So, are documentary filmmakers inherently good people? Maybe they are, maybe they’re not, who knows? But we’ll have a clearer idea after an intriguing European Film Market debate, scheduled for February 18, attended by IDFA’s Orwa Nyrabia, Abby Sun from the International Documentary Association and DAE’s Brigid O’Shea.
It is one of many discussions that seek to dissect, examine and explain the business, process and ethics of doc.
Other dedicated talks, presented together with CPH:DOX and the Documentary Association of Europe, include a debate entitled Plurality in Non-fiction: What’s at Stake in the Age of Mainstream, a panel discussion on the rise of, and new trends within, doc series and an all-too necessary and timely discussion on the threat from Eastern Europe, titled New Reality: Decolonising the Post-Soviet Screen.
Documentary may not be as heavily branded at the European Film Market as in past years (remember Doc Salon?) but EFM chief Dennis Ruh and Doc Industry Co-ordinator Martina Baumgartner underline the ongoing viability of their doc offer, albeit one that is folded into the overall market programme.
“Former formats [such as Doc Salon] are now embedded into the EFM Industry Sessions. As many industry fields become more and more interconnected and overlap at so many places, synergies become more and more important, which the market’s conference programme aims to offer within one programme, including the documentary industry,” comments Ruh.
“Therefore, we created an extensive programme for the EFM Industry session with talks, workshops, panels, think tanks discussing current developments, trends and challenges for the whole industry, with dedicated documentary talks, networking formats, happy hours and Rough Cut Presentations of documentaries within the whole thing.”
Twenty per cent of market screenings in 2023 are docs, the pair underline. There’s an extensive programme of doc (and related) talks, a new doc hub and a dedicated Archive Day (21 Feb) during which representatives from the world’s leading archives will promote and advise on the content within their vast libraries. These includes the likes of the German Bundesarchiv, AKG Images, British Pathé and Getty Images as well as new archives to the market, such as the Cézame Music Agency.
“They will present their work and workflows and invite EFM participants to discover their collections and discuss specific projects,” says Doc Industry Co-ordinator Martina Baumgartner. “International researchers, like well-known Elizabeth Klinck, will be there for speed dating meetings.”
One of the Archive Day discussions is titled New Impulses for Archival Research in Germany, and follows the recent establishment of GRAP e.V. which German archive researchers and producers have taken an important step with towards as a means to rationalise their interests and needs. Another discussion will cover The Ins and Outs of Successful Archive Producing for Fiction and Docu-Series.
Baumgartner further reminds that 59 documentary films are selected for Berlinale 2023, including one in Main Competition, 5 in Encounters, 9 in Panorama and 17 in the Forum section. In total, 20 documentary films are nominated for the festival’s Documentary Award. “At the EFM we have more than 700 films and series presented as market screenings, 20% of which are documentary films. The number of market accreditations is comparable to the pre-pandemic,” she stresses.
“The well-established formats Meet the Festivals and Consult the Experts offer once again in-person daily networking possibilities for the documentary community to connect and network with top industry players from around the world,” she adds of the events presented together with DAE.
“Furthermore, the Rough Cut Presentations (in their second year, but the first year in-person) showcase documentary projects and creative documentary series nearing completion, looking to showcase their rough cut to potential sales agents, festival programmers, gap financing partners and other interested filmmakers,” Baumgartner continues. One of these presentations is of six new Baltic doc projects at the Gropius Bau Cinema on Monday February 20.
This year’s EFM Industry Sessions, and most doc happenings, are located in Berlin’s Documentation Centre for Displacement, Expulsion, Reconciliation, a place redolent of suffering and displacement, and therefore a space also for contemplation and remembrance.
The Documentation Centre’s Café Connect and the Event Hall are key industry hubs in 2023. “They offer a new homebase for the documentary programme and enough space to network and mingle for the community,” says Market boss Ruh. “The documentary industry is also part of the extended Producers & Projects Hub on the second floor of the Gropius Bau where presentations and pitches of projects take place. This year the hub got a virtual extension with the new Producers & Project Pages for producers to create an individual and professional page with their unique profile, track record and promote their upcoming projects that will be accessible to distributors, buyers, financiers and potential co-producers.”
The German documentary offer at Berlin is strong in 2023. Of the overall 59 docs in the festival, 15 are German productions or are co-produced with Germany, Ruh points out. The German documentary film Seven Winters in Teheran will open the section Perspektive Deutsches Kino.
“With Gehen und Bleiben the Forum presents once again the Berlin-based director Volker Koepp. Panorama presents Iron Butterflies, a German-Ukrainian co-production directed by Roman Liubyi. And the winner of the First Steps Award 2022, Lea Najjar with her film Kash Kash, is a guest in the Perspektive Deutsches Kino section,” Ruh enthuses. “And the same number of German docs can be found within the market screening programme. To summarize: the representation of German documentary films within the festival and market is considerable. And of course, we can just invite everyone interested in German doc filmmaking to drop by the stand of AG Dok at the Gropius Bau.” He adds that the core and prolific German producer Gebrueder Beetz will also be part of the Berlinale Series market programme.
“I don’t want to generalise, but as German documentary film [continues] to tackle a wide range of topics, from political and social issues to artistic and cultural subjects, paired with high-quality standards and ambition, I notice that the German doc scene is thriving and continues to produce captivating and thought-provoking [films],” Ruh ends.
