IDFA Journal 3

Journal November 19/20

Every day, we send our accredited guests a curated selection of festival tips, industry recommendations and social events. Be sure to check your inbox and stay in the loop!

Download the IDFA 2018 app

Follow us at #idfa2018

@idfaindustry |

@IDFAindustry |

@idfafestival

Photo: Nichon Glerum

Read our daily guest newsletters

1

Highlights of the Lowlands NPO Sales www.nposales.com

African eye West African filmmakers are bringing fresh perspectives to IDFA, Melanie Goodfellow reports The first-ever delegation of West African directors to attend IDFA is making waves at the festival with a line-up of films and projects tackling regional stories such as slum re-settlement, the Ebola outbreak and the lives of ex-servicemen, with an African insider eye.

IDFAcademy

With support from the IDFA Bertha Fund the group – comprising Ghanaian director Lawrence Agbetsise, Sierra Leone artists Tyson Conteh and John Solo and Liberian photographer and filmmaker Archie Valentino – is attending the IDFAcademy as part of a filmmaker fellowship created by the WeOwnTV foundation.

The collaborative filmmaking project based in the Sierra Leone capital of Freetown was created by San Franciscobased director Banker White, following his experiences shooting Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars, which screened at IDFA in 2005.

Together with local filmmakers Arthur Pratt and Lansana Mansaray, the foundation opened “African-owned, Africanrun” WeOwnTV Freetown Media Centre in 2009, now a hub for activities in the region. “I was told it is the first West African delegation to visit the festival, which I am excited about”, says White, who has accompanied the group to IDFA as a mentor alongside Pratt.

shot by Pratt and featured the work of the Freetown Media Centre collective. It screens in the Frontlight section at IDFA and is competing for the Amsterdam Human Rights Award.

“It was the first ever feature film to be broadcast on POV, one of our main streams on PBS, directed by a West African director,” says White.

Pratt hit upon the idea for the film while shooting footage of the Ebola outbreak for international TV agencies and stations who could not get their crew into the territory because of the travel ban. “The outbreak was still reported from an international perspective. With Survivors, I want to tell what was actually happening on the ground and how local people were the first responder, putting their lives at risk to help people.

These stories are rarely told,” he says.

Transformation

The other delegation members have each brought a project with them to IDFA at the mid-point of production, says White.

Conteh is working on An’Bondo Beykey, which means ‘Stop Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)’, a highly personal work looking at what needs to be done to shift Sierra Leone society away from the tradition of FGM using the case of his girlfriend who died while undergoing the ritual against her will.

“It’s an amazing story. His girlfriend was abducted by her biological mother and brought against her will to a secret society initiation and she died during an FGM ceremony. I’ve seen a lot of films about FGM, but his perspective and connection makes this interesting. His approach is really beautiful because he is not condemning the society but looking for transformation”, says White.

Survivors

Conversations

Another cause for excitement is IDFA’s screening of Survivors. Telling tales of local bravery and resilience in the face of the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone, the film was

Agbetsise is working on the character-driven We Are The Problem, about a 32-year-old man who conceals the true nature of his work from his family, going out the door each

day dressed up in a business suit to sell barbecued corn on the streets of Accra.

“It’s a beautiful character portrait. The whole story is based around these sort of vérité conversations between the director and the protagonist, looking at definitions of success and male identity in West Africa”, says White.

Solo is part way through shooting Life After The Army, capturing the plight of hundreds of thousands of ageing ex-servicemen who left the army through a voluntary retirement programme but no longer receive any sort of pension.

“The amazing thing is that their biggest complaint is that they are still looking for work as opposed to a pension. You have these private security forces, hiring ex-servicemen to go to Iraq and Afghanistan, they’re like literally wanting to qualify in their mid-to-late 60s”, comments White.

Inside

Photographer-turned-filmmaker Thomas brings his project Inside West Point, capturing daily life inside one of the largest slums in the Liberian capital of Monrovia situated within a peninsula, which is slowing eroding into the ocean.

“I saw a documentary on VICE and it made West Point look like the worst place you can ever live. But even though these people are poor and struggle for the next meal, they are actually happy too and struggling to make West Point a better place. I wanted to show West Point from the inside”, says Thomas, who has spent months filming the slum and winning the trust of its inhabitants.

Mentor and Survivors director Pratt is also developing a new project, a multi-platform exploration of racism against African Americans in the US and the DNA and cultural bond that may or may not tie them to Africans. •

Photo: Melle Meivogel Looking up: the West African delegation on the rooftop balcony of new IDFA venue the Volkshotel (thank you!)

Journalism fund to close It has emerged this weekend at IDFA that the Bertha Doc Society Journalism Fund (the ground-breaking fund that has supported such high profile feature docs as The Trial of Ratko Mladić, An Insignificant Man, Virunga, CITIZENFOUR, Hooligan Sparrow, Judgement in Hungary and Look of Silence) is to be wound down.

Those behind the Fund have confirmed they will be making sure that the films currently on its slate will be supported editorially, legally and financially through to completion by both Bertha and the Doc Society. However, the Fund will only take on occasional new projects over the two-year period in which the arrangements are put in place for its closure.

“We are super grateful to our pals at Bertha for the incredibly productive 8-year working relationship. This was the first ever dedicated documentary journalism fund and the results have exceeded our expectations,” a Doc Society spokesperson commented.

Talks have reportedly begun with new funders interested in taking over the Fund, but Doc Society is not yet in a position to make an announcement about who these backers are. Doc Society will continue to work with Adessium, the BBC, Threshold and Perspective Funds on slates of films, and with a wider number of funders on individual projects. • By Geoff rey Macnab

3

IDFA Mid-length competition

Monday, November 19th, 19:30, Munt 12 (World Premiere)

Tuesday, November 20th, 11:30, Tuschinski 4

(Human Rights Award Nominee screening with main characters present )

Wednesday, November 21st, 16:15, Tuschinski 5 Friday, November 23rd, 13:00, Munt 10

Let your film get higher

Contact: Jonathan Borge Lie Jonathan@upnorthfilm.no

Festival Distribution: The Norwegian Film Institute

submission deadline: February 1st, 2019 www.mdag.pl 5 cities 150 films 14 awards 90 events May 10th–19th, 2019

WARSAW • WROCLAW • GDYNIA • LUBLIN • BYDGOSZCZ

News

Dogwoof sells Westwood With IDFA in full swing, UKbased distribution and sales outfit Dogwoof has announced multiple new sales on its Amsterdam slate, Geoffrey Macnab reports Provocateur, activist, designer and icon Dame Vivienne Westwood is the subject of Lorna Tucker’s Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist. Westwood famously turned up to accept her OBE without wearing any underwear – and posed for pictures to prove it. Screening at IDFA in Best of Fests, the film has been sold by Dogwoof to BBC (UK), NTR (the Netherlands) and Globosat (Brazil). Produced by Eleanor Emptage, Shirine Best, Nicole Stott and John Battsek and executive produced by Anna Godas and Leo Haidar, Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist made its world premiere at Sundance.

Another Dogwoof title, Matangi/Maya/ M.I.A. about Sri Lankan artist, activist and musician M.I.A., directed by Steve Loveridge, was taken by the BBC (UK) and ZDF Arte (France and Germany). Matangi/Maya/M.I.A. was financed and produced by Cinereach, in association with Lori Cheatle of Hard Working Movies and Doc Society.

Under The Wire by Chris Martin has now sold by Dogwoof to NRK (Norway) and

yes Docu (Israel), while German-speaking rights have been picked up by Ascot.

The film is based on the book by Paul Conroy and gives a harrowing account of celebrated war correspondent Marie Colvin’s final, fatal mission reporting inside Syria. Under The Wire was released in the UK earlier this year and will be

released in the US this month. Presented

by HISTORY® Films and the BFI, in association with A&E IndieFilms, BBC Storyville, the film was produced by Tom Brisley and Arrow Media in association with VICE Films.

Meanwhile, Göran Hugo Olsson’s (The Black Power Mixtape 1967–1975) new feature

Light touch Against Gravity’s Artur Liebhart spoke to the IDFA Journal November 17 about his acquisition of five films from the IDFA 2018 programme both for all rights (Poland) and for the 16th Millennium Docs Against Gravity Film Festival in May 2019. These are #Female Pleasure, Putin’s Witnesses, Sergei Loznitsa’s The Trial, Angels Are Made of Light and Genesis 2.0. Others titles are in an advanced stage of negotiation, Liebhart confirmed.

“We have always started our hunting season at IDFA,” he commented. “This year we came to IDFA with three programmers who also select films for sale to various Polish broadcasters, as well as our series of screenings with various partners including three universities. Our festival is programmed across five cities which means that the 14 to 15 films can compete for separate awards over each.”

He also revealed that he will be launching a VOD service in

the second half of 2019 dedicated to arthouse films. “Our core target is festival-goers but from day one, we can’t limit the offer to this group. At the same time, the portal will have an education segment for institutional users or cable TV broadcasters.”

Liebhart outlined his festival/distribution modus operandi using the example of Barbara Miller’s #Female Pleasure. The Polish premiere will be at the festival in May when he will team up with “progressive women’s magazines and NGOs” for its promotion, as well as Polish supermodel Anja Rubik who is running her own sex education campaign aimed at school children. “We have already made contact with the protagonists of the film and some will be invited to tour Poland and [conduct] exclusive interviews with chosen media. The theatrical release will be in September 2019 across 32 to 50 cinemas. A first window TV deal is signed for end of 2019.” A second window TV deal is in the offing, he confirms.

