Tag Archives: Britdoc

Meet Luke Moody, Sheffield Doc/Fest’s New Film Programmer

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Coming from doc champion Britdoc, the Sheffield Doc/Fest’s new Director of Film Programming Luke Moody has deliberately set out carving a space for marginalised voices in his film programme, as well as encouraging more experimentation with the form. In a recent telephone interview he outlined his vision for film at Doc/Fest, and highlights a number of docs to look out for in the upcoming festival, which will screen some 133 features and 55 shorts. Here’s an edited transcript:

You joined in November and you’ve got a June festival so you’ve had to hit the ground running. I’m wondering what was it like putting together this huge programme in that amount of time?

It was a challenge, definitely. One of the major challenges this year was to restructure strands because I was quite clear in what I wanted to do in terms of reducing the number of strands Sheffield has. Partly for audiences locally to be able to navigate that programme and understand the different genres and themes within it, but also to allow me as a programmer and the festival to be able to expand into showing more creative forms of documentary, particularly with this new strand called Visions this year. But I think also for me it was very important to do that this year, to begin to create a kind of legacy or a bit of an identity for the programme. To basically allow authored filmmakers to know what we do. Now we have these six kind of core strands. I think they can also see their place within the festival.

I come from a background of funding documentaries, funding from development to post production film. So for that reason I’m very much across global production – what’s out there, what’s being made at the moment. But that relationship to films, where you’re looking at them as a funder as opposed to a programmer is very different because it operates between different criteria of what you want to support. So it’s been a challenge doing it in such a short space of time. But what I hope I’ve managed to do is change the structure in which I operate to allow the programme to flourish in future years. And to really permit a discovery and a champion. One of the things I most enjoy in programming actually is being a champion of voices who don’t have a platform elsewhere. I think the danger of a lot of documentary festivals is that they just become the best of fests. They’re safe – they repeat what is being programmed elsewhere. And that’s been a challenge, to not do that this year.

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Can you give examples of films that were completely unknown to you until they came through the submission system?

I think our numbers this year for submissions officially were like 2200, which is an increase on previous years…There are a number of things which have come through the system from international filmmakers, that I’d not encountered previously. Armed with Faith is one of the films from that pile.  And that’s a story of a bomb disposal unit in the North of Pakistan, who are on the frontline of a terrorist infiltration of Northern Pakistan. And it’s really quite a visceral piece – you’re essentially accompanying a bomb disposal unit operating with very little equipment to dispose of landmines and various contraptions which are meant to terrorise local communities in the north of Pakistan.

Another one is Freedom for the Wolf, which I think is a very strong directorial debut from a British filmmaker who I think is not based in Britain at the moment called Rupert Russell. And it is a highly stylised, quite essayistic look at the question of freedom globally, and the question of what freedom means in relation to democracy and whether other systems of governance permit freedom more than democracy perhaps. And it just feels highly confident in what its trying to do. