This year sees the IFFR launch an ambitious collaboration between African and Chinese filmmakers. Delfina Krüsemann and Ben Walters report. There were no precedents to refer to when it came to planning Raiding Africa, the ambitious IFFR 2011 project for which seven young African film- makers travelled to China, cameras in hand. “You can’t ask somebody, ‘How did you do it with your Africans in China?’,” observes its coordinator, Gertjan Zuilhof. “Nobody has done it before. We didn’t know if they’d be thrown out after two days.” results As the results prove, they weren’t. Tomorrow sees a whole day of free screenings and debates at De Doelen’s Van Capellen Zaal under the Raiding Africa banner. The programme of course includes the seven shorts made in China (also showing else- where at IFFR), which range from action fairytale to hair-salon documentary, meditative essay to cul- ture-clash romantic comedy, plus two thematically related documentary features: When China Met Af- rica is an overview of the superpower’s zealous en- trepreneurship in Africa, while My Father’s House explores the challenges facing a Nigerian Christian preacher in Guangzhou. The day also offers direc- tor Q&As, debates about filmmaking practice and drinks with music from Ethiopian group Bati Band. Global The inevitably seismic consequences of the ongo- ing economic and social encounter between the two regions are only beginning to register, but are certain to be global in their impact. “It wasn’t re- ally a strange idea,” says Zuilhof, who also oversaw IFFR 2010’s Where is Africa? strand, for which in- ternational filmmakers travelled to Africa. “There are millions of Chinese coming to Africa – now seven [Africans] are going the other way.” For many Africans, he notes, the associations with Chinese engagement are negative. “They don’t really like the Chinese. They take the oil and minerals and in return they give infrastructure – they build roads, for instance, but maybe not the kind people need. They might make a deal with the president then make a road from his palace to the beach.” equipment Raiding Africa gave participating filmmakers a chance to find out more about China beyond the su- perficial associations – though, Zuilhof notes, they all found excuses to include the Great Wall in their films. Working in Songzhuang, on the outskirts of Beijing, with local mentors whose involvement Zuilhof de- scribes as crucial, they developed projects organi- cally, generally focusing on local specifics rather than macro-scale concerns. For some, the equipment was more sophisticated than their usual kit – a boon to experimentation though sometimes a problem when dealing with limited post-production facilities back home. Much of the editing is only just completed – some filmmakers are literally arriving at Rotterdam with the final cuts inside their suitcases. There was much to be learned from both sides. “I was the only black person – locals would stare at me and even try to touch my hair,” laughs Ango- lan director Henrique ‘Dito’ Narciso. “It was mad- ness! Only once I came across an African and we hugged on the street. I even called him ‘brother’!” Narciso, whose hip-hop gangster movie A Guerra do Ku-Duro played at IFFR 2010, had planned to shoot Moamba Chinesa in Beijing, but soon real- ized that was not the place to be. His next destina- tion was the port city of Guangzhou. “Moamba is a typical dish in Angola and it is also the word to designate people who trade goods,” he explains. “In Guangzhou, there are many Angolans doing business and I wanted to show their extraordinary capacity to adapt and learn. In a distant country with different language, culture and religion, they somehow manage to rise above the most incred- ible circumstances.” discussion Dito’s mentor, Ivo Ferreira, also produced the doc- umentary and there was plenty of discussion. “I am free-spirited and sometimes a bit stubborn,” Dito admits, “so collaborating was not always easy, but it was very enriching. I do what it takes to get the job done and I think [the result] is a very good one. Now I want to see the reactions of the audience. I love answering questions and I am so happy my film is representing Angola at Rotter- dam”. Dito’s documentary The Immigrant, about Angolans in Rotterdam, also plays under the Raiding Africa banner. Congo-Brazzaville’s Amour Sauveur is also keen to present his work. “It was a unique opportunity, a huge challenge that I truly enjoyed overcoming,” he says. “But to feel completely successful, I need to see how the audience responds.” Rather than being intimidated by China’s scale, Sauveur was inspired to shoot a comedy. “Of course I had doubts: I had a small budget and very little time in an unknown country. But overall there was my excitement.” Humour The result is ZUT , the story of Lou, who has to take an HIV test in order to get the job he wants. To avoid this awkward situation, he borrows a healthy baby to pass off as his own, supposedly proving his negative status. With tender humor and an enthu- siastic Chinese cast, Amour managed to transfer a story that might have been more suited to his homeland to the new setting. “In the beginning, the actors did not understand,” Sauveur reports. “HIV is not a problem in China [in the same way] as it is in Africa. But in the end, they confessed to falling in love with the story.” The aid of his mentor Zhang Xian Min (a key figure on China’s indepen- dent film scene) and producer Min Lan was invalu- able. “This film would not exist without Min Lan,” Sauveur says. “She was 100% engaged from day one and even offered to work for free. We all had a great time and I think that really shows on the screen.” lessons Funding for expensive projects like Raiding Africa can’t be taken for granted in the current economic climate, but Zuilhof is already considering ways to further develop IFFR’s engagement with Africa, and now China. He is especially interested in the lessons low-budget local filmmakers from dispa- rate cultures might be able to teach each other. “The logic of the project is that it should go back to Africa with Chinese filmmakers and film what the Chinese are actually doing there…” CONTINENTAL DRIFT NEDERLANDSE EDITIE Z.O.Z DAILY TIGER 40 TH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL ROTTERDAM #6 TUESDAY 1 FEBRUARY 2011 FILMFESTIVALROTTERDAM.COM Meetings got under way in earnest at the CineMart yesterday. Some 33 projects will be pitched to co-finance and co-production professionals over the next two days. photo: Ruud Jonkers
Transcript
This year sees the IFFR launch an ambitious collaboration between African and Chinese filmmakers. Delfina Krüsemann and Ben Walters report.
There were no precedents to refer to when it came to planning Raiding Africa, the ambitious IFFR 2011 project for which seven young African film-makers travelled to China, cameras in hand. “You can’t ask somebody, ‘How did you do it with your Africans in China?’,” observes its coordinator, Gertjan Zuilhof. “Nobody has done it before. We didn’t know if they’d be thrown out after two days.”
resultsAs the results prove, they weren’t. Tomorrow sees a whole day of free screenings and debates at De Doelen’s Van Capellen Zaal under the Raiding Africa banner. The programme of course includes the seven shorts made in China (also showing else-where at IFFR), which range from action fairytale to hair-salon documentary, meditative essay to cul-ture-clash romantic comedy, plus two thematically related documentary features: When China Met Af-rica is an overview of the superpower’s zealous en-trepreneurship in Africa, while My Father’s House explores the challenges facing a Nigerian Christian preacher in Guangzhou. The day also offers direc-tor Q&As, debates about filmmaking practice and drinks with music from Ethiopian group Bati Band.
GlobalThe inevitably seismic consequences of the ongo-ing economic and social encounter between the
two regions are only beginning to register, but are certain to be global in their impact. “It wasn’t re-ally a strange idea,” says Zuilhof, who also oversaw IFFR 2010’s Where is Africa? strand, for which in-ternational filmmakers travelled to Africa. “There are millions of Chinese coming to Africa – now seven [Africans] are going the other way.” For many Africans, he notes, the associations with Chinese engagement are negative. “They don’t really like the Chinese. They take the oil and minerals and in return they give infrastructure – they build roads, for instance, but maybe not the kind people need. They might make a deal with the president then make a road from his palace to the beach.”
equipmentRaiding Africa gave participating filmmakers a chance to find out more about China beyond the su-perficial associations – though, Zuilhof notes, they all found excuses to include the Great Wall in their films. Working in Songzhuang, on the outskirts of Beijing, with local mentors whose involvement Zuilhof de-scribes as crucial, they developed projects organi-cally, generally focusing on local specifics rather than macro-scale concerns. For some, the equipment was more sophisticated than their usual kit – a boon to experimentation though sometimes a problem when dealing with limited post-production facilities back home. Much of the editing is only just completed – some filmmakers are literally arriving at Rotterdam with the final cuts inside their suitcases.There was much to be learned from both sides. “I was the only black person – locals would stare at me and even try to touch my hair,” laughs Ango-lan director Henrique ‘Dito’ Narciso. “It was mad-
ness! Only once I came across an African and we hugged on the street. I even called him ‘brother’!” Narciso, whose hip-hop gangster movie A Guerra do Ku-Duro played at IFFR 2010, had planned to shoot Moamba Chinesa in Beijing, but soon real-ized that was not the place to be. His next destina-tion was the port city of Guangzhou. “Moamba is a typical dish in Angola and it is also the word to designate people who trade goods,” he explains. “In Guangzhou, there are many Angolans doing business and I wanted to show their extraordinary capacity to adapt and learn. In a distant country with different language, culture and religion, they somehow manage to rise above the most incred-ible circumstances.”
discussionDito’s mentor, Ivo Ferreira, also produced the doc-umentary and there was plenty of discussion. “I am free-spirited and sometimes a bit stubborn,” Dito admits, “so collaborating was not always easy, but it was very enriching. I do what it takes to get the job done and I think [the result] is a very good one. Now I want to see the reactions of the audience. I love answering questions and I am so happy my film is representing Angola at Rotter-dam”. Dito’s documentary The Immigrant, about Angolans in Rotterdam, also plays under the Raiding Africa banner. Congo-Brazzaville’s Amour Sauveur is also keen to present his work. “It was a unique opportunity, a huge challenge that I truly enjoyed overcoming,” he says. “But to feel completely successful, I need to see how the audience responds.” Rather than being intimidated by China’s scale, Sauveur was inspired
to shoot a comedy. “Of course I had doubts: I had a small budget and very little time in an unknown country. But overall there was my excitement.”
HumourThe result is ZUT, the story of Lou, who has to take an HIV test in order to get the job he wants. To avoid this awkward situation, he borrows a healthy baby to pass off as his own, supposedly proving his negative status. With tender humor and an enthu-siastic Chinese cast, Amour managed to transfer a story that might have been more suited to his homeland to the new setting. “In the beginning, the actors did not understand,” Sauveur reports. “HIV is not a problem in China [in the same way] as it is in Africa. But in the end, they confessed to falling in love with the story.” The aid of his mentor Zhang Xian Min (a key figure on China’s indepen-dent film scene) and producer Min Lan was invalu-able. “This film would not exist without Min Lan,” Sauveur says. “She was 100% engaged from day one and even offered to work for free. We all had a great time and I think that really shows on the screen.”
lessonsFunding for expensive projects like Raiding Africa can’t be taken for granted in the current economic climate, but Zuilhof is already considering ways to further develop IFFR’s engagement with Africa, and now China. He is especially interested in the lessons low-budget local filmmakers from dispa-rate cultures might be able to teach each other. “The logic of the project is that it should go back to Africa with Chinese filmmakers and film what the Chinese are actually doing there…”
CONTINENTAL DRIFT
NEDERLANDSEEDITIEZ.O.Z
DAILY TIGER40TH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL ROTTERDAM #6 TUESDAY 1 FEBRUARY 2011
FILMFESTIVALROTTERDAM.cOM
Meetings got under way in earnest at the CineMart yesterday. Some 33 projects will be pitched to co-finance and co-production professionals over the next two days. photo: Ruud Jonkers
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Russian-speaking ghosts travel through stunning landscapes in Tiger competitor Sergio Caballero’s haunting debut. By Edward Lawrenson.