Liebhart also responded to IDFA chief Orwa Nyrabia’s call for greater geo-diversity in programming documentaries from less well-developed industries around the world. “We are not Europe-centred. We are absolutely open for beautiful films coming from outside our Northern hemisphere.

We don’t have that kind of attitude that Europeans or North Americans know better, and the outcome is that we have films in our programme from various continents and cinema cultures.”

“In terms of how audiences react to these films I would not generalise, it all depends on the quality of the film. I can only say that the non-European/non-North American attitudes in cinema are very often enriching audiences with a new way of looking at life and at values.” •

By Nick Cunningham

doc That Summer has sold to Arte France (France and Germany) and yes Docu (Israel). Using footage lost for decades, the film is a celebration of the art scene in Montauk in the ’70s. Its main characters are the famously eccentric Beales – big Edie and little Edie – the mother and daughter who also appeared in the Mayles brothers’ Grey Gardens. Other figures shown include artists Andy Warhol, Peter Beard and Jackie Kennedy’s sister, Lee Radziwill. That Summer was produced by Joslyn Barnes for Louverture Films, Tobias Janson for STORY, Nejma Beard for Thunderbolt Ranch Productions and Signe Byrge Sørensen for Final Cut for Real. Peter Beard, Andrea Barron, Susan Rockefeller, Danny Glover and Tony Tabatznik executive produce.

Like Grey Gardens, the new film is an essay in decay and splendour. The Beales live in a beautiful but tumbledown house in the Hamptons. Mother and daughter are glamorous and well-spoken but live surrounded by rubbish. Young Edie fusses about her lipstick among cats and racoons.

Her mother is keen to show everyone an old portrait of looking very aristocratic in a ball gown. “I never thought of the Beales as unfortunate or sad, or anything except very excellent at feeling what it was like to hold on to the past”, Beard comments of the film’s subjects. •

Autlook sells Walking on Water Following its screening at TIFF, Walking on Water, the entertaining feature doc on larger than life artist Christo, is attracting strong attention from theatrical distributors as well as broadcasters. Here at IDFA, sales agent Autlook has confirmed several new deals on the title. A theatrical release confirmed in Germany and Austria with Alamode Filmdistribution, North American rights have gone to Kino Lorber (handled by CAA), iwonder has taken the film for Italy; Against Gravity will release in Poland and Autlook is in advanced negotiations with buyers for Spain, Switzerland and Japan. Dutch TV rights were picked up

by VPRO. There are also reportedly offers from New Zealand, Sweden, UK, Taiwan, France, Bulgaria.

The film was partly shot on 35 mm. It is directed Andrey M Paounov, best known for multi-awarded Georgi and the Butterflies. The producers are US-based Izabella, the outfit behind The Wolfpack and Skate Kitchen.

Walking on Water follows Christo on his quest to set up ‘The Floating Piers’. This was an idea originally conceived in 1970 by Christo and his late wife and collaborator, Jeanne-Claude. In 2016, seven years after Jeanne-Claude’s death, this stunning, site-specific masterpiece was finally cleared to be mounted on Italy’s Lake Iseo, which lies at the foot of the Alps. But securing a location proved to be only the first step in a tumultuous process of creative problem-solving and prickly negotiations. Billed as an illuminating portrait of a master artist and the arduous business of bringing an ambitious work to life, Walking on Water gives us a rare and entertaining look into the business of largescale art production. When it was finally launched, The Floating Piers attracted over 1.2 million visitors. •

By Geoffrey Macnab

5

Inside DocLab

“ the idea is that this project will have many different forms – at DocLab this happens to be a dinner party,”

6

A Dinner with Frankenstein AI Photos: Nichon Glerum

Frederik Duerinck’s Algorithmic Perfumery

Living laboratory

Ahead of the 2018 Immersive Network Summit, DocLab and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Open Documentary Lab formally rubber-stamped their future 5-year collaboration on the IDFA DocLab Immersive Network R&D Program, Nick Cunningham reports

Together with partners and artists, DocLab and MIT Open Doc Lab will conduct fundamental research into immersive and interactive media – such as VR and artificial intelligence – using IDFA DocLab as a living laboratory. New research questions will be formulated each year on the basis of the latest developments in interactive and immersive media, together with involved partners and leaders in the field.

Listen and learn

“Over the years, one of the conclusions for us has been that somehow artists innovate and experiment faster than big institutions and tech companies – and more creatively – and when you give them a festival deadline and an audience they really knock it up a notch”, explained DocLab chief Caspar Sonnen of the joint rationale. “[But] processing the learnings of all these projects is something that we are not that good at. Researching these things requires collaboration.”

MIT’s William Uricchio responded: “Our task today is to listen and to learn and to hear from you folks [Summit professionals] what are the questions you want answered. And if we can answer those questions, how can we get the answers to you? Because I think there is too often a mismatch between the academy and the work of makers. We say and do a lot of things, and like a ship in the night it passes by. The makers do amazing thinking with their hands, and it too passes by… How can we connect?

How can we build some synergy and how can we help each other raise this to the next level?”

Experimentation

Jann de Waal of the Topsector Creative Industry team also addressed the makers in the room: “Experimentation is truly the basis of the design process, so that is why we are very happy to support DocLab. We have all kinds of field labs, but not one in documentary… and personally I think it is very interesting to see how you involve, what kinds

of directions you are going [to take], what kind of topics you are going to research. Because we do need a new form of storytelling and I can’t [think of] a better place for this research than DocLab.” Algorithmic Perfumery

One of the DocLab creators working with the new R&D Program will be Dutch maker Frederik Duerinck whose Algorithmic Perfumery was selected for Humanoid Cookbook and IDFA DocLab Spotlight. Back in 2015 Duerinck presented the notorious Famous Deaths at DocLab, which examined/recreated the demise of Colonel Gaddafi and JFK through the olfactory senses.

Algorithmic Perfumery poses the question: what if everybody could have their own personal scent?

Using visitor input to train the creative capabilities of an AI system that adapts and learns from every exchange, the outcome is a unique scent that is generated and compounded on-site. “For me this was a super-interesting thought,” Duerinck said at the DocLab Conference on November 17. “What if you take this idea of a perfume that determines how we all smell and you give it to an algorithm, and what if this algorithm starts finding and discovering new olfactory spaces where a perfumer with a traditional mindset would never go?”

Disruption

“And the more I thought about it, it would be a complete disruption of the perfume industry, [but] I knew that normal funding would never get me far. So I started thinking, I need to go to a different model, and I need to have a mission vision… I wanted to create a system where people could tell their own story in fragrance or in scent, basically to create what they want to create. I wanted to move away from the traditional concept of 300 people in the world telling the rest of the world what it is acceptable to smell like, or how not to smell. That was how my vision became bigger.

Frankenstein AI

Interactive artists Lance Weiler, Nick Fortugno and Rachel Ginsberg’s A Dinner with Frankenstein AI posed another fundamental question at the Conference: is artificial intelligence a modern equivalent of Frankenstein’s monster? And even more profoundly, what is like to be human? They sought to answer these questions by throwing a series of elaborate dinner parties for DocLab participants, which led to fascinating and stimulating human-to-human and human-to-machine interaction.

“The narrative conceit is that Frankenstein’s monster is an artificial intelligence that is wandering the internet in search of what it means to be human and it has been confused by all the polarisation, the toxicity, the extreme hate, the extreme love that it has found, and so it [decides] in real life to learn and observe from them [humans],” Weiler commented.

While participants ate a lavish two-course dinner, an AI was fed real-time transcripts of all the conversation conducted across the four dinner tables. Each diner wore an earpiece through which he or she received prompts and suggestions – “like a spirit or a muse” suggests Weiler – as to where to take the conversation, all to enable the AI’s better understanding of the human species.

Ambiguity

“What is interesting about this project is that it explores this ambiguity, the way that the machine, the AI actually crafts question in real time based upon sentiment,” Weiler continues. “So it listens to what is being said at the table and then renders one of 12 different emotions… And because there is a role of trying to nurture or trying help this AI learn – it is very much like a fish out of water, it doesn’t quite understand the world that it finds itself in – it becomes a very powerful kind of exchange.”

“At Colombia University School of the Arts Digital Story­telling Lab …we build creative systems, so the idea is that this project will have many different forms – at DocLab this happens to be a dinner party,” Weiler concludes. •

7

DOCS FROM FLANDERS PROUDLY PRESENTING AT IDFA 2018

Competition for Short Documentary Dutch Premiere

CO-PRODUCTIONS WITH FLANDERS Frontlight International Premiere

EVERYTHING MUST FALL

By REHAD DESAI Co-Produced by STORYHOUSEFILM

IDFA Competition for First Appearance International Premiere

Design: Team Flanders

MANU

AD_IDFA_265x375_DEF.indd All Pages

By EMMANUELLE BONMARIAGE Co-Produced by CLIN D’OEIL FILMS

Luminous World Premiere

15/11/2018 11:23

News

Online and Dutch

“What we did today from the perspective of NPO Start was to explain what kinds of trends we are seeing in the viewing of Dutch documentary,” Dannawi commented after the event. “One of them being shorter versions of documentaries. Television [scheduling policy] wouldn’t make it possible to view them in a shorter form – they have to be 30-35 minutes for TV – and now we are seeing with internet TV and on-demand viewing that shorter documentaries are being produced and watched too.”

The second trend Dannawi discussed was the tendency towards binge-watching, seemingly as popular a practice within documentary series as within drama series, citing examples such as Fourth Estate and Dutch Dance. “Today was also a very nice experience because usually programmers of channels don’t get to talk to the makers. We are always programming a programme or product that has already been produced.”

One such maker was DOCLINES’ Nolte, who launched her company as a response to financial cuts which she felt were jeopardising future doc production capacity. Her approach is not only to tell stories through documentary, but to promote wide engagement between the films and their audiences via Facebook, YouTube and ‘making of’ clips. She refers to this method as ‘docline story-telling’, capturing the audience

Jenny Booms, Mezen Dannawi and Monique Nolte Photo: Nichon Glerum

A November 16 panel at De Brakke Grond set out to examine Dutch documentary storytelling in the online age. Among those present were NPO Fund Secretary Jenny Booms and Mezen Dannawi, manager of NPO Start, the online service of Dutch national broadcaster NPO. Also in attendance was Monique Nolte, founder of the innovative multimedia platform DOCLINES. By Nick Cunningham

and keeping them engaged as the story develops even after broadcast. She also seeks to connect communities with influential parties (such as politicians or investors) to effect the changes that her films may suggest.

“Normally what we see is a stand-alone documentary for which artistic merit is more important than a large audience, but I think you can do both,” Nolte stressed. “You can integrate the documentary into a theme, into a wider form of storytelling and you can gain more impact and more reach.”

NPO Start’s Dannawi was particularly impressed by Nolte’s project Het beste voor Kees. “It wasn’t a film any more – it was a community,” he underlined.

NPO Fund’s Booms expressed how the meeting demonstrated the necessity to “start with good content and see whatever you can do. We have these great beautiful documentaries – how can we find other ways to increase the audience for these productions? There are new opportunities and channels and ways of producing, and there are audiences that are potentially interested in the subject or the forms of the documentaries who are not being reached at this moment. For me the conclusion of today was, how and at which stage can I, as filmmaker and producer, market my story and start to co-operate with experts like Monique in order to find the potential audiences?” •

Time’s up!

News

More. Contradictory. Nasty. Beautiful. I don’t care. Just more diversity please, for all.

I’m raising my voice and I want to be heard.

I want more knowledge of unconscious bias that rules everywhere”, Van Messel says. “People of colour are not wanted on the screens, women are treated like niche interest”, the First Hand boss continues.

A Thousand Girls Like Me

Esther van Messel, CEO of Swiss-based doc specialist First Hand Films, has made an impassioned call for the documentary community to react far more positively to the #metoo and #timesup movements – and for buyers of non-fiction to be prepared to deal with women’s stories.

“I want women’s stories on the screens.

10

“You Can’t Be What You Can’t See” is the slogan on flyers being distributed around IDFA by First Hand Films with details of its films telling women’s stories as the company campaigns for more female screen time.

“We are 52% of the population. Why are we niche? Why is our experience and our world niche?” Van Messel demands, citing the lukewarm reception from buyers for recent title A Thousand Girls Like Me (backed by the IDFA Bertha Fund) about a young Afghan woman fighting back against her abusive father, as an example of entrenched attitudes which still aren’t changing. It’s a gripping film which has generally sold well, but First Hand keeps on encountering pockets of resistance. “People say ‘yes, but we’ve done Afghanistan’. I say but this is the first woman who has succeeded in getting her abusive father jailed. It’s made by an Afghan woman, produced by a French woman”, Van Messel says. She talks of the “little moment of hesitation” she still encounters whenever she pitches projects with female protagonists. She also rails against the way broadcasters relegate stories about women to ghetto slots. “There is an unconscious bias in the non-fiction industry”, Van Messel says. For more than 20 years, she notes, the voting members at

Esther van Messel

the ARTE programme conference were all male.

The First Hand boss also speaks of her dismay at the fate of Laura Bari’s critically acclaimed documentary Primas – Courageous Cousins, about two Argentinian teenagers who overcame horrendous violence and abuse in their childhoods through their immersion in dance and theatre. “We have not a single TV sale on it in one year”, Van Messel notes of the film (which has sold theatrically in a number of territories). Commissioning editors in Europe have claimed it is too far away from the experiences of their audiences. She tried to counter that it is an inspirational story with a universal resonance.

“I feel I’m running into a glass wall, as nobody in docs (except for the BBC, who did a season on women this summer) reacts to #metoo, #timesup, and all that. I don’t want to be defensive, or rude, but our buyers are in a corner where they are not diverse”, the First Hand boss states. • By Geoffrey Macnab

The Column of Truth

Patriot games Feature-Length Competition

Much of Russian, Germany-based filmmaker Katja Fedulova’s work up until now has focused on strong female characters and stories out of Russia, but she arrives at IDFA this year with a darkly humorous medium-length work about intriguing political figure Vasily Vlasov.

By Melanie Goodfellow

questions he did not like, was merely a joke.

At the same time, she gives some insight into the male-dominated clique of admirers and advisors circulating around Zhirinovsky.

“I guess a lot of people would have walked away from Vasily, decided immediately that he was an obnoxious character, but there was something that fascinated me about him and what he said about Russia,” says Fedulova. “I wanted to take a closer look at him, in a way that was not only depressing but also very funny.”

Theatrical

“For my previous film, I toured the political milieu looking for characters. You get a lot of theatrical characters but often they don’t have much substance. But Vasily had both,” says Fedulova. “In Vasily, you had the substantial political roles that he played, and he was very theatrical. He was an ideal kind of a guy because you can’t deny that being a parliamentarian is something he has accomplished and at the same, he is very radical and not scared to show it.”

Balance

Fedulova and her close collaborator Calle Overweg, who co-wrote and edited the film, say striking the balance between Vlasov’s populist political line and his friendly, charismatic persona, was one of the challenges of making the film.

“We talked about it a lot. The whole making of the film was finding this balance. The spectator must feel something towards him, otherwise they will just walk away and stop watching the film”, he says.

“We always try to find this balance. Katja’s great idea was to take the first part of the interview where he doesn’t speak officially and we kind of continued the idea to use the moments when he is not officially on camera because in these moments you can see something else. It was always a question of finding a balance between describing somebody who engendered sympathy, but also danger.” •

Sara Gouveia

A baby-faced, smooth-talking political operator, Vlasov became the youngest parliamentarian in the Russian Duma when he won a deputy’s seat in 2016 at the age of 21, as a candidate for the populist, rightwing Liberal Democratic Party of Vladimir Zhirinovsky.

Fedulova came across Vlasov while doing research for her previous film Faith Hope Love about three Russian women – tied to three very different political causes but all with equal measures of patriotism and love of their Motherland – but could not use him because of her desire to give the work a female focus.

At first, Vlasov comes over as innocuous, slightly pompous character but bit by bit Fedulova chips away at his veneer to show a more unsavoury side, to both comic and chilling effect. She captures Vlasov as he trumpets that a woman’s place is in the home, drops racist or homophobic remarks, and explains that an infamous incident in which Zhirinovsky suggested his aides should rape a pregnant journalist, whose

In an age defined in part by the cynical manipulation of audio-visual media, we asked leading filmmakers and critics to discuss the concept of truth; our responsibility towards it and the means of measuring it.

In our fourth column, filmmaker Sara Gouveia argues for sincere, personal ‘truth’.

On Truth. Perhaps the question shouldn’t be how do we measure truth, but rather: how many truths are there?

This is why documentary filmmaking is such a fascinating medium: it can open doors into other truths, allowing us to question what we think we know of the world.

Are we “massaging the truths we capture” as documentary filmmakers for the sake of good storytelling? Of course, it would be unreasonable to believe that we could present anything more than a compromised version of truth anyway. So, maybe instead of looking for truth as something fixed, something that is right or wrong, we should rather look for sincerity, or personal truths, in the stories we tell. •

Industry talks spotlight data and blockchain The hot topics of blockchain technology and data will be in the spotlight in the Industry Talks programme on Tuesday.

Big data expert Eva Fernandez at Madrid-based cross-media production company Creta Producciones will give a talk on ‘Big Data In The Audiovisual Industry’, looking at whether audiences really control what they watch, or do they simply accept what is imposed on them.

She will give an overview of the new ways media companies are obtaining insights into viewership, by collecting and analysing data, with an emphasis on how streaming platforms are developing and targeting content around what they learn from their data.

A second data-related session entitled ‘Data-driven Audience Engagement’ will look at data from an audience engage-

ment standpoint, touching on how EU’s new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) impacts data collection.

Sonja Henrici, managing director of the Scottish Documentary Institute, will be sitting on the panel alongside Sarah Mosses, CEO and founder of London-based marketing and distribution agency, which uses technology to offer clients targeted campaigns for their content.

Mosses will be unveiling a new data application created by Together Film, to help professionals working in the audiovisual sector deal with their data.

UK-based blockchain expert Marcus O’Dair, a professor at Middlesex University and associate editor of Frontiers in Blockchain, will give a talk on how the technology could transform the creative economy, entitled ‘Blockchain and the Creative Economy.’ The blockchain guru believes the creative industries are entering a new era of frictionless licensing and fair and accurate distribution of revenue for large-scale collaborative projects.

