special industry
INCLUDING SCHEDULE
#5
FRI 27, SAT 28 & SUN 29 NOV
For more news & full industry programme, see www.idfa.nl/industry
IDFA United: the 2015 winners gather for a photo-shoot before hitting the dance floor at the post-awards party in the Melkweg.photo: Felix Kalkman
Doc lives
With this year’s IDFA coming to a close, festival director Ally Derks is upbeat about how this year’s event has unfolded. By Geoffrey Macnab
Audiences dipped in the immediate aftermath of the Paris attacks, but recovered strongly. Ticket sales are expected to be around 245,000: roughly on a par with the 2013 figure, but slightly down on 2014. “The thing is, all the commercial cinemas are empty […] it has to do with the terrorist threat. People are afraid of going to the cinema, but our audience is very loyal. The spirit is there. They want to see documentary.” As this year’s event enters the home straight, Derks is turning toward next year’s 29th edition. It is too early to discuss details of the programme, but one intriguing prospect is Michael Moore (director of some of the highest grossing docs of all time) picking the Top 10. The awards ceremony this year was moved forward, to Wednesday evening – a decision Derks feels was thoroughly vindicated by the huge turnout at the Melkweg venue. “All of the directors were still there. The industry people were still there,” Derks states. Asked what she feels about the recent decision by Danish documentary festival CPH:DOX to move its dates from November to March, she laughs: “I understand. We get all the films they want. When people can choose, they go to us.” But she qualifies her remarks: “Copenhagen is a wonderful city and the staff there is fantastic.”
Top TEN
Docs for Sale 1 Sonita
Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami
2 A Family Affair She acknowledges the autumn schedule can be very punishing for industry delegates, with so many doc events crammed into the calendar. It is taxing on both budgets and family lives. “You can only spend your money once and all these television people, their budgets really are cut in a severe way.” In 2017, Derks herself will be on sabbatical. She has been offered a year-long fellowship in Berlin at the The Robert Bosch Stiftung. “I am very lucky I can do that. There is a real angel at my shoulder.” “There will probably be a new director for 6 or 7 months, probably somebody from abroad, but we do need to discuss it,” Derks suggests of what may happen at IDFA. “I do think it is very important that there is a programmer from outside to avoid staring at our own navel.” Derks is keen to get out of her “comfort zone.” She is confident IDFA will manage in her absence. “It will also grow without me. The baby is an adult now.” Besides, she will still be attending the 2017 edition. And then, “In 2018, I will be back!” As for her own highlights over the last 10 days, she cites the Errol Morris retrospective and Top 10 and the Benjamin Barber special focus, Jihad vs. McWorld. “And every morning, I look out of my hotel room and see all those children going into the Munt. That is amazing, really amazing.”
Tom Fassaert
3 A Strange Love Affair with Ego Ester Gould
4 Ukrainian Sheriffs
Roman Bondarchuk
5 Thy Father’s Chair Antonio Tibaldi, Alex Lora
6 Holy Cow
Imam Hasanov
7 Don Juan
Jerzy Sladkowski
8 Thru You Princess Ido Haar
9 A mong the Believers
Hemal Trivedi, Mohammed Ali Naqvi
10 S now Monkey
George Gittoes
As of 4 pm, Thursday 26 November
YES to IDFA Prerana Langa, CEO of India’s YES Foundation, speaks about the work of her organisation and what she is looking to achieve before IDFA-end. YES is part of the YES bank, the fifth largest private bank on the subcontinent, and runs a series of filmmaking challenges focused on youth development. On the day of any given challenge, registered participants are made aware of a nominated social cause, such as care of the elderly, and are then given 101 hours to make a 3-minute film on the subject. The foundation’s guiding principle “is to build innovative and inclusive ecosystems to catalyse social transformation.”
“What is interesting is that, in the first year we had 2,200 participants; in the second, 50,000 and this year we have 600,000, making us the world’s largest social filmmaking movement,” comments Langa, who is sitting on the IDFA Student Film jury this year. “What we do is take the films to schools and colleges to encourage responsible consumption of media. We run social film festivals with these. It is about inner transformation within the filmmakers and the audiences.” “We are looking to see if we can institute a prize here in the future on social impact,” Langa continues. “At the Mumbai Film Fest we instituted such a prize, worth some $20,000. We are just three years old and these are early days for us, but we are looking at partnerships to see how we can promote filmmaking in India and mindset transformation.” Nick Cunningham