I've come to the end of a couple of market weeks, at the UK's Sheffield Doc/Fest and France's Sunnyside of the Doc. Both full of networking opportunities, pitching, market knowledge, and panel discussions. Plus socialising over beer, wine and tea - an essential part of the business!
I leave both events with a long list of to-dos, as it's all about the follow-up - you start so many conversations at a market, but what matters is how you continue them. My stack of business cards from previous markets is testimony of many leads un-followed up - now I keep an electronic record of people met and conversations started, and make sure in the days following the market to send a quick email or message.
Turning a thought into an idea, then writing it up into a project and finding partners to collaborate with is a process with plenty of pitfalls, but getting the ideas out there and just putting one foot in front of the other is the only way I know of doing it. Once you have an idea in its simplest form, visualise it, test it, socialise it, practise pitching it. And never be afraid to change it. A good idea is one that's resilient to change.
First stop in the summer market season for me was Sheffield Doc/Fest. The festival and big industry programme represents just how internationally diverse the documentary community is - and how many pressing issues and causes doc makers are covering.
(c) Polina Zaichenko
As Sheffield I saw more films than I used to do in my days representing SBS (when it was all about the meetings) - Coexistence My Ass, The Stringer, Blue Has no Borders (as part of the crowdfunding campaign I got a little thrill from seeing my name on the credits), and Azebaijani film Dreamers - People of Light.
I also went to a few of the large range of panels - well produced by Emily Copley and Sabrina Scollan. To mention but three of them: World of Wonder boss Fenton Bailey alongside his producing partner at the Ru Paul Drag Race indie, Randy Barbato - Fenton is always insightul and entertaining, especially when he strays off-topic (though Randy is used to getting him back on track).
Funding and promotion bodies UK Global Sceen, German Films and Unifrance did a joint session comparing the funding scene in their countries. An excellent session called Too Hot to Handle, moderated by Prash Naik and featuring Ben de Pear of Basement Films, who was in the midst of negotiating the move of his Gaza Medics under Fire doc om BBC to Channel 4.
On the Saturday morning I moderated a panel called 'Where the Grass is Greener - could Policy be the Answer?' after the Documentary Film Council (DFC) AGM on what policy changes were needed in the UK doc sector - and how we need to all work collectively to move the sector on. Thanks to Abby Sun, Steve Presence, Nathalia Imaz and Julian Carrington for such a great discussion. The conversation coming out of the panel led to the announcement of an intenational alliance to push policy measures - glad to see the news got picked up in Business Doc Europe, Realsceen, POV amongst others. Much more to do of course, but as the DFC is run on a shoestring while it gets established, it's up to members to advocate or change alongside the still voluntary management..
From Sheffield I made a quick pit stop in London and then travelled on Sunday morning to La Rochelle on France's Atlantic coast. for Sunnyside of the Doc. I've been there for many years and this lovely town feels very familiar.
The friendly atmosphere and relaxed meetings with others in the public media funded ecosystem didn't completely shield us from the realities of the market, and the news of the collapse of distibutor and producer Off the Fence was sad news. Clive Whittingham sums it up well with his takeways for C21 - read them here.
On the first day I moderated the Science Pitch - the prize went to an Australian project, HEART. I prepared quite a lot for the pitch, connecting with all of the project teams in the days beforehand, to be able to get the most from the decision-makers' feedback.
And the next day the China Hour, where a number of projects from Chinese makers were presented to the audience. Mostly from parts of the country that I didn't know, so it was interesting to see them up on the big screen. Thanks to the China Pavilion and CICC for inviting me to moderate - it's been a few years since I worked in China but I'm keen to do so again. If your Mandarin and French are up to the challenge, here's a CCTV news piece about the event that I make a quick appearance in
At the closing ceremony I had the honour of giving a tribute to the much-missed documentary figure Iikka Vehkalahti, who died suddenly at the end of last year in his garden in Finland. He epitomised the internationalism and togetherness of the documentary and actual sector and is much missed.