He will discuss how centralised copyright data, automated payments and a more inclusive approach to data would encourage innovation, allowing entrepreneurs to build new services. He will also question what could be the consequences of this new distribution reality.

The blockchain and data talks are among ten talks, grouped under the Documentary in Demand banner, looking at how technology is giving rise to new players and new platforms which are having a profound impact on the documentary industry.

The programme has also touched on SVoD, niche documentary focused streaming platforms, as well as looking at how traditional forms of distribution are also adapting to the new landscape.

The latter topic was on the table on Sunday at a presentation of the DocXchange, a new initiative aimed at building a global network of dedicated documentary cinema exhibitors to raise the profile of documentary around the world. •

11

Best of Fests

International Competition for Mid-Length Documentary + Docs for Sale

+ Docs for Sale

Wongar

4 Years in 10 Minutes

Serbia | 2018 | 60 min.

Serbia | 2018 | 63 min.

Mladen Kovačević

Andrijana Stojković 18:45 11:45 17:00 13:00

Tuschinski 5 + QA Munt 13 + QA Munt 9 + QA Munt 7

Film Center Serbia

A puzzling archive reveals a journey to eternal glory that didn’t culminate in a cry of the victorious, but ended in a scream of the defeated.

Nov 15th Nov 16 th Nov 18 th Nov 20th th Nov 24

11.30 14:15 17:30 19:00 13:15

SERBIA@IDFA18

Tuschinski 3 Munt 11 + QA Munt 12 Tuschinski 3 + QA Brakke Grond Grote Zaal

IDFA OFFICIAL SELECTION

Connected by Aleksandra Maciejczyk

Nov 17 th Nov 20th th Nov 21 Nov 23 th

IDFA COMPETITION FOR MID-LENGTH DOCUMENTARY

In Touch BY PAWEŁ ZIEMILSKI Summa BY ANDREI KUTSILA IDFA COMPETITION FOR FIRST APPEARANCE

Diagnosis

BY EWA PODGÓRSKA

IDFA COMPETITION FOR SHORT DOCUMENTARY

Unconditional Love www.polishdocs.pl

Australian writer of Serbian origins lives a secluded life taking care of his 6 dingoes for which he believes embody the spirits of his tragically lost Aboriginal family.

BY RAFAŁ ŁYSAK

IDFA COMPETITION FOR STUDENT DOCUMENTARY

Connected

BY ALEKSANDRA MACIEJCZYK

IDFA COMPETITION FOR KIDS&DOCS

Dancing for You

BY KATARZYNA LESISZ

LUMINOUS

Compulsory Figures BY EWA KOCHAŃSKA Struggle. The Life and Lost Art of Szukalski

BY IRENEUSZ DOBROWOSKI FOCUS: ME

Father and Son BY PAWEŁ ŁOZIŃSKI Father and Son on a Journey BY MARCEL ŁOZIŃSKI TOP 10 BY HELENA TŘEŠTÍKOVÁ

The First Love

BY KRZYSZTOF KIEŚLOWSKI

BESTS OF FESTS

Home Games

BY ALISA KOVALENKO

PROJECT CO-FINANCED BY THE POLISH FILM INSTITUTE

The Column of Truth

Industry Talk

Ethical code

Patricia Aufderheide

When a producer from a wealthier nation strikes an international co-pro deal with a partner from a lesswell-resourced territory, how should responsibilities, revenues and rights be split?

In an age defined in part by the cynical manipulation of audio-visual media, we asked leading filmmakers and critics to discuss the concept of truth; our responsibility towards it and the means of measuring it. In our fifth column, scholar Patricia Aufderheide argues for a celebration of ethical standards of truth.

‘Code of Conduct – Towards An Ethical Way Of Co-Producing’ Photo: Nichon Glerum

This was one of the questions on the table at an industry talk over the weekend entitled, ‘Code of Conduct – Towards An Ethical Way Of Co-Producing’ at which top commissioners, fund chiefs and producers discussed how and if such a code could be introduced. The talk followed a threehour think-tank meeting on Friday to discuss the idea of a code in-depth behind closed doors, which in turn had grown out of working group meeting at the first edition of arab.european Doc Convention (aDC) in Leipzig last April.

Complex

“This is a very complex discussion,” said Mikael Opstrup, head of studies and co-production at EDN, who moderated the session.

He kicked off the debate by highlighting several key factors producers should take into consideration before signing a co-production deal, such as the individual expectations of all the partners, the legal framework under which the accord will be made, and the track record of the other partners.

Surprising

He also noted that it was surprising how many co-production deals were sealed without all the involved partners sitting down with the director to learn about their vision and expectations for the film. “The idea behind asking these questions is how can we co-produce so that the film becomes better”, Opstrup said.

He added that deals based only on funding tie-ins were not always the most successful and that producers should think carefully about how the balance of power can shift under a co-production and how this might impact a film.

Syrian, Berlin-based producer Diana El Jeiroudi, one of the instigators of the call for a code of conduct, said: “The fact that we are discussing whether we need a code of conduct is because something is wrong...”

Guidelines

The talk also looked at whether film funds should get involved in introducing, or even imposing, ethical co-pro-

ducing guidelines when meting out funds. IDFA Bertha Fund’s Isabel Arrate Fernandez said it was an issue that was firmly on her radar.

Managing the IBF Europe strand – aimed at co-productions between one European and one non-European partner – had given her an interesting insight into how co-production deals are often structured. “I can never get over the fact that in 90% of the co-production contracts I read, the share division is based on the finance plan”, she said.

“Many of these projects are based on projects I already know, through other grants, and I know that the producers who initiated these projects have been working on them for years and still when money comes in place, it creates an imbalance immediately.”

She also noted that the fund had no immediate plans to introduce a code of conduct, but that she was planning to draw up a set of guidelines for producers applying to the Fund. •

By Melanie Goodfellow

What is a truthful documentary? Since documentaries are portraits of real life, and all expression involves hard choices about representation, that’s a tough question that documentarians share with journalists, non-fiction book authors, and scholars.

There’s no easy out by saying, “I’m an artist.”

A documentarian is an artist with an obligation to honestly represent someone’s reality, with enough context to be in good faith with viewers.

We viewers aren’t asking for perfect accuracy, but we do love its bare minimum – fact-checking. We’re not asking for balance, but we do like transparency, a clear understanding of where you stand. We don’t need to hear from all sides, but we want context, so at least we’d know where to locate the story you’re telling us. We don’t like feeling betrayed. Snookered. Taken advantage of.

Besides the personal irritation when that happens, there are real-world consequences.

When documentarians deceive us, they are not just deceiving viewers but members of the public who might act upon that knowledge.

Documentaries help us understand not only our world, but our role in it.

One of my favorite mentors, the scholar James Carey, often said, “Reality is a scarce resource.”

Reality is not what is out there, but what we know, understand and share with each other of what is out there. Documentaries, always grounded in real life, all make a claim to tell us something worth knowing. Something to reshape the insides of our heads, and our actions as a result.

Too many marketers, corporate communications experts, political operatives and dirty-tricks specialists are leveraging documentary’s claim to trustworthiness. It’s time for documentarians not merely to behave ethically with their subjects and audiences, but to celebrate, honor, and create standards for that behavior. •

13

Een lustrum boordevol aansprekende verhalen Documentaires behoren tot de speerpunten van de publieke omroep. NPO is er trots op dat ook dit jaar weer een aantal NPO 2Doc Primeurs in première gaat tijdens IDFA, het belangrijkste documentaire-festival ter wereld. “Deze keer zelfs met een extra feestelijk tintje, want 2Doc bestaat vijf jaar. Een lustrum boordevol aansprekende verhalen die, net als de vijf tijdens IDFA vertoonde 2Docs, in de schijnwerpers staan op NPO 2.”

Gijs van Beuzekom, netmanager NPO 2.

20 november 20.25 uur 2Doc IDFA Primeur: Bellingcat – Truth in a Post-Truth World (VPRO)

20 november 23.00 uur 2Doc IDFA Primeur: Trapped in the City of a Thousand Mountains (HUMAN)

21 november 23.00 uur 2Doc IDFA Primeur: O amor é único (VPRO)

22 november 20.25 uur 2Doc IDFA Primeur: But Now Is Perfect (EO)

Groei mee met uw vermogen Kies voor een partner, meer dan een bank.

Ontdek hoe onze ervaren en betrokken bankiers u helpen groeien met iedere stap. Laag op laag, een leven lang.

Dat is private banking volgens InsingerGilissen.

EVERY STEP OF THE WAY

Wilt u kennismaken? Maak een afspraak op insingergilissen.nl.

21 november 20.25 uur 2Doc IDFA Primeur: Sylvana, Demon or Diva (EO)

News

News

Negotiating change

It’s the issue that is driving politicians and the public in EU countries to distraction and sometimes despair – and now it’s getting its very own documentary. Geoffrey Macnab reports Negotiating Brexit (working title) by Lode Desmet offers a behind-the-scenes look at the Brexit negotiations by following Belgian Guy Verhofstadt – lead negotiator of the European Parliament – over a period of two years. By chronicling the tugof-war between British and European parties, the film peers through a magnifying glass at the way in which politics are conducted in Europe today – and analyses the state of our democracy in times of populism and social media.

