals made by people of about 30-years-old. My colleague in the Selection Committee, Luis Eguiraun, will remain for about 2 years as a director of programming, and then will go into retirement as well. I think that afterwards everything will change.5 The festival depends on the City Council, so we are not autonomous, contrary to what people normally assume. We received strong criticism because people tended to think that we took all the decisions about the festival, but we didn’t. There are many institutions involved in our Selection Committee. At some point, it was decided to set out together with representatives from the two existing associations of Basque producers, EITB (the public television of the autonomous Basque region) and the scriptwriters association. And that was maintained since 2000. We watch all submissions and then make the pre-selection, which we pass to the committee. Other parallel cycles are programmed by us, or are external proposals by independent curators.

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Zinebi, which has existed for more than half a century, has witnessed several technological changes during its trajectory. How has this challenged its organization? Well, they forced us to change the festival venues several times. Since 1987 when the Arriaga theatre reopened, it became our main venue, and we used its 35 mm projector. In 2010 the digitization process obliged us to go to Alhondiga Cultural Center (today Azkuna Zentroa), where they have 2k digital projectors. The Guggeheim Museum is also one of our venues hosting parallel sections. In addition, digitization brought about new problems for the screening of short films. Films must be scheduled depending on the formats, and problems of misconfiguration of the projector frequently occur. That doesn’t let you programme and curate as you would wish, so often technical criteria prevail over artistic ones. Now most of the films arrive in DCP (Digital Cinema Package), which has become the standard format. I consider the technological transition finished, but the problem arises with parallel cycles of old films. We do our best, but sometimes we have to screen them from DVD or Blu-ray. We never show them directly because they can fail, and that did happen to us, so we record files on a hard drive. Taking into account that this is one of the oldest documentary festivals in the world you must have an interesting archive… We have about 250 films of 16 mm made since about 1968 till 2000. Usually the copies in celluloid where sent back to the production companies, but some left a copy. VHS was a predominant format since the end of the 1980s, but in 2006 we stopped receiving tapes. In 2003, we started to receive DVDs. Now we wonder what to do with these films. And we have another problem: we don’t know what to do with VHS copies. Because we transferred everything to VHS, but now it’s a completely useless format. We are going to lose all these films. What we have kept are copies of the films in competition, and parallel sections. What was not selected was thrown away. We have up to 90 percent of what is in the catalogues, at least since I’ve been here. With 35 mm, the normal practise was bringing it, projecting it and sending it back. But we would ask for a copy in DVD for making the subtitles, and that was a good trick to keep a copy of films projected in celluloid. We also have copies of film in Betacam. We have catalogued it all and it is well kept, but nobody ever comes to watch these films. Nevertheless, the archive is split

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between the municipal library (films in 16 mm and 35 mm) and our office (VHS and DVDs). And we have to make a decision about VHS. Is it worth transferring it to DVD? It would involve hours and hours of work. I wouldn’t like to throw these tapes away but copies can be in very bad shape… It’s only worthwhile for some researchers. We have to decide now because we are moving our offices to a new location. Technological transition processes are long. VHS lasted for 20 years. YouTube appeared in 2006,6 Facebook in 2008. Celluloid disappeared, the digital transition is already finished. Nobody shoots in film any more. That is why I am leaving. I retire. I go home. I will make something, some small film. I won’t mind, I will just become a spectator.

Notes 1. For a historical account of the origins and evolution of film festivals specialized on documentary see Vallejo (2020) in our first volume. For anniversary books published on the occasion of the 50th edition of Zinebi see Bakedano and Zunzunegui (2008) and López Echevarrieta (2008). 2. This interview took place in the festival office in Bilbao in 2014 (in Spanish), and was updated with further conversations with del Río in subsequent years. 3. Research for this work has been supported by ikerFESTS research project, funded by the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). Grant number: EHUA16/31. http://www.ehu.eus/ehusfera/ikerfests/_english/. 4. This production forum is an initiative of Ibaia, the association of independent production companies of the Basque Country. 5. In January 2018, Vanesa Fernandez Guerra took over his position, leading the 60th edition of the festival in November that year. 6. Youtube was officially launched in 2005, but it was later when its use spread among the common audience.

References Bakedano, Jose Julián, and Santos Zunzunegui, eds. 2008. Imágenes de un largo viaje: cincuenta años de cine en ZINEBI, 1959–2008. Bilbao: Ayuntamiento de Bilbao. López Echevarrieta, Alberto. 2008. ZINEBI 50. Historia del Festival Internacional de Cine Documental y Cortometraje de Bilbao, 1959–2008. Bilbao: Ayuntamiento de Bilbao. Vallejo, Aida. 2020. The Rise of Documentary Festivals. In Documentary Film Festivals Vol 1. Methods, History, Politics, ed. Aida Vallejo and Ezra Winton, 77–99. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.

Precarity and Resistance: An Interview with Pedro Pimenta, Founder-Director of Dockanema Documentary Film Festival (Mozambique) Lindiwe Dovey

The first film festivals in Africa—FIFAK (Festival International du Film Amateur de Kélibia) in Tunisia, the JCC (Journées Cinématographiques de Carthage) in Tunisia, and FESPACO (Festival Panafricain du Cinéma de Ouagadougou) in Burkina Faso—were founded in the 1960s. These festivals, and the majority of film festivals in Africa, have focused on filmmaking of all genres—fiction, documentary, and short film. It was only from the late 1990s onwards that film festivals dedicated to documentary filmmaking were founded on the continent, the most prominent of which are: Encounters, founded in 1999  in Cape Town and Johannesburg,

This interview took place at the FESPACO film festival in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, in March 2013, and it was conducted in English. L. Dovey (*) SOAS University of London, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Vallejo, E. Winton (eds.), Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 2, Framing Film Festivals, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17324-1_10

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South Africa; Dockanema, founded in 2006  in Maputo, Mozambique; Escales Documentaire de Libreville, founded in 2006 in Libreville, Gabon; Afifdok (Festival International du film documentaire de Khourigba), founded in 2009 in Khourigba, Morocco; BeninDocs, founded in 2011 in Porto Novo and Cotonou, Benin, and in Paris, France; and I-Represent International Documentary Film Festival, founded in 2011  in Lagos, Nigeria. The Real Life Documentary Film Festival also ran in Accra, Ghana, from 2006 to 2011. As my interview with filmmaker and founder-director of Dockanema documentary film festival, Pedro Pimenta, below reveals, there are two main reasons why film festivals focused on documentary filmmaking are so important in many African contexts: to connect Africans to their rich, diverse histories and contemporary experiences, which may not have been previously documented in reproducible and durable forms; and to provide African film fans with far more diverse content than is usually available to them, in contexts where—across the continent—there are very few formal cinemas, quite limited television programming, erratic access to the internet, and film cultures generally dominated by Hollywood, Bollywood, Nollywood and Kung Fu films. Sadly, since conducting this interview in 2013, Dockanema has ceased to exist, some of the reasons for which are apparent in the interview below. The festival’s fate highlights, in particular, the precarious nature of all film festivals, and particularly those in under-resourced contexts. Pimenta has now turned his efforts towards highlighting the fact that African films of all genres are part of global film culture; he has done this through moving to South Africa and by, first, taking on the role of Programme Director for the 2015 Durban International Film Festival (currently the largest film festival on the African continent), and subsequently founding, in 2016, the Joburg Film Festival. Lindiwe Dovey: So, Pedro, let’s talk about Dockanema. Pedro Pimenta: Let me first put things into context. Mozambique is a place where in the past there was a vibrant film culture, where in the post-­ independence period there were some dynamic years, the possibility of a national cinema, and a filmmaking relationship with the rest of the world. But, as you are aware, the possibility of screening films in Africa is getting extremely reduced. Mozambique is no exception: for 25 million people, you’ve got three screens running regularly on a commercial basis. Local television is very bad; satellite and cable television only screen a certain

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kind of movie. Film culture is disappearing around us. Today any film or audio-visual product coming out of Mozambique is a miracle. Anything that happens is based on people’s desire and passion and struggle to make it happen. There is not the slightest support system. This has an effect on local filmmakers who are not exposed to what’s being made in the rest of the world. So, given this context, I thought that creating a film festival in a place like Mozambique could be the catalyst for something. For a start, potentially a platform for filmmakers to talk about the films they’ve just seen and about their own work. Talking to each other. Because in a situation of poverty such as we see in Mozambique people tend to isolate themselves—there is no real leadership that brings people around a cause, a strategy, whatever. So, I thought the festival could play that role. But also the festival could create a relationship between filmmakers and audiences, who I think are keen to see a different kind of product. Why a documentary film festival? Because traditionally Mozambique has been much more known for and active in documentary than any other kind of filmmaking. So I felt that was the right way to start, to connect with people’s experience, expecting that the initiative would generate interest from other quarters, and could slowly move into fiction. And I must say that—this is probably the most interesting ripple effect that Dockanema has had—there has been, since the creation of Dockanema, a group of other people who decided to create a short film festival; and this year another group are doing an African film week. There’ve also been other initiatives, training initiatives, both inside and outside Maputo, that rely to a large extent on the programming of Dockanema. So there’s an effect that’s been generated. So these are ordinary people who have never put on screening events before, but they’ve been inspired by the festival to screen films? Yes, even in another city 500 km from Maputo. I think this is the third or fourth year of the short film festival. They started putting together something small, and they come to us and get some of our films. It’s nice. But Dockanema itself is a small festival because it was never my intention to create something bigger than what is really needed. I’m not particularly interested in transforming this festival into a tourism agency. I don’t have the money to do it. And I like the notion of a small festival where people can really engage, where filmmakers can engage, can focus on the films

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that they’ve all seen and talk about it around the same meal. Keep it small, intimate, and effective. I think the existence of the festival itself is a huge achievement for a place like Mozambique. What is your budget and who funds the festival? On paper the budget is 200,000 euros. But I never manage to finance the entire budget. I remain with a lot of debts. The festival is made without any kind of public support—I never managed to get a cent out of the government. They’re not interested in supporting something they can’t control. Their justification is the usual—“We don’t have money,” or “It’s difficult, but next year it will be in the national budget.” Now I don’t even ask them. But they still want to come and officially declare the festival open with speeches! You’re not supporting me but you want a platform? Other than that, the foreign embassies will fly a few filmmakers in. But I’ve had a big fight with ambassadors of countries who are supporting me who want to take the platform, and I say “No, it’s a film moment. It’s not a diplomatic thing.” They start manipulating things to their advantage to some agenda we don’t know about. They want to get into issues of programming. Spain says: “We are supporting you, there is this documentary from Spain.” And then you look at it, it’s something about flamenco, touristic style. And I’m like, “Excuse me, you want to take your support back? I’m not taking this.” The American embassy, there are big fights with them. “At least we need to have a flag in the back of the theatre,” they say. I say, “No!” I do have some local, commercial sponsors, though. They like the idea of the festival, that it’s reaching an audience. The audience has consistently been between 7000 and 10,000 people a year, for 80 films screened in four venues. In absolute terms the audience has decreased, though. Why? Because until two years ago I was able to count on the collaboration of a mobile cinema project. Until two years ago it was a real collaboration and partnership. And then something changed. The project moved from the Italian cooperation to being managed by somebody else and now I’m being charged for screenings. And I don’t think it’s my role to be funding this project. I really miss it because through this project I was reaching lots of people out of town in rural areas. The audience doubled. We got up to 14,000 people in one year. Fourteen thousand! So just to clarify, this organization, those who are running the mobile cinema, are they using films that you’re

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programming for Dockanema, or are they bringing in their own films? Their regular activity is centred around educational films. That’s their mission as they describe it. HIV/AIDS, domestic violence, the environment, all the ‘good’ causes. Fine. Until recently I was able to establish with the project that during the festival they would use some of my festival films to expand what they are screening to people, so it’s not limited to educational films but opens people to other realities. But then it changed and it’s no longer a possibility. So what are your current venues? There are very limited options when it comes to venues because the cinemas have mostly closed. So, there are two cultural centres in Maputo— Brazilian and French—that I use. There is a stage theatre with 300 seats that I convert into a cinema. And there is an amphitheatre at the University that I use. How do these venues affect who your audiences are? There is a very different public at each of the venues. At the University it’s mostly students—they love it, they come, they organize a cine-club, they do screenings the rest of the year from the Dockanema experience. So they actively participate. The cultural centres are more a mix of expats, and the local intelligentsia and artists—they like to see and to be seen there. Nice people. Pleasant. This is where all the embassies want to do their cocktails, so it’s trendy. And then the stage theatre is downtown, it’s more open to the general public, and this has a real mix of Maputans. People like that place, there’s a routine of going there for theatre, so they go during the festival. And a nice mixture of not necessarily expats but foreigners living in Mozambique for a long time. Is there a charge for screenings? There’s a minimum fee of the equivalent of US$1. But if you’re under 27 you don’t pay, and if you’re a student you don’t pay. The US$1 fee is symbolic; the people who are my partners at these venues, they tell me,

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‘We need to charge something. We are giving the venue for free.’ The formal cinemas charge US$10—so obviously they’re not for the locals. Dockanema is a very locally-focused festival, isn’t it? It’s not like festivals where the audiences are mostly foreign? No, no—I don’t have the resources for that. But I will make sure that there are is anywhere between 20–30 international guests so that we are able to parallel the screenings with a week of workshops, debates, panel discussions. And we always engage the invited filmmakers and audience in Q&As after the screenings. Which is very popular because Mozambican people love talking about things! I think for a place like Maputo, the interest for the audience is that this is one of the rare moments they’re able to engage in a full week of being exposed to issues that they won’t see for the rest of the year anywhere, treated in a very particular way, with a strong point of view from the filmmakers, and being able to engage with the filmmakers. In Maputo, you very rarely find something of interest, intellectual interest. So, this is what is most attractive for the people who want to come and support. I’ve seen people talking about issues, certain issues that they were carrying within themselves for a long time. And during the festival they seem to feel that there is a platform that allows them a catharsis, a space of freedom. Has the government felt threatened by this space of freedom? No. I think governments in Africa have realized that the best way to deal with this freedom of expression is to just let it happen. Because very quickly it’s forgotten—whatever we’ve said there. And it’s much more a problem if they create a problem, rather than just keeping quiet and a week after, that’s it—you move on to something else. And is the local press interested in the festival? It’s very difficult. You have to do the work for them. Basically, you have to write all the press releases for them, you have to push and push and push. They rarely see the films. In fact, the whole festival has been extremely difficult to put together. It would be very easy for me to give away the independence of the festival, but I don’t feel like doing that. It’s not only personal, it’s about understanding what a festival like Dockanema

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should mean in the context of Mozambique. So, if support—be it financial or any other thing—is constrained by giving away some of my editorial freedom or direction, I’m not prepared to do that. I’ve had proposals from different quarters that would apparently make my life much easier: ‘Don’t worry, Pedro, we’ll make it happen for you.’ And I’m like: ‘I like to exist. If I don’t worry, I don’t exist!’ I don’t mind the support, but when it comes to programming, it’s my choice. I’m often called a dictator, which is not a problem—I want to see myself as an enlightened dictator! Every single film of the 80 I’ve been screening on an annual basis, I am able to defend it, to explain why it’s there. Even if it’s a bad film, even if it’s a film that does not meet the criteria of certain quarters, I’m able to explain why it’s there. And I make a point of showing every single film made in Mozambique, and everything I know of made about Mozambique from other countries. And it’s a very successful section of the festival. You can see that direct link between Mozambican themes and the audience? Yes. People will make it a priority to see films dealing with Mozambique. I know from doing curatorial work myself that this takes a lot of time. The number of films you have to watch to get down to that 80, and to write the programme! So do you get any pay for this, or is it all voluntary work, on the side of your own filmmaking work? So far, it’s been voluntary work. I see anything between 400 and 600 documentaries a year. I insist that my choices are not dictated by any dogma. So I will screen what can be qualified as ‘auteur’ documentary, but also some products that people would call television documentary. As long as there is a possibility of a connection with the local audience because of the themes, I will consider them. And also, I have a small section of video art, because in Maputo there are a bunch of young people who are into video art. They’ve found a form to express themselves, so I think it’s good to give them a platform, also because I believe in the contamination of genres. More classical documentary can benefit from a more artistic approach, and vice versa. So there’s a strong Mozambican programme, but it’s not confined to Mozambican film?

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No, no. It’s international. There is a strong Mozambique and Africa emphasis, a lot of Portuguese-language films because I’ve got no language issues with this content—but mostly from Brazil because there’s very good product coming from there. In fact, the risk that I’m running each year is to reduce the selection of Portuguese-speaking countries—mostly Brazil— because I could easily do a Portuguese-speaking documentary film festival. And you don’t want to do that? No, I don’t want it to be reduced to that. So I would say 50 per cent— 40 titles—are originally in Portuguese and with these we try to obtain an English-subtitled version so that the people who don’t know Portuguese [foreign visitors to Mozambique] can follow the film. The rest of the titles are international. And there is a problem here of resources to translate the Portuguese. So there’s a section that we call ‘Original Docs’, where films are screened in their original version with subtitles in English or French on the assumption that there is a public in Maputo who are comfortable with subtitles in English or French. The rest of the programme is pretty much what I’m exposed to in my wanderings. Over the year I establish a network of people I trust, who tell me ‘I think you should see this.’ So it’s a lot of work but by June each year I’m able to finalize what I believe is a strong programme for the festival happening in September. Which festivals do you go to? Which do you think are the useful ones for programming documentary film? I try to attend É Tudo Verdade [It’s All True] in São Paulo. And I try to attend IDFA, Leipzig or Doclisboa, where you find really good films. I hear that IDFA is really good on African film as well—do you agree? Less and less. But this is Africa’s problem. The content from Africa is not up to standard. IDFA is totally open, they really do their work, they are looking, I assist them. But it’s really difficult to find the right stuff for IDFA. It’s a very competitive place. It’s not good to put something just because it’s from Africa and it’s bad. So it’s a real problem. What about retrospectives of archival material at Dockanema? Or is this difficult because the archive burnt down in Mozambique?

