IDFA Special 19-20 November 2012

WIDE OPEN

THE FORUM

FORUM TURNS 20

The 20th edition of IDFA’s Forum co-financing event kicks off on Monday, with upcoming documentaries from Renzo Martens, Yoav Shamir, Johan Grimonprez, Lucy Walker and Fredrik Gertten among the 58 projects due to be presented, Melanie Goodfellow reports.

At its launch at the Paradiso in 1993 in collaboration with Documentary, which later morphed into EDN, the Forum was the first event of its kind for documentaries. Among the 70-odd projects that year was The Story of Writing from British filmmaker Paul Greengrass, who would go on to make hit pictures such as The Bourne Supremacy, but retain links with his current affairs and documentary background through features such as United 93.

Other 1993 projects included Finnish John Webster’s Tits and Tango, the tale of an Estonian strip-teaser later released as Don’t Tell Daddy, and an early project from Swedish filmmakers Pea Holmquist and Suzanne Khardalian, entitled The Armenian Prince.

Taking stock of the Forum’s 20-year history, IDFA industry chief Adriek van Nieuwenhuijzen credits the event with helping pioneer a new form of collaborative funding for documentaries. “One of the Forum’s biggest achievements was bringing broadcasters together to create a truly international documentary community working together to co-produce and co-finance feature-length documentaries”, she says.

The 20 Central Pitches – productions with at least 25% of their finance in place – include Johan Grimonprez’ The Shadow World, an investigative, multi-media exposé of the international weapons trade, and Callum Mcrae’s The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka about the bloody end of the country’s civil war, in which 40,000 people were slaughtered.

South Korean Yi Seung Jun, director of last year’s feature-length competition winner Planet of Snail, will present Like Wind, Yeji and I, about a mother trying to communicate with her deaf and blind daughter.

A number of IDFA habitués will be presenting projects in the

MEDIA FUND MEET

Today there will be a meeting between the Dutch Cultural Media Fund and interested parties from the documentary world at 1 pm in the Tuschinski Lounge. Fund director Hans Maarten van den Brink will give his view of the situation, information will be given and the views of those present discussed with a view to upcoming events such as the parliamentary debate on 10 December in the Dutch Lower House.

Round Table section for productions at an earlier stage of financing. Swedish Gertten will unveil his urban biking project Bikes vs Cars – War Time; Israeli Shamir a portrait of the late, legendary Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, and Danish Anders Ostergaard 1989, looking at the international politicking behind the fall of the Berlin Wall. “It took a while for people to warm to the Round Table section and not regard it as second string selection, but now people really like it”, comments Van Nieuwenhuijzen. “I wouldn’t mind doing only Round Tables, but the Central Pitches create the sense of an event.”

The Forum will also run pitching sessions dedicated to Arts and Culture and Crossmedia for commissioners specialised in those fields. A new Work in Progress section will also launch on Wednesday morning. Rough-cut versions of five documentaries will be shown, including Lucy Walker’s untitled snowboarding documentary about snowboarding star Kevin Pearce who suffered severe brain damage in an accident in 2007. Acquisition professionals attending Doc for Sales are also welcome at the event.

‘The format for Work in Progress will be slightly different. The pitching teams will be able to show 30 to 40 minutes of their films, followed by a Q&A”, says Van Nieuwenhuijzen.

Looking to future, Van Nieuwenhuijzen says the event is constantly evolving, but one major innovation she is mulling over is the introduction of a co-producing element to foster producerto-producer interaction. Up until now, the Forum has focused on pitching projects to broadcast commissioners. “We’re formulating the idea at the moment and putting out feelers within the industry, but essentially we’d like to get producers together… to look at how they can co-operate more closely in raising finance for documentaries and access state funds across several territories.”

CONQUER THE WORLD!

Co-presented by BritDoc’s Jess Search, on 22 November a conference (in English) on the position and future of Dutch docs on the international market will be held in the Compagnietheater. Under the title Dutch Docs Conquer the World, the conference will consist of keynote presentations followed by panel discussions and topped off by the presentation of the Media Fund Award Kids & Docs.

Tickets available from www.idfa.nl/industry

On the eve of IDFA, docs specialists Wide House has ramped up its slate. Here in Amsterdam, Wide’s General Manager Anais Clanet has been talking up her new Brazilian pick-up Elena (screening in the First Appearance competition) from director Petra Costa. The film, a multiple winner at the Brazilian Film Festival, has already secured theatrical distribution in Brazil through Eitau. Clanet is also negotiating US and Benelux deals on the doc, a poetic meditation on love and loss. The Wide House boss is touting the film as an intimate family doc in the same vein as Sandrine Bonnaire’s Her Name is Sabine (2007).

Buyers have been clamouring to give a home to Wide’s Approved for Adoption, an animated doc about adoption in Korea. Recent deals done include Japan (Tollywood), Korea (Eyewitness), Canada (Fun Film), Switzerland (Andasdy Films) and Iran (Century 21). These follow on from the US deal closed at the AFM. Also new on Wide’s IDFA slate is Even a Bird Needs a Nest, about the forced evictions crisis in Cambodia (screening in the mid-length competition). Meanwhile, Wide has received a UK offer on This Ain’t California, a doc about skateboarders and young rebels in the GDR. Following its success with Two in the Wave, its strong-selling doc about French auteurs Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut, Wide has boarded another doc about the post-war era in French cinema. Les Enfants Terribles tells the story of a festival formed in Biarritz in the late 1940s by Jean Cocteau; an event that hugely influenced the future emergence of La Nouvelle Vague.

Another movie-themed doc on the Wide slate is The War of the Volcanoes, on the turbulent relationship between Roberto Rossellini and legendary actresses Ingrid Bergman and Anna Magnani. It has been sold to the Czech Republic (Film Europe), Russia and CIS (Cinema Prestige), and other territories, as well as to Sky in the UK for TV.

Geoffrey Macnab

SHORT CHANGE

Swedish director Fredrik Gertten will pitch his latest project Bikes vs Cars – War Time, about the battle between the urban biking community and the car and oil lobbies, in a Round Table session at the Forum on Tuesday.

A precursor to this feature-length project, Gertten’s threeminute doc The Invisible Bicycle Helmet, about two female Swedish entrepreneurs who have invented an invisible bicycle helmet, was at the heart of an industry talk on selling shorts on Saturday. Gertten produced the work as part of New York-based short film distributor Cinelan’s General Electric-sponsored Focus Forward initiative, consisting of 30 three-minute films looking at innovation by top international documentary makers.

