For a few years the LIDF worked in Pakistan. Working with young people to make films about their reactions to violence and their hopes for their country. It was one of the most positive outcomes of the LIDF.1. Those young people developed and they have a lot to say. We have remained in touch. Next year we will go back to Pakistan for a series of screenings and debates.

Other Than Our Sea | 10 | Valentina Ferrandes | Italy

From the relics of an ancient greek colony in Southern Italy, to modern day shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea, a story of exploration told through fragments of classical literature, flashes of ethnographic films and manipulated excerpts of current newsreels. Referencing the recent tragic circumstances that have drowned thousands of migrants departing from Northern Africa to seek asylum in Europe, the film looks at the idea of traveling at sea in times of conflict. A journey that can be a leap into the unknown, a voyage of discovery, or forced migration, death as well as rebirth.

Downtown Village (Pequena Aldeia) | 13 | Luciana Nanci/ Priscilla Pomerantzeff | Brazil

Enrique looks at Roosevelt Square from his window. The gaze of an immigrant upon one of the most diverse and one of the only actually occupied public spots in São Paulo. Before his eyes an unusual village-like life in the heart of South America’s largest megalopolis unfolds. Enrique contemplates life away from his origins and the passing of time through his memories and the digital impressions taken amongst the urban noise.

I Have a Weapon | 22 | Ahmad Shawar | Palestine

The story of the Palestinian village “Kafar Kaddoum”, which enages in a weekly march to demand the retrieval of land after it has been confiscated by Israeli occupation forces. The film foucuses on the popular resistance techniques that participants are adopting.

Repoman | 15 | Giacomo Gex/Bruno Gex | Spain

A day in the life of a repoman in Los Angeles, USA.

The Dream of Shahrazad | 107 | Francois Verster | South Africa

Weaving together music, politics and storytelling, the film explores recent Middle East events through the metaphor of THE 1001 NIGHTS. Drawing on Shahrazad, the storyteller princess who saves lives, a Turkish youth orchestra conductor, an Egyptian storytelling troupe, a troubled Lebanese actress and others put creativity to new political use.

A Tale of Love, Madness and Death (Un cuento de amor, locura y muerte) | 22 | Mijael Bustos Gutiérrez | Chile

The film director’s uncle is schizophrenic and his grandmother suffers from a terminal illness. The grandfather who is unable to take care of both, must decide between his wife or his son.

Dream of Sara (Sonho de Sara) | 8 | Gabriel Sanna | Brazil

A car crosses the landscape, images converge in the unknown. An experimental visual poem.

Nowhere Place | 27 | Susanne Opstal | Netherlands

Where do you find the essence of your existence? On the peaks of the highest mountains in the world? Even higher, on an uninhabited planet from which you can never escape? Or is it in the deepest sorrow, by leaving a trail of destruction that will never be forgotten. This essay documentary follows various people on their quest and inevitably leads to the question: how far do you want to go?

White Nights | 20 | Rola Shamas | Iran

Street musicians on New Year’s Eve play to make a living. They face a difficult situation but in the end the show must go on.

Dissonance (Dissonans) | 29 | Theis Mølstrøm Christensen | Denmark

Søren and Malene met and fell in love by playing and improvising music together. They had a child, but were shortly after both diagnosed with cancer. They haven’t played music together since. This film creates three rooms where the participants can play and once again find their common tune.

At 21.15 on the 6th August 1932 the first Venice Film Festival opened with a screening of Rouben Mamoulian’s ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’ and with it the era of the film festival began along with an abiding template of red carpets and glitz. The choice of film both prescient and appropriate.

All festivals, whether large or small, are Jekyll and Hyde and attempt in some way to emulate the model of indulgent exclusivity, parties, awards and screenings, while at the same time a more sober approach towards art and thought and its consequences. But, most festivals are not like Venice or Cannes or Berlin. The majority of festivals are small precarious affairs that last maybe a few days and if they are lucky more than the average festival lifespan of three years.

According to the recent study by Stephen Fellows there are roughly 3,000 recognised active film festivals, of which almost 2000 take place annually. This seems a lot and of these 3,000 only a handful will be backed by serious money or covered in any depth by print or other media. More remarkably the number of films screened at these festivals is relatively small when compared to the total number of films produced each year. The same films pass from festival to festival, programmers study other programmes.

Does all of this become stagnant? The power of a festival it has been assumed for many decades was the shine and esteem bestowed by participation and hopefully prizes at a event clearly defined by geography and duration. You had to be there. Today the situation has changed and the possibilities for distribution, for exposure of a film are no longer limited by the duration of a festival or the size of its screening rooms. Social media, Vimeo, Youtube and other platforms (new on-line platforms are being developed each day) present possibilities for ongoing exposure to vast audiences. Exposure through festivals is now dwarfed by on-line potential. This being the case what do festivals in their present form offer filmmakers?

