I'll try to get any biases I have on the table first thing. I adore the folks who put together the annual BritDoc Festival, held for the second time last week at Keble College in Oxford, and I'd been looking forward to it for some time (actually since November, when it seemed like my film might have a decent shot of making it in this year's line-up of ten international films). I will further stipulate that when I like the programmers at a particular festival, more often than not (actually almost always) the festival seems to be a cut above (or several cuts above) your average, run of the mill festival.
So, with expectations high, I flew to London last week to attend this year's festival, perhaps the last festival I'll attend in support of my film.
The weather was not promising. You've seen the reports of severe flooding throughout the UK. Well, on the day I flew to London, it became apparent that the rail lines to Oxford had been flooded. There was even talk of evacuating parts of Oxford.
But while the town may have been a bit soggy when I arrived via coach (bus) on Wednesday morning, the festival was already going off with nary a hitch. And it would turn out to be perhaps the most intimate, warm and engaging festival I attended on this tour, an almost perfect mix of business (via the well executed pitch segment), film-going (a well chosen mix of many of the best UK and International features from the past year) and pleasure (dinners in the actual Harry Potter dining hall and sweaty, punk rock karaoke). Much like the similarly contained and well-run True/False, BritDoc has quickly become a destination festival on the international documentary circuit and should continue to be so for some time.
The quad of Keble College in Oxford on an overcast and damp Wednesday afternoon.
Two sunny days later, the blankets and beer were out.
The Wednesday night banquet inside Keble Hall, also known as the Hogwarts dining hall from the Harry Potter films.
I was very excited to finally get to see a number of films that I had previously missed for one reason or another, the biggest of these being Jason Kohn's Sundance double-winner MANDA BALA (SEND A BULLET), a stunningly shot tour de force with several narrative threads detailing the corruption and crime of Sao Paulo. While definitively nonfiction in nature, the film looks and plays like a retro 70s cop thriller. One sequence, which introduces a central law enforcement figure, unfolds as a classic narrative character intro - the excellent soundtrack pulses and the edit jump cuts as our hero dismounts his motorcycle and strides into headquarters. It's like nothing you've seen before in nonfiction. Other moments, particularly interviews where subject and translator look to camera and Kohn's offscreen voice calls out questions, are remniscent of the films of Kohn's former boss, Errol Morris. Kohn has gotten some grief for saying publicly that he's not very interested in making another documentary - primarily because this one was so difficult and because the kind of nonfiction films he'd like to make would require the kinds of budgets that people aren't looking to pay. It's a legitimate concern and it shouldn't take away from one's appreciation of this film. But I hope that even if Kohn moves toward narrative exclusively he continues to include nonfiction elements in his filmmaking, because with this film he's burst into the ranks of those looking to blur the lines between the disciplines, and I hope that is something that he can continue to do.
At dinner on Wednesday, Pernille Rose Gronkjaer, director of THE MONASTERY - MR. VIG AND THE NUN, with MANDA BALA (SEND A BULLET) director Jason Kohn. Between the three of us, we have series punctuation issues.
I feel the same way about Andrey Paounov and THE MOSQUITO PROBLEM & OTHER STORIES, his alternately hilarious and serene look at the past and present troubles of the town of Belene, Bulgaria. It's almost impossible to describe the film - it's almost like a series of Wes Anderson-designed character sketches - some of it is intentionally quirky and ironic, almost staged, some of it filled with long, uncomfortable stretches in which no one speaks. Some of this variation of pace felt, to me, a bit unfinished, but there's a solid continuous half hour - it begins about 20 minutes into the film, just as you are starting to get used to its unique rhythms - that is as good or better than anything I've seen all year. And the further I've gotten away from it, the more it has stayed with me - the rider-less horse galloping through the abandoned concentration camp, the mustachioed piano player who serves as a kind of onscreen musical narrator, the doomed woman who may or may not have committed crimes against others - all images that were fresh and very striking. I can't wait to see Paounov's acclaimed first film GEORGI AND THE BUTTERFLIES, and am certain that we will be seeing THE MOSQUITO PROBLEM on the fest circuit for many months to come.
BritDoc programmer Maxyne Franklin with THE MOSQUITO PROBLEM's director Andrey Paounov at Friday's award ceremonies.
