“What is a normal edition of a festival? We don’t know anymore,” Fipadoc Creative Director Christine Camdessus told Business Doc Europe on the eve of her Industry showcase. The past three years may have been blighted by doubt and uncertainty over Covid, but all that seems rooted in the past now, and 2023 therefore represents an altogether different vibe. “Let’s make it groovy and funky,” Camdessus enthuses of the professional programme that will be presented both live and online.
Her optimism is driven by the “vitality” (she refuses to say “resilience”) of a doc industry that she saw bounce back impressively in 2022. “We visited a lot of festivals,” she comments, and was reminded of the festival’s essential role within the “value chain of the documentary…I’m amazed by the energies that have been put in to revive [them].”
Camdessus reckons on nearly 1000 professional visitors at FIPADOC Industry in 2023. All the international and local filmmakers presenting new projects will pitch in person and online. These include 24 International project pitches across four categories; Arts & Culture, History & Current Affairs, Social Issues and Climate & Science, ostensibly from Europe, and including three from Ukraine and a project each from this year’s region in focus; Finland and the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Prizes include the Best International and Best French Pitch awards plus the Lightdox Award that offers €2000 in cash.
The annual territorial focus has become a key element within the Biarritz professional offer (last year the spotlight was trained on the Benelux, and the Visegrad countries in 2021). “Each time, it’s a delegation of around 50-60 people coming, where you have the film funds, the distributors, the festivals and the producers,” Camdessus comments.
“Having this focus [means] more films coming from this [designated] region, more projects coming from this region, more professionals coming from this region. And little by little we are going to cover all of Europe,” Camdessus underlines of her desire to be a hub for European documentary collaboration. “Our aim is to ignite collaborations and create long-lasting ties within the European documentary industry.”
A 24 January hands-on session with Zane Balčus of the Baltic Sea Forum together with experienced professionals from Finland and the Baltic countries will guide delegates through their Northern co-production landscape. The panel will conclude with the presentation of documentaries from the main broadcasters of the Finnish and Baltic region.
Given that 2023 is the “Year of Documentary” in France, there will be, inevitably, strong emphasis placed on the French national and regional industries and how they can be accessed by international professionals. “It’s a good year to sell documentaries to France because documentaries are going to be very well exposed,” Camdessus agrees.
“We introduce the French industry to the non-French,” she continues, and that includes the region of Nouvelle-Aquitane, which will be in focus on January 26. “If I go to a German festival, or a Spanish festival, I’m happy to get to know the local market because they can be partners or they can be buyers of my films, of course. I hope we find a balance between the French speaking sessions and the English speaking panel sessions for everyone to find whatever they need.”
A 24 January English-language panel will offer insights into the promotion strategies behind the successful export of French documentaries, asking what it takes to give each documentary the visibility it deserves in markets and festivals abroad, illustrated with case studies and expert insights. During a 25 January session attendees can dive deeper into the French broadcasting system and hear commissioning editors talk about the different slots and co-production opportunities on offer.
There is even more French emphasis within three further pitch sessions. DOC A LA PAGE! invites publishers to pitch ten non-fiction books with high potential for adaptation to television to a panel of audiovisual producers. The Pitches Story Lab session is the final part of a four-month scriptwriting workshop intended to support audiovisual journalists in their ambition to write a documentary based on their groundwork investigation. The Regional First Film Pitch programme allows new creators from the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region to pitch their first documentary project to a panel of local television channels and producers looking for new talent.
Looking beyond Gallic borders, a 25 January industry panel will cover the distribution of short docs while two other panels will train the spotlight squarely on Ukraine. The 23 January workshop will focus on supporting directors and producers through dangerous or difficult productions and will investigate how we can individually and collectively prevent the risks related to these working conditions? The workshop will propose an analysis of potential “fragility factors” and will dive into the processes of briefing/debriefing. On January 25 the News From Ukraine panel will enable Ukrainian filmmakers attending FIPADOC to share updates on the Ukrainian documentary community and discuss the initiatives that believe will make a significant difference within documentary making.
Fipadoc’s Camdessus stresses how impact was one of the pillars of the festival when it was launched in 2019. Every year there is an Impact Competition (this year comprising 11 films). The staple Impact Lab, run in collaboration with Think Film, continues as a 2-day workshop for author/producers duos who benefit from a tailor-made and personalized training by a leading IMPACT producer “to acquire the methodology and tools that boost the impact of the films.”
Impact is also a key constituent with the project pitches and is the subject of two panels at Fipadoc 2023. The January 23 Reaching Beyond the Screen session invites leading experts Ove Rishøj Jensen (producer, Denmark), Beth Simpson (story producer, Lyfta, Finland), Adam Gee (program consultant CAA, UK/US) and Sini Hormio (Head of Industry, Impact and Outreach, Docpoint, Finland), to elaborate on different experiences of working “beyond the screen,” and to share valuable knowledge about how to make the documentary story relevant for multiple platforms and purposes.
A French-language session on the finance of impact strategies (as distinct from production budgets) will be hosted by Fipadoc on January 25. The concept of impact seems to be in its infancy in France, Camdessus observes of the panel’s importance within the festival’s professional programme. “We evangelize to the French, to spread the [international] knowledge and knowhow,” she signs off, groovily.
