International Section 25–27 nov 2016
Art of the real In one capacity or other, Barbara Visser has attended every edition of IDFA. The visual artist/filmmaker will be taking over artistic director Ally Derks’ role for next year’s 30th anniversary edition of the festival – and it’s clear she knows the event inside out. By Geoffrey Macnab “I have not missed one festival since the start – and I am not that old!” Visser says. She was a student when IDFA started and “immediately a very big fan.” Unlike her fellow art school students, she was immediately determined to steep herself in the documentary world. Ask her about her personal highlights over the years and she cites Victor Kossakovsky’s Tishe! (2002) as a “revelation.” Here’s a film shot from the director’s window over the course of a year as endless repairs are made in the street below. “I thought any visual artist could have made this, but yet it is here [at IDFA].” For many years, Visser has combined her own art work with stints on boards of art institutions and with her role as a teacher. “For me, it always felt that making things wasn’t enough to make a difference,” she reflects. “Making things possible: for me, that is just as good as making something.” Visser is “interim” IDFA chief, in the post (at least initially) just for a year while Ally Derks is on her sabbatical in Berlin. At the end of the year, there will be an open call for candidates to take over as artistic director. Anyone can apply, including Visser herself. “It’s possible that IDFA says ‘oh, you’re not the one’, or I say ‘oh, this is too much for me.’”
Laura van Halsema and Barbara Visser. Photo: Bram Belloni
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Ask her what the flavour of next year’s festival is likely to be and Visser promises there won’t be “radical” changes. “That’s not a route I would take with a festival that is so successful and so appreciated by the audience and industry.” Her philosophy, at least for now, is “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.” However, there are some tweaks she is already considering. “Many people I know who like IDFA very much are being put off by the quantity – it is almost too much. If you give people a choice of ten different flavours, they will have a much harder time choosing – and often will choose nothing. The vastness of the programme is quality but perhaps, at the same time, a problem.” Visser won’t necessarily reduce the number of titles but she wants to make the festival easier to navigate.
Cultural diversity
The new festival director is talking alongside Laura van Halsema who has headed up IDFA’s press office for many years but will now concentrate on programming duties. Van Halsema has already been overseeing special programmes and has put together this year’s Shifting Perspectives special focus, looking at how we are used to thinking about and looking at our world from a predominantly white, Western perspective and challenging this by looking at stories from the other points of view. This year, the programme focused on Africa, Europe and the US. Next year, Van Halsema confirms, she will be overseeing a programme that will consider the Arab perspective. The move comes as IDFA looks to place more emphasis on cultural diversity.
Special guests
Van Halsema has confirmed there will be a special sidebar on cinematography in documentary, similar to this year’s event on editing and documentary that brought legendary director Frederick Wiseman back to IDFA.
Special guests at the 30th edition are likely to include key figures from the “digital realm.” One name Visser mentions is American visual artist Jonathan Harris. Intriguingly, she also floats the idea of inviting English comedian John Cleese, who features in a new documentary about “arseholes.” “On the one hand, we are celebrating the legacy of Ally. On the other hand, we want to look at the future,” Visser says.
Next level
Like all good festival directors, Visser will travel widely on the job. “I asked the staff which events I should go to … and it was a long list,” she reflects a little ruefully about an itinerary that will take her from Sundance to CPH Dox and many places elsewhere. Yes, Visser acknowledges, given her background, it is likely that the overlap between art and documentary will be explored. “My dream is not that you have an art section and a conventional documentary section, but that documentary filmmakers are allowed to go to the next level and tell stories in a different way.” Read more at: www.idfa.nl/industry/daily/2016/background/art-of-the-real
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