DocSalon may have joined forces with the other EFM platforms during the market’s virtual Industry Meetings, but the focus on documentary and doc professionals is as sharp as ever in 2021. Doc Salon’s Nadja Tennstedt and the EFM Diversity and Inclusion Initiative’s Themba Bhebhe run through events with Business Doc Europe.
Synergy is good, but so is sovereignty, which is why the offer to documentary professionals at EFM 2021 is as broad, diverse and distinctive as in previous editions of the market. “It is very important to keep a dedicated space for doc. That is always my goal,” comments DocSalon manager Nadja Tennstedt.
Key events in 2021 are ‘Archive Day’ (March 2), two documentary-themed Diversity and Inclusivity panels, the second edition of DocSalon Toolbox Programme and numerous sessions in which doc professionals can engage in one-on-ones with programmers and industry toppers from all of the major global documentary film festivals.
‘Archive Day’ will feature consultations with representatives from key libraries and archive producers, as well as two top-level talks on working with archives.
The ‘Latest Buzz in Archival Research’ panel is designed to give an insider’s perspective on how archival material can be used in documentary filmmaking and what the work of an archival researcher looks like. What should filmmakers know if they want to use third-party material in their work and what is the latest buzz in archival storytelling?
“We saw that there is an enormous need to learn more about the inner workings of how to go about archive research and clearance rights. It is also good that archive producers can explain in these talks how they are working, and why it is advisable to get good researchers on board,” says Tennstedt.
The ‘Unlocking the Mysteries of Archive’ panel discusses the requirement for greater accessibility to library footage and will look at the “communication channels” between archivists and users. “Many archive are sitting on a treasure trove that they need and want to make more accessible,” says Tennstedt. “[They are] an almost infinite cabinet of wonders of film history, in which there is still much to be discovered and creatively communicated.”
Tennstedt and colleague Themba Bhebhe have organised an online event (also March 2) comprising “two fireside chats” titled ‘Who Frames the Narrative: Shifting the Paradigm’, which will be followed by a live Q&A. The speakers will examine the question of who has the right to tell whose stories and what from what perspectives, and who has the right to frame the perspectives and narratives of marginalized groups.
“Racialised people – black, indigenous and other people of colour – have been living this dystopian [existence] for centuries. The Black Lives matter movement is not a new movement… it is just that the generalised awareness of it has taken a shift forward,” comments Bhebhe.
“So I think documentary creators have a clear role to play in terms of social impact, in terms of racial equity but also the equity of women and other marginalized groups. This was always the case and has become all the more apparent over the past 5 years [post-Weinstein and post global uprisings against racism]. The genie is out of the bottle and it’s not going back in any time soon.”
Bhebhe further questions the documentary commissioning and production processes, irrespective of how well-intentioned its gatekeepers and operatives may be. “Are we only framing the world from the position of the well-intended but ostensibly cis-gendered, middle-class, straight white male?” he asks. “But [we must look at] the way that person sees the world, and the skews and the biases that are embedded in that person. Even if that person reads The Guardian [liberal UK broadsheet newspaper] religiously (laughter), they still harbour internal biases – we all do – even though people think they are generally open-minded. If you are portraying the lives, the existences of other people to groups that you do not belong to, are you doing that in a way that reflects the reality as they see, experience and perceive it, are you doing that faithfully to their reality and perspective?”
The March 5 ‘Restorative Image: From Impact to Healing’ session will address the ways in which films can, beyond the any ‘feel good factor’ or even social impact, mediate ‘healing’ for the benefit of audiences from marginalized groups. Spanning the sectors of impact producing, festival strategy, press, PR, outreach and film criticism, the debate is intended to explore the strategies that the industry deploys for these films to have the desired effect for their audiences and place them at the intersection of the business of film, well-being and social justice.
“At a micro level, Doc Salon is about creating a space where organisations and festivals can congregate and form communities and advocate for these ideas, and also bring filmmakers into this space, empower them and ensure that their perspectives can be foregrounded,” underlines Bhebhe.
Tennstedt points to EFM’s eleven Meet the [Doc] Festival one-to-one sessions that she and her team have arranged. These are designed to offer doc industryites and creatives the opportunity for face to face interaction with programming and industry toppers from all the major international doc fests, from Against Gravity to Sundance, Ambulante to Visions du Réel, Ji.hlava to HotDocs.
She also references her collaboration with DAE (Documentary Association of Europe) in 2021, whom she refers to as “a very important ally in defending and propelling documentary and its professionals and creatives” and whose EFM activities this year include the Lonely Doc Club speed-dating hangout which will run March 2 (7pm CET) and March 4 (11am CET).
Tennstedt and Bhebhe are also running the second DocSalon Toolbox Programme which this year invites 31 international producers and producing filmmakers. The initiative is designed specifically to endow documentary creatives facing equity gaps with market intelligence, business tools and connections, and is open to individuals belonging to marginalized and underrepresented groups, defined according to how they self-identify and as per the criteria defining such groups in the film agencies and funding bodies of their territories of residence.
The programme provides a kit of transferable business know-how and connections under the guidance of a consultant and a coordinator as well as an array of workshops on all aspects of the business of film.
“The Toolbox is very much a launchpad for the rest of the year where communities can form, based on peer-to-peer matchmaking of participants and projects,” says Bhebhe. “It’s an integral part of what we are doing, so we hope that those participants will continue to develop networks throughout the year independently of us, but it is also great that we can continue to connect and take stock of how they are doing.”
“The Toolbox is an accelerator, an incubator and a catalyst,” he ends.
EFM registration is open through to the end of the event running 1-5 March 2021.