“The idea of working with ghosts came from my seven-year-old daughter,” explains Sergio Cabal-lero of his decision to feature two recently deceased spirits as the lead characters of his striking debut Finisterrae (which receives its international pre-miere in the Tiger competition tonight). Two figures, draped in white sheets (that get dirtier and dirtier as the picture progresses) travel on foot and horseback along the pilgrims’ path to Santiago de Compostela, through a series of stunning rural landscapes. Conversing in Russian, the ghosts en-counter an opera-singing hippie, ask travel advice from an owl and wander through a forest of speak-ing trees, before reaching their final destination: a windswept coast on the Cape of Finisterre. The re-sults are surreal, funny, visually impressive – and marked by a haunting and affecting strangeness. Shot over 25 days in January around the Santiago de Compostela route in Spain, the film, says Cabal-lero, features “nature at its maximum splendor. In Leon, we had the biggest snowfall of the past 10 years; in Finisterre, there was a fierce wind storm; in Corunna, the river overflowed while we were filming. It was a tough shoot for the whole team, but we finally got very powerful images.” Co-director of Barcelona’s Sonar festival (which showcases music and multimedia art), Caballero developed the film from a campaign he was cre-
ating for the 2010 edition of the festival. “I had started working on it and seeing the results,” he explains, “we decided that the film had to have its own life”. Working with DoP Eduardo Grau, Caballero craft-ed the images first, and afterwards developed the dialogue. “As you don’t see the ghosts’ lips,” he says of his hooded protagonists, “I was able to create the dialogue after the film editing (which lasted about seven weeks).” He adds: “I chose to work in Russian for its great musicality. It’s a movie to be heard, not only to be watched.”Experimental and eschewing conventional nar-rative, Finisterrae also has flashes of deadpan hu-mour: not least a very bizarre moment when one of the ghosts chances upon an extract of Catalan video art through a hole in a tree. “Humor is always present in my work,” says Caballero, “When I was planning Finisterrae, I wanted to create a contem-plative movie with a slow tempo but with touches of humour. Humour does not have to be banished from these kind of films.”Budgeted at around €300,000, Finisterrae is cur-rently seeking a distributor. “We’d love to have one,” says Caballero, “so more people could see it, but it seems that distributors (in Spain at least) do not like taking risks.”
Tiger competitor Vladimir Kott discusses his “low-budget nostalgic blockbuster” with Ben Walters.
“When we start telling ourselves lies, it starts small, then gets bigger and eventually builds to tragedy,” suggests Vladimir Kott, director of Tiger feature Gromozeka. Set in contemporary Moscow, the film is a character drama laced with black hu-mour about three middle-aged men struggling to make sense of adult life in an increasingly trou-bling society. “In Russia, many people live not their own lives, but the lives others would like them to live,” Kott says. “Gromozeka is a story about three losers who remember a time when they used to be happy – when they were at school, playing in their rock band. Back then, they were open and honest, not thinking about the past or the future. They grew up in a system where they didn’t have to make deci-sions or think for themselves, and now they’re very unhappy.” So is there a connection between this kind of look-ing back and East German ‘Ostalgie’? “I call it a low-budget nostalgic blockbuster,” Kott chuckles, “but I don’t see this as a political film. Good Bye, Lenin!, for instance, was nostalgic for a bright, optimistic communism – communism as it was supposed to be. My film is more psychological.” Even so, Kott’s story was informed by a sense of general unease among his countrymen. “Many Russians think they’re happy but in reality they’re not. In the office or the shop or the factory, they
smile and act happy but when they’re in the metro, when they think no one’s watching, they relax and you see the sadness in their eyes. Our country is at the point of becoming a place where people don’t have options for their own development.” Gromozeka shot in numerous locations throughout the city but avoids clichéd prettiness. “I was born in Moscow and I still live there,” says Kott. “I wanted to shoot in Moscow, but show places that don’t look like Moscow – there’s nothing in Red Square.” The process was lengthy and inevitably involved deal-ing with corruption. “It took two years to shoot,” Kott recalls, puffing out his cheeks. “You can shoot easily in Moscow if you have a lot of money, because everyone has to be bribed. That’s just the way it works – there are certain rules and nobody com-plains because at least it’s clear.” Gromozeka was filmed on 16mm and transferred to 35mm. “The transfer gave some interesting ef-fects,” Kott notes. “It looks like an old Soviet film. You get lots of noise and the colours are very high contrast. You get the feeling this film was shot a long time ago and has been sitting on a shelf for decades.” It’s an apt remark for a story about char-acters struggling to let go of the past.