“It’s quite a challenge to make something containing emotion and depth lasting just three minutes… that’s normally the length of a news story”, said Gertten, adding the first films in the programme had set the bar high. “I saw the first five films at Sundance and got a bit nervous. When I saw Jessica Yu’s Meet Mr. Toilet, I thought ‘Oh shit’”, he quipped.

Gertten received $20,000 from the Fast Forward programme, which was matched by the Swedish Film Fund.

“We premiered the film at a number of film festivals and released it on Vimeo at the same time, where it racked up 1.4 million hits in four days”, Gertten said. “The story went viral and turned into a news story which was picked up CNN, ABC and The Washington Post.”

Cinelan co-founder Karol Martesko-Fenster said the digital age had created a new audience – and sometimes market – for short films. Melanie Goodfellow IDFA – 1

DUTCH AND FLEMISH PRODS JOIN FORCES TO PITCH REGION Documentary producers from the Dutch-speaking part of Benelux – The Netherlands and Flanders – will be teaming up this Wednesday to pitch the region as an attractive co-production partner. The event marks the first joint outing for the two producers’ associations, DPN (Documentary Producers Netherlands) and Flanders Doc. Among other things, the presentation, which is part of the IDFA Forum, will look at funding opportunities available in both The Netherlands and Flanders.

While the Netherlands Film Fund and the Dutch public broadcasters face serious budget cuts, and the Dutch Media Fund is expected to close its doors in the next few years, things are looking much more positive in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium. “In addition to the VAF/ Film Fund and the tax shelter, there’s also been the recent launch of the VAF/Media Fund, which is aimed at supporting quality television productions, including documentary series,” explains Flanders Doc chairman Mark Daems. Myriam De Boeck, documentary project co-ordinator at the Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF), will also be on hand to answer questions.

This year’s IDFA features a number of co-productions with minority Flemish input: The Gatekeepers

by Dror Moreh (co-prod: Anna Van der Wee for Wild Heart Productions) in Feature-Length Documentaries competition; Mussels In Love by Willemiek Kluijfhout (co-prod: Bram Crols and Mark Daems for Associate Directors); Anton Corbijn Inside Out by Klaartje Quirijns (co-prod: Savage Film); Guerilla Grannies – How To Live In This World by Ike Bertels (co-prod: Ellen De Waele for Serendipity Films); and The Only Son by Simonka de Jong (co-prod: by Eric Goossens

The Only Son

for Off World). It shows that several players already dispose of valuable experience in the co-production field. Although it’s their first international outing, the associations have met before.

“We had a very good first meeting at this year’s Docville fest in Leuven,” continues Daems. The most ‘enlightening’ part of the day, he says, was a case study on the self-distribution of documentaries. “The Dutch approach is a rather classical one that begins and ends with the 30 or so arthouses they have. They invest a lot for a rather small return. Producers there are also discouraged from self-releasing their films. In Flanders, we only have a few arthouses so we have had to think differently, which has been to our advantage. We had to look for alternative screening venues, and developed other initiatives such as the Flanders Documentary Days, when five docs are shown in five cities. We showed them that you can obtain better results with a relatively smaller investment.” In Leuven, “the idea also grew to meet on a regular basis, and do things together whenever we feel there’s an opportunity. And IDFA is of course the perfect occasion to pitch ourselves to the rest of the world.” Henry Womersly

BILSEN PITCHES WHITE ELEPHANTS

SNAKE DANCE REDUX

Kristof Bilsen was at IDFA last year with his graduation film White Elephant. Now he’s back for the IDFA Forum, the festival’s co-production market, with a project that will extend the short documentary into a feature.

In this feature project, called White Elephants, Bilsen wants to continue the story of the Kinshasa central post office which he portrayed in his graduation short and explore the city’s railway and fire stations.

“These three places give you a universal reflection on the working state,’ he explains. ‘The idea is that it also mirrors where we might be heading in times of global crisis.”

Bilsen thinks the project will benefit from IDFA’s system of roundtable pitches. “They are more informal and we are still at a stage where we can really welcome feedback and discuss where the project is at.”

He will be pitching, along with producers Mike Lerner of Roast Beef Productions in the UK and Bram Crols of Associate Directors in Belgium.

The goal is to secure pre-acquisition deals and find possible broadcast co-production partners.

Ian Mundell

It’s a long and intriguing journey from a mental asylum in Germany after the First World War to the New Mexico desert at the time J. Robert Oppenheimer was working on the atomic bomb; from there on to the Belgian Congo and then to contemporary, post-Fukushima Japan. However, Snake Dance, the new doc from Belgian filmmaker Manu Riche and English writer Patrick Marnham, draws some surprising and very provocative links between all these very different worlds.

As Snake Dance reveals, in1895, German art historian and anthropologist Aby Warburg had visited New Mexico. He became fascinated by the rituals of the Indians, who would dance with rattlesnakes to master the power of lightning.

This isn’t just a film. Accompanying the doc at several of its screenings (including one of the IDFA showings) is a theatrical introduction in which actor Jerry Killick plays Aby Warburg, lecturing on the religious symbolism of the Hopi Indians. “After the last sentence, he leaves the stage and the film starts,” Riche explains.

Meanwhile, Marnham has also written a book, due to be published in November 2013. By the end of the First World War, Warbrug’s health was in tatters. He had been diagnosed as an ‘incurable schizophrenic’ and locked up in a German psychiatric hospital.

Half a century after Warburg’s visit to New Mexico, the Indians he had studied so closely were recruited as assistants on the ‘Manhattan Project,’ the race to build the world’s first atomic bomb overseen by the brilliant young scientist, Robert Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer and his team were opening a Pandora’s box, strengthening the US as a world power

but risking apocalypse in the process.

“The whole scientific community never questioned that invention,” Riche suggests of the atomic bomb. “America is not questioning nuclear weapons.” He can’t help but see the irony in a subject so big and important becoming a taboo. Whether after the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki or after the recent disaster at Fukushima, it’s as if the very subject of nuclear power and its potential for destruction is too big for us to handle.

• Snake Dance + Performance, 24 Nov, 19.30, De Brakke Grond Geoffrey Macnab

LESS IS MORE IN THE WAVE The subject of Sarah Vanagt and Katrien Vermeire’s Paradocs-selected short documentary The Wave is a sensitive one: the investigation of a site thought to contain the bodies of men executed by Franco’s followers in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War.