Festival-goers were also treated to a sneak preview of Kevin Macdonald's new documentary MY ENEMY'S ENEMY, which has just been announced as part of this year's Toronto doc line-up and is also rumored to make an appearance at Telluride. Macdonald (ONE DAY IN SEPTEMBER and TOUCHING THE VOID) is one of my favorite young filmmakers and I was excited to see his return to the form after going all narrative on us with THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND. MY ENEMY'S ENEMY is a new nonfiction look at the case of Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, who's story was previously seen in the Oscar winning HOTEL TERMINUS. It's unclear how much new information is in MY ENEMY'S ENEMY, although there is a focus on how much the US government may have done to protect and hide Nazi war criminals, including Barbie, from prosecution as the CIA used them to de-stable communist governments and movements in the cold war era. Overall, it's an extremely solid film if not spectacular, although I maybe hold Macdonald to a slightly higher standard than most other filmmakers.
I also want to make special mention of the short film THE APOLOGY LINE by director James Lees. Taking recorded messages from an actual British phone line - in which callers apologized (or, in actuality, did not) for an assortment of transgressions against others. Lees took these audio recordings and set them to beautiful and voyeuristic shots of a tall apartment building (he's a man after my own stylistic heart). It's a great piece of work.
Above I briefly mentioned BritDoc's pitch session - an all-day line-up of UK filmmakers try to sell their films to a host of international funders, including folks from HBO, IFC, Channel 4, Sundance, NHK, Al Jazeera, Red Envelope/Netflix, SBS Australia, Discovery and ITVS. I saw about four of the pitches and it was pretty enlightening as to what funders were looking to sink their money into. Let's just say that I was often pretty shocked as to what received a favorable response and what was viewed with less enthusiasm. I'd never watched a pitch forum before - I've heard the ones at IDFA can get a bit brutal, but this one was mostly positive - and it seemed pretty great for both participants and viewers.
Thea Newcomb pitches a film called "So You've Been Dumped" based on her popular website of the same name to the panel, which gave her lots of positive encouragement, arguing that her idea could be a movie or a TV series.
Ultimately, one of the things that was best about BritDoc was the feeling of small community - like summer camp almost (although not Summercamp!, the Bradley Beesley/Sarah Price doc). It was great to see everyone each day, to pass on the streets as you walked to the theater, to meet up later in the campus bar for a drink or a punk rock throwdown, to drink wine in someone's dorm room until 4 AM.
Here are a few pictures from my experience at BritDoc 2007, while looking forward to many BritDocs to come:
Outside the Pheonix Picturehouse, where most of the screenings took place, are directors Jennifer Venditti (BILLY THE KID), Jason Kohn and Gary Hustwit (HELVETICA).
At the Wednesday banquet, WE ARE TOGETHER director Paul Taylor (who is also producing one of the pitch finalists through his Rise Films) with HBO's Nancy Abraham.
Celebrating the brithday of Channel 4 documentary chief Peter Dale are many of his past and present compatriots, including (from left) BritDoc's Maxyne Franklin, BritDocs Jess Search, Current UK's Emily Renshaw-Smith, Shooting People's Ingrid Kopp and BritDoc's Beatie Finzi.
HELVETICA's Hustwit with IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON director David Sington in the College Bar.
WE ARE TOGETHER producer Teddy Leifer, filmmaker Julia Reichert (recently of LION IN THE HOUSE) and yours truly pre-karaoke at the college bar. Expect more pictures of certain karaoke performances to show up here and elsewhere at a later date and time - particularly a series of great shots by Julia's partner in crime, Steven Bognar.
A&E IndieFilms' Ryan Harrington with Sundance's Cara Mertes, who one should imagine wearing a special, Viking-styled hat - as that is what she was awarded (by the pitching finalists) for being top panelist. If only I knew how to photoshop....
Schnack and Gronkjaer, post-karaoke.
Pitching finalists Lucy Walker (she of BLINDSIGHT and DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND) and Jamie Jay Johnson (he of HOLIDAY AROUND MY BEDROOM). Johnson came in second amongst all pitchers, Walker took the bronze. The winning pitch belonged to Paul Berczeller's Through a Glass, Darkly.
Great reporting on Britdocs..Thanksloads..my mouth watering for next years event as I've just now finished final touches on "Assata aka Joanne Chesimard" a feature narrative-doc mix on the USA fugitive living now exiled in Cuba. Full info and photos my website........
thanks again great report on Britdocs.
Fred Baker
Posted by: Fred Baker | August 17, 2007 at 06:35 AM