Flemish director Lotte Stoops’ new film tells the fascinating history of a Mozambique hotel. By Geoffrey Macnab.
The Grande Hotel in Beira, Mozambique, opened in the early 1950s. It is a huge, mausoleum-like building, very influenced by what one voice in Flemish director Lotte Stoops’ film Grande Hotel (a world premiere in Bright Future) calls “the tastes of the leaders of Portuguese colonial fascism.”In its sprawling, dysfunctional way, the hotel – the subject of Stoops’ film – was also very luxurious. Guests who stayed there, in one of the 120 rooms, included everyone from the Hollywood actress Kim Novak to space pioneers. Nowadays, the hotel presents a very different face to the world. It’s a gigantic squat that is home to more than 2,500 people. In the years since independence, the luxurious furnishings have all been stripped away. In the gardens, kids wash in the Olympic Pool of Mozambique, which is decaying and overgrown. There is no running water or electricity. “I was just travelling,” Stoops recalls of what drew her to the Grande Hotel. She and her friend had turned up in Beira almost on a whim. They were staying 150 me-tres from the site of the Hotel. One morning, while her friend slept in, Stoops took a walk, looking for somewhere to have a coffee. “I came across the hotel. I was very surprised by the look of it. You could tell it was a city within a city,” the director notes of the sprawling building. An early sequence, in which the camera pans around the hotel, lasts for two full minutes – an indication
of the sheer scale of the place. Stoops befriended the residents. “I really knew the line between public space and private space is very tiny,” she notes. There were many, many people living in the hotel. They had turned corri-dors and parts of stairways into makeshift homes. Stoops was determined not to intrude. “I wouldn’t like people to come into my house and start to film everything.”
The Belgian was fascinated by the “survival strate-gies” the families evolved for coping in the derelict hotel. “You had a doctor, a hairdresser … you could stay inside for two months without going out. You had everything.” Outsiders were startled that she would dare to ven-ture into the Grande Hotel, which was seen as a haven for thieves.She began to research the history of the hotel,
tracking down archive footage (including a very lavish wedding held at the hotel). The Grande Hotel is a kind of ghost story, as well as a documentary. The director includes murmuring voices of people, often colonialists, associated with the hotel during its glory days. As they speak in very nostalgic terms, the camera shows the reality of life in the hotel today. Ironically, the colonialists uprooted from their old homes and the dwellers squatting there today both seem equally obsessed by ideas of home and belonging. Stoops hopes eventually to show her movie at the Grande Hotel. In the meantime, she has been de-lighted by the response to her film, which now looks set to secure Dutch distribution. “We really made the photography such an important part of the film that it deserves a big screen,” she suggests.
Grande Hotel – Lotte StoopsFri 04 17:00 CI1
PILGRIMS’ PROGRESS
Finisterrae
BOyS IN THE BAND
CITy WITHIN A CITy
Gromozeka
Lotte Stoops photo: Nichon Glerum
Grande Hotel
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SMITS CONFIRMS ROTTERDAM PRODuCTION
Ineke Smits, whose The Aviatrix of Kazbek closed the 2010 IFFR, was in jaunty mood at the CineMart cocktail reception Sunday evening as she discussed both her new project, entitled N.N., and her “new” company, Kazbek B.V., initially set up in 2009 for her last film but now expanded into a multi-production entity. Her partner in the new venture is Dutch producer Els Vandevorst. By Nick Cunningham.