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At frequent intervals Vanagt and Vermeire took still images of the site, first asking the forensic archaeologists to remove their tools and leave the frame. Edited together these images become a time-lapse film in which the bodies slowly emerge from the earth.

As well as the shifting soil, the images are animated by the changing light as clouds

pass and the sun moves, casting shadows over the site. Finally, the bodies are removed one by one, leaving the merest trace on the soil.

These close-up time-lapse images are framed by others, for example showing the landscape or relatives of the dead men gathering to visit the grave. Meanwhile the

sound design uses birdsong, the wind and other ambient sounds from the site.

Less is more in The Wave. It makes its mark by leaving out detail that conventional filmmakers would consider essential.

It continues Vanagt’s interest in the visual treatment of history and how people relate to it. Ian Mundell

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LONDON REVISITED

LOOK BACK AT IDFA

A quarter of a century after Absolute Beginners (1986), his ill-fated, London-set musical adaptation of Colin MacInnes’ book set in 1950s London, Temple has made another London-set movie – and has earned some of the best reviews of his career in the process.

Nick Fraser, Commissioning Editor for BBC Storyville, has well over a decade IDFAs under his belt. Every one of them a good vintage.

London – The Modern Babylon (screening in Reflecting Images – Masters) was commissioned as part of the Cultural Olympiad to tie in with the London 2012 Olympic Games. Much of the film is made up of archive footage shot over the last century, but there are a few clips from Absolute Beginners too.

“There’s an irony in a way of putting that stuff in”, Temple reflects on cannibalizing his own movie for his new doc. “The real reason is that I couldn’t find enough good footage of teddy boys!” The director points out that the two films shouldn’t really be regarded as companion pieces and that many of his other docs about the Clash, the Sex Pistols and Dr Feelgood have also had a strong London influence.

The Modern Babylon shows how London has been transformed from a predominantly white, Victorian-era city into a sprawling, multicultural, multi-ethnic metropolis. “It’s about how the city has almost turned itself inside out”, Temple says.

This was certainly not an easy film to pull together. “I think we watched about 6,000 hours of archive”, Temple states. “It took about eighteen months (to make the film) and I’d say the first eight were just looking at stuff.” Temple had to “watch every frame” because he “wanted the archive to tell the story.”

Alongside the archive footage, there are some freshly recorded interviews with quintessential London figures, among them politician Tony Benn (reminiscing about the Blitz) and flamboyant artist and writer Molly Parkin. “I wanted it to be looking from the street up rather than the top down, but I did want some voices people would know around the world like Ray Davies (of the Kinks) or Benn.”

The narrators include Michael Gambon, Imedla Staunton, the director’s daughter Juno Temple, Keith Allen, Bill Nighy and Andy Serkis.

Temple acknowledges there is an autobiographical strain to The Modern Babylon. He was born during the smog of 1952 which killed 4,000 people and grew up in Primrose Hill. His father was from Somerset but his mother was from the East End.

When did you first start coming to IDFA? I can’t remember. I think about 13 or 14 years ago. I was just starting Storyville. I remember very clearly that we won a prize for the Leslie Woodhead film, A Cry From The Grave.

Have there been any vintage years that have really stood out for you?

No, I think the great vintage of IDFA is Ally Derks. So every year is a vintage year and every year is an Ally year.

What’s the biggest change at IDFA over the last 25 years?

I think IDFA has changed very little. That’s a good thing.

It’s a place where you go to watch documentaries, usually in the rain. It’s also a place that reflects the progressive views of the Amsterdam intelligentsia. They are a very important and underestimated group of people.

Which IDFA events stand out?

Nothing really stands out except that I always have a good time and I always get soaked.

How many of Fred’s Bitter Balls have you eaten over the years?

I try not to eat Dutch food at all. The only thing I don’t like about Amsterdam is Dutch food. I think it’s an absolutely wonderful place full of quite astonishing people who you can’t find anywhere else in the world but the cuisine is a bit like British cuisine 30 years ago. I can’t deal with Dutch cuisine. It’s one of my six failings in life and I really apologize for it. I can deal with Dutch lefties, but not Dutch cuisine. Geoffrey Macnab

Julien Temple

Photo: Nadine Maas

Temple’s father was a prominent member of the British Communist party. “I had a strange upbringing because it was very intellectual on one level but we lived on a council estate. He would be blasting Beethoven on a Sunday morning and the kids on the estate didn’t like that very much.”

The Modern Babylon (sold by EalingMetro) is one in an on-going series of feature docs about cities with strong musical identities.

Temple has already made Requiem For Detroit (2012) and he is already preparing Children of the Revolution: This Is Rio. The new doc is likely to feature an appearance from Great Train robber Ronnie Biggs (who briefly sang lead vocals for the Sex Pistols in The Great Rock’n’Roll Swindle).

Like most of Temple’s docs, The Modern Babylon has a strong subversive, anti-establishment streak, Nonetheless, when it screened in London during the Olympics, many saw it as a filmic counterpart to Danny Boyle’s Olympic opening ceremony. “I think they were both celebrating where we’ve arrived at in Britain, rather than clinging just to the heritage side of our culture.”

Geoffrey Macnab

CNN FILMS MAKES IFDA DEBUT Vinnie Malhotra, head of news channel CNN’s recently launched documentary strand CNN Films, is at IDFA for the first time this year, on the hunt for international titles.

“Our first films have been Americanfocused,” says Malhotra. “But the idea in the long-run is not to just do films primarily with American filmmakers focused on American subjects, but to expand the slate to include top international filmmakers to bring a new perspective.”

“That’s why I’m at IDFA. I want to establish an on-going relationship with the festival and to meet and speak to filmmakers, international distributors and representatives of other media organisations, to create a pipeline”, continues Malthotra, who will be attending the Forum as an observer this year.

The former ABC News producer and then head of content development at sports channel ESPN joined CNN last March. “I got a phone call from CNN who were looking for someone to develop original content for them, produced and directed by external production houses and filmmakers”, says Malhotra.

“It was a very new endeavour for CNN which, like any large news organisation, had always done everything in-house.”

After initially focusing on television series – commissioning Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown, exploring some of the world’s lesser known cuisines “starting in Myanmar and ending up in the Congo”, and Morgan Spurlock’s Inside Man, exploring American subcultures, Malhotra shifted the focus to one-off documentaries, launching CNN Films some six weeks ago.