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That’s the wrong information which has been circulating. That’s not true? It’s in so many books! No, it’s wrong. What burned down is the warehouse where films in commercial exhibition were stored. So, all international films basically. All the national Mozambican films were stored somewhere else. They were extremely badly treated, true, in terms of preservation conditions. Recently there was an effort with the support of the Portuguese Cinematheque, so a new facility has been created. But there are so many articles, so many stories about the national archives that were burnt down! And it’s false. So have you screened any of these archival Mozambican films? I try but it’s difficult because they’re on 16 mm or 35 mm prints. And they have to be converted into digital. What I do, though, and this is something that gives me great pleasure, is each year I bring back a film that is, as far as I am concerned, part of Mozambican heritage, about the liberation struggle or whatever, and I screen it like, you know, a memory of the country. It doesn’t need to necessarily be a documentary—it can be a fiction too. But archival material is very difficult to deal with. You need to provide context, you need to explain, you need to make sure people understand, what was the world back then. Because they look at those pictures and they show black people like animals. What are some of your memories of special moments with Dockanema? Every year the opening film is a big problem. Because I think that the opening film must provoke people. So people either love it or they hate it, and they start talking about it. Last year I had a film by Ike Bertels called Guerilla Grannies (2012), which was a good occasion for me to provoke a discussion about the country. The year before I opened with Patricio Guzman’s film from Chile, Nostalgia de la luz (2010). It’s a very powerful film that deals with a lot of important issues for humanity—where are we coming from, what are we doing here? And some people thought, ‘Okay, Pedro wants to be some funny intellectual.’ And other people were crying. In 2010 I screened 48 (Susana de Sousa Dias, 2010). A Portuguese film. It was screened recently in London. It’s a film structured around the pictures—the still pictures—of 16 political detainees in Portugal, during

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Salazar’s dictatorship years. It’s a masterpiece! You’ve got 16 still pictures only. I’m just thinking, hearing you speak, of the possibilities of a festival in Africa that’s not a huge festival like the Durban International Film Festival, and that’s not only focused on African films like FESPACO. Just getting away from this African filmmaker thing, to being a human filmmaker. Yes. You have to be open to the rest of the world. People have to connect. Take your place in the world. Recognize your strengths and weaknesses in this world around us. That’s the only way I think. Finally, what about the future of Dockanema? On many occasions, I’ve said to myself: ‘That’s it, I’m not doing the festival anymore!’ Why? Because it’s so exhausting. And I’m spending my own money. And I become a monster because I want the thing to happen. So I start fighting with a lot of people. By the end of the festival I want to commit suicide! So many times, I say ‘Okay, I’ve done it, it’s enough, I’m not doing it again.’ And then people start, on the street, they ask me, ‘Is it going to happen? Please make it happen!’ So you sense it is something they cherish.

Notes on Disenchantment: A Conversation with Amir Al-Emary, Former Director of the Ismailia International Film Festival for Documentaries and Shorts (Egypt) Hassouna Mansouri

I meet Amir Al-Emary a couple of times a year because we attend the same festivals. We very often compare Western film festivals with those of the so-called MENA1 region. When I was asked to take part in this book, his name obviously came to my mind. I remembered that he directed the 2001 and the 2012 Ismailia International Film Festival for Documentaries and Shorts, both in a very special context. The first was called the “come back edition” because the festival was suspended for five years. The latter was the first edition after the Tahrir Square events in Egypt. I met him at the Cannes Film Festival2 and as we talked about documentary film festivals our conversation led to the following statement: “Documentary is in a very complex situation in the Arab world. This has to do with many factors: the general cultural sphere, film infrastructures and legislation, film culture, and the heavy burden of taboos. Only a few filmmakers are

H. Mansouri (*) Cergy-Pontoise University, Cergy-Pontoise, France © The Author(s) 2020 A. Vallejo, E. Winton (eds.), Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 2, Framing Film Festivals, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17324-1_11

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seriously committed to this field and deserve to be mentioned.3 They are very few for a population of more than 300 million.” The same shortage can be noted in the number of festivals seriously dedicated to documentaries. Despite the multitude of initiatives from Morocco to the Emirates, only one single festival deserves to be named as such: the Ismailia Film Festival for documentaries and short films in Egypt. All the others have no real impact on the development of cinema and this specific genre. The main reason is the involvement of the non-democratic states, and hence the lack of financial support since this kind of event is not attractive for sponsors. Authentic independent initiatives like those in Agadir (Morocco), Bejaia and Telemcen (Algeria), Hergla and Douze (Tunisia) suffer from marginalization. Others like Aljazeera Documentary Film Festival depend more on a marketing policy than on a real interest in cinema and documentary as a genre. Initially a film critic, Amir Al-Emary’s testimony is very rich in information because he directed the Ismailia Film Festival twice and was confronted with the practical specificities of organizing such an event in a particular cultural and political sphere. As a free expression of reality, documentary was not welcomed for a long time. Political issues are not easy to talk about and social taboos even less. The so-called “Arab Spring” led to a degree of freedom of speech and hence to a boom in documentary production. Al-Emary witnessed this change because he directed the festival before and after the demonstrations. Hassouna Mansouri: Firstly, could you tell us a bit about yourself? A lot of people organizing film festivals started out as filmmakers; what, in your opinion, is the importance of knowing first-hand about the multiple facets of working in documentary: production, filmmaking, programming, criticism? Was it like this in your case? Amir Al-Emary: I worked for many years in the Arabic department of the BBC dealing with radio, television and digital press. I was involved in many short docs as scriptwriter, executive producer or editor. I even edited some films myself and prepared visual products for broadcasting. I also worked for many TV channels like Aljazeera TV and Abu Dhabi TV… I thus participated in many juries in different festivals specialized in documentary, such as the Teheran Film Festival and Oberhausen Film Festival,

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among others. Very often I write essays and analytical articles on documentaries and I believe I have significant experience in this field. On another hand, I was one of the first to practise the so-called “methodical film criticism,” by which I mean criticism based on film ­analysis not on some kind of superficial journalistic impressions about films. I was one of the first members of the Egyptian Film Critics Organization founded in 1974. In 2002, I was elected as chairperson of this same organization for which I organised many film events such as the Classic Documentary Film Week (on which I published a book). How did you start to collaborate with Ismailia? In 2001, the head of the Egyptian Film Centre asked me to be the Director of the Ismailia Film Festival in a very special context: right after the 9/11 events. I succeeded in this task, despite all the bureaucratic and financial difficulties. In 2012, I returned. In both cases, I was appointed to the same position in order to save the festival in a short time. Of course, changing the festival director always changes the form and shape of the festival. Before I took over the festival, screenings were taking place at the Ismailia Culture Palace, which I described in a press conference as a Stalinist type of building. Ordinary people of Ismailia fear it. They feel it is one of those obscure state buildings which has always been dedicated to the official celebrations they are excluded from. So I made an agreement with the Essaad Younis company, which owns a huge cinema network in Egypt, including the main cinema in Ismailia: “Renaissance”. I decided to convert it into the main venue of the festival in order to attract people to the screenings, as it is located in the city centre. I also decided to change the place that used to host the festival guests from the so called “Olympic Village”—that is located 25km from the city—to Hotel Mercure near the city centre, in a beautiful area near the canal and the big lake. The 2012 edition took place in the context of the presidential election with a lot of chaos and threats of violence. The official institution was always dealing with me as an expert in cinema and in festivals that I usually attended since 1980 until now. I was never appointed to a permanent position, but I always left once my mission was accomplished.

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Regarding selection and programming practices of documentary film, what makes Ismailia different from other festivals? Has the change of direction affected these practices? Programming and selecting documentaries is much more professional when you have the chance to go around all major film festivals as a film critic and festival director and judge films by their merit, not according to your own calculations or narrow views (as probably a filmmaker would). Critics in my opinion are the best to run film festivals because they don’t feel particularly enthusiastic towards a specific film style or movement. They are not usually part of the filmmaking process. That is why they can be more objective in judging. What are the origins of the festival? Ismailia film festival for Documentaries and short films was founded in 1992. It started as a small film event. Later it grew up and became more open to international film experiments. Unfortunately, it faced many administrative and bureaucratic difficulties due to being under the power of the official institutions of the Egyptian Ministry of Culture. You can imagine that the officials of the Ministry of Culture can easily interfere in the selection of certain films or the invitation of certain guests who are not politically correct. In 1995, it had to be suspended for five years. The 2001 edition, which I had the honour to direct, was called the “come back edition.” The 2012 edition will be the 17th anniversary. The festival has four competitions: feature documentary, short docs, short fiction films and short animation. Can you compare Ismailia’s characteristics with other similar festivals of the world? Especially those specializing in documentary? Ismailia is a good international festival dealing with this kind of cinema in its region in addition to being open to the rest of the world. It especially suffers from the lack of financial support from the government. It also suffers from the extremely heavy control of the government, plus the influence of the corrupted bureaucracy of the Ministry of Culture. What makes it worse is the lack of festival archives: its own offices are far from the Egyptian National Film Centre building with a professional crew working continuously during the whole year. Comparing Ismailia on the one hand

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and Oberhausen and Clermont-Ferrand on the other side is like comparing life in Egypt with that in Germany and France. And other similar festivals in the region? Aljazeera Documentary Film Festival is a big festival but it has no importance because it is not open to the region where it is taking place and because of its bad direction due to its overly conservative politics in selecting films. In addition to that, it seems too dependant on Aljazeera TV channel rather than being an international film festival freely open to all kinds of ideas and cultures. There is also a small festival in Tangier in Morocco, which is dedicated to shorts coming from the Mediterranean Basin. Tehran’s Film Festival for Docs and Shorts has also thoroughly deteriorated because of censorship and its non-specialized staff, which is made up only of the regime’s servants. There are a lot of films but no attention is paid to the artistic criteria. How has your festival been affected by the Arab Spring? In organization? In programming? In audience response? The 2012 edition, which I directed, was the first after what was called the “Arab Spring.” That’s why there was a special program called “The revolution seen from the other side,” dedicated to feature documentaries made by European filmmakers about the Egyptian revolution of January 2011. There was also another section for films about women and the revolution—I mean films dealing with the subject from the viewpoint of women as filmmakers or those focusing on the role of women in the revolution as subjects. For that edition, the festival counted on young filmmakers and critics representing the revolution and I think that it will continue in the same direction. Tell me about why you decided to end your role as Director of the festival. I am an independent film critic. That means that I am free from any control by the state institutions. My opinion on cultural policy is publicly and continuously known and this seems to not be appreciated by officials and different Ministers of Culture. In addition to that, I did not

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succeed in convincing any Minister of Culture of the necessity of at least four years for a contract. They are used to making contracts for only a few months in connection with the end of the financial year. Therefore, you can’t make plans for the future and you are forced to think only how to assume your responsibility concerning the edition you are asked to organize in a very short time and with a very small budget. This wears on your nerves. Very often, I had to work for 12 hours per day without any holiday at all. This was not acceptable for my collaborators who were official employees of the Egyptian National Film Centre, and with whom I was forced to work despite their inefficiency and their lack of experience. You have no choice when you have such a small budget. Working in the framework of the Egyptian state system is a disagreeable suffering. The Director of a festival is not only in charge of planning and supervising the different aspect of the organization, but he must also take care personally of every detail, like the editing of the catalogue and checking the names and titles of the films in the two languages in the official program. He also has to take care personally of the contacts with filmmakers so that they send their films on time. This is too much for any one person, especially when you have virtually no budget, no specialized professional crew, and where you’re meant to do it in a short time without a proper contract. Which difficulties were there in financing your festival? Initially all festivals dealing with documentary are exclusively financed by governments. Sponsors are not interested in such events. As a matter of fact, I failed to convince the public Egyptian television to support the Ismailia Film Festival. It even was said that they wanted the festival to help them with the marketing of their own films. Do you have any program to produce films, or fund them? Such as pitching forums or development workshops? There are really no film schools in the Arab world. There are only workshops, but as these take place over short periods, they cannot be effective like real film schools. I founded a company for this purpose three years ago: New Horizon Ltd. Unfortunately, I had to stop it because of the major troubles in Egypt and go back to London. The company organized

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many special events and film workshops in collaboration with a private school and personal financing without any financial subsidies except the participation’s fees of the students. Many important filmmakers, directors, scriptwriters and directors of photography took part in these activities and it was a big success. Because of the violence and the troubles, it was unfortunately not easy for the students to attend the school. Therefore, it was not possible to continue. How many events/festivals do you travel to every year? How do you adapt to this intense mobility, and what main characteristics must an international director have to be successful? I attend 7–8 festivals every year but others never stop travelling. It is very important to know how festivals are changing and get updated about new film tendencies in the world. Travelling is important so far it does not prevent you from working and writing. It should even help you to advance your critical writing. I regularly attend the big festivals like London IFF, Venice, Berlin and Cannes. I no longer go to certain festivals like Rotterdam (for example) because they are not original anymore. Films selected by Rotterdam are less and less interesting and the festival is going downhill. So I need to keep focusing. What are the oldest festivals in the Arab World and what are their linguistic specificities? Is English always the lingua franca for international guests? Carthage in Tunisia, Cairo in Egypt an Ismailia for documentaries and short films are among the oldest. As for Dubai IFF, Marrakesh IFF and Abu Dhabi FF, they are more recent and were founded in a competitive perspective and as part of a marketing strategy to attract attention to their countries. Some festivals pay attention to the national language, others are more interested in English (in the Middle East) and the Maghreb’s festivals are completely francophone since French is their first language in all publications and in debates and presentations. They completely ignore Arabic subtitles for films as they suppose everybody (the Maghreb audience) knows the French language.

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Do you find the situation more competitive or collaborative in the festival realm? I think that we need collaboration and exchange especially because Western festivals don’t pay attention to a lot of shorts and documentaries coming from the Middle East, despite their artistic style and daring subject matter. Western film festivals—in France, Germany and the Netherlands for example—are mostly interested in political films dealing with subjects that are attractive for the Western media, such as Islamic extremism, terrorism and revolutions, without looking at the films as such. They are happy with a film as long as it deals with these subjects even if, cinematographically, it is mediocre. This is what I personally noticed at the Berlin Film Festival two years ago when it screened films about the “Arab Spring:” some were far from even being considered films. Some festival directors in the West, like the one at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, are also snobbish towards Arab festivals in comparison with Israeli festivals.4 They have a naive orientalist vision about the Arab World made up of superficial stereotypes which can be found in several films like the figures of the “old man,” slavery, the Sultan’s harem and so on. Competition has a very negative impact. Things turned to a kind of collaboration between mafia gangs based on the exchange of interest and services. Films are hence very often selected not because of their quality but because of the owners’ connection with the programmers of Arab festivals. Even film funds of some festivals are working in such a way. I think that there should be no competition in reality, but there is a kind of tribal war between festivals, despite of all that is said about collaboration. Do you collaborate with other festivals similar to Ismailia? I am not interested in serving film festivals. I consider myself an intellectual with a certain vision of cinema and of the world. My independence from groups and gangs prevents me from working for the festivals you are talking about. These events usually seek collaboration with officials with influence on festivals organized by the state, whether it is in Egypt or in any other Arab country. When I was director of the Ismailia Film Festival, everybody was calling me seeking my friendship. I am even dangerous for them because I am a free critic not serving any institution, following only my intellectual convictions. So now nobody calls me because I am of no use in their view.

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Notes 1. Middle East and North Africa. 2. This interview took place in May, 2014 at the Cannes Film Festival. 3. Like the Syrians Omar Amiralay and Osama Mohamad, the Lebanese Jean-­ Michel Chamoun, the Palestinian Mohammad Bakri and the Egyptian Atyat Al-Abnoudi. Among the younger generation, one can think of the Algerian Malek Bensmail and the Tunisians Kamel Regaya and Hichem ben Ammar. 4. The person in the festival director position at IDFA has changed since this interview was conducted.

Building Networks: An Interview with Sandra J. Ruch, Director Emeritus of the International Documentary Association Samara Chadwick

When Sandra J.  Ruch was hired as the Executive Director of the International Documentary Association (IDA) in 2001, there were three other people on its payroll. Despite its incredible reputation, it was a faltering organization. When Ruch left the organization in 2008, the number of staff had tripled and there were approximately 3000 members. Though there are many organizations dedicated to increasing public awareness for the documentary genre,1 Ruch argues that the IDA is unique. Founded in 1982 by a group of documentary filmmakers in Los Angeles, the IDA has from its inception devoted itself exclusively to non-­ fiction cinema. A member-based organization, the IDA responded to two direct needs of the non-fiction community by launching two ground-­ breaking initiatives: DocuWeeks2 in 1997 and the Fiscal Sponsorship Program3 in 1998. Both programs support documentary filmmakers to

S. Chadwick (*) Points North Institute, Camden, ME, USA © The Author(s) 2020 A. Vallejo, E. Winton (eds.), Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 2, Framing Film Festivals, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17324-1_12

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further the art of the documentary: DocuWeeks helps selected films qualify for Oscar Nomination, and the Fiscal Sponsorship programme has helped hundreds of independent documentaries get finished by allowing them to unlock funds to which they may otherwise not have had access. Sandra Ruch is now a documentary film producer and marketing consultant. In 2008 she founded Cinelixir, a consulting company that helps documentary filmmakers with story development, marketing, distribution, festival and outreach strategies. I talked with her about her time working for the IDA and also her career trajectory since 2008. We were both interested in charting how documentary has changed in the decade since Sandra’s involvement with the IDA, and how that transformation has been accompanied by significant changes in the worldwide landscape of documentary film festivals.4 Samara Chadwick: Can you tell us the story of your career in its many incarnations, and how you came to be drawn to documentary? Sandra J.  Ruch: I spent 14 years of my life working for Mobil Oil Corporation. I realize that sounds ridiculous, but my job was to do the public relations and marketing for their cultural and artistic sponsorships. At that time, Mobil was the sole sponsor of Masterpiece Theatre and Mystery! on PBS. We also produced two documentaries. I have always been interested in non-fiction, and Mobil Oil lead me into television. In 1989, I left Mobil and went to work for New Line Cinema as President of Marketing. One of the first films I marketed was Truth or Dare (Ake Keshishian, 1991) with Madonna—an exception, because New Line doesn’t generally produce documentaries. In 1990, I was moved from New York to New Line Cinema offices in Los Angeles. Let me tell you, everything you’ve ever heard about the movie business in Los Angeles is true! Making money is the raison d’être for Hollywood studios. I brought in a script for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Steve Barron, 1990), and we produced it. The movie was made for about 10 million and the total theatrical gross was $135,265,915. I really must admit my marketing campaign was extraordinary. Bob Shaye, who founded the company said “Well, you stepped into gold dust: remember this lesson.” Shaye said “if the movie is a success, it means the movie was good, and if the movie bombs at the box office, that means your marketing sucks.” I knew then that I would not have a film career in the studio system. I lasted a couple years, and then decided I wanted to go back to my true love, which was documentary. I worked as an independent marketing

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consultant for a few years I then heard that the position of Executive Director was available at the IDA. I wrote them a letter and sent in my resume. Their response was ‘you have too much marketing background; we doubt you could run a non-profit documentary organization’. But I was insistent enough that they granted me an interview. During the interview, I told them that selling movies is like selling any product: it’s all about marketing. Get it out to the public, get it seen. In my opinion, documentary filmmakers were the orphans of the film genre. Non-fiction filmmakers had a difficult time financing their films, as well as getting them distributed. Most documentary filmmakers make films using their credit cards and the generosity of friends and family. I got the job. I may not have had years of experience in documentary at the time, but I convinced them mostly with my enthusiasm, my point of view, and my philosophy about marketing. When you were hired at the IDA it was such an effervescent time. The early 2000s were a pivotal moment for documentary. In those few short years non-fiction films entered the collective consciousness on a grand scale. Exactly, I was very lucky! Documentary was still a stepchild or orphan, but it began to receive more acknowledgement. I think a lot of credit goes to Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), which was the highest-­ grossing documentary of all time. Now, when you go to film festivals, even Sundance, everyone says (even those who don’t make documentaries): “The best films here were the docs!” And it’s true! The best films—usually, not all of them, but the majority—are all docs. That’s new, that wasn’t always the case. Let’s do a quick list of the primary festivals for documentary film worldwide. Which of them did you attend when you were the Executive Director of IDA? And which ones do you attend now? If you watch the trajectory of film festivals and documentaries, you will notice (and this is not only my insight) that what gets shown at IDFA gets shown at Sundance; what gets shown at Sundance gets shown at Tribeca. IDFA is a tremendous festival, and it really puts you on the map, as does Sundance. And unfortunately, all filmmakers vie for those slots—to an extent that is crazy—because those are the A-List festivals. And there are many B-List festivals that are also very good. After IDFA, I think that Hot