“We started business from January 1 this year,” Smits confirmed. “We have my film N.N. and a Georgian project that was in the CineMart last year, Zaza Rusadze’s A Fold in my Blanket, which was with Els’ Isabella Films before but now taken over by Kazbek, and The Struggle by Thijs Schreud-ers, a doc which is in production. We are starting slowly, and we want to keep it small. I don’t want to have a full-blown production office with lots of girls behind typewriters. So it’s a very small unit.”Smits’ N.N. is in development, having received support from the Netherlands Film Fund and The Rotterdam Media Fund. The script, co-written with Dutch journalist and critic Dana Linssen, is set in Rotterdam. “I have made films all over the place, but I have never made a film set in the centre of Rotterdam,” Smits pointed out. “While we were writing the first draft, it was a very funny kind of experience to look out on your own set while you are writing. That was very nice.”The film is budgeted at €1.2 million and Smits be-lieves she will shoot in early 2012. The N.N. title is inspired by the initials carved on the gravestones of the unknown dead. “The film is about identity, which is a very relevant topic nowadays,” she ob-
served. “What makes you who you are? Is it the place where you were born? Is it your passport? Is it the colour of your skin? Is it the amount of money you have in the bank? Is it the job that you do or the friends that you have? Eventually of course it boils down to what you are inside. That is the theme of this film.”Smits revealed that the film will be a drama, but with a documentary approach. “It will be stylized in my own way but it’s going to be different from Aviatrix. It will have the same handwriting but a different approach.”
Ineke Smits photo: Nichon Glerum
REMEMBERING ROTTERDAM
As part of our commemorative coverage of the IFFR’s fortieth anniversary, buyer and seller of feature films Willmar Andersson shares his most vivid memories of the event.
I started to come here at the end of the 70s and I have been here every year except one. A lot has hap-pened in 30 years. For me, Rotterdam has always been a festival of discoveries and over the years I found a lot of films, but also a lot of new friends. If I can single out one memory, it would be in 1985, in the early days of the festival. Huub Bals had selected a Polish film called Bez konca (No End). I missed the film at the screening, so I talked to Huub and he told me that the print had gone to a little town near the border with Germany for another screening. “But we’ll arrange it,” he said, so he brought the print back, made a special screening for me, and then shipped the print back to the city for the screening, far far away. It was just me and one other person at this special screening. That describes the atmosphere of the festival and the attitude of Huub. I bought the film and it was a great movie. It was a Kieslowski. Huub had a real knack of finding films and directors. This has continued at Rotterdam over the years.
London-based distributor Soda Pictures is planning to set up a second Soda Film Fund. Here in Rotterdam, Soda’s Managing Director, Eve Gabereau, has revealed initial details of the next Fund. Geoffrey Macnab reports.
Soda launched its first Soda Film Fund (SFF), a closed private investment fund for a slate of films, in the spring of 2010. Through this Fund, the com-pany was able to ramp up its acquisition policy. Its pick-ups from last year’s autumn festivals included such high-profile titles as Meek’s Cutoff (screening in IFFR’s Return of the Tiger), Howl and Norwegian Wood. “We’ve now completed that slate and we’re setting up a new fund that will be much more of a roll-ing fund,” Gabereau comments. Full details of the Fund are yet to be revealed, but it is anticipated that the higher-profile films acquired through it will be released in the normal way by Soda. The company is also looking to get involved in
films at an earlier stage, as an executive-producer and producer. Soda will continue to acquire films both through Soda Pictures and through SFF. “There are films that we can handle through our own cash flow, and ones we feel just need that greater market power”, Gabereau comments. Last year, Soda released around 20 films. The idea now is that Soda will release at least one film a quar-ter that has been acquired through the Fund and one monthly that has been acquired through Soda. Gabereau underlines the continuing importance of Rotterdam for Soda, even as it has begun to acquire higher profile films alongside its traditional art house pick-ups. “I normally come to Rotterdam for CineMart,” Gabereau comments. “Historically, it has been very relevant. We feel that the Rotterdam kind of film and the films that are in CineMart are the kind of films Soda has traditionally distributed,” says Gabereau. It was here at Rotterdam that Soda acquired Kelly Reichardt’s Old Joy. That began the relationship which saw Soda subsequently acquire Reichardt’s Wendy and Lucy and, now, Meek’s Cutoff.
