French indie sales outfit Reservoir Docs is at IDFA 2024 selling international competition contender Green is the New Red.
“It’s an investigation into the violence committed against activists in general. It could be political activists, environmentalists, anybody who defends the ‘small people,’” company boss Anais Clanet says of the key themes of the film, directed by Italian-Paraguayan filmmaker, Anna Recalde Miranda.
The shocking new doc explores how over 2000 ecologists have been murdered over the last 20 years, a large proportion of them in Latin America. This violence has often happened with the collusion of major corporations. “It’s the evolution of the ‘Condor’ plan in the 70s where communists, or so-called communists, were killed,” Clanet explains.
This is just the kind of fiery doc that in years gone by, theatrical distributors would have snapped up with alacrity. Clanet, though, is coming to Amsterdam not just with the feature-length version but with a ‘TV-hour’ cut that she believes many buyers may now prefer.
Is it depressing that even the strongest feature docs are so hard to place – or is it just the new reality of the marketplace?
“I guess it is a little bit of both,” Clanet reflects. “It’s an extremely difficult period because public television does not buy a lot. I am being nice and kind saying that, because they pretty much buy nothing.”
It’s easy to understand Clanet’s frustration. Her current slate includes Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989, from Swedish director Göran Hugo Olsson. This has been rapturously received at festivals from Venice to London and Tokyo – but buyers are proving hard to secure. Either the subject matter or its three-hour length are putting them off. In 2011, the same director’s The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975, about the growth of the Black Power movement in US society, sold all over the world. Now, the new doc is struggling for exposure.
“I love the film,” Clanet enthuses. “It is very, very important. People don’t even remember what peace means any more. In the years [covered by the archive], it was all about finding a peace agreement. Nowadays, nobody talks about peace anymore.”
She is hoping that a three-part version for TV will catch the attention of the broadcasters, but so far there have been few bites.
“It makes me a little bit angry,” Clanet says of her fight to find a home for the movie. “I understand that it is three hours, but look, it is not the first three-hour film we’ve had…I am very sad and concerned by the lack of response to a film like this. If those films don’t matter anymore, then what is the point,” she asks starkly.
There is currently some US interest in the doc but this has been an uphill battle overall for Reservoir Docs on a film praised by critics and with an obvious topicality.
Clanet can’t help but notice a paradox. Films about the Nazi era do still sell. “Everyone wants to see a film about Hitler but nobody wants to see films about the conflicts that are still ravaging the world…”
Certain titles on the Reservoir Docs slate are enticing buyers. The Eichmann Trial, about Adolf Eichmann, the former Nazi officer kidnapped in Argentina and put on trial in Jerusalem, is generating strong interest. Arts and culture “buffs” have been drawn to the company’s Michel Gondry doc, Do It Yourself, which screened in Venice last year. Theatrical buyers are also curious about Emily Louisa Millan Eide’s doc, The Renaissance Prince, about a young artist whose dream is to paint in the same style as the masters of the past.
“Art and culture has always been my main domain, it’s my DNA. This is what I am going to focus on the most…but it is not enough anymore.”
Clanet recently picked up Aoife Kelleher’s Mrs Robinson, a biographical doc about the first woman to serve as President of Ireland. This was launched at the Galway Festival in the summer and premieres this week in the UK at the Irish Film Festival, London. Clanet is now looking for a US festival to introduce it to the north American market.
Another new title is More Than A Museum, Morrosko Vila-San-Juan’s film about the building of the new Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway. The commission went to a small architectural firm from Barcelona although this is the kind of job usually taken on by the biggest, most prestigious companies.
Clanet also continues to sell Mark Cousins’ A Sudden Glimpse of Deeper Things, narrated by Tilda Swinton and about unsung Fife artist, Wilhelmina Barns-Graham. Cousins won the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival’s Crystal Globe, a rare honour for a documentary.
Deals struck on the film so far include Conic, who have recently released it in the UK, and Against Gravity, who will launch it in Polish cinemas next year.
The Reservoir Docs boss will be at the IDFA Forum, on the lookout for “one or two titles” she can represent in Sundance and Berlin next year.
Ask her about the general state of the market and she frankly acknowledges that these are tough times for doc sellers. “It is not working per se. We haven’t got back the numbers we used to do before Covid…”
Asian buyers seem to have vanished. “I used to sell all my documentaries to Japan and Taiwan but now if I have one or two sales a year, it’s a miracle.” America is buying fewer docs – “and sometimes they don’t offer a minimum guarantee anymore.”
Ask her why she continues to fight so hard in such a difficult marketplace and Clanet replies with defiance. “Passion. I have values, I have political beliefs. I also still think that the sales we do matter; the clients we have matter; the public still deserves to see smart documentaries…smart, but with a good commercial angle! We are trying to propose something that will entertain as much as teach them…”