The project is being produced by Menuetto (run

by Hans Everaert, former COO at the Flemish Audiovisual Fund, VAF). Also involved are BBC, Films of Record (UK), ZDF-Arte, VTM and RTBf. The film is being shot at this very moment.

The doc is one of a slate of new films backed by the VAF. Speaking at IDFA this week, Karla Puttemans, Head of Production at VAF, gave details of some of the new Flemish documentaries likely to be hitting cinemas in the coming months.

Ben Asamoah’s Sakawa is screening in IDFA’s Luminous section. The VAF was one of the major backers of the project, about e-waste in Ghana.

As Puttemans explains, the Fund will often come on board documentary projects at a very early stage. “Directors and producers, they need our quality label to go and try to find co-financiers and co-producers abroad. We are the first important investor and they need our money to have some credibility with other parties that will be involved later on”, Puttemans explains.

These are boom times for documentary in Flanders. Puttemans hails the wealth of talent in the sector. She sees documentary as “the most progressive sector in the Flemish audio-visual landscape. It’s an embarrassment of riches which the Fund sometimes struggles to accommodate.

The VAF can’t support everything. The quality threshold is very high.”

Among other Flemish titles at IDFA this year is

Juanita Onzaga’s short Our Song To War, which revisits the Colombian village of Bojayá, where, in 2002, FARC guerrillas massacred many locals. The Fund didn’t back the short directly, but Onzaga is a winner of the VAF’s Wild Card scheme and Puttemans is following her career closely.

The Fund has an overall budget of around 1.5 million Euros a year for documentary and looks to back around 8 features and around 10 coproductions. The VAF has coproduction agreements with the Netherlands Film Fund and with the Walloons. It will also fund co-productions from elsewhere on a “case by case basis.” One frothy new title it has come in to support is Austrian documentary, Beer (Bier!) from director Friedrich Moser which “takes a deep dive into the international beer industry and the second-most consumed beverage on the planet.”

Puttemans says that new VAF head Erwin Provoost (who succeeded Pierre Drouot last year) is firmly behind documentaries. “His main goal for the near future is to try to get more funding from the government for documentary and animation. These genres have less funding than features.” Alongside auteur-driven films aimed at the big screen, Provoost is also looking to boost docs made for Flemish TV broadcasters – and to ensure that they have creative integrity, and aren’t just exercises in reportage.

Like other European film funds, the VAF is determined to achieve gender equality in its funding. Puttemans reels off the names of female directors who’ve emerged in recent years, among them Eva Küpper, Klara Van Es, Ellen Vermeulen, Christina Vandekerckhove, Griet Teck, Isabelle Tollenaere, Lut Vandekeybus, Flo Flamme, Liesbeth De Ceulaer, Janet Van den Brand, Sophie Benoot, Moon Blaisse, An van Dienderen and Onzaga.

One area of concern is the lack of local distributors ready to give docs theatrical releases.

However, Dalton Distribution is picking up many of the films backed by the Fund. “Theatrical is growing. There is no real culture of people in Flanders going to the cinemas to see documentaries, but there are positive signals”, Puttemans says of the increasing attention being paid to docs by cinemagoers in the region. •

The Swedish Film Institute (SFI) is investing in Jihad Jane, Ciaran Cassidy’s new film about Colleen LaRose, the American woman who became a Muslim jihadist and attempted to murder a well-known Swedish cartoonist. LaRose is collaborating fully with the documentary. This is one of a number of new, high-profile feature docs SFI is backing. Some are majority Swedish co-productions and some are Swedish minority films.

SFI is on board Jozi Gold, the next feature doc from Swedish doc director (and IDFA regular) Fredrik Gertten, who directs with Sylvia Vollenhoven.

Produced by WG Film, this looks at the environmental catastrophe facing Johannesburg as its gold mines fall apart.

The Institute is supporting Danish director Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s animated refugee/coming-of-age documentary Flee, produced by Danish doc outfit Final Cut for Real with MostFilms as the Swedish minority co-producer. Another intriguing project it is backing is Johan von Sydow’s Tiny Tim, about outcast artist Herbert Khary (likely to be ready for early next year and produced through Momento Film). Meanwhile, SFI also invested in the development of Scottish-based documentary Scheme Birds, about Gemma, a teenage troublemaker from a deprived Scottish community. This is directed

by Ellen Riske and Ellinor Hallin, produced by Ruth Reid and Mario Adamson and is likely to be ready for festivals early next year. The Institute is supporting Stig Björkman’s The Writer (working title), a new documentary made through Mantaray Film about celebrated American writer Joyce Carol Oates.

Produced by Stina Gardell, this will also be released next year. Another SFI-backed documentary, critical hit Reconstructing Utøya from Carl Javér, a feature doc about the massacre on the Norwegian island, is expected to surface internationally next year.

Here at IDFA, various Swedish films are in selection, among them Theresa Traore Dahlberg’s short The Ambassador’s Wife and Eloy Domínguez Serén’s Hamada. SFI has around 3.5 million Euros a year to invest in documentary.

Earlier this autumn, the Institute announced a new support scheme, International Distribution Support, aimed at foreign distributors acquiring and releasing Swedish films. This is open for documentaries too. Through it, a foreign distributor can apply for up to 25,000 Euros per territory in which the Swedish film is being released.

There is automatic support (also opened up to documentary) for films projected to achieve significant box office success and to reach 50,000 admissions. Hasse & Tage, a film about the hugely popular local comedians, is the first doc to trigger the support. This is produced through B-Reel. Through the support, filmmakers who fulfil the criteria are granted 30% of the budget for their next project. Documentary Film Commissioner at the Swedish Film Institute, Juan Pablo Libossart, calculates that he has around 40 projects in development (around 80% of them features). • By Geoffrey Macnab

Hamada

Sakawa

SFI backs docs

15

CAFE DE JAREN THE BEATING HEART OF IDFA OPEN ALL HOURS CAFÉ DE JAREN Nieuwe Doelenstraat 20 +31 20 625 57 71

Rokin

PATHÉ DE MUNT Muntplein

Amstel

Vijzelst raat

TUSCHINSKI

ein Rembrandtpl

NPO Fund is proud to support the following film screenings at IDFA: #pestverhaal 180cc Bellingcat - Truth in a Post-Truth World But Now Is Perfect Good Neighbours Lenno & the Angelfish L I S T E N The Man Who Looked Beyond the Horizon ‘Now something is slowly changing’ Outside In Skip and the Rhythm Rangers You Are My Friend PL AN

TA www.npo-fonds.nl G

EM

EN

CAFEDEJAREN.NL Restaurant La Vaca We invite you to come over and visit Restaurant La Vaca, the best steakhouse of Amsterdam!

Enjoy the typical South American cuisine and ambiance.

Our Argentinean grilled meat will melt on your tongue.

We are looking forward to serving you.

Steakhouse La Vaca

Thorbeckeplein 11-13, 1017 CS Amsterdam Open daily from 12:00 to 00:00.

T: +31 (0)20 62 53 999

www.restaurantlavaca.nl

IDD

Hoe geeft het alledaagse leven inzicht in de grote vragen van onze tijd?

Bekijk het op human.nl/docs

LA

AN

Mountain man

Up the Mountain

Zhang Yang

Geoffrey Macnab talks to Chinese director about moving from fiction to documentary and filming nature Sixth Generation Chinese director Zhang Yang is at IDFA with his feature documentary, Up the Mountain. This is one of his first forays into the doc world after his success with such dramatic features as Quitting and Shower. The new film is part of a trilogy of documentaries, all set in Yunnan Province. Its main character is sophisticated, big city artist Shen Jianhua, who comes from Shanghai but is now living in a village in the province. He teaches art to the local community, influencing their lives in sometimes surprising ways. The film is listed by its sales agent, Fortissimo, as a docudrama, but these are real people, not actors.

Zhang Yang Photo: Corinne de Korver

Symphony of nature

Interviewed on a late Saturday afternoon in the NH Carlton Hotel, Zhang cuts a dapper figure in leather cap and striped leather jacket. He points out that the artist in his film, Shen Jianhua, is a friend. He has known him for 10 years and saw him as a natural subject for his documentary. No, the director says: he didn’t set out with the intention of making a “Yunnan Province trilogy,” but the more time he spent in the area, the more potential stories occurred to him. He spent a year making Up the Mountain but felt he had more to say.

This is why he quickly embarked on a second film, Voice of Dali – a “symphony of nature” set in the region and following the lives of villagers over a year, from autumn to autumn. He then made Mao Mao Cool, shot over a month or so and set in a local primary school.

Zhang himself grew up in Beijing but moved to the region a decade ago. He prefers the pace of life there to in the big city.

Many artists and designers live in the community which, he says, has a unique atmosphere, very different from that elsewhere in China.

Liberating

“ You have to find your individual investors to invest in you.”

Up the Mountain is a long way removed from handheld, verité-style filmmaking. The film has a real formal elegance.

At one stage, we see a character walking down the mountain – a tiny, moving dot set against a huge landscape. The director wasn’t working from a script and was shooting what was happening in front of him, but he still composed his shots in painstaking, painterly fashion. He says he found documentary liberating. He was able to shoot with a much smaller crew than on his fictional features and to take more time. As critics have noted, his fictional movies have strong realistic elements anyway. In some of his films, for example on Quitting (about an actor battling drug addiction), real life characters have played themselves.