CNN Films’ central remit is to produce or acquire four feature-length documentaries a year. Titles on the slate for broadcast in 2013 include Richard E. Robbin’s Girl Rising as well as projects

Vinnie Malhotra

from Andrew Rossi on the United States’ burgeoning college debt crisis and Michael Tucker on a mystery related to the 9/11 attacks.

Robbin’s Girl Rising, consists of eight real stories about girls overcoming the odds to follow their dreams retold by writers and reconstructed in a variety of different genres with voiceovers by actresses including Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway. “We’re looking for one more title for 2013. It could be we pick up something here, or perhaps early next year at Sundance say. We’re on the lookout”, says Malhotra. Melanie Goodfellow

Photo: Nichon Glerum

DOCS FOR SALE TOP 10 Black Out................................................................. 32 Wrong Time Wrong Place ........................................ 31 Miss Nikki and the Tiger Girls ................................. 29 I Am Breathing ........................................................ 20 Poor Us – An Animated History of Poverty .............. 20 Bad Boy High Security Cell...................................... 19 9 Muses of Star Empire ............................................ 18 Are You Listening! .................................................... 18 Công Binh - The Lost Fighters of Vietnam............... 18 Sexy Baby ................................................................. 18

ANTON CHECK-OUT Thierry Detaille of CBA/WIP-sales revealed to the IDFA daily that there is considerable Russian broadcaster interest in his Summer With Anton (Jasna Karjinovic), screening in Reflecting Images – Panorama, and at Docs for Sale.

The film concerns a young boy who attends one of Putin’s military-oriented summer camps. “We like this film very much because it shows the little boy or little girl in all of us,” commented Detaille. “Will he remain a child or will he become an adult too fast? We think that it will leave a strong imprint on people’s minds; a frail little boy among these tough guys. A simple, efficient, touching characterdriven sorry.” Also in DfS is the similarly-themed The Boy is Gone whose director (Christoph Bohn) discovered a WWII portrait of his father in Nazi uniform. The film covers this dark period of his family history. “These are these two films about youths who are pushed too quickly into adulthood. For us, we are defending and preserving educational values for these young people who will be the adults of tomorrow.” Detaille’s third Docs for Sale title is Basque Chronicle, about a mayoral campaign in a town under ETA control. Nick Cunningham IDFA – 3

EXPANDING CHILE

Constanza Arena (right) with members of the Chilean delegation at IDFA on Sunday

Chilean promotion agency CinemaChile is to take the leap into national distribution, Geoffrey Macnab reports.

Speaking at IDFA, Constanza Arena (CinemaChile Executive Director) confirmed that the agency’s new distribution arm will handle Chilean docs as well as feature films. The first film that the agency will release into Chilean cinemas early next year will be festival hit Thursday Through Sunday from Dominga Sotomayor Castillo (a Tiger award winner in Rotterdam earlier this year). The distribution initiative will be announced formally in Ventana Sur next month.

There is a large Chilean delegation (“15 people and 9 films”, as Arena points out) in Amsterdam this week. Among the Chilean docs in the main programme are The Women and the Passenger

by Patricia

UP THE STAIRCASE Cat & Docs has confirmed multiple sales on its competition entry The Staircase 2 – The Last Chance by Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, Geoffrey Macnab reports.

Buyers of the doc (screening in IDFA’s feature-length competition) include a host of prominent broadcasters, among them the BBC, The Sundance Channel, VRT, Yes, SVT and CBC. The film (taking up the story of Michael Peterson, convicted of his wife’s murder, as told in the 2007 doc The Staircase) has been submitted to The Sundance Festival.

Also new on the company’s slate is Jaken Anhvu’s Blush of Fruit (First Appearance Competition), a doc exposing abuses in a Vietnamese orphanage. Meanwhile, one Cat & Docs title bound to create a din in Amsterdam is Lisa Fruchtman and Rob Fruchtman’s Sweet Dreams, about Rwanada’s first all-female drumming band. The drummers are expected in Amsterdam in the coming days.

Here at IDFA, Cat & Docs is handling sales on Bangladeshi doc Are You Listening! (examining the threat posed to the country by fast rising sea levels). This film, directed by Kamar Ahmad Simon, has also been submitted to Sundance.

Another new title on the company slate is Despite the Gods

by Penny Vozniak, a doc following David Lynch’s maverick daughter Jennifer as she attempts to shoot a movie in India.

Company President Catherine Le Clef has confirmed further sales on Call Me Kuchu. Following its acquisition and theatrical release by Dogwoof in the UK, the film (about David Kato, Uganda’s first openly gay man) has gone to Germany (Arsenal). “It’s the still the most important festival for documentaries in Europe”, Le Clef said of IDFA. “You see (films) for every taste and you have some great ones. It is still the best.”

Photo: Nichon Glerum

Correa and Valentina Macpherson, and Carlos Klein’s Where the Condors Fly. Meanwhile, receiving its world premiere in the IDFA DocLab competition is MAFI.tv – Filmic Map of a Country, a compilation of short docs that, combined, give a unique insight into day-to-day life in contemporary Chile.

CinemaChile has invested to ensure that more and more of the country’s filmmakers and producers can attend doc markets and festivals. “Firstly, I would really consider it a successful mission if any of our films could achieve a prize. Secondly, it would be very important to have sales for films that are in Docs For Sale or even the producers that are here with their projects”, Arena said of the agency’s goals for IDFA. She also pointed out that the country’s doc makers accept they need to look beyond home borders to get their films financed and seen. “Documentary filmmakers in Chile have always been conscious that they have to go international.”

CUTTING CONTROVERSY Los Angeles-based Michael Singh’s controversial feature doc Valentino’s Ghost (sold by Cat & Docs) has been cut in advance of its likely US broadcast in early 2013.

The film explores the shifting image of Arabs and Muslims in US media and culture. Public television executives were reportedly unhappy at the outspoken nature of the film’s critique of anti-Arab prejudice in the US media. “We were instructed to make the one-hour version by removing as much controversial material as possible”, Singh said of the demands made for the one-hour broadcast version. The cut screening at IDFA is over 90 minutes long. Singh has also made a shortened TV version for European broadcasters, but this will retain the film’s more contentious elements.