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Docs is also an extremely well run, fascinating, and wonderful festival. The attendance level is heartwarming! People lined up for an entire city block. I’ve never seen audiences like the ones at IDFA and Hot Docs. I would say Sundance still has an incredible amount of cachet. I don’t know a documentary filmmaker who doesn’t try to get their film finished before the deadline for Sundance. Other documentary festivals, roughly in order of importance, include: Sheffield, Berlin, AFI [American Film Institute Festival], Tribeca, SXSW, Los Angeles, True/False, Full Frame, Ambulante in Mexico, Edinburgh, Camden, Jihlava, Thessaloniki, Doclisboa, Dokufest Kosovo—by the way Dokufest was the most extraordinary experience in my life in terms of documentary film festivals. First of all, they project the films outdoors on the side of a mountain, and over a river! They have a very modest budget but manage to pull off a magnificent festival. I attended 10–15 festivals a year for the IDA, namely: Sundance Film Festival, Hot Docs, IDFA, AFI Film Festival, Full Frame, Sheffield, Tribeca, SXSW, Los Angeles Film Festival, True/False, Camden International Film Festival, Dokufest Kosovo, Thessaloniki. Now I attend Sundance, Hot Docs, Camden International Film Festival, and the LA Film Festival. Can you describe any differences between the documentaries that were being made when you joined the IDA and the films you are seeing at festivals now? The change in the technology. Video, digital, lightweight cameras at affordable prices is what changed documentaries, totally. Though it is still difficult to raise money! You’d be shocked to know that even the biggest names in documentary often have a hard time raising money. I’ll never forget how, before I left the IDA, Al Maysles applied for fiscal sponsorship. And I thought ‘My god! If Al Maysles is applying for a fiscal sponsorship, it must mean he has to go out and raise money in the non-profit world’. He should be given the money, with his history and body of work! It’s always a challenge to make a documentary, it often takes years. Now the only easy part is the technology, the cameras. Documentary is something you do because you’re passionate about it. It’s not something you do to get rich or famous. Michael Moore is an exception! What is interesting, in terms of trends, is what Netflix did with their distribution of The Square (Jehane Noujaim, 2013). The marketing

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budget Netflix put behind The Square was enormous for a documentary. One example is the four-page color fold-out insert in the Los Angeles Times and other print media. To promote a documentary film with that kind of ­marketing power is unique. And did it work? Well, let’s put it this way: it sure got the attention of the Academy! So if we are talking about evolutionary trends, I think the fact that Netflix is purchasing films and backing them with the kind of marketing that Hollywood uses to market its films is a big step for documentaries. That’s something that wasn’t happening in 2001 when I began working with the IDA. What about the rise of festivals like True/False, Atlanta DocuFest or CPH:DOX, ones that are doing something unique, or that are more focused on alternative approaches to documentary? You’re right, ‘niche’ festivals are popping up, and that may be a growing trend. I think that’s great, because films that may not be acknowledged in A-List festivals have a chance to be seen. I think also the most positive and powerful change is that the audience for documentaries at film festivals is growing. I’m now living in a small town in Maine, near Camden, where the Camden International Film Festival (CIFF) is based. All my friends think I’m isolated. On the contrary! Ben [Fowlie, founder/director of CIFF] shows documentary shorts and features all year at the Strand Theatre and they get great audiences. It’s very rewarding when you do go to a festival in a small town and every screening is sold out. The attendance is definitely growing for non-fiction. I love standing in line and talking to people at festivals. What is most interesting is when I find out that most of the people at Sundance and even Camden are not all film people necessarily. They’re curious, and because of television they know more about non-fiction. The word is out in this country—docs are better. If you want to go see a good film, go see a doc! What do you think motivates people to go out and see documentaries? Are they looking to educate themselves? Do they want to be politically engaged? Do they want to see a beautiful work of cinema? Well it could be all three, but I think the main thing is that they don’t trust the media. I think you can’t get your information from the news. People don’t believe in traditional media. We can’t believe what we read,

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and we certainly can’t believe what we see on television. But we can go see Restrepo (Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger, 2010)—and when you see those films, you feel like you’re being allowed to see some truth. And I think that’s what is motivating people, that they trust what they are going to see in a documentary, whereas they can’t trust traditional forms of information. That’s really significant. Tying in to what you just said—about the idea of ‘getting truth’—there’s an increasing tendency for documentaries to blur the lines between fiction and non-fiction. How do you see the evolution/mutual influence of fiction and documentary in the last years? What struck me at the time I left IDA was that some documentary filmmakers were creating “hybrid” documentary films that incorporated animation, special effects, or re-enactment. At the time, this was considered fiction. Back in 2008, I remember saying ‘the hybrid is going to keep going’. And there was a lot of discussion when we would screen films. According to the Academy, there is a rule about how much the film has to comprise actual non-fiction footage, a percentage. For instance, you can only have a certain amount of re-enactment or animation to be considered documentary. I think the blurring is exciting! If I were to go make a film now, my attitude would be to embrace how fun it is to use all these other things and still remain true to the genre. That was not what was happening even in 2001. I mean Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman, 2008) blew my mind! It still does. It was a landmark for everybody. The idea that you could tell a story that’s considered non-fiction, using animation for the entire film. And the Academy acknowledged it. As a mentor, are there certain tips you give to help tailor a film for a particular festival? Well, I think the most important thing that I start out by asking is: ‘do you know who your audience is?’ Who are you making this film for, and why are you making this film? And you should know that in advance. The feeling I got at New Line is that marketing the film is everything, and if you don’t know who your market is, how the heck are you going to sell the film to anyone? And this applies to non-fiction as much as it does to

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fiction. The point is to get your film out there. Most times people have a wonderful story but they don’t really think about who wants to hear that story. Should it be a short, should it be a 60-minute film, or should it maybe not be a film at all, maybe just an article? In terms of mentorship, no, I never give advice to appeal to specific festivals, but there are trends. If you look at Sundance there certainly are trends. They tend to not like first-person narratives. There was a period when that was the word out ‘don’t do it in first person’. Whether it’s true or not, you hear things. But not being on the inside, I don’t know what’s true. I’ve always said your first goal shouldn’t be Sundance or the Academy Awards, it should be to make a good film. Because unless you’re lucky enough to get a distributor before you’re finished your film, if you don’t go to festivals, you don’t stand a chance. And that hasn’t changed, in my opinion. What are you most looking forward to in documentary? A few things: I’m excited about how digital distribution is changing the way films are finding their audiences. Also, because so many documentaries these days are kickstarted or crowdfunded, the process of trying to define your audience and to access these pockets of online behaviour—be it blogs, or online interest groups—already begins at the development stage. I think people have hope, more hope, as a result of kickstarting. International co-production is also something to look forward to. There are enough American documentaries: let’s see more films from elsewhere! There are wonderful things happening in Africa. There are wonderful things happening in South America, and Eastern Europe. There are wonderful things happening in Asia. That to me is the future. The fact that technology is less expensive allows people in other countries, that don’t have the privilege that Americans have, to make films. And mostly, I’m excited at the prospect that documentaries will get the same kind of exposure as fiction films. That people will go to the movies as often to see documentaries as they do for all the other films in the world. It’s getting there, but a lot still has to change.

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Notes 1. Ruch names: the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program, the American Film Showcase, the United Nations Association Film Festival, the Black Association of Documentary Film Makers West, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, the Association of Independent Video & Filmmakers, Film Independent, Independent Television Service, Documentary Film Festivals, POV, PBS, Doculink, The D-Word Documentary Community, Stranger than Fiction, the Hot Springs Documentary Film Institute. 2. DocuWeeks helps to qualify documentaries for Academy Award consideration by providing films with a commercial theatrical exhibition in Los Angeles and New York. 3. Fiscal sponsorship is a formal arrangement in which a 501(c)(3) public charity, such as the IDA, agrees to sponsor a project for the purpose of fundraising through grants and donations. This alternative to starting your own non-profit allows you to seek grants and solicit tax-deductible donations for your documentary, with the oversight, support and endorsement of IDA. (Source: www.documentary.org/community/sponsorship). 4. This interview was conducted on Skype in May 2014.

Selecting Films for Festivals and Documentary Funds: An Interview with Independent Film Programmer and Advisor Rada Šešić Jennifer M. J. O’Connell and Annelies van Noortwijk

Film festivals serve as gatekeepers that have a wide influence in deciding which films will ultimately reach the audience. Moreover, some of them take the role of the producer through film funds that provide funding opportunities for creative documentary projects. The selection processes behind their programs are long and complex and call for specialized professionals, many of whom have a particular expertise on given regions, film traditions or cinematic styles. These are usually freelance workers and part-­time consultants which have a deep inside-knowledge about new trends in filmmaking and who are the actual decision-makers behind festival programmes and film funds. In addition, many of them have a cosmopolitan background, working with multiple languages and having lived in different countries. In the documentary realm, it is common that they work in parallel for various festivals and institutions, adopting a multiplicity of roles. In this interview,

J. M. J. O’Connell • A. van Noortwijk (*) University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Vallejo, E. Winton (eds.), Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 2, Framing Film Festivals, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17324-1_13

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we look at the trajectory of one of these professionals, someone who has worked in the documentary festival circuit for more than two decades. Rada Šešić is an independent filmmaker, critic, lecturer, advisor and programmer who collaborates with several international festival ­organizations. Šešić has been collaborating with International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) and International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) as a selector and program advisor for over a decade. Since 1997, she has been involved with the selection of projects for the IDFA Jan Vrijman Fund (today IDFA Bertha Fund). She has also headed the documentary competition at Sarajevo Film Festival (SFF) since 2003, where she started and co-heads a regional documentary platform specialized on the Balkans, Docu Rough Cut Boutique. Šešić collaborates with the International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film (DOK Leipzig) as well, and is co-founder and co-organizer of the Eastern Neighbours Film Festival (ENFF) in The Hague. Throughout her career Šešić has remained largely independent from the organizations she works for. By filling a variety of positions at several prominent festivals, her experience has made her an expert on the film festival circuit. The following interview delves into her reflections on programming, selection, and funding within the documentary festival sphere.1 Jennifer M.J. O’Connell and Annelies van Noortwijk: Can you tell us more about your professional trajectory and how you became involved with film festivals? Rada Šešić: I learned to make films when I was about ten years old after joining a socialist film club for children, in former Yugoslavia. Later I started writing about cinema, and through the magazine I was working for I became involved with the Sarajevo Film Festival. I also started making and presenting my own television show about film, for which I was responsible for all stages of production. When I came to The Netherlands as a political refugee in 1993, I didn’t know anyone and had no financial resources. I went to the library to look up Dutch film magazines, and wrote a letter to a renowned Dutch film journal, Skrien. They were interested in me, and I wrote an article for them on films made in Sarajevo during the war. After my article got picked up by the Dutch media, IDFA contacted me for advice on films from Sarajevo for a program they wanted to do on film and war. I was also invited to join the selection committee of the IDFA Jan Vrijman fund (renamed IDFA Bertha fund in 2014) after

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my first film Room without a View premiered in 1997. My collaboration with the International Film Festival Rotterdam started after meeting the festival’s director by chance. Having been to India several times, I became fascinated by Indian cinema, and asked him why the IFFR didn’t program Indian films. I was eventually asked to select films for an IFFR focus program on Indian cinema. Throughout my career I have created space for myself by suggesting topics that I was interested in and in which I specialised. In retrospect, coming from a different culture to The Netherlands and having to start from scratch may have helped me a great deal. I know how difficult it is to engage with some place where you do not know the rules, and now I want to help people to break through. That’s one of the main reasons for me to work on this side of the cinematic field. All of the organizations I work with are putting cinema on the map not only for audiences, but also for filmmakers. How do you combine your professional activities, and how do you adapt to this intense mobility? Freelancers in The Netherlands have to be registered in order to be officially paid. Many of them, including myself, own one-person companies. This structure grants me flexibility. At some point I was employed as a mentor at the Netherlands Film Academy in Amsterdam, but couldn’t combine it time-wise with my career as a programmer. Depending on the time of the year, I visit multiple festivals each month. I also travel for other related activities, such as workshops and serving on juries. My work permits me insight into the differences and similarities between organizations and their selection processes. Teaching workshops allows me to follow developments and observe first-hand what is next, which means that as a programmer I know what to expect. As a writer, I am aware of the trends, the interests of young people and changes within the scene. Combined, all these activities assist me professionally. How do you view the importance of knowing first-hand about the multiple facets of working in documentary for your career? It’s very important for me to know about different levels of filmmaking. It helps me to understand the filmmaker’s point of view. While selecting eligible projects for the Jan Vrijman Fund, for example, I had to read and judge synopses. I couldn’t have done this correctly without knowing from

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experience how to transpose words into visuals. My work has also helped me to understand that filmmakers should not be dissatisfied when their film isn’t selected. As a programmer for the Sarajevo Film Festival ­documentary competition I face a multitude of dilemmas each year while putting together my selection of eligible documentaries. On the one hand there are a lot of strong stories, stories that need to be told, and on the other hand the storytelling itself can be very simplistic, and more journalistic than cinematic. I go through various choices of films, while simultaneously thinking of taking one film out, or putting one back in—a fairly consuming process. Programming costs time and is a very delicate job, because measuring the quality of a film is not an exact science. Leaving a film out always comes with the chance that it will get picked up by someone else, which forms a balancing act with my will to be faithful to my own understanding of cinema, act like a curator, and have some kind of signature. It is interesting to travel from festival to festival and see the different groups or contexts in which certain films are placed. These acts do not only carry the imprints of the selected filmmakers, but also of the selector. It requires a kind of complexity in thought and is not ‘just’ about listing the best films. The program itself needs a face and has to fit within a festival, which in turn has its own face. Not being selected does not indicate that your film isn’t good enough. It means that it didn’t fit within a specific program or profile. What is the impact of the same people collaborating in different festivals, taking into account the competitive discourse that is sometimes articulated by festival organizations? In working for a festival, I am not the festival myself. My work mainly involves collaborating with other people in advisory committees and working within a certain theme. These activities seem similar on paper, but are quite different in reality. Each festival has a specific, pre-existing profile shaped by people other than myself. I do my best to understand and choose what fits this profile, combined with my own preferences. I don’t see any conflict between these different activities and think they actually create more understanding and collaboration between institutions. Personally, it challenges me to reflect on my choices and pushes me to come to the core of what a festival stands for. Selecting for focus programs, for example for Indian cinema at IDFA, means I have more room for my personal vision. As head of competition at Sarajevo FF and as one of the

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organizers of Eastern Neighbours Film Festival (ENFF) I get to speak my mind the most. I don’t know whether I can directly speak of my own specific programming style, but in these positions I can certainly express more what I stand for. When I’m acting as a jury member, for example, I often see that festivals have programmed documentaries that are interesting with regard to story, delving into strong, relevant and important topics, and featuring filmmakers that have had to endure a range of harrowing events leading up to the actual completion of their films. As a programmer, my understanding of cinema is first and foremost an understanding of cinematic language, or cinema as a storytelling device. For me, documentary storytelling pans out to include and even forefront the visual expression of the artist, not just a story that needs to be told. Stories can be told in many ways, but some stories may be better told through a journalistic article than through cinema. This is one of the main reasons that a group of friends and I started ENFF. We believe that the screening of films from Eastern European regions should not only revolve around, for instance, certain political issues. It is also important to showcase the artistic qualities of these filmmakers, who deserve to be put on the cinematic map. In your experience, what distinguishes documentary film festivals from other film festivals? A big difference between fiction-oriented film festivals and documentary film festivals is the type of visitors they attract. Many documentary film festival visitors are not particularly interested in fiction film. Their primary interest is to see what goes on in our world. At a documentary festival, they get handed a compact and current version of what is happening worldwide. Documentary filmmakers are also frequently very different from fiction filmmakers. They are researchers and travellers, often residing in foreign places to follow a story that has caught their interest while living on small budgets. A lot of them are well-rounded, they know how to work the camera themselves and often have at least some basic editing skills, which is directly opposed to the filmmaking teams that are at work in fiction film production. Next to the different types of audiences and guests, documentary film festivals also engage in different debates. Documentary festivals often depart from some kind of humanitarian agency. IDFA has organized a fund to support the characters of a documentary film. Many film festivals organize similar structures to support filmmakers, but in this

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case the support revolved around the subject, set up to help the cause or story put forward by a film—a construct that reflects the mind-set typical of documentary festivals. How different is it to be the programmer of an official selection or parallel event compared to being part of the selection of projects in development for funding? While selecting films for a program there are a lot of elements to consider. First of all, you need to understand for whom it is you choose. Some documentaries will work well in The Netherlands but won’t work in other countries. For example, I was once asked to curate a Balkan programme in India, so I chose to screen some films about post-war Sarajevo. They portrayed ruined buildings and people living in poor conditions, eating simple food and barely with a roof over their heads. I contrasted this selection with films depicting Sarajevo from before the war, with the objective to show the difference between both circumstances and make the manner in which people’s lives were ruined more tangible for the audience. Such depictions can be almost trivial to an audience in India, as the majority of its inhabitants live in similar conditions. However, I believe that if the selected films do more than simply tell a story and communicate on another, more artistic level, they speak to people through an emotional charge that is universally understood. While you are selecting films you also need to recognize which films are suited to open a program and which films should close. In between, the audience must be taken on a journey: a program should entail different styles and the selected films must all serve to amplify each other. This differs from selecting films for funding. While selecting eligible projects they need not fit within a specific program, though they should still fit a specific festival profile. You were a member of the IDFA Jan Vrijman Fund (renamed IDFA Bertha Fund in 2014) Selection Committee. Could you elaborate on the process of gathering eligible projects, selecting them and accompanying them in production until they become a ‘finished’ documentary film within this particular funding structure? The fund has two selection rounds every year, and calls for availability to take part in the advisory committee occur several times yearly. During selections you read projects from a certain region and you look for p ­ rojects

