“The name is Bond…James Bond.” “Hey, me too!” Paris-based sales outfit Reservoir Docs arrives at this year’s IDFA handling a Bond movie with a difference. Its new film The Other Fellow directed by Matthew Bauer explores just what it is like to share a name with the most popular spy in movie history.
Hardbitten Texans, shy and reclusive scientists, British soldiers, gay New York Theatre directors and several others have the same name that novelist borrowed from an ornithological book and gave to his celebrated Martini-quaffing fictional creation.
Company boss Anaïs Clanet is at IDFA looking to rack up more deals on The Other Fellow in IDFA’s Docs For Sale. “We sell it really well and we have a lot of fun with it. It is a good festival film,” Clanet notes of Bauer’s doc which has screened at festivals ranging from Melbourne to Doc Edge in New Zealand, and was recently sold to Gravitas Ventures for the US.
Other territories closed include VGTV (Norway-TV), Filmin (Spain-SVOD), SBS (Australia-TV)) Yes (Israel – TV) and Njuta (Scandinavia, all rights except Norwegian TV).
The doc’s attraction is that it looks both at the myth of Bond and at the anonymous people who share a name with the spy and try to have a normal life. “Can you imagine being named James Bond? Your life would be changed for sure,” Clanet suggests. “If I was named Hillary Clinton, obviously I would be bothered in the streets. People would be questioning me.”
Also new on the Reservoir Docs slate is Welcome To Norway, a five-episode crime docudrama TV series about a businessman attacked in his own home by an American couple. Bizarrely, the couple were allowed to return to the US without facing up to justice.
“This is the first time I am having a crime series. It’s because it is from a producer I’ve known for a very long time, Indie Film [the outfit behind Ballet Boys].
Here at IDFA, Clanet is also on the prowl for new projects. Reservoir Docs tends to specialise in arts and culture films which have a bit of buzz and attitude about them. She had notable success with Raoul Peck’s 2016 doc about James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro, which went on to secure an Oscar nomination, and is hoping for something similar from its new doc, HipHop Minute, which talks about the arrival of hip hop in the New York in the 1980s. Clanet found the project at the Flemish event CONNEXT last month. Directed by Flemish DJ and filmmaker Pascal Garnier, it includes interviews from LL Cool J and other leading musicians from the era. Reservoir Docs is expected strong North American interest in the film.
As Clanet notes, there are fewer arts and culture docs in the IDFA selection than in previous years. “It’s not really at the centre of IDFA at the moment,” Clanet says of this type of filmmaking. However, she has still been able to arrange meetings in Amsterdam with producers who have arts and culture-based docs which will surface at a later date.
“We need to stay in line with our DNA but we also need to expand and try new things,” Clanet also ventures on how Reservoir Docs is looking to bounce back after the pandemic. It’s a tough marketplace in which theatrical releasing is threatening to stall. Inventive and energetic release campaigns are therefore vital as are new strategies. Picking up a crime series is one step. So is jumping on the Bond bandwagon.
However, Clanet can point to some reassuring signs. Reservoir Docs has had a big recent success with its art documentary Goya, Carriere And The Ghost Of Bunuel. This has sold widely since its Cannes premiere and been a solid success in several markets, notably France.
Other new titles on Reservoir Docs’ slate include Patrick Muroni’s Fierce: A Porn Revolution, about a group of young Swiss women who start making porn films. The company is also handling Hot Docs title The End Of Innocence from director Pauline Beugnies. This is about the Dutroux Affair, the notorious child kidnapping and sex abuse case in Belgium which ended up traumatising the entire nation.
“Only a few make it!” Clanet says of the small number of docs which are achieving success in cinemas. That’s why some of her projects are also being targeted at broadcasters too.
Given the market conditions, is she optimistic? “You have to be,” the ebullient Clanet responds. Whatever the challenges, “great films and great stories” are still finding audiences. “When I am excited about something, usually people get excited about it too! That is my nature.”