The spark for the movie came when Singh was asked by two Israeli producers for whom he was writing a script about Biblical prophecies to “illustrate the Antichrist with images of Arabs.” He protested, but the producers ignored him. In the end, he says, he took his name off the credits. “I thought this was an interesting phenomenon. I had noticed in Hollywood and in my personal contacts, denigration of Islam was socially acceptable. That to me intellectually was fascinating and emotionally was revolting.”

Singh and his producer Catherine Jordan went to huge lengths to secure some heavyweight interviewees, The Independent’s foreign correspondent Robert Fisk and historian Niall Ferguson among them. (Johnson was insistent on the use of Ferguson.) The US broadcast has been delayed, partly because of the doc’s success at festivals. Having screened at IDFA this week, the film will now be showcased in Doha and is unlikely to surface on American TV until March or April. Geoffrey Macnab

AGITATED ICONS “I want my IKON back!”, leading Dutch doc producer Pieter van Huystee protests. Geoffrey Macnab reports.

Here at IDFA, the producer is presenting Leo de Boer’s I Want My Money Back (in which the director looks back on how he lost a small fortune on the stock market). He is also agitating for a reversal to the waves of mergers and cuts that is threatening public broadcasting outfit IKON, which has a long history of supporting docs. “They do excellent documentaries and have always a very open eye on the world”, the veteran producer comments.

Speaking at IDFA this week, while railing against the cutbacks at Dutch broadcasters, Van Huystee has also revealed details of his current slate. Van Huystee is at the Forum with Renzo Martens’ provocative new project A Gentrification Program.

The Episode III – Enjoy Poverty director is planning to use art to “gentrify” a small village in the Congo. Van Huystee also produced Mercedes Stalenhoef ’s Karsu, about singer Karsu Dônmez, billed as the “Dutch Norah Jones”, a world premiere in the Competition for Music Documentary. Cinema Delicatessen is to handle Dutch distribution on the project.

Meanwhile, Van Huystee also produced another IDFA title, Ramon Gieling’s Blind Fortune, about blind lottery ticket sellers in Malaga, Spain. Intriguingly, the producer has revealed that he is set to distribute the film himself. He owns a “sleeping” distribution company Public Film, which he is now planning to revive. He is also a co-producer on Amsterdam Stories USA, a bold new doc about the 17 villages and towns in the US that are called Amsterdam. This is being directed by Rob Rombout and Rogier van Eck. Van Huystee is currently producing The Inner Landscape, a new doc by Frank Scheppers about a leading Chinese composer. He is also still working on new Boris Gerrets’ Sierra Leon-set doc The Shadow Man (aka A Long Night’s Journey Into Day). Another project is Hieronymous Bosch – In Touch With The Devil, which Van Huystee will himself direct. This follows five experts as they use state-of-the-art technology to scrutinise Bosch’s most famous and apocalyptic paintings.

Michael Singh (right) at the extended Q&A after the screening of Valentino’s Ghost Photo: Nadine Maas

IDFA HISTORY IN BRIEF

PART III: 1998 – 2002 The Yugoslav Wars, the Middle East Conflict, the Chechen War and 9/11: just some of the world events feeding into the documentaries presented at IDFA over this period. Topical titles of the period included Sharon Shamir’s Middle Eastern-related Peace by Piece and Amos Gitai’s Tapuz, Christian Frei’s War Photographer, capturing James Nachtwey at work in Kosovo and Sergei Bosenko’s Chechensky Gambit. The attacks of 11 September 2001 reverberated across the festival that year. “The world is topsy-turvy. Everything changes. The IDFA programme as well. It is strange to notice how differently we watch films after this date”, wrote festival head Ally Derks in her catalogue preface that year. “How to deal with the present?” a filmmaker friend has asked.

“By continuing to make documentaries, which is more important and complicated now than ever.” The festival was still digesting the implications of the attacks and the ensuing Afghanistan War in 2002, its 15th anniversary, under the “What do you believe?” selection, focusing on what drives fundamentalists of any creed with films such as Lucy Walker’s The Devil’s Playground, Vatche Boughourjian’s Noble Sacrifice and Rick Kent and Mimi George’s Modern Tribalism. Melanie Goodfellow IDFA – 5

WINTER NOMADS He may have travelled extensively across many continents, but Manuel von Stürler didn’t have to go too far to make a film about nomadic life, writes Nick Cunningham.

One day, director Von Stürler opened the door of his house outside Lausanne and met a shepherd called Pascale with an enormous flock of sheep. They were engaged in the process of transhumance, in which livestock is transported across hundreds of miles, over many months, before delivery to the end-user. On the way, the shepherd would sleep like a nomad, in tents or under blankets beneath the stars. In Von Stürler’s film, nominated for a European Film Award, Pascale has an apprentice in tow, the younger Carole, and without recourse to narration or interview the pair’s 4-month adventure transporting their flock of 800 sheep is recorded. The story is at times epic, evoking cattle drives across the American frontier, and at other times blissfully bucolic, reminiscent of the novels of Thomas Hardy, such is the film’s attention to agricultural detail. And then there are the animals: Polo the donkey, whose hooves sink six inches into the

Pascale, director Manuel von Stürler & Carole after the premiere on Thursday

mud when laden down with baggage; frisky sheep-dog Titus, who has to be muzzled after taking one too many nips out of an unsuspecting stray; and the bellwether sheep Irmate and Maryline who resolutely lead the flock. “Of course, the animals were important characters in themselves”, Von Stürler points out.

Von Stürler undertook a practice-run with Pascale before finally committing to the enterprise. The idea seemed sound enough,

BLUSH OF FRUIT “Philanthropist” Tong Phuoc Phuc is revered in Vietnam and internationally for his charitable work saving babies from abortion, adopting some 100 unwanted children over the last decade.

Australian director Jakeb Anhvu’s fly-on-the-wall debut feature explodes this popular myth, exposing the severe mistreatment of the toddler residents of Phuc’s children’s home in the southern coastal town of Nha Trang, as well as the former construction worker’s embezzlement of donations, from at home and abroad. Anhvu, who is participating at the IDFA Academy this year, spent nearly a year recording life in the orphanage for this shocking exposé, featuring disturbing footage of two and threeyear-olds being beaten.

In what sounds like a virtuous model, Phuc also takes-in single mothers, who in turn help care for all the children in the home.

They are not necessarily the best candidates for this role. Anhvu, who arrived in Australia in 1979 as a child with his parents as part of the wave of boat people to hit the country in the wake of the Vietnam War, stumbled on the children’s home while doing research for another film on his father’s origins.