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that fit the festival profile. The final selection is made during group meetings with the other committee members. You look for strong, fresh and creative stories. A film’s international potential is also important, though projects that would do well in cinemas worldwide are not ­automatically preferred, as local importance is also taken into consideration. The fund commits to spread and look for new names, but you can’t predict who will apply: there may be more projects sent in from Eastern Europe, or more from Latin America. The poorest countries have priority. The IDFA Bertha Fund plays an important role on many levels, not only by giving filmmakers the opportunity to realize their projects but also by placing them directly within the scene. Grantees are invited to several activities where professionals meet and their completed films are screened around the world, not just at festivals. If a grantee’s film is decently made it will get guaranteed exposure through an IDFA platform, and if it is good enough, IDFA will prioritise it and proudly screen it for competition. At the Sarajevo Film Festival, you started and now co-head a regional documentary platform, Docu Rough Cut Boutique. What motivated this initiative? The Docu Rough Cut Boutique was founded on the recognition that the Eastern European region provides a range of stories that are worth being told but haven’t been explored enough by local documentary directors in terms of their artistic potential. A lot of foreign filmmakers pick up Balkan stories, generally supported by a creative structure available to them in their native country or provided by the European Union, such as funding, workshops and mentorships. There is absolutely no blame on one side or the other, but the fact remains that Balkan directors who pitch their ideas to obtain similar means of support are frequently met with responses such as ‘sorry, but we just commissioned a German/ French/English filmmaker to do a similar story three months ago’, which automatically puts them out of the running. Through Docu Rough Cut Boutique, we want to enable Eastern European directors by showing them that documentary filmmaking is not just about coming up with an interesting story, but that it is an art form for which you need certain artistic skills. Having a set of good, interesting characters in place doesn’t cut it; in this respect, documentary is quite similar to fiction film. You have to provide the audience with something that they would not have been able to experience without seeing your

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film. I have witnessed many situations in which a film has the capacity to become a remarkable work, but the filmmaker is struggling to narrow down this particular cathartic essence. These filmmakers need guidance to discover what’s missing. Docu Rough Cut Boutique is intentionally small in its set-up, choosing only five projects each year and providing mentors such as editors, directors, producers, sales agents and broadcasters, all of whom are selected to fit each specific project and offer different ways of looking at things. Very often, our workshops make filmmakers realize that they are not there yet. Some cases even go all the way back to the beginning, rethinking the film’s structure and changing it through additional shooting. We keep in contact with the participants, and provide assistance in the form of mentor sessions all year round. Sometimes the policy of including films funded by festivals in their official competition is criticized because they create the so-called festival films and ‘festival incest’. What are your reflections on these critiques? The ‘festival incest’ phenomenon can be clearly recognized in Eastern Europe, where after the breakup of Yugoslavia and the dissolution of the Soviet Union many small, new countries had to start from zero. Due to the lack of resources it is common to have just a small group of active film professionals who make and produce films, but who also start small cinemas or film festivals to survive. In the case of IDFA, there is very little ‘festival incest’ due to the small number of films supported. If, for example, IDFA screens 200 documentaries, maybe eight of them would be from grantees and maybe one—but more often none—would show in competition. The IDFA Bertha Fund offers filmmakers freedom to experiment without having to play safe. Many filmmakers turn to NGOs for funding, yet all these organizations have specific NGO agendas. From the outside it may look like they provide support, but they favour clear-cut themes and styles. In my opinion, this limits creativity and the development of free documentary cinema. Through the SFF Docu Rough Cut Boutique we try to stimulate artistic freedom. We do not provide knowledge on what film festivals are looking for. Our focus on the quality of rough cuts is all based on getting an initial idea to work better by unveiling the essence of what the filmmaker wants to make. We thoroughly respect authorship, and want to understand the ways in which the filmmakers think as authors themselves. Our success in doing so can be recognized in

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former participants producing works such as the Bulgarian film Sofia’s Last Ambulance by Ilian Metev, which was selected by Cannes in 2012 and won the inaugural France 4 Visionary Award, and Drifter, a Hungarian film by Gábor Hörcher that went on to win the 2014 IDFA Award for Best First Appearance. I think structures similar to IDFA Bertha Fund and Docu Rough Cut Boutique work. A resulting film may travel across festivals for two or three years and receive awards, which proves that the filmmaker has managed to make a film that can communicate with audiences from different cultures. For example, former Docu Rough Cut Boutique participant Tiha Gudac from Croatia won the 2014 SFF Heart of Sarajevo with her film Naked Island, and has recently been invited to a festival in the Philippines. What is your opinion of premiere policies within the festival circuit in general, and that of the IDFA in specific? Premiere policies are the topic of debate. A premiere is widely regarded as something comparable to virginity: you can only give it away once, so you want to give it to the best. If you want visibility, a big festival such as IDFA could help you. Selectors and writers from all over the world are coming to see the films shown. If you want to sell your work, IDFA Docs for sale will expose you to hundreds of television professionals who could consider to buy your film. But you should never misjudge your own potential. Only 60 to 80 films are shown in competition at IDFA, the rest are shown in other programs. Some wait to be selected for competition at the biggest festivals and consequently pass on all other options. I think filmmakers should more actively investigate their own priorities. You can’t have it all. Big, international festivals guarantee an overload of people and can be bad for timing. If you want to increase your network qualitatively and make most of your film’s momentum, premiering at a smaller festival could prove more fruitful. What are the main changes that took place in the documentary festival sphere and in documentary film in the last years? Do you see any relationship between both developments? As our cinemas are closing, festivals are mushrooming all over the world. In general, I think documentary production has become too sales-­ related. Filmmakers give in to what they think the audience wants instead

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of showing them something fresh. They should choose a style that fits their story, not what fits a certain festival. Another clear trend is the rise of subjective documentary and the emergence of new production formats due to changes in technology. Politics also play a major role. Changes in different parts of the world have always coincided with sudden interest in certain documentary topics. Documentaries have the power to send signals and create awareness by engaging people and triggering debates. In the Balkans, for example, films made during and after the 1990s focus on a search for identity due to the breakup of countries and the loss of national language. Through creative documentary you not only have the opportunity to learn and see how life on our planet is changing. You get to experience it.

Note 1. This interview was conducted at cultural center De Balie in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, on May 3, 2014.

Training Documentary Professionals: An Interview with Stefano Tealdi, Member of the Executive Board of Documentary Campus Workshop Enrico Vannucci

Documentary Campus is a training workshop designed for experienced filmmakers aiming to develop new projects in a global market. At one time sponsored by the Discovery Channel, this workshop was originally called ‘Discovery Campus.’ Each year sixteen projects presented by a director and/or a producer—usually aged between 25 and 40—are selected to participate in the workshop. Documentary Campus develops throughout the year in four sessions set in different locations during major documentary festivals. Stefano Tealdi is a member of the Executive Board of Documentary Campus. Born in South Africa in 1955, he earned a degree in Architecture at the Turin Polytechnic (Italy)  before working as a documentary film director and producer. In 1985, together with Elena Filippini and Edoardo Fracchia, Tealdi established the Turin-based production company Stefilm, which over the years has produced many internationally

E. Vannucci (*) Venice Film Festival, Torino Short Film Market, Turin, Italy © The Author(s) 2020 A. Vallejo, E. Winton (eds.), Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 2, Framing Film Festivals, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17324-1_14

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acclaimed films. Since his graduation in 1992 from EAVE (European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs professional training program), over the last two decades Tealdi has taught film production at several universities, including master classes and training workshops. Among other institutions, he has c­ ollaborated with Biennale College, European Broadcasting Union, European Documentary Network, EsoDoc, Torino Film Lab and Zelig School for Documentary. Finally, for 16 editions he has directed the Italian Workshop Documentary in Europe. In the following interview,1 Tealdi  discusses his experience as a Documentary Campus executive, reflects on the importance of training workshops for documentary filmmakers and recounts the outcomes that these workshops develop for producing new films. Enrico Vannucci: Could you please explain how Documentary Campus functions? Stefano Tealdi: Such as other courses financed by EU, Documentary Campus is structured into four sessions, which occur alongside distinct European film events throughout the year. During Sheffield Doc/Fest, a first five-day session on developing the script and the content is scheduled. The second is centred on project financing strategies, while a pitching session is programmed every year at DOK Leipzig. Finally, a short workshop aimed to help the team of filmmakers with financial, promotion and distribution strategies concludes the series. Several professionals teach during these sessions, from TV commissioning editors and directors of funding schemes to producers and film directors. Commonly those who attended Documentary Campus in the past work as tutors later on. From which countries do participants come? Documentary Campus headquarters are in Germany: in Munich, where it was born, and in Berlin. Since a substantial part of the funding is granted by German Landers, many participants come from those regions, benefiting from scholarships aimed at German students. However, Documentary Campus is open to projects from all over Europe, while 15% of scholarships can be reserved for non-Europeans as well. Since the MEDIA Programme—or Creative Europe MEDIA as it is now known—mostly funds Documentary Campus, the projects from countries participating in the scheme are to be considered European, although this list may vary on a yearly basis due to political reasons. Around 2001, at the very beginning,

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many projects were from Southern Europe: Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece. Those countries did not feature any national training workshops or courses and therefore Documentary Campus was considered an opportunity. Then, following the EU enlargement in 2004, we received lots of projects coming from Eastern Europe. Nowadays I think that these geographically confined waves do not exist anymore, although Germany continues to be very attractive for Eastern European filmmakers. Documentary Campus is not the only training workshop financed by the EU.  What are the differences with the others? Moreover, is there competition between them? These workshops share the same training model: a few week-long sessions interspersed with one or two months of “homework” culminating in a pitching forum at the very end. There are also differences among them. Based in France, EuroDoc features what I call a francophone approach, because only the producer—not the director—is admitted to the course. Its pedagogic model is quite the same, although the main difference rests in its pitching session: instead of a public event they prefer one-on-one meetings. Moreover, EuroDoc is generally more oriented towards artistic documentary features films, although TV projects are considered as well. Despite the same common structure in terms of training, EsoDoc is the only thematic workshop. Set in Bolzano, Italy, it specifically focuses on social issues, aiming to produce “documentaries for social change,” as they are commonly defined. There are two more documentary training workshops: EAVE, set in Liechtenstein, which promotes fiction films as well, and Ex Oriente, organized by IDF in Prague, Czech Republic, and mostly dedicated to projects from Central and Eastern Europe. Obviously, each organization would argue it accomplishes its aim like no other; I would not say that competition between those workshops exists for one simple reason: the applications received are 10 times the number of the available places. For example, each year around 150–200 projects are presented to Documentary Campus, although the committee must select just sixteen. I would rather say that these workshops try to cooperate together informally, focusing on different extents of the documentary production in order not to clash one against the other. As I have already argued, EuroDoc is more cinema-oriented while Documentary Campus focuses more on TV. Sometimes these courses could also intertwine: projects from EsoDoc are usually pitched in DOK Leipzig during our session, for instance.

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You have taught both training workshops and practical courses offered by universities. In your view, what is the relationship between these institutions? Workshops usually take place in Germany, France and UK where a strong relationship between professionals and the academic world exists. Workshops are usually aimed at professionals with some experience, while university courses seem to be much more useful for beginners. Events such as Documentary Campus are vital for those wishing to become documentary directors and producers, especially in countries where practical courses offered by universities and national training campuses are almost absent. Italy exemplifies this situation very well: economic reasons limit the organization of workshops while universities usually offer just theoretical courses. Thus, the lack of nationwide training based on practice is evident. Torino Film Lab and Zelig School for Documentary in Bolzano appear to be the only positive examples, although the latter is based on a German pedagogical model. Patricio Guzmán once said that a country without documentary is like a family without a photo album. Well, Italy resembles this family. Talking about pedagogical models, how much do workshops’ tutors influence the projects? Do you think that each workshop features a particular style? Does a “Documentary Campus style” exist? This issue has been long discussed by the Documentary Campus steering board. It arises every time we focus on pedagogical models. I believe that mentors always influence their pupils. At the same time, I argue that a distinct style cannot be attributed to any of these workshops. I cannot really tell if a film originally attended Documentary Campus, EuroDoc or EsoDoc; you cannot distinguish that. Obviously, participants are influenced by the methodology of their tutors. In the end this is all a matter of choice. The steering committee is responsible to choose the mentors. For this reason I believe that the best solution consists in choosing different tutors, people that have opposite views on the same subjects and that could also contradict one another. Indeed, only in this case can mentors— as well as the workshops—represent different ideologies and styles. For example, concerning TV storytelling, professionals from the UK are considered to be the best. Not only do they possess wide experience but they have also mastered an exceptional know-how regarding documentary

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s­torytelling. For this reason, they are perhaps the most requested tutors on the market. At Documentary Campus we always try to counterbalance these very well-known experts with others that maybe are less famous but still feature a strong and peculiar style, usually very different from the Brits. What I consider fundamental is trying not to homogenize the training, because a specific style can suit some projects but not all of them. A single style does not work for everyone or everything. For this reason, good mentors do not impose ideas but they stimulate their pupils in order to make them think and take the right decisions because, in the end, filmmakers retain always the final word on their project. I would like to focus on pitching now. How does a pitching session work? Pitching is the most important part of a workshop. Each one of these training courses features a pitching forum. Pitching demonstrates how important it is for new talents to get in contact with the market, not only by presenting a project but also by listening to other professionals introducing their ideas. Participants can really understand what market trends are and what business decision-makers want. Pitching forums have changed in time. Historically they were considered the place where filmmakers could get the money to make their own pictures. Nowadays they are something different. Pitching forums encourage a first meeting between professionals trying to promote their ideas and other professionals scouting for projects to finance and distribute—commissioning editors, sales agents, distributors, etc. In seven minutes—four dedicated to a brief oral presentation and three to a trailer—filmmakers must capture the attention of a professional audience in order to stimulate interest in their projects. For this reason, a brief and concise presentation might win since a positive pitching session will lead to a longer meeting where to explain the project in detail. How much does a pitching session influence a project? Is negative feedback common? The aim of a pitching session is to find partnerships for projects. A partner is someone who invests time and money in someone else’s idea. Moreover, since these partners can or cannot finance a project, listening to their advice would only be in the filmmakers’ interest. As a director or

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producer you must be ready to put your project under discussion, although taking or rejecting suggestions is still a filmmaker’s decision. Usually there is not much negative feedback. Comments are just comments; they should help filmmakers develop films more suitable to the market. That said, I do not like the word “suitable.” Maybe it is better to say that those comments should help filmmakers find a place for their films in the market more easily. In recent years crowdfunding has emerged as a successful way to co-­ finance several audio-visual products. Has this changed pitching? Crowdfunding is a kind of public pitching where a general audience, not professionals, contribute to a project. This opportunity was not available when pitching forums first started to develop. Nowadays it is an option. Websites such as Kickstarter or Indiegogo can help filmmakers create interest and expectations around their projects. Crowdfunding can indeed become very important for a film; still it must be set up very precisely because every detail counts. Sometimes launching a campaign without thinking about its accurate purpose is far too easy. These projects are usually destined to fail and disappoint filmmakers who might be deceived circa the real opportunity of crowdfunding. Is there a danger of standardization for those projects developed in training campuses and pitching sessions? This danger is always possible. A successful production immediately becomes a model for other films. This is just how contemporary cultural industry works. Is it negative? I do not think so. Training courses must help genius filmmakers to emerge. I believe that without training and pitching opportunities we would just increase the loss of talented directors. Surely pitching forums could involuntarily standardize their products, however, geniuses will always emerge from these events.

Note 1. This interview trails a first meeting that occurred on May 18, 2014, at the Cannes Film Festival and a follow-up discussion that was recorded via Skype on June 4, 2014 (in Italian).

A Niche for Creativity: An Interview with Thierry Garrel, Director of the French Department of Documentary Film at TV ARTE (1991–2008) Sevara Pan

Since its foundation in 1991 as the European Culture Channel, the Franco-German public service broadcaster ARTE1 has aimed to provide programming that fosters diversity and cultural integration across Europe. In the early ’90s, the creation of the joint-venture that caters to both French and German audiences was deemed unprecedented. Some 25 years later, the entity remains preeminent in the global television landscape. When defining its documentary section, which lies at the heart of its programming, ARTE acknowledged the need to move past the frontier of a single nation and turn to the European continent to face shared challenges. Such daring politics have come to define ARTE as one of the most internationally oriented  broadcasters in the documentary arena, which welcomes assorted television programmes, both thematically and stylistically.

S. Pan (*) Berlin, Germany © The Author(s) 2020 A. Vallejo, E. Winton (eds.), Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 2, Framing Film Festivals, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17324-1_15

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In the past two decades, the largest exhibition opportunities for documentary films have lain within the broadcast market, making filmmakers bound to the influences of broadcasters, their largest funding source. Akin to its fellow European public broadcasters, ARTE has availed itself of the surging documentary film festival scene in a bid to find the industry’s most resonant films. In this interview, Thierry Garrel, who spearheaded the  ARTE France’s documentary unit for more than two decades, discusses the needs of the public broadcaster and the role of film festivals in its film curation.2 Sevara Pan: What was the role of documentary in ARTE’s programming in the late ’80s? Thierry Garrel: From the onset of the ARTE project, documentary has been at the core of the schedule, constituting some 40 percent of all programmes. Such programming is still the case. I do not think it is a mere coincidence, since documentary is the essence of television, apart from news or live shows. The important aspect of the ARTE story lies in its distinct branding, which was done through its documentary policy and an ambition to bring daring and engaging documentaries to audiences that are genuinely interested in and curious about the world. I would say that documentary and ARTE are closely interlinked. How is ARTE currently running the documentary department? Has ARTE changed the policies, practices or styles? I think the philosophy has remained largely unchanged. What is intriguing about ARTE is that when the whole project with La Sept television was launched, independent documentary was still weak. It was like a new-­born child, just coming out of the era when television monopolized technical facilities, production, programming, broadcasting and all other functions. It was not the case with ARTE France, which at its very foundation, has aimed to work fully with independent production companies and helped give shape to an independent sector. Back then it was a startling novelty. Nowadays, it seems obvious that independent production exists. The presence of independent producers and independent production companies ensures diversity and a closer connection to the real world, as opposed to the television channels that still remain like old-time castles. ARTE’s principle is to separate the production, commissioning and programming

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processes, where 100 percent of production is done through independent companies. Speaking of commissioning, what percentage of documentaries are commissioned, co-financed and acquired? For almost twenty years that I was in business, the ratio was half acquisitions and half co-productions. ARTE cannot afford to fully commission documentaries; thus it finances 40 percent of the budget. Production is a joint process. Documentaries are mostly co-productions between different liaisons, i.e. production companies, broadcasters, funds or public institutions. We borrowed the words “commissioning editor” from Channel 4 in 1984/85. It is worth mentioning, however, that unlike ARTE, the British were fully commissioning their films. We still say “commissioning,” but actually most of today’s activity concerns co-production (when it comes to documentary television). Nevertheless, the proportion was more or less half-half. When I started working for ARTE, I had 365 programmes a year to prepare and shelve for the following year of programming, out of which 182 were co-productions and 183 were acquisitions. These figures decreased when the schedule started to be supplemented from both sides of the Rhine. I think it is regrettable that some television channels are buying 90 percent, if not 100 percent, of their programmes. Public televisions, like ARTE, should facilitate creativity and diversity of production. Hence, a commissioning editor should not only schedule programmes that have been already created by others but also participate in the creation of new programmes as well as in the editorial process to some extent. Of course, sometimes one prefers to be a minor partner in a film and go for an option that is between co-production and acquisition, a pre-buy. How do you see public television in relation to private television, specifically when it comes to documentaries? First of all, documentaries are not very present in private television. Private television tends to reiterate the format of patronizing educational documentary, beautiful seductive imagery or sheer journalism. Public television, on the other hand, would offer a manifold format with a great diversity of genres and topics. Nonetheless, public television has been hampered by the concept of a [viewer] rating, and the competition that it

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has created. There has been a perpetual dialectic movement between the realm that is losing its audience and the realm that is seeking its audience. Given the predicament, some television channels tend to stay on the safe side and offer popular programmes of a so-called “fast food” format that guarantee an immediate success. But who wants to read yesterday’s newspapers? It is deadly for public television. I think that public television, especially ARTE, has an incredible opportunity to offer its audiences something that has not been showcased before. I am talking about programmes that are not only favoured by audiences but also those that ignite discussions and bring about social change. The change might be brought about both through issues that these films are dealing with and through cinematic languages that films deploy—which may have a stronger impact on viewers. Do you think that television is able to provide sustainable revenues for filmmakers? Obviously, there is a discrepancy between limited budgets and an incredibly rich milieu of documentary film projects. There is a high number of compelling projects being made despite the painful process of raising funds. Public television still exists in modern democracy, and it still has social legitimacy. Documentary is ever salient in today’s culture. Public television has to take into account this development. Take the last ten years, for example. Documentaries are present in all of the television schedules. Naturally, there is a risk of documentaries being framed through slots. Therefore, I believe slots should evolve, the selection process of programmes should be enhanced, and schedules should mature. The evolution of schedules is one of the pivotal ways of responding to the proliferation of the documentary film production today. Documentary filmmakers work in a very restrictive economy. They have unselfishly chosen to commit themselves to our times; hence television-­ generating revenues from taxes or license fees could offer a way for them to secure their livelihoods while accomplishing their goals. Even though documentaries are reaching their audiences in a number of different ways today—through  DVDs, cultural distributions, releases, etc.—television remains a mass medium and a main funding source for documentary filmmakers.