The winners of the Tiger Awards Competition for Short Films were announced during the VPRO Late Night Talk Show last night. The jury handed three equal Tigers to: Nicolas Provost’s Stardust (Bel-gium); Nathaniel Dorsky’s Pastourelle (USA) and Natasha Mendoca’s Jan Villa (USA/India). Now its seventh year, the 2011 Tiger Awards Competition for Short Films screened 28 films. The jury com-prised Dutch artist and photographer Fiona Tan, Thai filmmaker (and 2010 Tiger Award winner) Anocha Suwichakornpon and US filmmaker Thom Andersen.
Festival Scope was devised in 2009 and launched in September 2010 with the objectives of helping films gain wider visibility, increasing the profile of professionals worldwide and highlighting the quality of the programming of partner festivals. “We now partner with 30 film festivals, including Rotterdam, which is the most ambitious partner-ship so far, not only in terms of films but also in terms of finding new ways to highlight the films to professionals,” Raja comments. “This has been the first time ever, for example, that the films of a major festival were available online before the festival, for sales agents. Basically, it was a way to help the films competing for the Tiger Awards to find a sales agent before the festival started, so the films can have a proper launch here in Rot-terdam.”In addition to the Tiger films online, Festival Scope has enabled invested-minded professionals to peruse the back catalogues of CineMart film-makers in advance of meetings this week. Bright Future films will be also available (after their first
screening) and Festival Scope is also hosting the Ossang retrospective, but that is because Raja and Henrot are fans of the filmmaker. “The reaction from the industry has been very encouraging,” Henrot claimed. “People have re-ally appreciated the viewing experience, and also pragmatically it has helped them prepare much better for the CineMart. We come from the sales industry [Raja was previously head of sales at Cel-luloid Dreams, Henrot sales head at MK2], and all the distributors we know say it’s a great help for them and improves the quality of the meetings they can have at CineMart. It’s used as a tool and they really enjoy the site and the quality of the se-lection of films.”“It wasn’t born out of dissatisfaction,” she con-tinues. “It was just an idea that this tool could be super useful and could help reduce unnecessary costs like printing DVDs and then shipping them through DHL. It was also driven by our love of cinema. This is the cinema we love, and if we can help, then we are happy too.”
BROADENING THE SCOPEAlessandro Raja and Mathilde Henrot from Paris-based Festival Scope, the online screening platform for film professionals, announced yesterday that they have agreed a partnership with the Berlinale to screen its Forum and Panorama titles. The titles will be available for viewing at the close of the 2011 European Film Market, as many of these films will be screening there. Nick Cunningham reports.
SODA ANNOuNCES NEW FuND
Preceded by solo sets from their new singer (since 2009) Arnold de Boer, under the name Zea, and French sound poet and performer Anne-James Chaton, Dutch experimental/(post-)punk/noise/jazz combo The Ex will tonight be playing numbers from their 25th(!) CD, Catch My Shoe, among other diverse musical treats. Followed by a DJ duo comprising IFFR special guest writer, singer and filmmaker F.J. Ossang and drummer Nasti.
IFFR Live Music: The Ex & Zea & Anne James Chaton – Tue 01 21:00 LV1
TIGER SHORTS WINNERS ANNOuNCED
Stardust Pastourelle
Jan Villa
Around €140 million of annual investment capacity was represented at today’s CineMart Power Lunch, moderated by Backup Films’ Jean-Baptiste Babin. One burning question under debate among the delegates from regional and national financing bodies was: why are public funders increasingly setting such harsh financial terms and conditions for the movies they back? By Geoffrey Macnab.