“About eight years ago we discovered that my father had been

“The Danish Film Institute thought it was a fantastic idea, to allow people living in the conflict zone in Afghanistan to tell their own stories using mobile phone video. So I went out there to test the concept”, the director explains. “When I came back, it turned out the quality of the footage from the phones was not good enough. Fortunately, we then got more financing from the Danish International Development Agency, and this meant we could afford to buy high-quality phones. I was actually surprised in the end by the quality of the images we got from them.”

The aim of the film, Khaja says, is to counteract the stereotypical, Eurocentric view of Afghanistan normally presented by the Western media. “Because of the difficulty of access, you have to rely on stories from Westerners – soldiers & journalists – operating in the big cities. You don’t feel the war here, from the Afghan side”, he explains. “Even the critical stories from Afghanistan only show statistics, or images of victims; it’s hard to relate to them as people. People here may have sympathy for Afghans, but it’s very hard to feel empathy. In my movie,

REFLECTING IMAGES – BEST OF FESTS Winter Nomads – Manuel von Stürler Mon 19/11, 15:30, Brakke Grond Expozaal; Thu 22/11,13:45, Tuschinski 1

RAFEA: SOLAR MAMA adopted as a child by my grandmother. We had no time to quiz her as she went into a coma shortly after revealing this fact and died two months later”, says Anhvu. “I wanted to do a film about my father and asked him to fly back with me to Vietnam but it didn’t work out”, he continues. “But I stayed and started doing research for a film on orphans in general, on how they are raised and adopted out. I toured a number of orphanages, four in Hanoi, two in Saigon and then Phuc’s place in Nha Trang.”

“I hadn’t planned to make this documentary but in the process of filming the orphanage I discovered that Phuc wasn’t as honest as he claimed to be”, explains Anhvu. “I didn’t set out to make an investigative documentary, it just turned out that way.”

Asked why Phuc allowed him to film the conditions in the orphanage he says: “I was there for four months before I could start using my footage. The mothers and children were too aware of my presence and weren’t acting naturally. But after a while I became part of the furniture and I think they sort of forgot I was there… In the beginning I asked them to stop hitting the children… by the end, I just filmed.” Melanie Goodfellow IDFA COMPETITION FOR FIRST APPEARANCE Blush of Fruit – Tong Phuoc Phuc Tues 20/11, 16.00, Munt 12; Fri, 23/11, 11.15, Tuschinski 2

MY AFGHANISTAN – LIFE IN THE FORBIDDEN ZONE Nagieb Khaja’s feature-length contender My Afghanistan – Life in the Forbidden Zone could have ended up being a web-based project only, but funding from the Danish International Development Agency allowed the film to go ahead.

but he needed to be sure that the adventure would sustain a feature-length film. “It is important to be careful of first impressions, which is why I spent a lot of time researching. So I did one transhumance in advance. The film was then planned for the year after”, he confirms. He also spent much time figuring out how best to shoot the enormous flock. “The movement of the all the animals together is very choreographic, and I really wanted to take advantage of that because these movements within nature have a strong poetic force and message.”

The director tells how he feels honoured to be nominated for a European Film Award, but feels greater satisfaction each time he experiences audience reactions to the film. “The public is overwhelmed by the film and nourished by what comes across”, he stresses. “I have travelled with it on all continents and the response is always the same, both among cinephiles and the general audiences. I am always overwhelmed by that pleasure.”

the Afghans are able to show they have lives, and that these go on, in spite of all the war and the trauma and suffering it brings.”

“So in the end, the web project was like a casting”, Khaja continues. “I wanted to make a film representative of the people in Helmand. Women and men, young and old; but they had to want to take part. I could see some of them were only in it for the money, whereas others really put their heart and soul into it.”

One of the women given a phone with which to film had this drive, but was ultimately unable to continue in the project.

“She felt bad about it, because it was down to the reactions of others. Her sons suffered from people talking about her, and eventually I felt she was just running too many risks. It’s one thing taking big risks yourself for a film, but when you are asking someone else to do so for you, it’s different.” Nevertheless, My Afghanistan – Life in the Forbidden Zone presents a fascinating, moving and human glimpse of life inside that troubled part of the world. The web project also continues, at http://myafghanistan.dk. Mark Baker IDFA COMPETITION FOR FEATURE-LENGTH DOCUMENTARY My Afghanistan – Life in the Forbidden Zone Nagieb Khaja Mon 19/11 20:00 Munt 10; Thu 22/11 11:15 Tuschinski 4; Fri 23/11 22:15 Munt 09

She may be offered the opportunity of a lifetime to be educated abroad for 6 months, but Bedouin Rafea, focus of Mona Eldaief and Jehane Noujaim’s feature-length competition selection Rafea: Solar Mama, subsequently encounters nothing but grief, at least on the home front.

Living in a tent with four daughters and a feckless husband, Jordanian Rafea’s illiteracy qualifies her for a unique program offered by India’s Barefoot College. Along with 29 other women from the developing world, she is nominated to attend a 6-month workshop to learn about solar energy. The plan is that, on her return, she will run a factory constructing solar panels, providing her community with light. This film examines to what extent this could become a reality, especially after just one month she must return to a home that has fallen to pieces in her absence.

“The strong thing about this film is it really speaks to a large audience”, comments producer Mette Heide of +Plus Pictures. “Few viewers could identify with her actual living conditions, but the obstacles she has to overcome – her husband, the problems with her children, the community – is something a lot of women will identify with. We could easily have made a film about women as victims and then present their empowerment, but she is never a victim. She is a very strong and inspiring character, that is what makes this so different from many other films with this kind of social context.”

There is a marked contrast between life in the Indian workshop and life at home. In India, she is welcomed and appreciated, and continually comforted by fellow workers as worries about her daughters begin to engulf her. At home, she is continually battling against what seems an unbending conservatism, and is often driven to tears. “He kills my spirit”, she says of her husband. Salvation comes in the form of Raouf, a male Jordanian Ministry of Environment mandarin, who encourages her husband to support her return to India, at least in the short term. She returns to the workshop with renewed determination.

