As 2022 rolls in, French docs sales outfit Reservoir Docs has been beefing up its slate, with its acquisition of Marie-José vous attend à 16h, directed by Camille Ponsin and produced by Minima Productions. The film will receive its world premiere later this month at FIPADOC in the festival’s French Documentary Competition.
Its main character is an elderly lady living in Paris who receives a steady stream of visitors. This is actually Marie-José Tubiana, a celebrated French ethnologist and author specialising in Chad and Sudan.
The visitors who come through her door every afternoon aren’t making social calls. They’re desperate for information they believe she can provide. Most are survivors of the genocide in Darfur. They are looking to her to corroborate their stories about the persecution they endured and thereby help them get political asylum in France.
“We are confident Marie-Jo’s story and lifetime dedication to truth, solidarity and kindness can resonate on an international scale,” Reservoir Docs exec Tanguy Milin commented to Business Doc Europe of the new pick-up.
Marie-Jo studied under anthropologist and cinema verité pioneer Jean Rouch. She “brought back gorgeous 16mm footage from her countless trips to Darfur. These films were sitting in an old Parisian closet,” Milin observes of some of Marie-Jo’s old footage which director Camille Ponsin has been able to bring back into the light.
“The story of this acquisition is completely out of the traditional documentary acquisition process of co-production forums, film festivals and such,” Milin continues of a project which was originally made through Minima Productions as a short. It was extended, enhanced and shown to French distributor KMBO which saw “real potential” in it and brought it to the attention of Reservoir Docs.
The film’s market premiere will come at the Unifrance Rendez-Vous in Paris on Saturday January 15 and the film will then be part of the Reservoir Docs European Film Market slate in Berlin.
Another new title which the company will be handling in the international marketplace is Dutch director Oeke Hoogendijk’s The Treasures of Crimea (which premiered at IDFA in November).
Produced by Frank van den Engel (from Amsterdam-based Zeppers Film), the feature doc tells the story of how the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam became a piggy in the middle, tugged between both Ukraine and Russia after staging an exhibition of Crimean art in 2014. This exhibition had the misfortune to happen just as Russia was annexing the Crimea. The Dutch museum was left with the dilemma of what to do with the art works – to give them back to the Crimeans, which would mean they fell into the hands of the Russians, or to return them to the Ukrainians. Inevitably, the dispute ended up in a courtroom drama.
The film’s release in the Netherlands is being handled by Mokum. Reservoir Docs anticipates this could be a hot-seller on the small screen and has been working on a ‘TV-hour version’ which will be shorter than the feature length film that Hoogendijk presented in IDFA.
Alongside the two new pick-ups, Reservoir Docs is continuing sales on its current slate which also includes crowd-pleasing doc Shabu by Shamira Raphaëla. The film, which won the Youth Documentary Award at IDFA, tells the story of a teenage rapper growing up on the wrong side of the tracks in Rotterdam but using his charm, talent and exuberance to overcome every adversity.
During the pandemic, Reservoir Docs has been tilting its focus increasingly toward the small screen.
“We can understand why our distributors are wary about releasing new films [theatrically]. For now, we want to focus on what is certain these days… for now, what can keep our business alive is broadcasters and maybe streamers,” Milin commented of the shift in strategy.