Like many other documentary makers, Zhang shot huge amounts of material while making Up the Mountain. He had 20 hard drives packed with hundreds of hours of footage.

This was a film he discovered during the editing. On Mao

Mao Cool, which he shot in 25 days, he knew exactly what he was looking for, but with Up the Mountain and Voice of Dali, he “went with the flow.” This meant that the editing took a small eternity. “I had to throw out a lot of footage,” he says with evident understatement. Up the Mountain may be about a painter, but Zhang himself doesn’t dabble in that particular art. “I am no good at it”, he says. He uses cameras, not brushes.

Steeped in movies

Ask the director about his filmic influences and he cites such figures as Taiwanese master Hou Hsiao-hsien and Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa. When it came to breaking into the film business, Zhang had a head start on many of his contemporaries. His father, Zhang Huaxun, was a director too – one of the pioneering figures in kung fu filmmaking in mainland China. Zhang had small roles in some of his father’s films. However, he himself has little interest in martial arts but, thanks to his father, was steeped in movies from an early age. Even during his school days, he knew he wanted to become a filmmaker.

Zhang began his career directing music videos and working in theatre. He credits Fortissimo with helping bring his work to the attention of an international audience. Fortissimo handled his 1999 feature Shower, which screened at multiple festivals (including San Sebastian and Toronto) and went to sell to 68 countries – a level of international exposure matching that of such other prominent Chinese directors as Zhang Yimou. This put him on the radar of festival programmers and distributors worldwide.

As a member of the so-called Sixth Generation, he is part of a wave of Chinese filmmakers who are considered more ‘artistic’ and individualistic than their predecessors. He points out that he doesn’t have the advantages of European directors who can apply to national broadcasters and state funders for support for his films. Instead, he has to raise finance from private sources. “You have to find your individual investors to invest in you. Because the [Chinese] market is so big, that makes it a little bit easier to find the money”, he suggests.

Freedom

After its premiere here in Amsterdam, Up the Mountain will be screening next month in Macao. Zhang isn’t sure yet whether he will continue to make documentaries or return to the fiction field. He makes it clear, though, that he “really likes” the freedom documentary gives him. “It could go both ways,” he says of what direction his career will now take. In the short term, he is back on the festival trail but then he will decide whether to continue on the doc trail or return to fiction. •

17

Beeld: Westwood: Punk. Icon. Activist.

Het Uur van de Wolf op IDFA Westwood: Punk. Icon. Activist.

Lorna Tucker

The Miracle of the Little Prince

Marjoleine Boonstra

Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes

Sophie Huber

  

NTR Avond van de Wolf dinsdag 20 november | Tuschinski 2 Drie eigenzinnige kunstdocumentaires, met nagesprekken o.l.v. Co de Kloet ntr.nl/hetuurvandewolf

De beste queer documentaires zie je bij OUTtv Pro on demand!

HEARTBOUND VANAF 13 DECEMBER

GENESIS 2.0 VANAF 10 JANUARI

GOEDE BUREN VANAF 14 FEBRUARI

‘NU VERANDERT ER LANGZAAM IETS’ VANAF 21 MAART

www.outtvpro.com With the support of Creative Europe - MEDIA Programme of the European Union

OUT app2 IDFA 2018.indd 1

BESCHIKBAAR IN

BESCHIKBAAR IN DE

NU OP IDFA, STRAKS IN DE BIOSCOOP

23-10-2018 13:55:57

adv_CD_IDFA_Daily_2018.indd 1

30-10-18 11:31

The Column of Truth

Feature-Length Competition

True lies Melanie Goodfellow talks to the maker of Feature-Length contender Hungary 2018 Eszter Hajdú about the state of affairs in her home country

Fearless documentarian Eszter Hajdú’s hard-hitting Hungary 2018 captures the mood in her country in the lead-up to the general elections in April of this year, which saw the far-right populist Fidesz-KDNP alliance led by incumbent Prime Minister Viktor Orbán sweep back into power with a twothirds majority.

Crossroads

In the months leading up to the vote, Hungary was seen as standing at a historic crossroads as its electorate decided whether to embrace a populist, authoritarian-style of rule or a pro-European, open-minded, democratic model.

Prior to the vote, political commentators outside the country suggested Orbán’s time could be up, but Hajdú’s portrait of the election campaign suggests this was wishful thinking and that the pro-European, left-wing parties never stood a chance in the face of the Fidesz-KDNP alliance’s populist propaganda campaign and control of mainstream media.

Document

Using a network of covert camera operators, Hajdú captured multiple rallies at which ministers, representatives and supporters of Orbán’s government use aggressive homophobic, anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, anti-European, anti-Western and pro-Putin rhetoric to whip up the crowd.

In the process, they spout nonsensical, made-up facts and figures. At one rally, for example, a speaker falsely claims tens of thousands of young children in the UK have undergone sex-change operations by misguided parents, as an example of the ills of liberal societies.

“I felt it had to be documented because this hate and fear propaganda, it works

with lies. The government is spreading lies and it is spreading these lies through the media. They have total control of the media. The opposition doesn’t have access to the media. I felt there must be a document of this propaganda and this election campaign of 2018,” says Hajdú.

paganda and the whole country is becoming more insular. It’s becoming a sort of anti-Utopia: it’s anti-refugees, anti-Jews, anti-Europe, anti-homosexuals, anti-Western, anti-everything that belongs to free and democratic societies.”

Anonymity

Hadjú says Hungary’s move to the right is strange on many levels because, at the time of the break-up of the Soviet Union and the country’s transition to total independence, it was one of the most open territories in the Eastern Bloc.

“There was a lot of hope that Hungary would be open,” she says. “It was always a fairly homogenous society, apart from its Roma minority, but it was open and wanted to belong to the West and to democratic societies. It embraced liberalism and human rights, but we’ve reached a point now that even if you mention the words ‘human rights’ you’ve come from the devil. It’s really ugly.”

Fear of reprisals from the extremists after Judgement in Hungary led Hadjú to relocate to Portugal with producer and husband Sandor Mester and their young daughter, although she is still able to travel back to her native Hungary – for the time being at least.

This contrasts with the message of pro-Europe, left-wing opposition politician Ferenc Gyurcsány, who calls for Hungarians to stand by humanity rather than nationalist-led politics, and who Hadjú shadowed for part of his campaign. The politician will attend a screening of the film on Wednesday.

Hajdú could not step foot in these rightwing rallies, however, instead relying on footage supplied by crews signed up for the events, who did not want to be credited on the film.

Mainstream

The filmmaker says the film leads on organically from her 2013 work Judgement in Hungary, which premiered in competition at IDFA, capturing the trial of right-wing extremists who randomly attacked members of the Roma community, killing six people including a five-year-old child.

She suggests that the racism she documented in Judgement in Hungary is no longer the domain of an extremist minority but has now crossed over into the mainstream in Hungary.

“Even at that time, I was sure that this racially-motivated killing was happening because of huge structural racism in Hungarian society. Now, after looking at where we are now, it’s clear to me that it is at a government level”, Hajdú says.

“The government is spreading extreme right propaganda all over the country.

There is constant hate and fear pro-

Open

Fascist

She acknowledges it is interesting to be living in a country that was also ruled by a fascist regime in recent history, under the authoritarian leaderships of Antonio de Oliveira Salazar and Marcelo Caetano.

“Yes, it does reverberate for us and it is interesting to see how Portugal has gone in the opposite direction from Hungary.

The people have understood that the policies of Salazar don’t work and they don’t want to go there again”, she says. •

William Uricchio

Hungary 2018

In an age defined in part by the cynical manipulation of audiovisual media, we asked leading filmmakers and critics to discuss the concept of truth; our responsibility towards it and the means of measuring it. In our fourth column, academic William Uricchio reflects on the increasingly Orwellian machinations of the powerful.

We inhabit an odd moment. As I began to write this, the Press Secretary of the White House tweeted out a crudely altered video clip of a press conference, using the images to defend her expulsion of a CNN reporter from the press corps. And the American president backed her, tweeting “Nobody manipulated it. Give me a break. See that’s just dishonest reporting.”

Even in an era described as “post-truth”, such a move seems audacious. Even at a moment characterized by routine appeals to emotion and by the dismissal of any unwanted news as “fake news”, such a move seems shocking. It shouldn’t, of course. The administration has been clear: “Truth isn’t truth,” asserted the president’s legal advisor, Giuliani; and Trump himself proclaimed, “Just remember, what you are seeing and what you are reading is not happening,” echoing Big Brother’s “most essential command” in Orwell’s 1984.

What’s shocking about this latest ‘twist’ – besides its widespread acceptance – is that it is playing out on our turf in the domain of the moving image as evidence. Sure, we, the insiders, are smart enough to realize that manipulation can be part of the game, and we know that the technologies behind ‘deep fake’ are growing more powerful by the day. But they don’t know, and they, like many of us, still retain a naïve faith in the image.

So what’s our responsibility to the truth? To reveal the tricks of the trade, as Dziga Vertov did some 90 years ago. To help society to see clearly and critically. And to fight for what we know to be true, not what we want to be true.

