Reservoir Docs is looking forward to 2024 with renewed optimism even though Anaïs Clanet, head of sales and acquisitions at the French doc outfit, acknowledges that “our numbers are still half of what they used to be” in the pre-pandemic era.
“Broadcasters were better when Covid was happening but now there are a lot of delays before they get back to you. You’ve got to wait for three months,” Clanet notes.
Nevertheless, she has been ramping up the Reservoir Docs slate with half a dozen eye-catching new titles. Most of these titles are not quite ready, and so she decided to bypass IDFA this year.
“It was not the right timing. I have six documentaries being completed that we are launching next year – and so there’s no need for new films at the moment,” Clanet explains why neither she nor her colleagues (“we are only a team of three”) were in Amsterdam earlier this month. “I decided that there was no need [to be at IDFA] and that I could do things at home.”
The focus now is partly on commercial English language projects.
One title bound to pique the curiosity of buyers is A Sudden Glimpse To Deeper Things, the latest feature doc from the prolific Edinburgh-based filmmaker, Mark Cousins. Narrated by Tilda Swinton, this tells the story of the unsung Scottish painter Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, part of the St. Ives group of artists. Her life, and approach to art, was transformed by a moment of epiphany after she climbed the Grindelwald glacier in Switzerland in the summer of 1949.
The new doc is produced by Bofa Productions Limited and was co-funded by the National Lottery via Screen Scotland, with the backing of the Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Trust.
Clanet pays tribute to fellow sales agent Esther Van Messel of First Hand Films who introduced her to Bofa Productions principals Adam Dawtrey and Mary Bell at IDFA two years ago. “That’s how we met – randomly in the street. We started talking about Mark Cousins and how I love his films.”
Clanet and the Bofa bosses continued to meet at festivals. In Cannes this year, Bofa decided that Reservoir Docs would be “the right partners for a film like this.” Reservoir Docs is known for handling cultural docs about artists and “bigger than life” figures such as Barns-Graham. All rights are available excluding Italy where I Wonder, who’ve been involved in the project since early stages, will be handling the release.
Cousins movies tend to premiere in the world’s most prestigious festivals although it is yet to be confirmed where A Sudden Glimpse To Deeper Things will first surface.
Connoisseurs of mystery docs with a feminist edge are likely to be intrigued by another new title on the Reservoir Docs slate, Virginia Tangvald’s Ghosts Of The Sea. In the film, backed by the National Film Board of Canada, the director investigates her own family’s troubled past. Her father Peter was a Norwegian-born sailor and adventurer who was married seven times and lost two wives at sea in murky circumstances. He himself died alongside one of his young children when his boat sank in the West Indies in 1991.
Clanet met the producers Élaine Hébert and Isabelle Couture of micro_scope through the Project Forum at IFP Week 2020.
“It [the film] was called ‘Sailing Off The Edge’ at the time but they changed the title. Basically I fell in love with this story because it reminded me of Stories We Tell, the Sarah Polley documentary. It’s a family secret being revealed on screen, an incredible story. It is produced by ladies, directed by a woman and I have loved every minute of working on the film,” Clanet enthuses. “Basically, it is a documentary thriller, a family adventure and a bigger than life story.” (And, no, Clanet won’t reveal the secrets that the doc uncovers. You’ll have to watch the movie to discover those.)
Urban Factory is also involved in Ghosts Of The Sea which has been put together as a co-production between Canada and France. This too is expected to be unveiled in early 2024. All rights are available excluding France and Canada.
Likewise coming up in 2024 is Carlota Nelson’s Eyes Of The Soul, produced by Wanda Films, Ojos Cabeza Corazon, AIE, RTVE and Castilla-La Mancha Media. This is a portrait of legendary Magnum photographer, Cristina Garcia Rodero. The Spaniard, now in her 70s, is one of the few women who is part of the Magnum agency.
Underlining Reservoir Docs’ commitment to cultural docs, the company is also handling Scandinavian project The Renaissance Prince from Emily Louisa Millan Eide. This is about precocious young Norwegian painter William Heimdal who tries to work in the same manner as the great artists of the Renaissance era. He is dubbed a painter “born 200 years too late.” This doc will likewise premiere early next year.
Clanet explains that she has thrown herself behind these new titles both because she likes the films and because of their subject matter (which she thinks will appeal to broadcasters and often to theatrical distributors as well.)
Reservoir Docs has a brace of titles looking back at aspects of the Third Reich. Tamara Erde’s After The Evilprofiles Austrian-British journalist and sociologist Gitta Sereny whose work focused on the dark side of human nature. Subjects of her books included Franz Stangl, commander of the Treblinka death camp, and Hitler’s architect and close companion Albert Speer. Produced by Gloria Films in France, this will be available in both 90 and 52-minute cuts.
Meanwhile, Eliott Levitt’s already completed The Eichmann Trial, made through Banality LLC, offers fresh insights (and never before seen archive) of the events of 1962 when notorious Nazi war criminal, Adolf Eichmann, who had been hiding out in Argentina, was put on trial in Israel.
On the eco-side, Reservoir Docs is starting sales on Green Is The New Red. Directed by Anna Recalde Miranda, this looks at how the repression in Latin America in the Cold War era has continued – but now it is ecologists being murdered as they stand up to corporate behemoths. This is nearing completion and Clanet expects it to be ready for spring 2024.
Also in production is Maxence Voiseu’s Gabin, about a young man from a working class rural background in the north of France trying to build his life. Clanet likens it to a Ken Loach or Richard Linklater movie. The director has followed his main character for many years.On the sales side. Reservoir Docs has been doing brisk business on its Michel Gondry doc, Michel Gondry Do It Yourself by François Nemeta. This was sold to I Wonder for Italy, Israeli TV (Yes) and to SVT in Sweden.