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Do you think theatrical releases or crowdfunding initiatives, could become sustainable? The number of theatrical releases of documentaries has boomed over the past years, thus bringing them to the [fore]  of contemporary culture. However, it has not succeeded in building an economically sustainable model. There have also been a few examples of successful crowdfunding initiatives, but the financial scale is not comparable to that of public television. Of course, crowdfunding will grow in the future due to the evolution of communication and distribution of images. However, based on my past twenty-year professional experience in television, I would say that the collaboration of different entities—broadcasters, public institutions, museums or DVD publishers—has been prominent in financing or co-­ financing the most ambitious projects, which  are then brought to local audiences or groups of interest. I think that the diversification of production and distribution is [on the rise]. Your question concerns the wider issue of the future of a sustainable society. What will become of the state given the new ways of communication? Some people on the Internet are praying for a society with no state, ruled by market forces. But who will care for the collective welfare and public interest? I do not think that the dissolution of all kinds of public funding would enrich contemporary culture. I believe public television is still instrumental. Yes, a new culture is [evolving], but it cannot and will not replace the old one at once. Which festivals do you attend on an annual basis? I must admit that I seldom attend major fiction film festivals. The only times I went to the Cannes Film Festival was when the documentaries I had co-produced were in the Official Selection. For instance, I went to Cannes with the film Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman, 2008) and with [the film] Of Men and War (Laurent Bécue-Renard, 2014) some years ago. Cannes is a particular example of a festival that allows a mixture of documentary and fictional films in the same competitions. Now retired, I mainly attend festivals as a jury member. When I was working for ARTE, I or my deputy commissioning editors would go to the major documentary film festivals in Europe, including Visions du Réel (formerly known as the Nyon International Documentary Film Festival), DOK Leipzig, Cinéma du Réel, Sheffield Doc/Fest (Sheffield International Documentary Festival), Festival dei Popoli and festivals  in North America, like  Hot

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Docs. We never went to foreign film festivals outside the Western world, i.e. the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival in Japan or the International Documentary Film Festival “It’s All True” in Brazil, but we were keeping in touch with them in regards to their selections and palmarès [the list of prize-winners]. I myself would attend IDFA almost every year. From the onset, IDFA has been known for merging the idea of a festival on the one hand, and an industry forum on the other. Although documentary film festivals have mushroomed over the past twenty years, I have a few concerns about some of them  that tend to become just the programming festivals. They create seasons for their viewers and select films that have already been featured at other festivals. In my opinion, a good festival should have a critical dimension that aims at pre-­ selecting and sorting films based on certain criteria, thus acting as a curator that is connected to another kind of curator, a commissioning editor. A good festival should thus be a resource for a commissioning editor, forcing them to leave the comfort zone of paved professional territories and lead them into the discovery of cutting-edge documentaries. Would you say that major festivals are often inefficient when it comes to facilitating an exchange between directors, producers and commissioning editors? I would say, yes, to some extent. A number of major documentary film festivals, like Hot Docs or IDFA, tend to be too busy and crowded, often turning into market systems or social events for the industry. Clearly, MIP [in Cannes] is a big market where private television channels are primarily trying to acquire a huge amount of programmes to fill their schedules for as low a fee as possible. Once documentary festivals transform into large market places, the interaction between directors, producers and commissioning editors becomes less engaged. Documentary film festivals that give a higher importance to the écriture [personal style] of filmmakers and focus on a higher degree of involvement between industry professionals are generally the places where the tension of making business decisions is lower. Visions du Réel is a good example of such a nice balance. What do you think about the dramatic increase of industry events that are part of documentary festivals, like  pitching forums? Do you find them relevant? For example, pitching has recently been called “a dying standard.”

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I agree. Pitching sessions used to be relevant. Today there are dozens of pitching sessions, but they are ever more illusional. Real programme decisions are made elsewhere. I believe that new dispositifs [means] of communication and new formats have to be conceived. Editors have to find new ways of interacting with authors and producers without a bias. Let’s take IDFA as an example. IDFA has probably been the biggest ­success both on the industry and programming levels. But IDFA has become such a colossal event that some commissioning editors attend it as a social occasion. The fundamental question remains: How does a public body like television ensure fair dialogue with authors? I think the renewal of programmes is at stake and is a critical task for commissioning editors. The audience deserves new exciting experiences, especially when it comes to documentaries. Over the past twenty years, there has been an incredible evolution of the documentary genre in terms of filmic language and diversity of topics and issues that documentaries are tackling. The tremendous richness of cinematic achievements deserves to benefit a wider audience. The renewal is instrumental for the general spirit of public television. Is today’s public television just preoccupied with maintaining [audience] ratings at any cost, or does it still have a mission to help tackle societal problems? What is the ultimate goal of public television? How can it be utilized to offer a greater value to a broader audience? I think any public television has to keep this critical dimension as alive as possible. How did independent filmmakers reach out to commissioning editors prior to the existence of the formal tradition of pitching? What does the procedure look like today? Are decision-makers increasingly harder to reach? When in business, I received an average of 1500 projects by mail yearly and an equivalent number of cassettes or DVDs. Following the first selection of 15 percent of them, we would organize personal meetings with directors and producers. Roughly a quarter of these projects would make it to in-depth discussions, in both editorial and financial terms, prior to the establishment of the contracts. We would select our acquisitions among films that were sent to us and films that we found at the festivals.

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I think that today’s procedure is more or less similar, of course, with some changes in the schedule. As we know, all decisions ultimately depend on the budget linked to the existing slots. As to your question, it might well be that decision-makers are harder to reach today simply because there are more directors proposing their projects. Though it is clear that the time spent with a filmmaker is key to evaluating his/her project and understanding the project’s ambition before [striking] a deal. A production decision is always a common bet. In your opinion, what does the current landscape for documentaries look like? What changes have you witnessed over the past twenty years? Firstly, the number of produced documentaries has multiplied by five to ten times, with an increasing number of international co-productions. Secondly, we are witnessing the diversification of authors’ profiles. Instead of engaging in academia or politics, young people now turn to film in pursuit of social change. Nowadays, documentarians [hail] from all kinds of milieus, i.e. literature, photography or social activism. Thirdly, there has been a higher degree of professionalization among producers who are instrumental in the dialogue with documentary filmmakers. In the fiction film industry, such constellations,  when producers act as mediators between directors, funders and distributors, has existed for decades. Overall, thanks to the recent successes of some documentary masterpieces, documentary as a genre has gained recognition amid the general population. I believe it is just the beginning of a new era for documentaries. Despite these developments, the organization of the documentary culture and economy is still quite feeble. For instance, there is no major distribution platform for documentaries online, not counting a number of minor distribution sites.3 I believe the younger generation will have to conceive new channels of distribution for existing catalogues. Films should not be disposed of in a trash bin or cast aside on a dusty shelve of an archive, a so-called dead museum. The question of distribution is yet to be addressed.

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Notes 1. ARTE (Association Relative à la Télévision Européenne) GEIE’s (Groupement Européen D’intérêt Économique) headquarters are located in Strasbourg, where the programme conception, scheduling and transmission takes place. Most of the programmes are delivered by its two member companies, ARTE France in Paris and ARTE Deutschland TV GmbH in Baden-Baden. ARTE also has an extensive co-production partnership network formed with a number of European public broadcasters (https://www.arte.tv/sites/en/ corporate/?lang=en). 2. The interview (conducted in English) took place on May 19, 2014 through Skype. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. 3. See interview to Diana Tabakov from dafilms.com online platform in this volume.

Connecting Festivals, Distributing Films: An Interview with Diana Tabakov, Acquisitions Manager at Doc Alliance Films VOD Platform Andrea Slováková

Doc Alliance Films (Dafilms) is an online platform for the distribution of documentary films. Highly selective, it follows the programming strategies of the seven prestigious European festivals focused on creative documentaries (mentioned below) that are part of the network Doc Alliance. Dafilms evolved from Doc-Air, a portal initiated by the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival in the Czech Republic in 2005, as the first online platform run by a film festival. At the very beginning, there were several outstanding Czech films available for free. Subsequently, international films were added and streaming fees were introduced as well. As a pioneering service, Doc-Air started new trends in online distribution of documentaries upon its launch. In 2009, the portal became one of the areas under Doc Alliance’s purview, and now offers more than 1800 films from different genres and countries throughout the world, including

A. Slováková (*) Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Vallejo, E. Winton (eds.), Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 2, Framing Film Festivals, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17324-1_16

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thoughtful and unique documentaries that have outstanding narrative forms, compelling topics and fresh directorial flourishes. Diana Tabakov has worked as head of acquisitions at Doc Alliance Films since 2011. Her tasks include overseeing the film program of the platform but also team cooperation on promotional campaigns and the further development of Dafilms. During this time, she has witnessed the rapid evolution of the VOD world in the documentary realm. In this interview,1 she shares her insights and experiences from the world of online distribution of arthouse film and documentaries (Image 1). Andrea Slováková: Which festivals and institutions do you collaborate with? Diana Tabakov: Doc Alliance (DA) is a creative network [comprised] of seven film festivals: CPH:DOX Copenhagen, DOK Leipzig, FID Marseille, Ji.hlava IDFF, Docs Against Gravity Film Festival, Visions du Réel Nyon and, since 2013, Portugal’s Doclisboa Film Festival. The festivals cooperate to curate new films presented online, and together we prepare and

Image 1  Diana Tabakov at the Emerging producers presentation at the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival 2018

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present online curated programs that we cross-promote and thus reach festival audiences in each of the DA countries. Apart from these we have short-term collaborations with RIDM Montreal, Open City Docs Fest, Institute of Documentary Film and East Silver Market in Prague, the [Czech] National Film Archive in Prague, BFI, the National Film Board of Canada, the European Documentary Network, Slovak Film Institute, Chile Doc, Cannes Doc Corner, and many others. It is essential for VOD platforms to combine online and offline strategies, so with these organizations we curate online events and promote them via media partners and social networks. The collaborating partners facilitate contact with rights holders and help to promote events in specific territories. All these collaborations enable the portal to work effectively worldwide. One of the specificities of the Doc Alliance Films portal is its selectivity. Although it presents around 1800 documentaries, and also experimental films, they were carefully selected for the platform. What is your selection procedure and how do you get the films for your catalogue? The catalogue of over 1800 films has been created over twelve years of existence. Films that were screened at any of the seven Doc Alliance festivals are automatically selected, though they are not obliged to go online. Besides that, we select creative films with strong auteur perspectives from other festivals (e.g. IFF Rotterdam, Locarno), and also plan retrospectives of renowned directors (Chris Marker, Jonas Mekas, Agnes Varda, Jørgen Leth, Peter Tscherkassky, Viktor Kossakovsky, Sergei Loznitsa and many more). Can anybody submit their film? We do encourage filmmakers to submit films to our platform and we do receive hundreds. Our selection committee decides on the selection. Approximately one twelfth of the submitted documentaries are accepted. Do you have any “embargo” policy to keep the films unavailable until they have travelled the festival circuit? The vast majority of films go online one year after the premiere. The embargo policy is always driven by rights-holders and festivals, not us as a distributor. Most of them usually decide rather to wait for the film to run

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through the festival circuit before going online. Dafilms is more than happy to take films on board at any stage of their distribution life. Moreover, we increasingly collaborate on day-and-date releases with theatrical distributors. This new model is however still tied to a certain ­territory, even though we normally operate worldwide. The rights-holders (sales agent or producer) hesitate to make a potentially successful film available online worldwide at one time. So we collaborate with a theatrical distributor in one country and release the film together in cinemas and online at the same time. Can we say that the distribution chain goes from festival circuit to TV broadcasting to DVD distribution and then online, or has this succession changed? As all distributors say, each film has its individual strategy based on the story, the director and time it is released. Nevertheless, it is much easier nowadays to release films online, let’s say, three months after the festival premiere, or even during the festival release, but usually only for a limited time and with geo-blocking. The media landscape has been changing rapidly in the last years and so has audience behaviour. People are used to watching films on various devices at any time. Broadcasters have smaller budgets to coproduce films and the VOD platforms have yet catch up with that fact. A few years ago, the European Union supported day-and-date releases, such as with the Tide experiment—where four films were simultaneously or quasi-simultaneously released in theatres and in VOD, each in about five countries). The Tide experiment was one of the three projects selected by the European Commission after its call for proposals: Preparatory action “Circulation of films in the digital era.” Yet I have no evidence of these projects being economically effective. The situation has always been different in North America with Netflix, Amazon and other large VOD players. Much has also changed since these platforms entered the European territories. The conflict of Netflix at Cannes in 2017 was symbolic for this clash of industries.2 The main priority of Netflix will always be to sell subscriptions and Cannes on the other hand represents the voice of the European tradition, where the life of a film starts at a film festival and the then evolves in many various ways, but always somehow involves theatrical distribution. France of course is radical in its windowing rules, with its 36-month hold backs for online distribution during theatrical. In other

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countries it is more a matter of dealing with hold backs for business models. Films co-produced by broadcasters can only be sold on the internet via TVOD (transactional, pay-per-view) until they have been broadcasted, after that the rights for SVOD (subscription) are available to sell. This is one of the ways that broadcasters compete with larger SVOD players. Is there a connection between your initiative (mostly centred in Europe) with other regions of the world? The main aim was always to present high quality European documentaries to European and Non-European audience. Nevertheless, we do present films from other continents, based again on guest festivals or cooperating institutions. We have for example curated programs of Chilean, Taiwanese and Canadian films, and in this way we have reached out to local audiences. We plan to enlarge our catalogue of course, but the core for now is European film. An important part of the platform profiles are the “events.” They are also very popular among the viewers. How are the events curated and planned? Which ones were the most successful? The events are composed of on average of five to ten films, which used to be offered for free streaming. Since mid-2017 we have stopped offering content for free and all curated programs are available after the subscription payment (in 2018 the cost is six euros per month). These programs are planned mainly in regard to events happening in the real world such as significant elections, political conflicts, anniversaries, cultural events, etc. For example, when the war in Ukraine started we presented a program focused on Russian and Ukrainian films. Online retrospectives so far generate the most views—Agnes Varda drew almost 25,000 views of the films that comprised the Varda retrospective. Also, events presenting films from festival programs are very successful. For example, CPH:DOX picks five films from their present competitions and we offer them for free stream in order to promote the films and the festival together, which usually generates around 5000 to 10,000 views, which is far more than the audience attendance during festival screenings. There is a lot of controversy concerning competition between festivals, premiere policies and hierarchies. As an initiative of collaboration of

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different festivals, how do you see this balance between cooperation and competition in the festival sphere? Each festival has a different approach to premieres endorsed by their own activities. It is inevitable that they compete over certain films. But festivals also cooperate. They can share a premiere of a film by screening it in one day (many festivals take place on the same date, especially in autumn). As for filmmakers, the exclusivity might be compensated by the award offered by the festival or all the important industry guests attending festivals with international premieres. But it does not guarantee media attention, as smaller films get lost in larger festivals. Another interesting aspect is the fact that for some larger theatrical distributors, a film labelled by festivals (Cannes, Venice and others) is eventually a stigma in the eyes of their audience—too hard of a film to watch (stated by the Czech theatrical distributor Bonton Film). Now that the Internet and all kinds of VOD services make it so easy to access films, how do you see festivals adapting to these changes, and what are the main changes in the documentary festival sphere in recent years? One can see that most of the VOD platforms focused on arthouse or festival films of course approach film festivals to cooperate on online screenings (like Mubi, Tenk, Festivalscope). There is such a high production of documentaries in the world (some say there are 10,000 documentaries produced each year), so there is an even stronger need for festivals, which are mainly curators. Most of the films need a festival to increase visibility and make a wider impact. Even films like Sacro GRA (Gianfranco Rosi, 2013) could have got lost, if it hadn’t had the chance to get awarded in Venice. The role of the festivals is not changing in my opinion (and this is what Doc Alliance Films incorporates—festival curation with online distribution). The Internet affects festivals mainly in the way it can help make available films for selection (Vimeo, Cinando). Dafilms used to function as TVOD (transactional or pay-per-view), where the majority of the films are available for a price, and some for free. In 2016 the service changed to SVOD (subscription). Could you compare the two models and also explain, what is the price policy?