Oscar Wilde said, “The truth is rarely pure and never simple.” But it is our responsibility to interrogate complexity, to distinguish fact from fiction, and to assure transparency in our use of media. •

19

Soyalism Frontlight

For Soyalism, Enrico Parenti and Stefano Liberti visited a number of countries where soybean monoculture is destroying vast swathes of land, displacing ecosystems and dispossessing local people in its allconsuming wake.

“We started digging into the issue and found out that, in the last few years the sector has been literally taken over by a bunch of huge companies – not only Western, but also Chinese ones”, Liberti says ahead of the doc’s World Premiere in IDFA’s new Frontlight section. “These companies are making huge profits, plundering the environment and putting small farmers out of the market.”

“We chose the most emblematic places to show how this system works”, he explains of their choice of filming loca-

tions. “The United States, where factory farming was created nearly 40 years ago; China, where production and meat consumption is skyrocketing and the government is heavily supporting the system’s industrialisation; Brazil, that is destroying huge parts of its territory, including the Amazon rainforest, to make room for soybean to be exported to China; and Mozambique, where an industrial plan to produce soybean on a huge fertile area has been challenged and discontinued thanks to resistance from small-scale farmers.”

In spite of the urgency of its subject-matter, Soyalism retains a light touch, mixing quirky animations that effectively demonstrate the destructive processes at work in the global meat industry and how these have come about with catchy music, interviews, footage from industrial and organic farms and processing plants and poetic street footage, particularly from the streets of Shanghai in China.

“Paradoxically, in China we could do everything we were prevented from doing in North America”, Liberti comments.

“We could visit slaughterhouses, factory farms and investigate the whole supply chain. In general, Chinese managers are more open than American ones – maybe because the development of industrial livestock operations in China is very recent. They are somehow proud of the results they have achieved, so the meat bosses were eager to talk to us and even show us around. In the US, the companies producing industrial meat did not even reply to us. So in the US we worked with civil society: we met people fighting the livestock factory system, such as NGOs, single activists or alternative farmers. This was less easy in China, where civil society is not as outspoken as it is elsewhere in the world.”

“We must say that, after the news of our IDFA selection was made public, we were contacted by a number of festivals across the planet interested in screening the film”, Liberti adds. • By Mark Baker Mon 19 16:00 Munt 10; Tue 20 19:00 Tuschinski 6; Sat 24 16:15 Brakke Grond Rode Zaal; Sun 25 12:15 Tuschinski 6

‘Now something is slowly changing’ In minimalist style, mint film office’s Feature-Length Competition documentary addresses the enormous growth in the business of personal development, writes Nick Cunningham In every scene of Now something is slowly changing we are offered a static and invariably symmetrical mise-en-scene in which the trade in mindfulness and personal growth is played out. Each segment, depicting numerous practices such as pig massage therapy, self-expression through energetic modern dance or ante-natal classes for dads, is edited into single long takes. There is neither music nor talking heads/interviews, and no intervention whatsoever on the part of the filmmaker. In this sense, the documentary is also a reflection on the process of filmmaking itself.

“Documentaries have become more and more character-driven and rely heavily on dramatic developments,” points out mint film office’s Menna Laura Meijer. “We must identify, we must feel, we must be swept away in drama and emotions… so we took away all the elements that are normally used in a film to push emotional and narrative developments. No main characters, no interviews, no sound-design, no music, only wide angles, and no camera movement.”

As an audience we therefore observe the myriad processes designed to alleviate 20th century angst through the director’s ostensibly non-critical, but nevertheless curious,

20

Feature-Length Competition

lens. “I was not particularly interested in a lack of bias towards any subject,” continues Meijer. “When you make a film you always have an opinion. Most filmmakers are excellently trained in hiding this opinion or presenting opinions as facts. When you want to convince people to participate, it is extremely stressful when you have a hidden agenda – you always have to be aware of ‘the truth’ seeping out. So, I am open about my ambitions and intentions with the film.”

“I have no problems with people looking for answers. I do have questions about what triggers the pursuit – is it your problem

that brings you there, or does the industry generate problems because that is how they keep themselves in business?” she adds.

Meijer also saw the opportunity to challenge her own filmmaking modus operandi with this film. Her dynamic and sumptuously multi-layered We Margiela (2017) told the dramatic story of radical Belgian fashion house Maison Martin Margiela, while 69: Love, Sex, Senior (2013) addressed the subject of sex among the elderly, much of the time via interviews to camera.

“I wanted to take away all the things I can and do [well] in filmmaking,” she under-

lines. “My work is known for… a manner of filming [designed] to underline and push the identification and emotions. I wanted to challenge my filmmaking more. Doing what you can and know is boring. I never quite understand how directors can stand repeating their work for so long… I don’t find that interesting enough. For me, I need more than that.” • Mon 19 16:30 Tuschinski 3 (P&I); Tue 20 21:15 Munt 11; Wed 21 14:15 Tuschinski 4; Thu 22 17:30 Brakke Grond Grote Zaal; Sat 24 21:00 Ketelhuis Zaal 1

Meat is murder

Geoffrey Macnab talks to Russian documentary filmmaker about his two latest projects When he was a four-year-old boy growing up in Russia, Victor Kossakovsky befriended a four-month-old piglet which he nicknamed ‘Vasya’. He was devoted to the little animal – and distraught when it was taken away to be slaughtered and eaten. Ever since, Kossakovsky (whose new film Aquarela is a Dutch premiere in IDFA’s Masters section) has never eaten meat. “I was the first vegetarian in the Soviet Union, maybe”, he boasts.

Victor Kossakovsky Photo: Bram Belloni

Aquarela

Masters

Victor Kossakovsky

was not able to go out [of the sty]… but then two piglets came and helped her to get out.”

After filming the piglets in Norway, he headed to Wales to film chickens. Again, he was startled by the level of these animals’ intelligence. Next, he headed to the English Midlands to film cattle. “You will be surprised by the emotional life of the cows – how they experience freedom, for example, and how they show when they are happy.”

As the filmmaker notes, even the most advanced, eco-aware societies still often have a blind spot when it comes to meat-eating and animal welfare.

Frame rate

Kossakovsky’s 10 rules for documentary include such edicts as “Don’t film if you want to say something – just say it or write it” and “Don’t film if you already knew your message before filming.” He doesn’t see himself as a campaigning filmmaker and still insists that if we use filmmaking “for any purpose other than cinema, we betray it.” Nonetheless, he clearly feels that viewers can be swayed by the images in his new animal film. “I wanted to show finally who they [the animals] are, not just how we treat them. This was my point. If you show how bad we are, it will not change anything but if you will see who they are, you might think what to do next.”

Kossakovsky’s Aquarela, which is about the power and beauty of water, was shot at 96 frames a second.

Unfortunately, very few venues are equipped to show it in its original state. IDFA, like other festivals, will be showing it at 48 frames a second. The Russian director is hopeful that the right projectors will be available in time for the film’s release in the US through Sony Pictures Classics next summer.

“If you film fast frame rate, you need four times more light.

In fiction films, you can do it easily, but in documentary, you can’t,” the director explains of the technology. “In documentary, you have to open the iris, open the aperture…”

The effects that can be achieved, though, are mind-boggling. Kossakovsky argues that 96 frames a second “is the most intense, the most cinematic, most unusual and most expressive” way in which to make spectacular documentaries such as Aquarela. If you film rain at 96 frames a second, every individual droplet will be visible. If you film forests from a car window, each tree will be utterly distinct. At 24 frames a second, this clarity is lost.

Kossakovsky believes that high-frame rate filmmaking can have a revolutionary effect on filmmaking. “One moment, colour appeared. One moment, sound appeared. Now, it is time to change the frame rate.”

Social intelligence

Natural born killers

Immortal

Kossakovsky spent two months filming piglets in Norway.

“There are 2 billion pigs in the world at the moment and 99.9% live in horrible conditions – but in Norway there are some places where people give them more space. I decided to see how they behave if people give them more space.”

The director was astonished by what he witnessed. “They are able to do things we would never imagine. For example, one little piglet was damaged during the process of being born. She was limping. When everyone was running, she

The director calculates that humans are killing seven billion animals a year. However, the documentary deliberately avoids showing the slaughterhouses. “We are killers. That is why it is not surprising that we kill people. Killing is part of our nature,” Kossakovsky reflects. “We allow ourselves to kill and not to think about it. We are killing every day… we are the ones ruining the planet.” The director is making the new documentary with Norwegian producer Anita Rehoff Larsen.

“She took a risk because no-one wanted to film this.”

As for Aquarela, making it meant Kossakovsky studied water, celebrating its beauty and power – and often literally immersing himself in it. He may have finished the documentary, but its subject still affects his day-to-day life. He has given up alcohol and will now drink nothing but water.

“When I was in Greenland, I saw men cutting ice from icebergs to drink it,” he remembers. He followed their example. “It is pure and clean – and it is alive. Water does not die. Water is immortal,” he proclaims. •

Murder

His new project Krogufant (on which he is still working) picks up on those childhood memories. It is likely to make carnivores feel very uncomfortable. “If you show something like a slaughterhouse, you will not achieve anything,” the director says of the wave of campaigning films in recent years which have highlighted the human cruelty behind food production, without managing to stop it. In his documentary, he intends to show instead that pigs, chickens and cattle are intelligent creatures with deep-rooted emotional lives – able to feel compassion, and even humour. “I decided to spend time with animals in the same way that, if I film a person, I will sit with them,” the director says of his painstaking approach.