There has been much talk recently of film festivals undergoing a crisis of identity. What in the present moment of on-line ubiquity do festivals contribute to the distribution, visibility, financing and engagement with films? What do they do for audiences, for filmmakers, for themselves? If films are made to tell a story, then what is the purpose of story-telling and how best to maximise the impact of any given tale? What can festivals offer that goes beyond the standard model?’

To return to Venice and its festival of today. Paolo Baratta, President of the Biennale di Venezia, said in a speech at this year’s Venice Film Festival: ‘We are aware of the growing competition among many festivals and of the growing competition between these festivals and other forms of promotion on the film market. We are equally aware that, as the competition grows, it becomes increasingly important for a festival to systematically pursue its own pathway in the medium-term, with its own formula and its mission clearly in mind. Steadfastly, we have kept true to the principle that a festival must provide a counterbalance to the market maelstrom with a vision that is autonomous, free of the banners at marketing’s disposal; banners which, alone, can lead to passivity and conformism.’

A festival should be a fertile ground for encounter and exchange. However, that ground changes over the years. The Venice Film Festival itself has since its inception in 1932 evolved and changed direction often under the weight of historical events. It has been competitive and non-competitive, there were three non-consecutive years during the 1970s when it did not even take place.

Just as, according to the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, society is being transformed by the passage from the “solid” to the “liquid” phases of modernity, where the ‘solid’ structures of modernity are no longer adequate and instead ‘liquid modernity’ captures succinctly the changing nature of knowledge in our society, so a festival, which is a form of knowledge provider must evolve into a form that coincide with changes of knowledge acquisition and production within the wider society, taking account of new technologies and lived experience and the possibilities of a global interaction no longer tied to a specific place or a time.

The festival form that sufficed for so long now seems inadequate for the challenge of not only reflecting the work but actively increasing dialogue and exchange. The ‘static’ form of a festival, a few days in which a few people gather in a single place, does not reflect the fluidity of liquid modernity.

So, what sort of form can the LIDF take? A form that would create a festival more relevant and efficacious, more engaging and dialogic, more in tune with its original aims as opposed to being dominated by the demands of the peripheral? How can it editorialise content better, contribute new distribution models, prolong engagement with content and filmmakers, stimulate in-depth dialogue, educational possibilities and social activism? And finally, how can it replace a hierarchical model of ownership and participation with a cooperative one in which the festival does not merely try and represent many voices but is constituted by many voices?

The festival came about because a small group of people decided that a pocket was a pocket of resistance.

NEXT: Festival Futures

LIDF16 Selection – Part 1

Overwhelming Majority | 11 | Joseph Irvin | USA

Overwhelming Majority is an experimental documentary short dealing with issues of loneliness, alienation, and social anxiety. A young woman recounts a suicide attempt, muses on the nature of connectedness, and ultimately yearns for understanding

Flâneurs – Street Rambles | 79 | Matthew Lancit | Canada-France

Between film projects and following the birth of his daughter, a Canadian in Paris must confront his slacker lifestyle and decide if there is something in it worth passing on to the next generation, or if he is better off getting a job. In search of the remaining traces of flâneurs (19th Century wanderers of Paris), he takes his daughter on a series of poetic strolls in which he crosses the path of people who help reveal the relevance of such a figure today.

Mum, Me and the House | 38 | Marjolijn Prins | Belgium

When Debbie (47) is diagnosed with cancer her son Sam (27) decides to postpone his plans to travel the world. He is convinced the incessant work renovating her dream house on the French countryside is the main cause of her illness. Together they undertake a journey to find the right course of treatment. Though this brings them closer together than they’d ever been, whenever they get back to the house, Debbie falls straight back into her old, industrious habits.

Transit Zone | 32 | Frederik Subei | UK

Set in the mysterious murky confines of the ‘jungle’ in Calais, Transit Zone follows Teefa, a young man who fled the regime in Sudan with big dreams of a new life in the UK.

Sit and Watch | 37 | Francisco Forbes / Matthew Barton | UK

Six everyday scenarios play out in modern London summoning ideas of representation, spectacle and human behaviour. Each character depicted unwittingly becomes observer or observed. Contrasting recording techniques muster doubt about the invisible line of fact and fiction. These opposing storylines and their intrinsic cast urge the question: what leads men to be constantly creating and consuming an image of themselves?