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Yes, we offer both models: TVOD and SVOD. Our main aim is to communicate the subscription to our audiences, after one recurring payment of six euros you can stream all the content. Nevertheless 40% of viewers still come to our platform already knowing one specific film they want to watch. From numbers we can see that for producers it is best to offer films in both models, but in SVOD they can earn the most. The subscription gives more visibility to smaller films. Dafilms acts as an online distributor and offers a certain revenue share to the rights-holders. What percentage do the filmmakers (or producers or distributors) get? The rights-holders get 60 per cent from the revenues. This sum is sent to them once a year, but they can log in to check the statistics at any point in the year. What is the funding scheme of Dafilms? Dafilms is funded by MEDIA (Creative Europe EU), the Czech Cinematography Fund and the Czech Ministry of Culture. The main budget is also based on a proportional input of each festival from the Doc Alliance. The local funds are crucial in order to be funded by the EU. As a consequence, our catalogue obtains a great number of Czech documentaries and the Czech State Fund realizes this is an effective way to promote Czech cinematography internationally. Do you see Dafilms more as a promotion platform or a real possibility to get income for the films? If not now, how do you think it will be in the future? That is a very complex question and the answer requires rather a whole book than just a few sentences. So far in most cases VOD does not generate sustainable revenue—apart from “blockbusters,” films based on marketable topics (ecology, human rights), or unless a film is acquired by Netflix. The promotional aspect is enormous, as you can easily embed to media partners (paste the player to a website) and share it socially online via Facebook and other social media. The aim is not to create another “store” and wait to see who comes, but rather to share the film with as many sites as possible. And online distribution enables this (Distrify.com is

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a great example of such a tool). But in order to make money, the Internet needs to be a part of the strategy from the beginning, and the films need focused promotion, much in the same as with a film’s offline life. The basic barriers still are the legal issues, as the market is very much fragmented and tied to cultural reading of films, so selling or promoting worldwide is becoming more and more difficult. For example, The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer, Anon. and Christine Cynn, 2012) performed great in the UK but was a disaster (audience-wise) in France. Also, more successful films are sold as a distribution package (with theatrical, TV and VOD rights bundled together) to each territory, and often neither the broadcaster nor the theatrical distributors actually utilize the VOD rights, although they own them for the country exclusively. This has been changing since many aggregators have started offering their services to rights holders and sell films to online services. The lack of online distribution of films always leads to piracy and most distributors and producers acknowledge this now. In the end the strategy for producers is to offer their film to as many platforms as one can handle. In the end the rights holders can collect substantial royalties per month summed up from various incomes. Dafilms evolved from the portal Doc-Air established in 2005. Four years later, it became a platform of Doc Alliance. How has it evolved since? Dafilms now offers more than 1800 documentaries and experimental films for TVOD and SVOD in various formats (streaming and/or download) and each of these films is identified by a certain amount of tags that enable the viewer to select by genre, subject, method, theme and other categories. The payment is easy via Paypal or credit card. One can also pay for a film and send it as a gift by email. A big technological development is the possibility to embed films. It is a useful tool mainly in communication with media partners, as they now have the possibility to offer the film on their website once they write about it. Managing a VOD platform means encountering constant improvements and investments into technological advances, and thus it is an ongoing process. For the near future we are looking into applications for online TVs and consoles (OTT).

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Do you know other initiatives similar to Dafilms? How do you position Dafilms in the context of these initiatives and institutions around the world, especially those specializing in documentary? Doc Alliance Films has a unique position, being based on an alliance of festivals. All new internet projects need to fight the danger of untrustworthiness and the alliance gives us an advantage of credibility, being presented at each of their activities and well known by the festival audiences. I believe this aspect will always help Doc Alliance Films distinguish itself from other platforms. Based on the Doc Alliance festivals, our content is accessible to audiences. Each year new platforms are established—some survive, some do not manage. In each country you can find VOD services established either by cinemas (usually TVOD), broadcasters (FVOD), telephone companies or archives/institutions. Above that international VOD platforms are available, like the mainstream Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO Go, iTunes, Googleplay and Youtube. Parallel to this offer one may also pick an arthouse and/or more selective VOD platform—Mubi, Universcine, Tenk, FilmDoo, Filmin, Docsonline etc. Doc Alliance Films is one of the oldest platforms in the world and has already established a well perceived identity and brand. The question for the near future is whether platforms should fight over subscribers or whether they should create partnerships and package subscriptions. Dafilms is also an important part of the film industry, especially in the regions of the DA festivals. How does it collaborate with the infrastructure of the local cinematographies and what is the potential of its influence? Doc Alliance Films has been progressive in presenting alternative models of distribution, mainly in the Czech and Slovak Republics, as we are based in Prague and the territories are still culturally determined. The main goal is promoting the films and authors, and promotion works best when one is in close contact with the relevant media. Most documentaries are now released as day-and-date releases, or go online very soon after the theatrical distribution (depending on the amount of rights owned exclusively by broadcasters). Most online premieres are bound to one territory, for this reason Dafilms has established a Czech version—Dafilms.cz, where we present Czech documentaries in

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cinemas, but also Czech fiction films nominated for the Czech Lion (award for best Czech film). Offering films at one time on as many distribution channels as possible is a way we try to reach the largest possible audience and fight piracy. Dafilms.com remains international and is curated to interest audiences from the whole world. Seventy-five percent of our contracts are signed straight with the producers (films not represented by sales agents or aggregators), therefore the platform represents a strong tool for independent filmmakers.

Notes 1. This interview is based on a conversation that originally took place in Prague in 2014, and was updated in October 2018 at Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival (Czech Republic). 2. At the 2017 Cannes Film Festival France’s exhibitors’ (which are represented on the festival board) recommended, without success, to yank two Netflix films from competition because they were not to be released in French cinemas. Nevertheless, the festival stated that aiming at theatre release will be a requirement for all films in competition in the future (Keslassy 2017).

Reference Keslassy, Elsa. 2017. Cannes Keeps Netflix Movies in Competition but Says Future Films Must Have Theatrical Release. Variety, May 10. http://variety. com/2017/film/global/cannes-film-festival-maintains-netflixs-movies-incompetition-sets-new-rule-amid-turmoil-1202420874/

Index of Festivals1

A Abu Dhabi Film Festival, 163 AFIDocs, formerly SilverDocs (Washington DC, US), 57 Afifdok, Festival International du film documentaire de Khourigba (Khourigba, Morocco), 148 AFI FEST, American Film Institute Festival (Los Angeles, USA), 170 Agadir International Documentary Festival (Agadir, Morocco), 158 Aljazeera International Documentary Film Festival (Doha, Qatar), 158, 161 Ambulante Film Festival (Mexico), 170 Antenna Documentary Film Festival (Sydney, Australia), 102 Antofadocs (Antofagasta, Chile), 61

1

Atlanta DocuFest, Annual Atlanta International Documentary Film Festival (Georgia, USA), 171 B Belgrade Documentary and Short Film Festival (Yugoslavia/Serbia), 27, 88n8 Bellaria Film Festival (Italy), 109n4 BeninDocs Festival (Porto Novo/ Cotonou/Paris, Benin and France), 148 Berlinale, Berlin International Film Festival (Berlin, Germany), 28, 38, 49n14, 124, 125, 164 Berlinale Talent Campus, 29 World Cinema Fund, 28 Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente (BAFICI, Argentina), 70n15, 139

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

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INDEX OF FESTIVALS

C Cairo International Film Festival (Egypt)), 163 Camden International Film Festival (CIFF, Camden, Maine, USA), 170, 171 Cannes Film Festival (France), 2, 7, 114, 116, 119, 122, 123, 126, 127n2, 157, 190n1, 195, 210n2 Cannes Classics, 115, 117 Cannes Market, 123, 129n19 Cinéfondation, 115 Doc Corner, 123, 203 La Résidence, 29 La Semaine de la critique (the Critics’ Week), 115 MIP market, 196 Palme d’Or, 2, 114–117, 119–122, 126, 127n2 Quinzaine des réalisateurs (Directors Fortnight, Cannes section), 116 Un Certain Regard, 115–120, 128n16 Carthage Film Festival (Tunisia), 147, 163 Cinéma du Réel, Festival International du Film Documentaire (Paris, France), 48n1, 56, 57, 70n15, 78, 79, 84, 195 Cinema Verite, Iran International Documentary Film Festival (Tehran, Iran), 161 Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival (France), 58, 139, 161 CPH: DOX, Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival (Denmark), 5, 19, 58, 62, 88n8, 171, 202, 205 D Dockanema (Maputo, Mozambique), 7, 147–156 Doclisboa (Lisbon, Portugal), 58, 78, 79, 84, 88n8, 154, 170, 202

DocMontevideo (Uruguay), 59, 69n9, 69n12 DocPoint Helsinki Documentary Film Festival (Finland), vii, 78 DocsBarcelona International Documentary Film Festival (Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain), 57, 62, 102 DocsMX, Mexico International Documentary Film Festival (formerly DocsDF), 58 DocS.21, Festival Documental de Narrativas Digitales (Barcelona, Spain), 102 Docudays UA International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival (Kiev, Ukraine), x, 58 DocumentaMadrid International Documentary Film Festival (Spain), 57, 140–141 Documentarist Film Festival (Istanbul, Turkey), vii Docville, International Documentary Film Festival (Leuven, Belgium), 107 DOK.Fest (Munich, Germany), 58 DOK Leipzig, The International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film (Leipzig, Germany), 58, 59, 62–64, 66, 69n9, 69n12, 70n20, 76, 78–80, 85, 86, 88n8, 88n9, 176, 186, 187, 195, 202 The Art of Pitching, 76 Dok Market, 58 Dok Summit, 64 Dokufest, International Documentary and Short Film Festival (Prizren, Kosovo), vii, 170 Dubai International Film Festival (Dubai, United Arab Emirates), 163 Durban International Film Festival (South Africa), 148, 156

  INDEX OF FESTIVALS 

E Eastern Neighbours Film Festival (ENFF, The Hague, Netherlands), 176, 179 Edinburgh Film Festival (Edinburg, Scotland, UK), 62, 63, 170 Encounters, South African International Documentary Festival (Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa), ix, 147 Escales Documentaire de Libreville (Libreville, Gabon), 148 États Généraux du Documentaire (Lussas, France), 109n4 F Fedochi (Documentary Film Festival of Chiloé, Chile), 61 Festikon (Utrecht, Netherlands), 26 Festival de Cine Creative Commons Bogotá (Colombia), 102 Festival de cine de Lima (Peru), 62 Festival de Cine Documental de Santiago (FIDOCS, Santiago International Documentary Film Festival, Santiago de Chile, Chile), 61, 62, 70n15 Festival dei Popoli, Florence International Documentary Film Festival (Florence, Italy), 57, 195 Festival du nouveau cinema (FNC, Montreal, Quebec, Canada), ix Festival Internacional de Cine de Valdivia (FICValdivia, Chile), 61 Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente de Iquique (FICIQQ, Chile), 61 Festival International de Cinéma de Marseille (FIDMarseille), formerly

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Biennale Européenne du Documentaire and Vue sur le docs (Marseille, France), 6, 58, 78, 79, 88n8, 88n10, 89n20, 202 Festival International du Film Amateur de Kélibia (FIFAK, Tunisia), 147 Festival Panafricain du Cinéma de Ouagadougou (FESPACO, Burkina Faso), 147, 156 FIDBA, Buenos Aires International Documentary Film Festival (Argentina), 58 FILMTERACTIVE Lodz (Czech Republic), 102 Flahertiana International Documentary Film Festival (Perm, Russia), 58 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, originally DoubleTake Documentary Film Festival (Durham, North Carolina, USA), 57 G Guadalajara International Film Festival (Mexico), 58, 62, 63 H Havana Film Festival/Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano de la Habana (La Habana, Cuba), 58, 62 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival (Toronto, Canada), ix, x, 46, 48n1, 57, 58, 62, 77, 102, 103, 133, 134, 139, 170, 196 Doc Shop, 58

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INDEX OF FESTIVALS

I I-Docs symposium (Bristol, UK), 94–98, 101–103, 107 ImagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival (Toronto, Canada), x Input Festival (Budapest, Hungary and Sydney, Australia), 109n4 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA, Netherlands), vii, x, 1–9, 9n4, 16, 19, 23–47, 57, 58, 62–64, 66, 70n17, 70n22, 76–79, 87n2, 89n20, 95, 102–104, 107, 154, 164, 169, 170, 176, 178, 179, 181–183, 196, 197 Docs for Sale, 27, 28, 30, 35–37, 46, 48n2, 48n4, 58, 183 IDFA Bertha Fund, formerly Jan Vrijman Fund, 27, 28, 37, 40, 63, 176, 177, 180 IDFAcademy, 27, 29, 41, 42 IDFAcademy Summer School, 29, 42, 43 IDFA DocLab, 43, 95, 102, 103 idfa.tv, 30 Interactive Documentary Conference, 107 International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR, Netherlands), 176, 177, 203 CineMart, 28 Hubert Bals Fund, 28, 87n2 I-Represent International Documentary Film Festival (Lagos, Nigeria), 148 Ismailia International Film Festival for Documentaries and Shorts (Egypt), 157–164 It’s all True/É tudo Verdade International Documentary Film Festival (São Paulo, Brazil), 57, 154, 196

J Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival (Czech Republic), vii, 77, 79, 86, 88n8, 89n20, 170, 201, 202, 210n1 Joburg Film Festival (Johannesburg, South Africa), 148 Journées Cinématographiques de Carthage (JCC, Tunisia), 147 L Locarno Film Festival (Switzerland), 18, 38, 114, 123–126, 203 Cineasti del Presente (Filmmakers of the Present), 125 Golden Leopard, 126 London International Film Festival (UK), 163 Los Angeles Film Festival (Los Angeles, US), 170 M Marrakesh International Film Festival (Marocco), 163 Millennium Docs Against Gravity Film Festival, former Planet Doc Review Film Festival (Warsaw, Poland), 79, 84–86, 88n8, 88n11, 89n20, 202 Mozilla Festival (London, UK), 102 N New York Film Festival (NYFF, US), 102 Nordisk Panorama festival (Malmö, Sweden), 77 Nyon International Documentary Film Festival, today Visions du Réel (Switzerland), 195

  INDEX OF FESTIVALS 

O Oberhausen Short Film Festival (Germany), 137 One World/Jeden Svet Human Rights Documentary Film Festival (Prague, Czech Republic), x, 88n8 Open City Docs Fest (London, UK), 203 P Power to the Pixel (London, England), 109n4 Punto de Vista, International Documentary Film Festival (Pamplona, Navarre, Spain), vii, 58, 140–141 Pusan/Busan International Film Festival (PIFF/BIFF, South Korea), 38 R Real Life Documentary Film Festival (Accra, Ghana), 148 Rencontres Cinématographiques de Béjaïa (Algeria), 158 Rencontres cinématoghraphiques de Hergla (Tunisia), 158 Rencontres Internationales du documentaire de Montréal (RIDM)/the Montreal International Documentary Festival, Canada), ix, 57, 203 Rio International Film Festival (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), 109n4 S SANFIC, Santiago International Film Festival (Chile), 59, 61 San Sebastian Film Festival (Basque Country, Spain), 139, 141, 142

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Cine en Construcción (San Sebastian IFF), 28 “Santiago Álvarez in Memoriam” Festival Internacional de documentales (Santiago de Cuba, Cuba), 58 Sarajevo Film Festival (SFF, Bosnia-­ Herzegovina), 8, 176, 178, 181–183 Schull Film Festival, today FastNet Film Festival (Ireland), 94, 99 Sheffield Doc/Fest, Sheffield International Documentary Festival (UK), 77, 88n8, 94, 101, 102, 105, 106, 109n4, 170, 186, 195 Crossover Lounge, 105 Sofia International Film Festival (Bulgaria), x Sundance Film Festival (Salt Lake City, Utah, USA), 102, 139, 169–171, 173 SurDocs, Festival Internacional de cine documental de Puerto Varas (Puerto Varas, Chile), 61 SXSW, South by Southwest (Austin, Texas, USA), 109n4, 139, 170 T Tangier Film Festival (Morocco), 161 Teheran Film Festival (Iran), 158 Tehran’s Film Festival for Docs and Shorts, 161 Telemcen Festival (Algeria), 158 Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival (Greece), vi–viii, 38, 57, 79, 85, 89n20, 170 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, Toronto, Canada), x, 38, 48n1, 57, 77, 103, 133 Transcinema Festival Internacional de Cine (Lima, Perú), 57

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INDEX OF FESTIVALS

Tribeca Film Festival (New York, USA), 96, 102, 139, 169, 170 True/False Film Festival (Columbia, Missouri, USA), 170, 171

W World Community Film Festival (Courtenay, British Columbia, Canada), viii

U United Nations Association Film Festival (UNAFF, East Palo Alto and San Francisco, USA), 174n1

Y Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival (YIDFF, Yamagata, Japan), 57, 196

V Venice Film Festival (Italy), 113, 114, 123–126, 129n20, 163, 206 Visa pour l’image, International Festival of Photojournalism (France), 102, 109n4 Visions du Réel, Festival International de Cinéma (Nyon, Switzerland), 57, 59, 62, 63, 66, 69n9, 69n12, 70n22, 76, 79, 84, 86, 88n8, 88n13, 89n20, 195, 196, 202 Doc Outlook, 58

Z Zagrebdox, International Documentary Film Festival (Zagreb, Croatia), vii, 40 Zinebi, International Festival of Documentary and Short Film of Bilbao, formerly International Contest of Iberoamerican and Philippine Documentary (Basque Country, Spain), vi, vii, 7, 27, 49n16, 137–145

Index of Subjects1

A Academy Awards (Oscars), 87n1, 168, 171–173, 174n2 Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, 174n1 Accreditation, 25, 41, 42, 44, 45, 48n2, 116, 128n9 Activism, 198 Aesthetics, vi, 2, 4, 5, 7, 15, 17–18, 36, 38, 101, 108, 114, 115, 122–123, 135, 138 Africa, 28, 37, 40, 147, 148, 152, 154, 156, 173 A-list festivals (major/top-tier), 7, 14, 17, 28, 113, 114, 116, 119, 123–126, 128n9, 129n19, 160, 169, 171, 196 Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (HvA), 44 Animation, 3, 88n9, 138, 160, 172 Arab Spring, 27, 158, 161, 164 Arab world, 157, 162–164 Archival material, 155

1

Argentina, 38, 64, 69n12, 70n17 Art galleries, 99, 100, 106 Art house, 2, 61, 64, 127, 202 Asia, 28, 37, 173 Asociación de Productores de Cine y Televisión de Chile (APCT, Association of Chilean Film and TV Producers), 58 Association Française de la Critique de Cinéma, 116 Audiences, vi, vii, ix, x, 2, 4, 7, 15, 18, 24, 25, 28, 29, 33, 36, 41, 42, 44, 47, 48n3, 57, 61–63, 66–68, 76, 83, 84, 87–88n5, 94–106, 108, 109n3, 115, 116, 127, 140, 142, 145n6, 149–153, 161, 163, 170–173, 175, 177, 179–181, 183, 189–192, 194, 195, 197, 203–207, 209, 210 audience ratings, 197 festival-goers, 100, 115 mass audiences, 68 niche audiences, 68

