Molecules by Andrea Segre
“First of all, this year’s Cannes is not the usual going to market – it’s not going to be 60 meetings in four days,” Decker Distribution sales supremo Liselot Verbrugge told Business Doc Europe before she set off for Cannes Marché 2021.
“We all need to ease back into it. The market is still recovering and it’s not like every distributor has a full set of films that they can take onto their slate right now – most of them have a backlog that they’re dealing with.”
But it is a nevertheless a sign, she adds, “that we are starting to make the wheels turn again as an industry, that we are moving away from the purely online world and back to the physical world, although online will stay to a certain extent.”
She continues: “So for me, it is really an important moment to connect again with people. I bet everybody tells you this, but it is true. There will be producers that I’ve been working with for the last year that I’ve haven’t even met yet in person… [Despite the effectiveness of Zoom] sometimes the most important discussions are the little ones in-between, and I’m really looking forward to that part.”
The Deckert Distribution slate is always relatively small. The company picks up a dozen films or so films per year, but they are docs that always generate festival interest, Verbrugge underlines. At Cannes, she will be selling two new titles that will be world-premiering at Locarno, the Czech/Italian Brotherhood by Francesco Montagner in Cineasti del presente, and Stand Up My Beauty by Heidi Specogna in Semaine de la Critique.
Also on the Cannes slate are three Visions du Réel Competition titles that are making their theatrical market premiere, Les Enfants terribles by Ahmet Necdet Cupur, The Bubble by Valerie Blankenbyl and David Herdies and Georg Götmark’s Bellum – The Daemon of War.
“It’s also a good moment to test the water again, like, what’s happening, just to feel the trends again, feel the needs,” says Verbrugge. “We saw last year that there was a difference in need also because of the online part, which meant for us that arts and biopics worked really well.”
“We’re seeing an interest again for creative films…We think also that the audience itself is hungry for a bit more creative, bit more challenging films,” she adds.
The company will continue sales on top-selling titles Gorbachev, Heaven (Vitaly Mansky) and Roberto Salinas’ Cuban Dancer. Verbrugge will also commence sales on two, for now, unnamed titles for which she is discussing festival premiere possibilities.
She further stresses how many of her older titles are revealing a long tail. “We have some films that came out like last year that were really made for the big screen and that we chose not to already go online with,” she says. “Now they are having their delayed theatrical release. Like for instance, Space Dogswhich is now having its release in Japan and Austria this week. Molecules (Andrea Segre) is now going into Germany and To the Moon (Tadhg O’Sullivan) to the Netherlands.”
These are really more artistic, big screen films that we’re [assessing] to see how much room there still is in the theatrical world… Space Dogs was at Locarno in 2019, and it’s now in cinemas in several countries. So that means that we have to keep adapting and being flexible. And I think it’s also the luck that we have being a fairly small company with a small catalogue, so we can really think per title and be flexible.”
On Sunday July 11 at Cannes Docs (online), Verbrugge will present a session named
‘The Basics of Sales & Distribution Strategy for Documentary’ during which she will provide an insight into the world of documentary distribution and the basics of setting up a release strategy for a film.
“It’s a workshop for producers that helps them find the best way to find their audience,” she says. “So it’s really an explanation on how the distribution windows work, and it’s not only about how to work with a sales agent but also how to take these steps yourself, so you are better prepared for the market and have a better understanding of where you could place your film and what would be your realistic outcomes.”
