Visions Du Réel’s industry programme, 6-9 April, is launching with a masterclass by British director, Asif Kapadia, who’ll also be introducing a 10th anniversary screening of his Amy Winehouse doc, Amy (2015).
“I see Asif Kapadia as a very impressive filmmaker. Last year, he released 2073, which is a hybrid film – and many of our filmmakers are interested in the non-traditional forms of non-fiction storytelling,” Head of Industry Alice Burgin reflects on just why Kapadia is such a good fit for Nyon. “In the same way as we had [Brazilian filmmaker] Petra Costa last year, it is exciting for the industry to have someone who is a bit of a stalwart, who can give some reflection and guidance on how they are finding working in the industry right now. That is very much the goal, to hear from a master. But I also feel in terms of the Visions audience, there is that connection with the shifting style he has been playing with.”
Burgin adds that she invited Kapadia not fully expecting him to accept. “I’ve invited him to Australia about a hundred times and he never could come. I was surprised when he said yes!” Before joining Visions du Réel, Burgin was CEO/Conference Director of the Australian International Documentary Conference (AIDC).
The spotlight is on distribution during this year’s VdR-Industry. Pascal Trächslin from leading Swiss distributor Cineworx is taking part in a panel on doc distribution in Switzerland. Meanwhile, Debra Zimmerman (Women Make Movies) and Robin Smith (Blue Ice Docs) will be sharing their expertise on how to get films funded and seen in the North American market while Bénédicte Thomas (Arizona) and Johanna Mayer (Jour2Fête) will talk about the holy grail of getting distribution in France.
The festival is also working with Europe Distribution to make it easier for its members to come to Nyon.
“I do think risk taking is decreasing for buyers; theatrical documentary, which is what Visions Du Réel privileges, is losing favour with distributors. They all [say] there is no audience,” Burgin acknowledges the challenges facing sales agents and distributors. However, as she points out, there are always unsung titles that somehow break through. She cites Oscar winner No Other Land as an example of what seems a relatively below-the-radar movie that Autlook managed to sell to over 20 countries.
“What I am excited about is trying to help these types of films find other pathways to their audiences. I am not sure audiences don’t want them. That’s what we are being told but I am not sure that is true…one of the big things we are trying to do this year is to look at not just the traditional distributors but at what people are doing well outside of these [traditional] models to find their audiences. That’s a really important question that filmmakers working in creative documentary are going to have to ask themselves more and more.”
It’s clear that certain projects showcased in Nyon in the last have gone on to achieve significant international success. For example, Gianluca Matarrese’s GEN_ (Bellota Films & Stemal Entertainment), about a colourful and progressive doctor at Milan’s Niguarda hospital, was pitched last year and premiered in Sundance less than a year later.
“I don’t know how they did it. Late development in April through to Sundance premiere [in January],” Burgin marvels at the speed with which Matarrese completed his film, seemingly from a standing start. “It’s exciting and buoying to have projects that you see at such an early stage of their life have such a successful trajectory. It gives inspiration to all those other poor projects that take 10 years to make!”
It’s a sign of the industry event’s growing prominence that Burgin and her team received “the most submissions [of projects] we have ever had this year – over 700.”
Twenty-eight were eventually chosen for the various pitching and presentation strands.
“We are lucky at the moment that we have a few very big prizes. I think that really helps,” Burgin says, citing the €20,000 Eurimages Co-production Development Award and the CHF 10,000 visions sud est Award as being especially attractive to filmmakers developing new docs.
“Despite the market maybe contracting, I think there is a big desire of filmmakers to make creative documentaries – the type of documentaries that Visions supports. We have carved out a very specific niche with certain filmmakers,” the industry head adds.
Ask Burgin about themes she and her team have spotted across the submissions and she replies that “it is impossible not to feel in the projects that we are getting a real anxiety about the state of the world.”
War and climate change are familiar topics. Projects being pitched this week include A Nature Documentary on Dying Birds from Finnish director Mina Laamo. This explores the collapse of biodiversity and asks why humans’ relationship with nature has become so unnatural. Reportedly, more than 3 billion birds have been lost across the EU and North America in the last half-century alone.
Sepideh Farsi’s Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk is based around conversations between the filmmaker and a young photographer trapped in Gaza.
Also being pitched is new Ukrainian title, Ashes Settling in Layers on the Surface from director Zoya Laktionova. This looks at the cycle of destruction in Mariupol from the perspective of a single family.
Another war-oriented project, Swiss director Gabriel Tejedor’s The Big Boom is set in an arms factory in Bulgaria which supplies weapons to the Ukrainians but where many residents have strong Russian links. Meanwhile, in Vladlena Sandu’s Memory, a survivor of the war in Chechnya uses cinema to revisit the trauma of childhood.
“In every festival and market, these themes are so present. What we are trying to do is think what will audiences and festivals want and what is new in communicating these issues,” Burgin says of the selection. “We have all seen climate films. How do we prevent climate fatigue? How do we keep people engaged in what is happening in Ukraine?”
One new strand this year is a Norwegian preview section that is being overseen by the Norwegian Film Institute and includes such titles as Anette Ostrø’s The Golden Swan and Amir Ajdinovic’s The Universe Is My Selfie.
The aim, as always, is to select projects with a “strong authorial stamp” and which “bring something new” to material that may already be familiar. Burgin has spotted the emergence of “a new generation of filmmakers trying to tell history and also contemporary stories in new and engaging ways.”
The industry head and her team have made sure the right buyers and commissioning editors will be in town. “We know who are the broadcasters who have slots for this type of cinema,” she explains. “What’s interesting is that I feel we have an increased number of sales agents. This year, we are working hard to bring distributors because that is missing part of the puzzle in a way.”
