Doc Society and the BFI are in Amsterdam with seven emerging producers from the UK. “The idea is that we are exposing them to the market. It will be, for the majority of them, the first time at IDFA and certainly their first time as producer,” Luke W Moody, appointed in July as Head of UK’s BFI Doc Society Fund, explains the thinking behind the ‘UK Producer Group at IDFA 2023,’ one of a raft of recent international initiatives from Doc Society.
“We [at Doc Society] are very forward facing in recognising that post-Brexit Britain needs post-production more than ever. We need other solutions and other ways of collaborating with Europe and this [IDFA] forms one of those spaces where you can form that connection,” Moody added. “We can’t operate in isolation as a national film fund and we want stories that travel, stories that will resonate in other parts of the world.”
The seven producers involved in the initiative, supported by the BFI International Connections Fund in partnership with Doc Society, are:
- Annika Ranin, founder of Unmannered Limited and whose projects include Doc Series Overseas – The Rise of European Basketball
- Emma Norton, whose projects include Look At Me And Then Up, the debut feature documentary of directors Ira Putilova and Tasya Zaslavskaya. This looks at Tasya’s life as she is forced to flee Russia due to her family’s vocal opposition to the war in Ukraine.
- Joanna Wright, a producer with artist-led company Tiny City, and who has hybrid doc/dance interactive short, Yn Y Golau (In the Light) in post-production
- Lucy Draper, a London-based producer who has been developing Noir: Don’t Knock the Afro Rock, telling the story of UK’s first Black rock band, victims of a prejudiced industry who disappeared without a trace.
- Naziha Karima Arebi, a British-Libyan artist and filmmaker whose project Fertile Void reflects on the Italian colonial period in Libya
- Reece Cargan from Glasgow-based Bombito Productions whose projects include Your Honour, about the experiences of a pioneering trans law student amid the political turbulence in contemporary Turkey.
- Younis is an award-winning director and producer. His project Malcolm will blend true crime and journalistic investigation with rare access to Malcolm X’s family. The cinematic feature documentary is described as “a suspenseful and emotional journey of Malcolm Shabazz and his family with historical epic sweep across three generations.”
- Usayd Younis is an award-winning director and producer. His project Malcolm will blend true crime and journalistic investigation with rare access to Malcolm X’s family. The cinematic feature documentary is described as “a suspenseful and emotional journey of Malcolm Shabazz and his family with historical epic sweep across three generations.”
Several new titles supported by BFI Doc Society are at IDFA this year, among them Jeanie Finlay’s IDFA Forum participant All Rivers Spill Their Secrets (to the Sea) and Baff Akoto’s VR project, Collateral Echoes, a DocLab Forum Presentation. Meanwhile, Simisolaoluwa Akande’s award winning short The Archive: Queer Nigerians receives its international premiere in Luminous.
What’s more, several Doc Society-backed films are likely to be in the running for festivals early next year, among them The Flats by Alessandra Celesia, set in a socially deprived Catholic neighbourhood in Belfast 20 years after the Troubles, Amy Hardy’s new film (whose title is yet to be confirmed) following the first 10 years of a couple’s marriage, and Nelly Ben Hayoun- Stépanian’s Doppelgänger 3 (previously known as Red Moon).
Speaking to Business Doc Europe, Moody outlined his ambitions for BFI Doc Society while reflecting on the daunting challenges currently facing the UK doc sector.
Moody was head of film at Doc Society in 2016 (then Britdoc) and so this isn’t his first stint at the organisation. “I think the industry has shifted a lot in that time of short absence,” he observes. “And the organisation [Doc Society) has grown quite significantly. When I was there, I left back in late 2016, we were around six full-time staff. Now, it is over 20, a mixture of consultants, full-time staff and freelances. The major shift for me is that I was working particularly on the international front at that point and now my remit is really focusing on UK talent and supporting UK filmmakers.”
The BFI Doc Society Head emphasises that “it’s not only about directors but about producers too, as the first step on that ladder to being seen and recognised.”
It’s a point of pride for Moody that the majority of features that BFI Doc Society has supported are from first-time directors. “It is genuinely a space where we are looking for new talent.”
Shorts fund ‘Made of Truth’ is intended to kickstart careers. The hope is also that it will enable filmmakers to move on from their shorts to making features. (Simisolaoluwa Akande and Alice Russell, director of If the Streets Were On Fire, are examples of fast-rising filmmakers whose careers have been given a major boost by early BFI Doc Society support).
New lobbying group UK Documentary Film Council recently warned of the “existential threat” facing UK docs as funding shrivels up and distribution avenues close. “I think there are fewer options of support domestically and that then requires innovation by producers,” Moody agrees. “They’ve had to look at other forms of funding whether it’s non-profits or foundations coming into the [documentary financing] space, and not just to rely on commercial opportunities or public funding. But it’s dark. It’s difficult.”
Moody himself is an experienced producer and knows at first-hand how tough it is to get projects made – and to make a living – in a period when commissioners seems overly focused on “the easy wins of true crime and celeb docs.” He argues that if filmmakers begin to “self-edit” and to “restrict” the type of docs they’re prepared to make because of market conditions, then “we are not going to see a diverse market of really amazing new stories and documentaries challenging our idea of what documentary can be. I think we are just going to see a pipeline of things that are going to look the same.”
This is why Moody and his team are determined to encourage risk-taking.
One sign of optimism is that UK broadcasters are again dipping their toe into the doc world. For a while, it has seemed that BBC Storyville was the only outlet for filmmakers with feature docs, but Moody points out that Channel 5 recently backed White Nanny Black Child, Andy Mundy-Castle’s doc about West African children fostered by white Britons which premiered at Sheffield DocFest.
BFI Doc Society supports 15 short form films a year (at up to £25,000). The cap on funding for features is £150,000 per film. There is flexibility as to the number of features the organisation gets behind, but it tends to be around seven a year. A new fund for early development will also shortly be introduced. This will be a small amount of money that can go to directors (around £5000) and a little more if directors already have producers on board.
Under Moody, BFI Doc Society is as “transparent” as possible about its decision-making processes. “It is that human connection that makes a fund work,” he suggests. “If you’re always sitting in a white tower, distant from the community you’re supposed to be serving, then you will never understand your connection with them and they won’t understand their opportunity to be in dialogue with you.”
It’s now a little over three months since the untimely death of Jess Search, one of the leaders of Doc Society and a truly formidable figure on the UK and global doc scene. Ask Moody how Doc Society is coping without her and he suggests that Search’s example is an inspiration.
“I can’t speak for the wider organisation. I had known Jess for a long time. She was there when I started my career at Doc Society and was super-supportive in my early career in feature docs. I would say she has left a fire rather than a hole…[a] fire to do what we have a passion for…and that is supporting feature-length documentaries and filmmakers, particularly those who don’t have support elsewhere.”