Persona. Primary Structures (Persona. Estructuras primarias) | 39 | Mikel Belascoain / Miguel Goñi Aguinaga | Spain

Directed by the spanish artist Mikel Belascoain and the photographer Miguel Goñi Aguinaga ‘Persona’ was filmed during the process of creation of the artwork work of the same name. Inspired by a dialogue between the artist and people who suffer severe neurological diseases. This film is part of the experimental project of the same name initiated by Manuel Murie, Neurologist and President of the Spanish Society of Neuro-rehab and the artist Mikel Belascoain.

Making Waves | 8 | Harri Grace | UK

Oumaima Erhali is a 17-year-old Moroccan woman determined to surf. She’s part of a generation that is pushing boundaries, in a country where many believe a surfboard is no place for a young Muslim woman. Oumaima won’t let stereotypes hold her back from the sport she loves, nor the life she wants to lead.

For a Few Chocolates More (Pour quelques barres de chocolat) | 63 | Vanessa Gauthier | France

For fifteen days during the summer holidays a group of young children retreat to a summer camp. What unites theme is that each child suffers from diabetes. Fifteen days to give an insight into their daily life, their fears, and to capture it in their own words. At the age when you have everything to learn.

A Love Worth Giving | 23 | James Newton | UK

A young newlywed couple build a life around the challenges of waiting for a new pair of lungs, but are torn apart when an organ donor can’t be found in time.

In Love as in Live (Canto alla Vita) | 60 | Turi Finocchiaro, Nathalie Rossetti, Nicolas Liguori | France-Belgium

Raymond and Raymond love each other. When one of them, already HIV positive for the past 27 years, gets cancer, their struggle becomes a joint one. Expressing their love to their friends, they try to shape a new life, full of the unknown. Their journey sweeps us along on an amazing sentimental odyssey.

Conception to Distribution – A Production Guide

Production and Pitching Workshop

January 2017, London & Paris

Booking Code: DOC2

Every documentary film is unique. It has its own audience, its own scale, its own objectives. Objectives that are not only artistic and entertainment orientated but frequently linked to campaigns or social movements. In order to make any film effective in realising its ambitions a clear and integrated production strategy is vital.

Documentaries, in contrast to fiction films, have particular development and production issues. Documentary production lacks a clearly defined funding and distribution structure. Furthermore, the uses and objectives of documentary film are varied. Documentary production therefore requires creative strategies. There is no one-way of doing things. This workshop is designed to help you refine a strategy tailor-made for your films specific needs, whether you are producing a 10 minute short or a two hour epic, whether your budget is £50 or £50,000 the principles of coherent production apply.

Aims and Objectives

The workshop aims at enabling documentary filmmakers to create an integrated production strategy that is focused, manages expectations and optimises fundraising opportunities, audience share, distribution and sales. It offers an effective ‘route map’ to guide projects of any size through the myriad production strategies available.

It aims to prepare directors and producers to be in control of their project and avoid common oversights during production. To work with filmmakers to best pitch and present their project to funders, commissioning editors, the festival circuit and other platforms.

The workshop may also be attended by observers and audience members who are free to participate and contribute during the open sessions as well as observe the selected projects as they receive one-to-one expert advice.

Workshop Structure and Content

The workshop is designed to assist filmmakers (up to 3 members of a production team may take part in the workshop) in all aspects of promotion, funding and, exhibition of their film. As such it will bring together tutors who are experts in:

• Funding
• PR/Marketing
• Commissioning/Acquisitions
• Legals
• Distribution
• Festivals
• Filmmakers who have already been through the process of autonomous production will also be on-hand to present their experience and assist those taking part in the workshop.
• Each selected project will have the opportunity to pitch their ideas followed by intense one-on-one sessions with the various experts who will help analyse their pitch and provide specific guidance in the development of their production strategy.
• Each project will move around the room from table to table benefiting from the individual expertise. Observers will also be present who can listen to the developing conversations and take notes.
• Each project will be able to represent their project proposal int he afternoon. The workshop will conclude with an open discussion about each project providing further feedback and a response to what has been gleaned during the workshop.
• Each participating filmmaker/s will receive a handbook and samples of relevant documents, from release forms to samples of Sales agreements and Licenses.
• The day will aloo allow plenty of opportunity for informal discussion and networking.
• All participating projects will also benefit from a post-workshop follow up w including the opportunity to promote their film on the LIDF website.

Topics will include: Treatments and synopses; funding strategies; how to pitch successfully, promotional material, contracts, trailers, PR, distribution, sales, festivals, TV, rights, legalities.