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

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INDEX OF SUBJECTS

Audiovisual heritage, 76 Augmented reality, 101 Augmented space, 101 Austria, 86 Auteur cinema, 56, 113–115, 118, 124 Authorship, 84, 182 Awards/Prizes, 2, 4, 5, 15, 24, 25, 29, 41, 43, 48n7, 48n8, 57, 62–64, 95, 106, 109n4, 114–116, 121–124, 126, 139, 183, 206, 210 B Balkan Documentary Distribution Network (BDDN), 9n2 Balkans, 75, 78, 176, 180, 181, 184 Baltic, 75–77, 81–85 Baltic Media Centre, 88n6 Baltic Sea Forum for Documentaries, 77, 88n6 BankGiro Lottery (Nehterlands), 30 Basque Cinema, 138 Betacam, 28, 144 Big screen, 1, 5, 15, 108 Biopic, 120 Blind selection (cold submissions), 18 Blockbusters, 123, 207 Blogs, 173 Bollywood, 148 Bonton Film, 206 Box-office, 2, 122 Branding, 24, 58, 68n4, 192, 209 Brazil, 38, 57, 70n17, 109n4, 154, 196 British Film Institute (BFI), 63, 102, 203 Broadcasting, 15, 67, 122, 158, 186, 192, 204 Budgets, 24, 25, 27, 31, 33, 135, 140, 150–151, 162, 170, 171, 179, 193, 194, 198, 204, 207

Burkina Faso, 147 Burma, 27 Business hub, 31 C Cahiers du Cinéma journal, 120 Consejo Nacional del Arte y la Industria Audiovisual (CAIA, National Council of Audiovisual Art and Industry of Chile), 57, 68n4 Calendars, 64 Canada, viii, ix, xin2, 9n2, 50n27, 62, 95, 103, 104, 203 Cassettes, 197 Celebrities, 116, 126, 141 Celluloid, 18, 144, 145 Central Eastern Europe, 75, 76 Central Europe, 76, 86 Centre National du Cinéma et de l’Image Animée, 69n10 Channel 4 TV, 193 Characters, vi, 8, 42, 50n25, 121, 179, 181 Chechnya, 27 Chile, 7, 9n4, 15, 35, 55–68, 155 Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 69n8 Chile Doc, 203 Cinando, 206 Cine Condell (Valparaíso, Chile), 61 Cine-club, 142, 151 Cinelixir, 168 CinemaChile, 58–60, 65, 70n22 Cinema Politica, xxiv, ix Cinema theatres, 98 Cinematic language, 5, 96, 179, 194 Cinephilia, xiv, 13, 24, 25, 104 Cineteca Nacional/National cinematheque (Chile), 61 Circulation, vi, 2, 6–8, 15, 55, 56, 60–64, 78, 204 City branding, 24

  INDEX OF SUBJECTS 

City Council, 24, 143 Classic non-fiction films, 96 Climate change, 121 Co-financing, 31, 41, 66, 78, 193, 195 Cold War, 14, 74 Collaboration, v, 9n2, 28, 29, 36, 44, 77, 93, 95, 96, 98, 141, 150, 163, 164, 177, 178, 195, 203, 205 Commercial theatres, 9n2 Commissioning, 17, 33, 60, 65, 69n10, 103, 105, 186, 189, 192, 193, 195–197 Commissioning editors, 17, 33, 60, 65, 69n10, 103, 186, 189, 195–197 Community, viii, ix, 4, 15, 44, 59, 97, 98, 103, 167 Competition, 14, 18, 28, 35, 36, 38, 43, 48n6, 62, 63, 70n15, 77, 84, 99, 101, 113, 115–121, 123–127, 128n8, 128n12, 128n13, 128n16, 138, 139, 144, 160, 164, 176, 178, 181–183, 187–188, 193, 195, 205, 206, 210n2 Conferences, v, 4, 8, 29, 41, 48n2, 96, 101, 107, 118, 119, 159 Consultants, 168, 169, 175 Convergence, 102 Cooperation, see Collaboration Co-production, 8, 16, 28, 31, 32, 34, 41, 44, 49n14, 60, 62, 63, 66, 173, 193, 198 Core-periphery, 17, 38 Corporate sponsorship, 134 Cosmopolitan, 138, 175 Council of Europe, 76 Creative documentary, vi, vii, 5, 6, 27, 35, 36, 49n12, 66–68, 175, 184, 201

219

Creative Europe MEDIA program of the EU, 31, 41, 50n23, 186 Creative freedom, 67 Creativity, vi, 33, 46, 49n12, 108, 124, 125, 182, 191–198 Criticism, 32, 83, 135, 143, 158, 159 Critics, vi, 2, 4, 9n1, 14, 70n15, 114, 116, 120, 158, 160, 161, 164, 176 Croatia, vii, 40, 183 Cross-media, 33, 109n4 Crowdfunding/crowdsourcing, 30, 43, 173, 190, 195 Cultural policies, x, 56–58, 67, 161 Curation, vi, viii–xi, 2–6, 8, 14, 42, 74, 86, 143, 144, 153, 178, 180, 192, 196, 202, 203, 206 Current affairs, 27, 38 Czech Cinematography Fund, 207 Czech Ministry of Culture, 207 Czech National Film Archive, 203 Czech Republic, vii, 77, 79, 86, 88n8, 187, 201, 209, 210n1 D Danish Film Institute, 33 Databases, 36 Day-and-date releases, 204, 209 Decision-makers, 31, 32, 70n23, 175, 189, 197, 198 Deckert Distribution, 46 Democracy, 194 Denmark, 49n15, 85, 88n8 Developing countries, 87n2 Diffusion, 16, 95, 98 Digital, vii, 1, 14, 17, 27, 29, 88n8, 93, 95, 97, 103–105, 107, 108, 123, 138, 139, 144, 145, 155, 158, 170, 173 Digital Culture Research Centre of the University of West of England (DCRC), 107

220 

INDEX OF SUBJECTS

Digital Platforms Mubi, 206, 209 See also Online platforms Digitization, 14, 19, 144 Disabilities, 15 Disney, 122 Distribution, vi, 2, 3, 6–8, 14, 15, 19n2, 23–47, 55, 56, 58, 60–65, 69n12, 70n14, 73, 74, 76, 77, 79–83, 86, 87, 89n18, 94–96, 98, 100, 103, 105, 106, 115, 116, 123, 139, 168, 170, 173, 186, 189, 194, 195, 198, 201–204, 206–210 Distrify.com, 208 Doc Alliance (Festival Network), 88n8, 201–203, 207–209 Documentary film types animal documentary, 117 auteur documentary, 5, 117, 153 biographical documentaries, 117 Conversational mode (i-docs), 94–98, 101–103, 107 corporate films, 36 direct cinema, 118 docs. for children, 33, 43 docu-fictions, 124 educational documentary, 193 expository mode, vi, 5 fake documentary, 118 feature-length documentary, vi, 1, 2, 5, 7, 15, 25, 35, 41, 42, 48n6, 80, 123, 138–142, 160, 161 first-person, vii, 118, 126, 173 found footage, 118, 126 linear documentary, 93, 95, 98 militant documentary, 57 musical documentary films, 118 observational, 126 participatory mode, 5 short-documentaries, 139 talking heads, 5 television documentary, 5, 153 travelogues, 36 web-documentary, 95

Documentary studies, v, 3, 97 Docu Rough Cut Boutique (Balkan platform for project development), 176, 181–183 Domestic violence, 151 Donations, 174n3 Drama, 127 Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 28 D-Word Documentary Community, 174n1 E Eastern Bloc, 75, 85 Eastern Europe, 28, 37, 75–77, 85, 88n8, 139, 173, 179, 181, 182, 187 East Silver Market (Prague), 203 Ecology, 207 Economic crisis, 27, 30, 44, 99, 121 Economic value, 25, 31 Ecuador, 64 Editing, vii, 41, 42, 97, 101, 162, 179 Educational films, 26, 151 Egypt, 7, 157 Egyptian Film Critics Organization, 159 Egyptian Ministry of Culture, 160 Egyptian National Film Centre, 160, 162 Embargo, 203 Embassies, 85, 150, 151 Emirates, 158 Entry fees, 30 Environment, 8, 97, 99, 101, 151 Environmental, 15, 27, 74, 121 Essaad Younis company, 159 Estonia, 62, 75, 76, 81–85 Ethnographic film festivals, 14 Eurimages, 76 Europe, 7, 9n2, 23, 28, 33, 38, 46, 48n1, 57, 61, 74–76, 79, 86, 186, 191, 195, 205 European Commission, 204

  INDEX OF SUBJECTS 

European Documentary Network (EDN), 28, 45, 48n2, 49n15, 77, 78, 88n6, 125, 186, 203 European Economic Interest Grouping (EEIG/GEIE), 199n1 European Union (EU), 30, 31, 38, 40, 41, 49n15, 49n19, 76, 77, 86, 181, 186–188, 204, 207 Event-experience, 94 Eventization, 14 Event management, 24 Executive producer, 121, 158 Exhibition, vi, vii, ix, 1–3, 6–8, 14–19, 23, 24, 27, 29, 31, 37, 47, 48n2, 49n9, 58, 60–62, 64, 67, 70n14, 70n18, 74, 76, 78, 79, 86, 87, 115, 155, 174n2, 192 Exile, 57 Expanded formats, 18, 19 Experimental film, 5, 6, 66, 118, 120, 122, 125, 129n22, 203, 208 Eye cinema museum (Amsterdam), 25 F Factual, 96, 107, 108 Female filmmakers, 40 Festival circuit, v–ix, 2, 3, 6, 7, 13, 15, 16, 19, 19n2, 26, 27, 41, 46, 47, 49n9, 55–68, 81, 83, 86, 87, 87n2, 123, 142, 176, 183, 203, 204 Festival circulation, 15 Festival films, 18, 24, 83, 151, 182, 206 Festival funds, 63 Festival hierarchy, 7 Festival organizers, 15, 47, 99 Festival proliferation, 14–17 Festival publications, 23 Festival reviews, 23

221

Festival screenings, xi, 73, 74, 82, 86, 142–143, 159, 205 Fiction, ix, 3, 7, 9n2, 14, 17, 18, 28, 70n14, 88n12, 94, 113–115, 120, 121, 123–127, 135, 138–140, 147, 149, 155, 160, 172, 173, 179, 181, 187, 195, 198, 210 Fieldwork, 23, 68n1, 134 Film canon, 9n5, 116, 127 Film essays, 118 Film festival studies, v, 3, 15 Film formats Blu-ray, 144 Digital Cinema Package (DCP), 144 digital formats, 17, 96 DVD, 18, 144, 145, 194, 195, 197, 204 16 mm, 144, 145, 155 35 mm, 17, 144, 145, 155 2k, 144 VHS, viii, 28, 144, 145 Film funds, 16, 28–31, 45, 65, 164, 175 Film histories, 83 Film industries, 23, 82, 83, 129n19, 198, 209 Film institutes, 31, 33, 203 Filmkontakt Nord, 78 Film language, 197 Film literacy, 43 Filmmakers, vii, viii, 2, 4, 16, 18, 19, 24–26, 28–33, 35, 37, 38, 40–42, 44–47, 49n10, 56–68, 68n5, 69n12, 70n15, 70n20, 76–78, 84, 87n2, 95, 106, 118, 120, 122, 125, 126, 129n22, 138–142, 148–150, 152, 156–158, 160–163, 167–170, 172, 176–179, 181–183, 185–187, 189, 190, 192, 194, 196–198, 203, 206, 207, 210

222 

INDEX OF SUBJECTS

Film projection, 7, 98 Film reviews, x, 4 Film rights, 43 Film schools, 115, 162 Film selection, 18, 28, 175, 177, 193, 194, 196 Film submission, 18 Finland, vii, 69n12, 75, 76, 78, 80–84, 87n1 Finnish Film Foundation, 80, 82, 89n17 Fiscal Sponsorship Program (USA), 167 Fondo de Fomento Audiovisual (FFA, Chile), 57, 63, 80 Ford Foundation, 33 France, 35, 38, 50n19, 78, 109n4, 148, 161, 164, 187, 188, 192, 199n1, 204, 208 Freelance workers, 134, 175, 177 Funding, viii, 3, 4, 8, 14, 15, 24, 26, 28, 30–33, 38, 40, 43, 44, 47, 49n15, 49n19, 50n23, 57, 59, 63, 68n5, 69n10, 70n16, 76–78, 83, 87n2, 89n18, 99, 150, 174n3, 175, 176, 180–182, 186, 192, 194, 195, 198, 207 Funds, 14, 16, 26, 28–31, 37–41, 43, 45, 49n17, 55, 57, 63, 65, 67, 68n4, 70n17, 70n18, 73, 76, 77, 82, 83, 150–151, 162, 164, 168, 175–184, 186, 193, 194, 207 G Gatekeepers, 44, 83, 89n18, 175 Gender issues, 16, 40 Geo-blocking, 204 Geopolitics, 7, 15, 31, 38, 40, 73–87 German Federal Film Board (FFA), 57, 63, 80 German Landers, 186

Germany, 38, 43, 50n19, 58, 74–76, 78, 80–84, 109n4, 139, 161, 164, 186–188 Global city, 14, 24 Global financial crisis, see Economic crisis Global peripheries, 14 Goethe institute, 85 Governments, 7, 57–59, 68n4, 77, 137, 150, 152, 160, 162 Grants, 28, 41, 43, 44, 58, 68n4, 87n1, 174n3, 177 Greece, vi, vii, 57, 79, 187 Guests, 24, 27, 29, 44–46, 59, 61, 64, 69n12, 138, 140, 152, 159, 160, 163, 179, 205, 206 Guggeheim Museum, 144 H Hierarchies, 7, 14–17, 19, 24, 30, 38, 47, 77, 81, 205 Historical, v, 3, 8, 27, 46, 47, 56–58, 85, 117, 122, 123, 135, 145n1 Historiography, 9n5 HIV/AIDS, 151 Hollywood, x, 2, 9n2, 19n2, 49n9, 115, 117, 121–123, 148, 168, 171 Hot Springs Documentary Film Institute, 174n1 Human rights, 14, 207 Human rights film festivals, 14 Hungary, 77, 86, 109n4 Hybridization, 7, 18, 113, 123 Hypertext, 96–98 I Iberoamerica, 137 Ideology, 13, 188 I-Docs symposium (Bristol, UK), 94, 107

  INDEX OF SUBJECTS 

Immersive experiences, 96, 110n10 Immersive Network Research & Beta Lab, 43 Immigration, 27 Independent, 8, 9n2, 31, 33, 47, 49n19, 58, 59, 85, 102, 115, 116, 123, 143, 145n4, 158, 161, 168, 175–184, 192, 193, 197, 210 India, 16, 177, 180 Indies, 2 Individual, 18, 36, 37, 42, 84–86, 104, 204 Industry, viii, 3, 4, 6–8, 14–19, 23–47, 57–60, 64–67, 74, 76–78, 82, 83, 103, 113, 122–123, 125, 129n19, 134, 141, 190, 192, 196–198, 204, 206, 209 Instagram, 46 Installations, 100, 101, 104, 106 Institute of Documentary Film (IDF, Prague), 187, 203 Interactivity, vii, 6, 7, 14, 17–19, 29, 30, 41, 44 International Documentary Association (IDA, USA), 8, 167–173, 174n3 International Federation of Film Producers Associations (FIAPF), 14, 126, 128n9, 142 International festival positioning, 17, 19, 29 International Forum of New Cinema, 125 Internet, 95, 99, 100, 138, 143, 148, 195, 205, 206, 208, 209 Iran, 27 Ireland, 99 Irish, 100 Islamic extremism, 164 Islamic Fundamentalism, 27 Ismailia Culture Palace, 159

223

Italy, 50n19, 109n4, 187, 188 iTunes, 209 J Journalism, 193 Journalistic, 5, 159, 178, 179 Journalists, 27, 98, 119, 122 Journals Blogs & Docs, 127n1 Skrien (Netherlands), 176 Juries, x, 4, 16, 48n6, 61, 63, 64, 70n15, 122, 140, 158, 177, 179, 195 K Knowledge exchange, 41, 46, 65 Kung Fu films, 148 L Languages, vii, 29, 38, 42, 43, 75, 98, 106, 154, 162, 163, 175, 184 Arabic, 38, 158, 163 Dutch, 25, 29, 38, 43, 176 English, vii, 32, 36, 38, 42, 109n5, 127, 154, 163, 181, 199n2 francophone, 163, 187 Portuguese, 154, 155 Latin America, 9n2, 28, 37, 38, 40, 59, 61, 63, 64, 70n16, 138, 181 Latvia, 43, 75–77, 81–85 Latvian National Film Centre, 77 Learning, 18, 56, 60, 61, 64 License fees, 194 Lightweight cameras, 170 Literature, v, 3, 198 Lithuania, 75, 76, 81–85 Live shows, 192 Long-term relationships, 29, 47, 65

224 

INDEX OF SUBJECTS

M Maastricht treaty, 74 Markets/marketing, ix, 7, 14, 15, 17, 23–25, 28, 29, 31, 35–37, 41, 43, 46, 47, 48n2, 48n4, 55, 56, 58–60, 62–67, 68n2, 68n5, 69n9, 69n10, 70n23, 76–78, 103, 105, 125, 129n19, 158, 162, 163, 168–172, 185, 189, 190, 192, 195–197, 208 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 103 Masterclasses, 26, 29 Matchmakers, 46 Media attention, 113, 116, 206 Media coverage, 4, 126 Mediafonds (Dutch Cultural Media Fund), 29 Media partners, 203, 207, 208 MEDIA Programme of the EU (Creative Europe), 30, 31, 38, 40, 41, 49n15, 69n10, 76, 77, 186, 207 MENA region, 157 Mentorship, 29, 172, 173, 177, 181, 182, 188, 189 Methodological, 3 Mexico, 58, 62, 64, 70n17, 170 Middle East, 28, 37, 163, 164, 165n1 Military, 57 Ministry of Education, Culture and Science of the Netherlands, 27, 31, 38, 50n23 Miramax, 122, 123 Mobile devices, 99 Mobil Oil Corporation, 168 Morocco, 148, 158, 161 Movie theatres, vi, 9n2, 25, 26, 48n4, 142–143 Mozambique, 7, 147–156 Mubi, 206, 209 Multi-platform, 103 Multi-sited ethnography, 56 Museums, 25, 100, 195, 198

N Narration, 42, 96 National cinemas, 15, 62, 83, 85, 148 National Film Board of Canada (NFB), 50n27, 95, 104, 109n5, 141, 194, 203 Nationality, 84, 115 Nature documentaries, 36 Neoliberal market, 13 The Netherlands, vii, 16, 26–29, 35, 38, 164, 176, 177, 180 Netherlands Film Academy, 177 Networking, 7, 15, 16, 23, 26, 27, 29, 30, 33, 35, 44–46 New media, x, 17, 18, 41, 94 News, 63 NGOs, 31, 57, 182 Nigeria, 148 Nodal point, 4 Nollywood, 148 Non-fiction, 5, 29, 36, 64, 103, 115, 117, 118, 120, 122–124, 126, 127, 127n1, 167–169, 171, 172 Non-linear projects, 41 Non-profit, 14, 27, 76, 169, 170, 174n3 Nordic countries, 76, 77 Nordisk Forum, 77, 78 North Africa, 165n1 North America, 17, 38, 47, 122, 195, 204 Northeastern Europe, 7, 15, 73–87 Nuevo Cine Chileno movement, 56 O Objectivity, 135 Offline, 203, 208 One-on-one meetings, 33, 42, 44 Online distribution, 198, 201, 202, 204, 206–208 Online platforms Amazon, 204, 209 Dafilms, 201, 202, 204, 206–209

  INDEX OF SUBJECTS 

Doc-Air, 201, 208 Doc Alliance Films, 8, 201–210 Festhome, 18 Festivalscope, 206 Filmin, 209 Googleplay, 209 HBO Go, 209 Indiegogo, 30, 190 Kickstarter, 190 Netflix, 170, 171, 204, 207, 209, 210n2 Universcine, 209 Vimeo, 18, 36, 206 Withoutabox, 18 Online streaming, 36, 97, 201 Online submission, 18, 19 Organizational, 6–8, 13, 14, 27, 138 Orientalism, 164 OTT (consoles), 208 Outreach, 168 P Participant observation, 56 Peripheral cinemas, 7, 55 Philippines, 183 Photography, 163, 198 Piracy, 208, 210 Pitching, 8, 23, 26, 31–33, 46, 60, 66, 74, 76, 105, 134, 141, 162, 186, 187, 189, 190, 197 Poland, 75–77, 79, 81, 84–86 Polish embassy, 85 Polish National Film Archive/ Filmoteka Narodowa, 85 Political, v–vii, ix, 3, 4, 9n1, 13, 38, 40, 56, 57, 74, 75, 85, 107, 114, 121–123, 134, 135, 138, 155, 158, 164, 176, 179, 186, 205 Politics, viii–xi, 98–101, 122–123, 127n1, 161, 184, 191

225

Politique des auteurs, 120 Portugal, 58, 155, 187, 202 Portuguese Cinematheque, 155 Post-colonial, 17, 40 Post-production, 97 POV, ix, 63, 174n1 Poverty, 149 Power, viii, 24, 31, 38, 40, 116, 160, 171, 184 Pre-buy, 193 Premiere, 4, 14, 62, 63, 65, 78, 122, 134, 142, 183, 203–206, 209 Pre-sales, 32 Press, 25, 45, 48n2, 103, 113, 118, 119, 122, 141, 152–153, 158, 159 Press releases, 124, 152 Prestige, 24, 31, 44, 63, 64, 121 Private viewing platforms, see Online platforms ProChile, 58, 68n4 Procirep, 69n10 Production, vi, vii, 1–4, 6–8, 14–19, 23–47, 55–61, 63–68, 68n5, 68n6, 69n10, 69n12, 69n13, 70n16, 73, 75–78, 80–83, 85–87, 93–97, 102, 103, 105, 109n4, 121–123, 126, 135, 138–141, 143, 144, 145n4, 158, 168, 175, 176, 179, 180, 182–188, 190, 192–198, 202, 204, 206–208, 210 Professionalisation, 198 Professional networks, 31, 44, 47, 58–60, 65, 67, 140 Professionals, viii, 13, 15–19, 23–26, 28–30, 32, 36, 37, 41–47, 48n4, 55–68, 76, 77, 107, 116, 128n9, 160, 162, 175–177, 181–183, 185–190, 195, 196

226 

INDEX OF SUBJECTS

Programming, viii, x, 4–6, 8, 13–15, 18, 19, 26, 27, 29, 33, 35, 36, 40, 47, 60, 65, 73–87, 89n18, 94, 102, 105, 114, 116–120, 122, 123, 125, 127, 128n8, 134, 138–140, 143, 148–151, 153, 154, 158, 160, 161, 164, 175–184, 191–193, 196, 197, 201, 205 Promotion, 7, 16, 23, 24, 33, 47, 49n15, 57, 58, 70n18, 95, 114, 117, 186, 207–209 Public charity, 174n3 Public institutions, 27, 95, 137, 193, 195 Public interest, 195 Q Quebec, xin2, 9n2 Question and Answer (Q&A) sessions, 61, 98, 152 R Radio, 158 Realism, 56, 124 Reception, vi, 2, 62, 109n3, 114, 116 Reciprocity, 56, 64–67 Red carpet, 126 Re-enactment, 172 Relocation, 94, 98–101, 106, 108 Research, v–vii, xiii, xiv, 23, 26, 43, 48n2, 49n16, 56, 68n1, 75, 78, 83, 86, 87, 87n1, 108, 145n3 Retrospectives, viii, 4, 56, 84, 85, 89n20, 155, 203, 205 Revenues, 15, 24, 49n9, 194, 207 Revolution, 1, 27, 74, 161, 164 Rights-holders, 203, 204, 207 Rough-cut, 42, 182 Round tables, 4, 33

Royalties, 137, 208 Rural areas, 150 Russia, 75, 76, 81, 84, 85 S Sales agents, 3, 35, 36, 60, 65, 103, 116, 123, 182, 189, 204, 210 Scandinavia, 76 Scholarships, 2, 186 Screening fees, 15 Scripts, 42, 168, 186 Scriptwriters, 143, 158, 163 Second World War, 127n2 Selection committee, 27, 38, 138, 143, 176, 180, 203 Seminars, 4, 77 Sensory Ethnography Lab (Harvard University), 118, 129n22 Shooting, 182 Short films, 99, 138, 140, 142, 144, 147, 149, 158, 160, 163 Site of passage, 47 Slavery, 164 Slovak Film Institute, 203 Slovak Republic, 77, 209 Smartphones, 29, 99 Social change, 187, 194, 198 Socialist, 57, 176 Social media, 16, 29, 46, 207 Facebook, 46, 102, 145, 207 Twitter, 46, 102 YouTube, 46, 145, 145n6, 209 Social movements, 134 Social networks, 64, 95, 96, 203 Social realism, 124 Société Civile des Auteurs Multimédia (SCAM, Civil Society of Multimedia Authors), 116 Société des Réalisateurs de Films de France (SRF), 116 Socio-political issues, 5

  INDEX OF SUBJECTS 

South Africa, 148, 185 South America, 173 Spain, vii, 9n2, 139–141, 150, 187 Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 137 Special effects, 172 Sponsors, 4, 25, 28, 30, 57, 58, 69n10, 70n17, 76, 85, 89n21, 116, 120, 121, 134, 150, 158, 162, 168, 170, 174n3 Stage theatre, 151 Stakeholders, 2, 24, 33, 40 Standardisation, 190 Stefilm, 185 Storytelling, 29, 93–96, 103, 108, 178, 179, 188, 189 Streaming, 36, 201, 205, 208 Streaming fees, 201 Studio system, 168 Subjectivity, 135 Subscription video-on-demand (SVOD), 205–208 Subtitles, vii, 36, 144, 154, 163 Sundance Institute, 69n12, 174n1 Sundance Labs, 28 Sustainability, 47, 49n9, 194, 195, 207 Sweden, 85 Switzerland, 63 Symbolic value, 24 Symposia, 94, 102, 107 T Taiwan, 205 Tate Modern (USA), 101 Taxes, xiii, 194 Technology, vii, viii, 7, 14, 17–19, 36, 93, 95, 97–99, 103, 105, 108, 135, 138, 144, 145, 170, 173, 184, 208 Television, vi, x, xiv, 1, 5, 6, 8, 15, 17, 25, 27, 31, 33, 35, 36, 48n7, 55,

227

58, 60, 61, 64, 66, 69n10, 77, 85, 95, 97, 102, 116, 122, 123, 126, 143, 148, 153, 158, 161, 162, 168, 171, 172, 176, 183, 186–188, 191–198, 204, 208 Abu Dhabi TV, 158 Al Jazeera TV, 17, 32 ARTE TV, 8, 17, 32, 95, 191–198 BBC, 17, 32, 95, 158 Discovery Channel, 57, 185 European Broadcasting Union, 186 European Culture Channel (Renamed ARTE TV), 191 Euskal Irrati Telebista (EITB, Basque public broadcaster), 143 France 24, 95, 109n4 France 4 TV, 183 ITVS (USA), 63, 69n12 La Sept (La Société Européenne de Programmes de Television/ European Television Programme Corporation), 192 NPS TV, 25 NTR, 27 PBS, 32, 69n12, 168, 174n1 private television, 193, 194, 196 Public service broadcaster, 32, 191, 192, 199n1 RTVC (Colombia), 69n12 Telewizja Polska (Polish TV), 85 VPRO (Dutch broadcaster), 25, 27, 48n8 YLE, 69n12 Television slots, 169, 194, 198 Theatrical distribution, vi, 2, 9n2, 25, 26, 80, 96, 98, 99, 107, 108, 134, 142–144, 150, 151, 204, 206, 208, 209, 210n2 Theatrical exhibition, 1, 174n2 Theatrical release, 15, 80, 195 Thematic film festivals, 14 3D, 98 Tide experiment, 204

228 

INDEX OF SUBJECTS

Torino Film Lab, 186, 188 Tourism, 24, 149 Trade fairs, 26, 28 Training, 24, 26, 29, 37, 41–44, 47, 49n18, 59, 60, 69n10, 69n12, 149, 185–190 Transactional Video-on-demand (TVOD), 205–209 Transmedia, 7, 93–98, 100–105, 107, 108 Transnational, 55, 56, 59, 60, 67, 87 Tribeca Film Institute, 33 Truth, 95, 100, 135–136, 172 Tunisia, 147, 158, 163 U UK, 77, 107, 188, 208 Ukraine, 43, 205 Underground, 57 Universities, vi, 151, 186, 188 Uruguay, 64, 69n12 USA, 61, 69n12, 115, 122, 139 USSR (Soviet Union), 27, 74, 182 V Value-adding, 24, 25, 44, 55 Video art, 153 Video-library, 28, 35 Video on Demand (VOD), 8, 36, 43, 201–210 Violence, 151, 159, 163 Virtual Reality (VR), 17, 18, 43, 104 Visegrad Fund, 77 Visions Sud Est fund, 63 Voice-over, 36

W War, viii, 121, 122, 164, 176, 180, 205 Watershed Media Centre (Bristol, UK), 107 Web-series, 43 Welfare, 195 WFDIF (Polish production company), 85 Whitechapel Art Gallery, 101 Wi-Fi, 99 Women, 16, 161 Workshops, 23, 26, 29, 41–43, 49n19, 59, 77, 96, 152, 162, 163, 177, 181, 182, 185–190 Atelier Varan Paris workshop, 49n19 Discovery Campus, 185 Documentary Campus (Germany), 43, 50n19, 185–190 Documentary in Europe (Italy), 50n19, 186 EsoDoc, 186–188 EuroDoc, 59, 69n10, 69n12, 187, 188 European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs professional training program (EAVE), 49n19, 186, 187 Ex Oriente Film Workshop, 187 IDFA & NPO-fonds Workshop for documentary development, 43 IDFA Documentaire workshop, 43 VISIONS, 43 Zelig School for Documentary, 186, 188 Y Yugoslavia, viii, 74, 176, 182

Index of Films1

A A.K., 118 Alice in the Land, 63 B Back to Normandie, 121 The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye, 125 Bear 71, 96 Bertsolari, 141 Bestiaire, 125 Between the Devil and the Blue Sea, 84 Blood, 126 Bread Day, 84 Bunt. Delo Litvinenko, 119 C Caesar Must Die, 125 Calcutta, 117 Captive of the Desert, 120 Capturing Reality, 96 Chechensky Gambit, 27

1

Checkpoint, 27 Chemo, 84 The Chileans Building, 63 Cinema Komunisto, 78 The City of Photographers, 63 The Class, 124 The Claw and the Tooth, 117 Coral: Rekindling Venus, 106 D Diary, 85 A Dog’s Life, 117 Double Tide, 125 Down there, 125 Dream of Light, 117 Drifter, 183 E E agora? Lembra-me, 126 Egg Lady, 85 El sol del membrillo, 117

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

© The Author(s) 2020 A. Vallejo, E. Winton (eds.), Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 2, Framing Film Festivals, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17324-1

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230 

INDEX OF FILMS

En Construcción, 139 The Enemy, 104 Entre les murs, 124 An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker, 125 The 11th Hour, 121 Epizoda u zivotu beraca zeljeza, 125 Er shi si cheng ji, 124 F 5 Broken Cameras, 41 The Fog of War, 118 Fort McMoney, 96 48, 155 G Georgi & the Butterflies, 32 The Grown-Ups, 35 Guerilla Grannies, 155 I Inside Job, 119, 121 In Situ, 96 Interview Project, 96 In the Fog, 121 Irène, 121 The Iron Curtain Diary 19892009, 96 It Should Have Been Nice after That, 84 J Journey at the End of the Coal, 96 L La captive du desert, 120 La dernière lettre, 118

La Griffe et la dent, 117 La Once, 63, 68 The Last Station, 62 La última estación, 62, 63 Là-bas, 125 Le filmeur, 121 Le monde du silence, 114 Let’s Make Money, 27 Libera Me, 120 The Lifeguard, 63 Los niños, 35 M Maïdan, 121 Mondo Cane, 117 Mondovino, 117 Mother’s of Life, 84 My Winnipeg, 125 N Naked Island, 183 Neak sre, 120 Nema Problema, 63 News, 63 Nömadak Tx, 141 O Of Men and War, 195 One Millionth Tower, 96 Out my Window, 96 P Pater, 121 Pays Barbare, 126 Pierre Rissient: homme de cinéma, 118 Prison Valley, 96, 109n4

  INDEX OF FILMS 

R Rebellion: the Litvinenko Case, 119 Restrepo, 172 Retour en Normandie, 121 Rise People, 120 Room without a View, 177 S Sacro GRA, 124, 206 Sangue, 126 Schaste moe, 121 The Search for Emak Bakia, 141 The Silent World, 114 Silvered Water, Syria Self-Portrait, 121 66 Seasons (66 Sezon), 46 Sobibor, 14 Octubre 1943, 16 Heures, 118 Sofia´s Last Ambulance, 183 S1, la machine de mort khèmre rouge, 118 Sonita, 41 The Spirit of 45 The Square, 171 Stemple Pass, 125 Still Tomorrow, 35 S21: The Khmer Rouge Death Machine, 118

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T Tableau Noir, 126 Tapuz Tea Time, 63 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, 168 Thérèse, 120 This is not a Film, 119 Toscan, 118 To Shure, 85 Trashed, 121 Truth or Dare, 168 24 City, 124 U Ukrainian Sheriffs, 43 V V tumane, 121 W What Now? Remind Me, 126 Wide Awake, 125 Woodstock, 128n12, 142 Work in Progress, 139 World of Wine, 117

Index of Names1

A Agüero, Ignacio, 56 Aguiló, 63 Akerman, Chantal, 125 Alberdi, Maite, 35, 56, 63, 68n1 Alegria, Oskar, 141 Altuna, Asier, 141 B Barron, Steve, 168 Bécue-Renard, Laurent, 195 Bedirxan, Wiam Simav, 121 Bel, François, 117 Benning, James, 125 Berliner, Alan, 125 Bertels, Ike, 155 Birri, Fernando, 138 Bondarchuk, Roman, 43 Bosenko, Sergei, 27 Brady, Candida, 121 Buraja, Oksana, 85 Burnat, Emad, 41

1

C Cantet, Laurent, 124 Castillo, Carmen, 56 Cavalier, Alain, 120 Cavara, Paolo, 117 Celma, Una, 85 Chaskel, Pedro, 56 Conners, Nadia, 121 Costa, Pedro, 140 Côté, Denis, 125 Cousteau, Jacques-Yves, 114 D Davidi, Guy, 41 de Sousa Dias, Susana, 155 Delbono, Pippo, 126 Depardon, Raymond, 118, 120 Dvortsevoy, Sergey, 84, 100 E Erice, Víctor, 117

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

© The Author(s) 2020 A. Vallejo, E. Winton (eds.), Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 2, Framing Film Festivals, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17324-1

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INDEX OF NAMES

F Ferguson, Charles, 119, 121 Fuente, Raúl de la, 141 Fidyk, Andrzej, 84, 85, 89n20 Foxley, Susana, 63 G Ghaem Maghami, Rokhsareh, 41 Gianikian, Yervant, 126 Gitai, Amos, 27 Gudac, Tiha, 183 Guerín, Jose Luis, 139 Guggenheim, Davis, 118 H Hetherington, Tim, 172 Honkasalo, Pirjo, 84 Hörcher, Gábor, 183 I Iraburu, Pablo, 141 J Jacopetti, Gualtiero, 117 Jian Fan, 35 Junger, Sebastian, 172 Jurschick, Karin, 84 K Karmakar, Romuald, 84 Kerekeš, Peter, 46 Keshishian, Ake, 168 Kieslowski, Krzysztof, 85 L Lapsui, Anastasia, 84 Larraín, Carolina, 63

Lehmuskallio, Markku, 84 Leighton, Cristián, 63 Leth, Jørgen, 29, 203 Lintrop, Renita, 85 Loach, Ken, 120 Lockhart, Sharon, 125 Losier, Marie, 125 Lozinski, Pawel, 84 Loznitsa, Sergei, 121, 203 Lucchi, Angela Ricci, 126 M Maddin, Guy, 125 Malle, Louis, 114, 117 Mallet, Marilú, 56 Mark, Herz, 84, 89n20 Martinez, Harkaitz, 141 McCarthy, Todd, 118 Metev, Ilian, 183 Mirtahmasb, Mojtaba, 119 Mohammed, Ossama, 121 Moreno, 63 Morris, Errol, 118, 129n20 N Nekrasov, Andrei, 119 Nossiter, Jonathan, 117 Noujaim, Jehane, 170 O Oliveira, Manoel de, 138 Osnovikoff, Iván, 63 Otxoa, Igor, 141 P Panahi, Jafar, 119 Panh, Rithy, 118, 120 Partiot-Pieri, Isabelle, 118 Perut, Bettina, 63

  INDEX OF NAMES 

Petersen, Leila Conners, 121 Pinto, Joaquim, 126 Prosperi, Franco, 117 R Recha, Marc, 140 Rosi, Gianfranco, 124, 206 S Seidl, Ulrich, 29 Šešić, Rada, 8, 26, 43, 175–184 Shamir, Yoav, 27 Soto, Cristian, 62, 63, 68n1 Stonys, Audrius, 84, 89n20 T Tanović, Danis, 125 Taviani, Paolo, 125

Taviani, Vittorio, 125 Turajlic, Mila, 32, 78 V Vergara, Catalina, 62, 63, 68n1 Vienne, Gérard, 117 W Wadleigh, Michael, 142 Wagenhofer, Erwin, 27 Y Yersin, Yves, 126 Z Zhangke, Jia, 124

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