Heide points out two factors that enabled the filmmakers to gain more-or-less unfettered access. “The fact that Mona Eldaief is an Arabic-speaking woman was the only way we could get in”, she stresses. The other reason was Eldaief’s perception that peripheral characters in a documentary can feel a sense of envy towards the main subject, and must therefore be indulged with camera time that will not necessarily make it to the final cut. “She filmed a lot with the other characters in Jordan, so they were happy as well”, Heide underlines. “But this wasn’t necessary in the workshop, where the women had a lovely sense of solidarity.” Nick Cunningham IDFA COMPETITION FOR FEATURE-LENGTH DOCUMENTARY Rafea: Solar Mama – Mona Eldaief & Jehane Noujaim Mon 19/11, 19:30, Tuschinski 1; Tue 20/11, 16:00, Munt 11; Wed 21/11, 18:30, Tuschinski 2; Thu 22/11, 10:00, Brakke Grond Expozaal; Fri 23/11, 14:30, Brakke Grond Rode Zaal

IDFA – 7

ALIAS RUBY BLADE

THE SONS OF THE LAND

French director Edouard Bergeon’s The Sons of the Land opens on a bucolic scenes of cows grazing peacefully in a field, a picturesque farmhouse and yard lie in the backdrop – but don’t be fooled by this seemingly idyllic image.

Hurricane Sandy almost put paid to the IDFA world premiere of Alex Meillier and Tanya Ager Meillier’s First Appearance contender Alias Ruby Blade. Fortunately, they were able to finish the film and arrive at the festival “tape in hand.”å “The premiere was actually the first time we had seen the film ourselves in a theatre. So we were really on pins”, says director Alex Meillier.

Fortunately, all was well.

The film tells the remarkable story of Kirsty Sword, a young Australian woman whose biography parallels the struggle for independence for East Timor, a place she felt drawn to in the early 1990s by a heady mix of idealism, ambition and the lure of danger.

“We were a documentary unit for the UN stationed in East Timor in 2005”, Alex explains of the film’s genesis. “We interviewed former members of the resistance movement, and were intensely moved by the story. There had been some journalistic films on it before, but we wanted to find a way to build a dramatic film out of this story, based around a central character. We came across Kirsty Sword’s autobiography and were surprised by the key role an Australian woman had played in the Timorese struggle. In her book, she also describes filming there. We approached her and asked her, ‘Do you still have the tapes?’ She said, ‘I think so, in a box somewhere, but I don’t know what condition they’ll be in…’ We jumped straight on a plane to look in this box and found the tapes, in various states. A big part of the journey of the film was digitizing and restoring

those tapes. During the making of the film, we gravitated more and more towards using this footage as much as possible to tell the story. It creates a feeling of the story happening as you watch it.”

“We also felt having Kirsty as the protagonist would make the film more accessible to Western audiences”, producer Tanya adds. “Also the drama of the story – her being a spy, falling in love with the rebel leader...”

“Kirsty’s awakening, an idealistic 22-year-old going into East Timor with her trusty video camera, is a metaphor for the world waking up to what was going on in East Timor”, Alex says. “The film echoes so many of the struggles happening around the world right now. East Timor is a big success story; they’ve just had free elections and the UN are pulling out. Our film shows that it is possible for the people to achieve democracy. And that the only way to achieve this is through non-violence.” Mark Baker IDFA COMPETITION FOR FIRST APPEARANCE Alias Ruby Blade: A Story of Love and Revolution – Alex Meillier Mon 19/11, 12:45, Tuschinski 3 (industry screening); Thur 22/11, 11:00, Munt 10; Sat 24/11 20:15 Tuschinski 4

PUTTING NEW SCOTTISH DOCUMENTARY ON THE MAP CREATIVE SCOTLAND CONGRATULATES THE SCOTTISH DOCUMENTARY INSTITUTE SCREENING FIVE FILMS AT IDFA

“Between 400 and 800 farmers commit suicide each year in France, depending on which figures you believe, but say an average figure of 600 – that’s two farmers a day”, says Edouard Bergeon. Bergeon’s father Christian is among these statistics, beset by financial difficulties on the southwest France farm that had been in the family for generations, he killed himself in 1999.

More than a decade later, Paris-based director Bergeon explores the on-going plight of France’s independent farming community through the struggle of Sébastien Itard, a livestock farmer in the midi-Pyrénées region saddled with debts of €500,000.

“It’s important to distinguish between the situation of the big cereal farmers, who are thriving, and the smaller farmers involved in livestock. The cereal farmers receive twothirds of the European Union subsidies, when there are twice as many livestock farmers,” says Bergeon.

“One of the hardest things was finding the right farmer. I looked at a number of families, but on meeting Sébastien I knew almost right away that his story was the one. His situation was very similar to that of my father’s; they also looked very similar – I could see the same stressed, pinched look in his face”, says the director. “Saddled with debt and another child on the way, I knew his situation would result in some interesting twists.”

Bergeon visited the family every month over a 14-month period, capturing Itard as he yo-yos back and forth between the farm and court in the neighbouring city of Cahors where he and

his lawyer attempt to stave off bankruptcy proceedings and the seizure of the farm.

Bergeon intercuts this contemporary tale with that of his father, opening up the family photo album, showing his own “idyllic” childhood in the process.

“It’s a sort of tribute to my father and a way of shedding light on all that my mother lived through in silence… it sets the record straight.

The women are very present in the documentary. I wanted to show the impact of the situation on the whole family to show the human side of this issue. At first, my mother didn’t want me to make the film and my sister half supported it. It was hard for them but as the project advanced she got involved and helped me out with old photos.” Melanie Goodfellow IDFA COMPETITION FOR FEATURE-LENGTH DOCUMENTARY The Sons of the Land – Edouard Bergeon Tue 20/11, 20:15, Munt 10; Thur 22/11, 10:45, Tuschinski 2; Fri 23/11, 21:15, Brakke Grond Expozaal; Sat 24/11, 10:00, Munt 12

I AM BREATHING (pictured) The thin space between life and death by Emma Davie and Morag McKinnon (73min) World premiere, IDFA Competition for Feature Length Documentary PABLO’S WINTER

Nicotine. Mercury. Matters of the heart by Chico Pereira (76min) DOK Leipzig Healthy Workplaces Film Award and Honorary Mention for an Extraordinary Documentary Film Talent IDFA Competition for Student Documentary

FUTURE MY LOVE

Economy is a human relationship by Maja Borg (93min) EIFF nomination for the Michael Powell Award for Best British Film International premiere at CPH:DOX in the Nordic:DOX competition Docs for Sale at IDFA