He cites a saying attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci: “The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men.”

Rules

21

Partners of IDFA Premium Partner of the 31st International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam

Club IDFA ABN AMRO Bank NV, BlinkLane Consulting, Brand New Telly Industries, deBreij, Gingermood, Houthoff, JBR, Jean Mineur Mediavision, Le Poole Bekema, Rabobank Amsterdam, Qelp, Uitgee�huis Nieuw Amsterdam, Rotaform, Van Tunen + Partners

Main Partners

Donations to IDFA Acción Cultural Española, AVROTROS, Club chUrch, Embassy of Canada, Embassy of Denmark, Embassy of Israel, Embassy of Switzerland, Embassy of the United States of America, EO, EYE International, Goethe-Institut, HUMAN, Institut Français des Pays-Bas, Istituto Luce - Cinecittà, KRO-NCRV, LaScam, Lut�ia Rabbani Foundation, NPO Sales, OUTtv, Romanian Cultural Institute Brussels, Sauna Nieuwezijds

Partners

In cooperation with NPO (Dutch Public Broadcasting) IDFA will broadcast 5 new Dutch documentaries on TV during the festival

IDFA is subsidized and funded by

IDFAcademy is supported by

IDFA DocLab is supported by ARTE, Diversion cinema, Flanders Audiovisual Fund, Flemish Arts Centre de Brakke Grond

IDFAcademy & NPO-fund Workshop / Kids & Docs Workshop is supported by

IDFA Forum is supported by

Research Collaborations

IDFA Bertha Fund is supported by

Amsterdam Human Rights Award is supported by

Suppliers Alvero, Arti et Amicitiae, Art Support BV Theaterproductiebureau, Bijlmer Parktheater, Booking.com, Brouwerij de 7 Deugden, Café de Jaren, Compagnietheater, De Balie, De Kleine Komedie, DeLaMar Theater, Ditmeijers, Eden Rembrandt Square Hotel Amsterdam, Event Engineers, EYE Film Instituut, FedEx Express, FestivalTickets, Fifth Friday Sisterhood, Fiona Online, Haghe�ilm Digitaal, Hapeco, Het Ketelhuis, Hôtel Droog, IndyVideo, Internationaal Theater Amsterdam, inVision Ondertiteling BV, Koninklijk Theater Carré, Lichtwerk, MacBike, Mausolos, Mazda Motors Nederland, Momkai, Mercure Amsterdam Centre Canal District, NH Hotel Group, Oberon, Pakhuis de Zwijger, Podium Mozaïek, Prinsengracht Hotel, Rex International, The Screening Factory, Skatepark NOORD, Splendor, Tolhuistuin, VBVB Cultuurautomatisering, Vlaams Cultuurhuis de Brakke Grond, Volkshotel, Zuiderkerk Festival Campaign KesselsKramer Distribution Festival Trailer Jean Mineur Mediavision IDFA would like to thank all (Special) Friends of the festival

IDFA Journal Editors: Mark Baker, Nick Cunningham, Melanie Goodfellow & Geoffrey Macnab Picture Editor: Sandra de Cocq Photography: Roger Cremers, Annemarie Dekker, Nichon Glerum, Corinne de Korver,

Jurre Rompa, Thomas Schlijper, Joke Schut Design: Gerald Zevenboom & Sjoukje van Gool Press: Rodi Rotatiedruk Diemen

Want more IDFA? Every day, we share more videos and podcasts of IDFA Talks & Industry Sessions.

Watch the videos: Check our online archive of festival videos curated specially for industry professionals. Featuring a selection of Industry Talks, Sessions and extensive interviews with �ilmmakers, experts and protagonists.

Listen to the podcasts: Keep a lookout for our social media reporters!

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for the most exciting IDFA moments minute-by-minute:

@idfaindustry | @IDFAindustry | @idfafestival

22

adv_VPRO_IDFA_ProgramGuide_16-10-18.indd 1

17-10-18 11:15

Fashion statement

Photo: Nichon Glerum

“In walks this woman in six-inch platform shoes with long red hair, looking like the sexiest thing ever… it was a bonkers day.”

Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist director Lorna Tucker talks to Melanie Goodfellow about working with legendary designer Vivienne Westwood and about her new project Amá It has been a tumultuous 12 months for filmmaker Lorna Tucker, whose first feature documentary Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist is playing in IDFA’s Best of Fests section. Tucker kicked off 2018 with a dramatic debut for the film at the Sundance Film Festival, when the Vivienne Westwood label put out a statement on the eve of its premiere saying it had not endorsed the work and dismissed it as “mediocre” after Tucker refused to bow to demands for changes to be made in the final cut.

The filmmaker dispels media reports she is locked in a feud with Westwood, saying: “There’s no feud. She was out of order, that’s all. She wanted to have creative control and I said ‘no’. I couldn’t have lived with myself as a filmmaker if I had given in.”

Alongside travelling the festival circuit and supporting its theatrical release in the UK, US and (soon) Germany and Japan, Tucker has also been finishing post-production on her second documentary, Amá.

The new documentary, due to premiere in London in December, is a decade-long passion project exploring statebacked sterilisation abuse of Native American women in the US, produced by music executive Ged Doherty and actor Colin Firth, under their Raindog banner.

Self-taught

This growing success comes after a 15-year struggle to break into film for the self-taught filmmaker who quit school early without a single qualification and then juggled cleaning and carer jobs while bringing up her first daughter alone and pursuing her filmmaking aspirations.

Tucker recounts how she broke into film-making while working at a pub close to the Hackney Road Recording studio in East London. “I dropped out of school and spent time in and out of rehab as a teenager, but I discovered photography when I was young and this was a way out for me,” she explains.

“Some of the bands would stop by the pub after their recording sessions and I got to know them and offered to do some photography for free,” continues Tucker, mentioning groups like Unkle, The Cult and Queens of the Stone Age. One thing led to another and Tucker then offered to shoot footage of bands while they were on tour, even though initially she had no camera skills at all. “It was loads of fun. I was in my early 20s, going on tour with rock bands and making some terrible footage. It took me a good six months to learn to use the camera properly, but I was such a blag artist,” recalls Tucker. “But it also taught me a lot about observing people and watching stories unfold. It also convinced me that I wanted to tell stories through film.”

Empathetic

The seeds were planted for upcoming film Amá after Ian Astbury, lead singer of The Cult, saw a series of photographs Tucker had shot during a post-rehab trip in the early 2000s of Nepalese women caught up in their country’s civil war.

Astbury had become interested in the plight of Native American women who had been sterilised against their will as part of a government plan to combat poverty. He thought Tucker – with her empathetic, observational way of working – was the right person to tell the tale. She was wary at first. “I have been very aware my whole life of not wanting to be the white girl who goes into situation to put it right,” she says.

But after Astbury funded a trip for Tucker to travel to the US to meet Native American activist Charon Asetoyer, the filmmaker was hooked. Raising finance and garnering industry support as an unknown was an uphill battle, however. “I’d said yes, I am going to do this, but I didn’t know how I was going to do it. I didn’t know how to raise the money. I started meeting people in the film industry; producers, other film directors”, Tucker says.

“I found the whole scene quite cliquey and cold,” she continues. “One of Britain’s biggest commissioners, I won’t say

who, first of all said ‘I don’t get it’ and secondly asked ‘as a single mum, how are you, if something comes up, going to be able to film?’”

Fabric

Around the same time, Tucker got a call from Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age and James Lavelle at Unkle asking if she could film them in the recording studio with Westwood, who had asked them to produce a rap song she had written. “I will never forget this moment for the rest of my life. I was sitting in this tiny recording studio while Pablo from Unkle was setting up when in walks this woman in six-inch platform shoes with long red hair, looking like the sexiest thing ever… it was a bonkers day.”

Tucker and Westwood bonded over their mutual interest in the Native American cause, which the designer had supported as part of her activism work, and the pair kept in sporadic contact. A decade later, Westwood asked Tucker to pitch for a documentary about her work. “She said, ‘directors are pitching to do a fashion film and I don’t really like any of them, would you send in a pitch?’,” recounts Tucker.

Westwood remained ambivalent about the idea of making a documentary, but would let Tucker into her world intermittently, allowing her to shoot. “I slowly broke down the layers between Vivienne and the camera. I became part of the fabric of the place, even for the staff.”

Rags to riches

Tucker says she was fascinated by Westwood’s backstory, her humble origins; relationships with popular culture icon Malcolm McLaren and then Andreas Kronthaler, the Austrian fashion student who came to Britain for work experience and never left; and the early up and down fortunes of her fashion empire. “For me, it’s a story about so many things. It’s a ragsto-riches, underdog story. It’s got all those things that make you go, the key is never giving up”, Tucker says. •

23

NL_245x172_5_SH(2)_Sestava 1 10/19/18 3:11 PM Stránka 1

© SEP

Par amour du documentaire Iedere dinsdag om 18:40 - ´Secrets d´histoire´ NL europe.tv5monde.com/nl

Kanaal:

71

41

500

421

Beleef IDFA met de Volkskrant Voor meer informatie ga naar:

volkskrant.nl/idfa VK_IDFA_245x172.5+5mm.indd 1

10-10-18 14:31