The Road Map

All projects will benefit from the Road Map drawn up by the workshop creators. The objective of the Road Map is to provide a clear and concise ‘map’ of the questions that a project should ask of itself at each stage of its development. The intention behind this is to utilise the experience of professional documentarians to help others avoid the pitfalls of lack of planning and clarity at each stages of the process. Not all elements will apply to each project, it is up to the projects developed to decide which elements are relevant to them and to tailor, with the help of the project tutors, a Road Map for their specific needs and expectations. Cut out waste, avoid surprises and future difficulties, help a project move forward feeling secure that it has the fundamentals in place at each stage of development.

How to Take Part

• Participation in the one-day production and pitching workshop is competitive and by selection.
• Space will also be provided for observers and audience members who are free to participate in the open sessions and observe the one-to-one advice sessions.
• Every application will receive comments and feedback based upon the guidelines and principles to be used in the workshop itself (See the Application Form).
• From these applications 10 projects will be selected. for inclusion in the all-day workshop.
• Participants must have an idea or a story they wish to develop, of any scale or budget, and any subject matter.
• Applicants must complete and return the Application Form before midnight 12th December 2016 (GMT).

When are the Workshops?

London: Saturday 21st January 2017

Paris: Saturday 28th January 2017

Who is it for?

Participants and observers can be directors and producers and anyone else keenly interested in documentary film production and looking for practical insights and development assistance.

Venues

Central London/Paris

Application, Tuition and Observer Tickets

• Application and participation in the workshop can be for up to 3 people on a production team.
• Observers will also be present at the workshop.
• Stage 1. Application and Review: 30 Euro (includes personal review and feedback)
• Stage 2. One-Day Workshop: 220 Euro (includes coffee and lunch and material handouts)
• Observer Tickets: 40 Euro (includes coffee and lunch)
• Overseas applicants who are selected for the One-Day will receive a travel bursary of 125 Euros.

Successful applicants will be informed via email by 14th December 2016. Full payment should be received by 16th December to confirm your participation. Payment details will be given to successful applicants upon notification of their place.

For queries please contact: [email protected]

If the demise of film festivals has been, like the death of Samuel L Clemens, much exaggerated there remains nonetheless a real sense that some resuscitation is in order.

Film festivals have different aims. Each has its own essential purpose, its core idea. What was/is the essential aim of the LIDF? When the LDF started, almost 10 years ago, it was considerably easier to explain how the festival would function and what its aims were. Or, more precisely, how its function was related to its aims. While the aims remain constant the festival now believes the form must radically change.

The first London International Documentary Festival (A Conversation in Film) took place at the British Museum in March 2007 with the intention of providing a platform for quality documentary film and to facilitate the discussions that naturally arose from the ideas, concerns and perspectives explored in documentaries. The belief was that access to documentary film informs, inspires, stimulates debate and increases understandings. The purpose was, and remains, to bring together diverse audiences and practitioners, to give a platform for new documentary talent, and to accompany the screenings with informed debate.

Above all the festival has always prided itself on being truly international and supportive of young and new documentary talent. How does a festival best support and help nurture such talent? If festival are constrained by space and time then there must be ways around that. There are good arguments to change.

The LIDF will re-launch at the end of the month in an on-going magazine-style format with ‘live’ and on-line events taking place all year round. In this way it will build a sense of constant dialogue and a sense of engagement with new work, directors, festivals and other developments within the industry and beyond.

To do this the LIDF will work with its new partners in France, Italy, and the USA. Venue partners include British Museum and Estorick Gallery (London), Musee de l’Homme (Paris)

What form will this re-fashioning take?

Organisational Structure

The festival will move towards a cooperative structure.

Monthly Screening and Competition

1. Each month 10 new features and 10 new shorts (less than 40 minutes) will be available for viewing on-line at the LIDF website
2. Each month viewers of these 10 films can comment and vote for their favorite film of the month
3. The winning film will then be screened simultaneously in London, Paris and Torino
4. Immediately following the screening an in-depth interview will appear on-line by the films directors
5. At the end of the year there will be an opportunity to vote for the best of the monthly winners

LIDF Archive

1. The Best of the LIDF back-catalogue will also be available to view and purchase on-line

Directors Pages

1. Directors who have submitted to the LIDF will able to create their own pages within the LIDF website where they can promote their film and any future projects, including crowdfunding

Conversations

1. As part of the magazine format a series of interviews with directors, producers and other industry specialists will be made available on a monthly basis
2. Other essays, articles and thought pieces will be curated and commissioned

Festivals Focus

1. Each month a different festival from anywhere around the world will be features on the LIDF front page
2. The festival will be able to promote itself and access the LIDF database to Call for Films