POLARIS

Work. Eat. Sleep. And back to work. The ocean is a very lonely place by Chico Pereira (15min) International premiere, Reflecting Images: Panorama

POUTERS

Rivals since childhood, Rab and Danny do battle with pigeons and pride by Paul Fegan (15min) International premiere, Reflecting Images: Panorama

www.scotdoc.com/idfa

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It’s All True 2013

18th INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL APRIL 4 - 14, 2013 SÃO PAULO/RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL

Deadline for entries: December 10, 2012

IDFA FESTIVAL

SCREENING

November 20th at 17:45 in Tuschinski 5

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AVAILABLE TO SCREEN IN DOCS FOR SALE ONLINE CATALOGUE TIL 2014 ACQUISITION ENQUIRIES Michael Werner info@nonstopsales.com ON SITE CONTACT Gernot Steinweg +49 228 180 88 584 gernot.steinweg@web.de

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CÔNG BINH – THE LOST FIGHTERS OF VIETNAM

The survivors aren’t vengeful. As the direc“History is written by sons who want to tor notes, they simply want “to be recognized understand their fathers”, reads the inscription as human beings.” The French Government that begins Lam Lê’s feature documentary. The has dragged its heels in acknowledging the history this film uncovers is still considered misdeeds of the past. Even if they receive a taboo in both France and Vietnam. As Lam Lê token payment of a few Euros from the French, reveals, in the late 1930s 20,000 Vietnamese people were forced to come to France to work in that would be enough – it would at least be an admission of blame. France, the director states, French weapon factories. When war broke out, these workers (called the Công Binh) were left at has never fully recognized its own colonial histhe mercy of the German occupiers. Abused and tory in the region or how the country “picked up all the richness and exploited all the human mistreated in Europe, back home in Vietnam, energy and talents of the Vietnamese people.” they were regarded as traitors. “When I was Lam Lê describes Công Binh – The Lost Fighters young, I had the same misunderstanding about of Vietnam as primarily a political film. He them as collaborators”, the director recalls of the includes many references and quotes Frantz Công Binh.

Fanon, the celebrated anti-colonialist writer All in all, this was a very murky episode in French colonialism. When Lam Lê read research and philosopher. He also tells part of the story in highly stylized sequences involving tradiby historian Pierre Daum revealing the true tional Vietnamese puppets. Geoffrey Macnab plight of the conscripted Vietnamese workers in France, he became determined to make a film about it.

IDFA COMPETITION FOR FEATURE-LENGTH The director (better known for feature films) DOCUMENTARY started the project just in time. As the end Công Binh – The Lost Fighters Of Vietnam credits reveal, many of the survivors are now Lam Lê well into their 90s. Some have died in the time Tue 20/11, 14:15, Munt 09; Thu 22/11, 17:30, between Lam Lê interviewing them and comMunt 09 pleting his film.

“When they were forced to come to France, they were 16 or 17 years old”, the director points out.

More than 70 years later, these witnesses have expressed huge joy and relief that their story is finally being told and they can now wipe away the shame that has blighted their lives for so long. One, visited by the director in hospital last week and now in chronic ill health, expressed a sentiment that the witnesses all feel. “He said to me ‘now I can die peacefully, because this story will be known by the world.’”

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I AM BREATHING

I Am Breathing chronicles the last few months in the life of Neil Platt, a father in his early 30s who is suffering from Motor Neurone Disease.

Scottish director Morag McKinnon, a fiction filmmaker, knew Platt well. She suggested the film to her friend, documentary maker Emma Davie. “She wanted me to make a documentary about him”, recalls Davie. “He had wanted to communicate about the illness and his experience of it. He really wanted to talk about it while he still had the ability to.”

At that point, Platt was paralysed from the neck downward. A strong-willed, articulate and opinionated Yorkshireman who wrote about his illness in a blog, he knew exactly what he wanted from the film. It was his idea that the sound of his ventilator – the sign

that he was still breathing – should be heard throughout the doc. “He was a very witty man with quite a lot of insight, into not only his condition but also its effect on the people around him. He had a searingly honest way of describing it.”

Early on, Davie was reluctant to commit to the doc, wary of the ethical complications of the project. “The fact you’re making a story out of this incredibly hard period of somebody’s life is very difficult. It’s hard not to sensationalise it.” At that stage, McKinnon was pushing for Davie to direct the film on her own. They went to visit Platt and began filming almost straight away. The power of Platt’s personality – “the nature of his passion to communicate and his character as he neared the end of his life” – inspired them. “I said to Morag, ‘I am not doing it unless you do it with me!’”

It is more than two years now since Platt died.

Davie acknowledges that the directors needed some distance from the film before they were ready to edit. “Both of us have an abhorrence of sentimentality. We are very Scottish that way. Neil was also very practical. What he was most concerned about was funeral arrangements, leaving stuff to his child, writing a letter to his child and getting things sorted. There were incredibly emotional times, but it was his practicality that led to a wider perspective of what he was going through.”

I Am Breathing was supported by the Scottish Documentary Institute (SDI), which is planning to turn Global MND/ALS Awareness Day in June next year into a Global Screening Day for the film. Geoffrey Macnab IDFA COMPETITION FOR FEATURE-LENGTH DOCUMENTARY I Am Breathing – Emma Davie, Morag McKinnon Mon 19/11, 22:30, Tuschinski 2; Thu 22/11, 11:15, Munt 09; Fri 23/11, 11:30, Munt 09

2012 THE

IDFA

SELECTIONS

DOCS FOR SALE

Films Transit

The Netherlands Film Festival presents:

Holland Film Meeting The annual get-together of Dutch and foreign film professionals September 26th - 30th 2013, Utrecht Netherlands Production Platform / NFF International Screenings Workshops & panels / Cinema Militans Lecture Binger-Screen International Interview / Digital Film Library

For more information please contact: • Holland Film Meeting +31 30 230 38 00 hfm@filmfestival.nl • Signe Zeilich-Jensen Head of Industry Holland Film Meeting +31 6 129 904 56 Signe@filmfestival.nl

PREMIERES

• Willemien van Aalst Festival Director Netherlands Film Festival +31 6 542 078 90 Willemien@filmfestival.nl www.filmfestival.nl/en

HGIS Cultuurmiddelen

Binger Filmlab EYE International MEDIA Desk Nederland City of Utrecht Screen International FPN

IDFA – 11