Ex-Irish Film Board Chief Exec Simon Perry (still representing the IFB at Rotterdam) told a cautionary tale about the changing nature of European public film funding. In the 1990s, Perry recalled, he had sat on a panel alongside the then head of Filmstiftung NRW Dieter Kosslick. Perry (then boss of British Screen) remarked that British Screen hoped to re-coup 50% of what it had invested. “Dieter looked at me and he said ‘now you are introducing a very novel idea – recoupment!’” Twenty years ago, recoupment targets for public funders may have been a novelty. In 2011, of course, they are on everyone’s minds. “Don’t forget what the public funds are facing, because we are all answer-able to governments who insist on value for money for the film money that they are putting up”, Perry said of the conditions that public funds are increas-ingly imposing. Nonetheless, the delegates at the lunch took issue with the idea that their funds’ terms are either un-duly stringent or inflexible. Both Teresa Hoefert de Turégano, a funding advisor at the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, and Eva Hubert from the Film-förderung Hamburg, stated that their funds were “cultural and economic.” “Of course, the regional money from Germany is very soft money”, Hubert said. Some delegates denied that regional funds were competing with one another. “I don’t think there is any competition between regional funds,” said Pe-ter Zawrel, Managing Director of the Vienna Film
Fund. “There is only competition between the pro-duction companies that [want] the money.” The real issue, Zawrel suggested, was production companies which set up offices in many different regions in or-der better to access the public funding. “Eurimages is sexy money,” said Roberto Olla, Ex-ecutive Director of Eurimages (the Council of Eu-rope fund for co-production, distribution and ex-hibition). “You can spend it wherever you want.” He added that Eurimages money can be spent in “third countries,” not just the coproduction countries. What became clear in the discussion is that Europe-an filmmakers’ reliance on public funding shows no sign of abating, regardless of the terms set by the re-gional and national funds. As Zawrel put it of the ev-er-increasing numbers of filmmakers who approach the Vienna Film Fund, “they never run away. I’d like many of them to run away, but they don’t do it!” The danger is that, if public funders insist on tough-er recoupment positions, private investors could be scared off. David Atlan-Jackson, head of acquisitions at financiers Backup Films, had some chastening re-marks about the situation facing private investors in the film industry. “In the industry we have today, in Europe, it is difficult for an equity fund to find a place, because most of the financing comes from pre-sales,” he said. Meanwhile, Miroljub Vuckovic of Film Center Ser-bia made a plea for European funding agencies to work together, and for a sustainable approach to coproduction. His remarks were echoed by Zawrel, who noted the tendency of Funds to look after their own interests, rather than those of their co-financing partners. “What I always hear is ‘you gave me … give me more!’ That is the wrong way. We need balance.”It was also made apparent that certain countries (and their funding bodies) are more open to copro-duction than others. For instance, Perry pointed out that the Irish Film Board has struggled in recent years to work closely with the British. “We have found, sadly, that we’ve been shut out of the UK,” the former IFB boss said.
THE REAL PRICE OF MONEy
There was a strong turnout for a panel discussion held yesterday at the Sales & Industry Club on the 4th floor of De Doelen under the provocative title: ‘Film Festivals: Who Needs Them?’ Moderated by journalist Nick Roddick (centre), the event included festival programmers, from left to right: Marie Pierre Duhamel (Venice Film Festival), Hans Hurch (Viennale), Gerwin Tamsma (IFFR) and Michelle Carey (Melbourne). Today the Sales and Industry Club hosts two panels: ‘Meet the Funders’ (10:30-12:00) and ‘In Conversation with the HBF’. (RSVP: [email protected])
FUTURE OF cREATIVE FUNDING DEBATE
In the shadow of its threatened closure (as reported in Sunday’s Daily Tiger), which will change the way the creative industries are supported, the Rotterdam Media Fund is organising a debate (in Dutch) tomorrow on the future of the creative industry in Rotterdam. The debate takes place at 17:00 hours in the Lantaren Venster. It seems that, in the story on the closure of the Rotterdam Media Fund in Sunday’s issue, a typograph-ical gremlin ran off with a ‘0’. The amount to be pared from Rotterdam’s local government budget is €200 million, rather than the €20 million stated.
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