The festival component of the Biarritz doc fest may be postponed until French cinemas re-open, but the packed Industry Days programme will continue online 18-22 January. This includes the pitch of 24 new international projects, eight of which are from Visegrad countries. Festival director Christine Camdessus explains all to BDE.
Back in November 2020, with uncertainty surrounding FIPADOC dates, festival organisers were nevertheless determined that one event set in stone must be Industry Days, which run online 18-22 January. A postponement of that would have meant a serious interruption to the plans both of project rights holders, who had committed to Biarritz, and to the balanced eco-system of similar pitch events within the calendar. What’s more, following successful online market presentations in 2020, such as CPH:DOX, Visions du Réel, Leipzig and IDFA, Biarritz organisers were confident that they could pull off their own expert event.
But from a festival perspective, COVID called for a fundamental change in plans. At first it looked like French cinemas would be reopening on December 15 2020. Then the date was put back to January 7 2021, which would have allowed for the live festival (originally scheduled for January 18-24) to continue. But when the French Prime Minister announced that cinemas would close for all of January, postponement was inevitable.
An online alternative was never an option, points out festival director Christine Camdessus. “The philosophy of the festival is to be partnered with the theatres. We believe this will be sometime in Spring, but we never wanted to do a digital festival for the general public. That is not our philosophy,” she stresses. “The theatres need the festival to get the audiences back, so we are happy to do that hand in hand with them…and we want to have the joy of the big screen.”
“We believe in an encounter between film and the public, and between directors and the public. This is what we value, this is what we want to be part of, and this is what we defend,” Camdessus adds.
The FIPADOC director further underlines that she and her colleagues are ready to commence screenings for the Biarritz cineaste public as soon as they are given the go-ahead, whether that be March or April.
The festival programme will consist of nine sections (including International, National, Music and Impact Competitions) and a raft of awards including the four Grand Awards. For full selection and prizes detail click here.
During FIPADOC Industry Days, twenty-four new projects (twelve on society and politics, and six respectively on the topics of history and arts/culture) will be presented during the International Co-production Forum. These projects boast production input from 19 countries as diverse as the US, France, Sudan and Mongolia.
Pitch awards on offer have increased from three to six in 2021. These are Best International and Best French projects (€5000 in post-production services from Saya); the Lightdox Award for a high-potential international project (€2000 granted by distributor Lightdox); the Visegrad Award (€1500 granted by the Visegrad Fund, see below); The Echo Studio Award for a project of high impact (€2000 granted by the producer and distributor Echo Studio) and the DocsBarcelona Award which offers an invitation to pitch to the next co-production forum in the Catalan capital.
A core element of the Biarritz offer in 2021, both during the festival and perhaps more significantly during Industry Days, is a focus on the Visegrad countries (Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia). On this, FIPADOC is collaborating with four key players in the region: the Institute of Documentary Film (IDF) in Prague, Hungarian Documentary Association MADOKE in Budapest, the Krakow Film Foundation (KFF) and the Slovak Independent Producer’s Association in Bratislava.
Eight of the 24 International Co-production Forum projects will be from these countries, and organized meetings between Visegrad producers and French producers are designed to facilitate co-production activity. Hands-on sessions include case studies, presentations and master classes to inform French and international professional on the diversity of documentary production in the Visegrad group of countries and to promote wider collaboration.
Visegrad films under professional scrutiny include A Woman Captured by Bernadett Tuza-Ritter (Hungary), Ticket to the Moon by Veronika Janatkova (Czech Republic), The Good Death by Tomáš Krupa (Slovakia) and The Whale from Lorino by Maciej Cuske (Poland).
The festival programme also includes Visegrad films across all its competitive sections, such as Polish Tomasz Wolski’s An Ordinary Country, Ladislav Kaboš’ The Band (Slovakia), A New Shift by Jindrich Andrš (Czech Republic) and Wolves at the Borders by Martin Páv (Czech Republic).
As in past years, the necessity for impact is fore-fronted during FIPADOC Industry, with a window opened onto the Change Now Summit, described as “the world’s largest gathering of the bearers of concrete solutions for a sustainable planet.” The festival will also underline the need for concrete, positive action as it gives the floor to the Impact Social Club, the new association of French impact producers which arose from the festival’s Impact Lab of 2020.
During Industry Days, the majority of presentations will be prepared in advance so as to make the FIPADOC event as smooth running and engaging as possible. “There is a paradox in this digital space,” warns Camdessus. “You are available because you are on your computer but at the same time you have no patience, so if the presentation is not impeccable, you can easily go and do something else, like your emails!”
Two further features of FIPADOC 2021 are tête-à-tête sessions with French broadcasters, international sales agents, and experts in different fields organised for French and international participants, and the more relaxed Apéro Doc functions, which will take place online at the end of each day to facilitate meetings, catch up with colleagues, present and discuss the documentaries chosen for the festival.
Camdessus stresses that FIPADOC works as a gateway for international professionals looking to access French documentary production, finance and broadcast infrastructure. Likewise it is designed for French professionals eager to access international projects and institutions for co-production.
As importantly, she argues that the Industry Days event offers a golden opportunity for fledgling producers and creatives, both French and international. “One of our goals is to favour access to the newcomer. We are all equal, especially as we are all now attending the festivals online, but we know there are those who are more equal than others, especially if we [more experienced professionals] know influential people.
“One of our responsibilities therefore is to make sure that newcomers don’t get lost, that they are chaperoned. We are especially attentive to them,” Camdessus ends.