Touring Festival

1. Throughout the year the LIDF will screen festival highlights
2. Host your won LIDF screening

Educational Packages

1. Films will be made available in Educational Packages. Organised by theme the packages will feature up to 6 films and be accompanied by teaching notes, interviews with directors and comments by relevant other parties e.g NGO, charity,

Distribution and Production

1. More to come ……

Workshops

1. Working with its partners the LIDF will place greater emphasis on short and long term workshop projects in the UK and abroad

The Festival Days

1. Each year the festival will host the awards ceremony and new material.

FLÂNEUR(S): STREET RAMBLES |Dir. MATTHEW LANCIT

Synopsis

The LIDF was born in 2007; it was conceived a couple of years earlier. A group of post-graduate students in the department of Anthropology, University College London, decided to host documentary film evenings once a week during term time. The programme was eclectic and not based solely on ethnographic film. The intention was to bring anthropologists and filmmakers together in a spirit of critical engagement, to examine how film functions as a tool for social advocacy, for philosophical enquiry, and aesthetic experimentation. The evenings were soon overflowing with passionate voices from within and without the academy. The screenings moved to ever larger rooms. In 2007 The British Museum agreed to host the first LIDF – A Conversation in Film.

The idea of free conversation has remained integral to the LIDF. The idea that the films are pretext and context for debate. Since that first small festival edition (22 films over 2 days), the LIDF has continued to grow. In the years since the festival has screened over 700 films. It has featured the work of well-known directors such as Martin Scorcese, Asif Kapadia, Steven Soderberg, as well as first time works by emerging talent. It has cast its net wide and tried to respect the ‘international’ part of its name.

The recent years of austerity have been difficult for many arts organisations and festivals. It has been no different for the LIDF. Times are still austere but, the forthcoming 12 months signal a rejuvenation. The LIDF has many new initiatives and partnerships to announce in the coming weeks.

The films the LIDF screens are entertaining. Documentary film is another form of storytelling. These complex narratives are the products of an insatiable desire to communicate. Communication contains elements of the fabulous, images are seductive, heroes and villains ubiquitous. Nothing is ever quite what it seems. The stories we tell, and the stories we chose not to tell, say a great deal about our assumptions, often naive, about ourselves and the world we live in. But, a festival allows that rare thing; that collective moment when, with the help of others, we can see ourselves, and our relations with others, just that little bit clearer.

The responsibility of filmmakers towards their subjects is often talked about; quite rightly. There are ethical and moral dimensions in claiming and representing slices of reality, intimate lives and moments, or broad historical perspectives. But, there is also a responsibility on us as the audience. We cannot be passive or uncritical in our reading of a film. This responsibility is even greater when we consider how documentary films are powerful providers of ‘information’, ‘knowledge’, ‘ideas’ and can inspire direct action.

Documentary films can be an antidote to the trivialising and closed public discourse we are too often surrounded by. Complex realities remain complex, rhetoric and slogans are avoided, conclusions open-ended. Our encounter with the images is an opportunity to go beyond the films themselves and escape the, all too common, sense that there is nothing anyone can do about anything.

LIDF has partnered with Ricker Restaurants to make sure your conversation about film does not end in the cinema.

Great Eastern Dining Rooms and Cicada will give LIDF ticket-holders offers on cocktails, dinners and group bookings during the festival. All you have to do is show a valid ticket for any of the events during the festival and you are eligible for a discount. So, after seeing a film, make sure to head over to one of these restaurants to discuss, debate and enjoy a nice drink or two.

GREAT EASTERN DINING ROOMS

Great Eastern Dining Room is one of London’s trendiest restaurants and bars situated in the highly fashionable area of Hoxton. It is a fabulous looking venue with a modern, minimalist style, serving top notch pan-Asian food.

54 – 56 Great Eastern Street, London, EC2A 3QR
Tel. +44 20 7613 4545

CICADA

Cicada, the first of the Ricker restaurants, which has been open since 1996, is near to Smithfields Market in Clerkenwell. The restaurant, bar and private dining room have all been recently refurbished. The mix of strong design, fun and consistently inexpensive pan-Asian food make it a winner all round.

132 – 136 St. John Street, London, EC1V 4JT
Tel. +44 20 7608 1550

*Offer valid for LIDF ticket holders/ members.offer refers to house cocktail only and is subject to availability & change.

After our successful press screening in Karachi, and another full and busy event in London, more screenings are planned across Pakistan and the UK, including at the forthcoming LIDF.

All the up coming screenings in Pakistan are FREE. Come along and take part and contribute to the debate. For More details CLICK HERE