IDFA Daily #4 2016 (English)

Page 1

International Section 23/24 nov 2016

Fisk hits the Forum Renowned Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk put in an appearance at the Forum on Tuesday for the pitch of ChineseCanadian director Yung Chang’s This Is Not A Movie, exploring journalism in the region through the veteran reporter’s 40-year career in the Arab world. By Melanie Goodfellow Fisk told documentary professionals gathered at the Compagnietheater that he had initially turned the project down when Chang and producers Allyson Luchak and Nelofer Pazira first got in touch with the idea. “When I was first asked to get involved I said ‘Absolutely not. I don’t do face-to-cameras, I don’t flap my hands around to make a point, I hate clichés, I am a journalist!” said Fisk. “This was pretty pompous and hypocritical of me, because then I took a look at Yung and said, ‘This guy is fresh and new to the Middle East, he’s an innocent guy, unencumbered by the clichés of doves and hawks and terrorists and democracy’. So I said, ‘Look let’s have a go, but no face-to-camera. You put your camera over my shoulder. I’ll do my job as a correspondent and you do your job as a film director, but don’t interfere.’”

Man without a newspaper

Fisk added that the demise earlier this year of the print edition of The Independent – for which he has been the Middle Eastern correspondent for more than 30 years – had further boosted his desire to be involved. “It dissolved around me. I am now the Middle East correspondent of The Independent website. I’ve still got the same job, same place, same assignment, same region – the Middle East – and many more readers, millions more. I thought there is something interesting here – a man

Robert Fisk and Yung Chang at the Forum. Photo: Ruud Jonkers

without a newspaper, being filmed by a camera crew who can’t put cameras in my face,” said Fisk.

Rare access

Over the course of 40 years, during which time he has covered the massacres at the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Chatila as well as both Gulf Wars, the US invasion of Afghanistan and the more recently the Syrian conflict, Fisk has built up rare access. He was the only Western journalist to have interviewed Osama Bin Laden on three separate occasions. In the backdrop, he has often courted controversy for his refusal to take an unbiased, balanced approach to stories he is covering.

Frontlines

Fisk said he was planning to take Yung to places where many journalists no longer get to, such as the frontlines of Syria, from the Turkish border to the Golan Heights, and bring him into contact with people who normally do not either get access or give interviews to Western television. In the process, the film will also look back at Fisk’s career as current day events resonate with stories he covered in the past. Yung stressed that rather than being a biography about Fisk the film was more a study of the Middle East region and the need for responsible on-the-ground reporting in an age when journalists are obsessed with social media. “I have to say this is going to be a marriage made in heaven or a marriage made in hell, we’ll give it go,” he concluded.

Cross-media

The National Film Board of Canada has already put up 400,000 Canadian dollars, representing some 30% of the budget and at Tuesday’s pitch several broadcasters including Arte said they were interested in coming on board. Principal photography is due to start next summer for a late 2018, early 2019 delivery.

This Is Not A Movie was among 15 projects presented in the Forum’s Central Pitch section this year, three of which were cross-media productions for the first time.

Praise

Other popular projects pitched on Tuesday included Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert’s Chinese Factory: USA about an Ohio factory which is bought by a Chinese billionaire; Argentine director Lola Arias’s Veterans, a hybrid work combining a theatre play about a group of UK and Argentine veterans of the Falklands War who meet up thirty-five years after the conflict, and their real-life encounters. Brazilian director Petra Costa also won praise for her upcoming work Impeachment exploring the events surrounding the removal of Brazil’s first female president Dilma Rousseff from office in 2016 on charges of corruption, particularly for the level of access to the subjects involved. “The quality of the pitches this morning was very high. There were some very strong projects and a lot of interest,” commented IDFA industry chief Adriek van Nieuwenhuyzen.

Docs for Sale Top 10 Stranger in Paradise 60 Plastic China 48 Burning Out 48 Amateurs in Space 45 Machines 44 The Grown-Ups 42 How to Meet a Mermaid 38 The Good Postman 37 Venus 36 La Chana 32


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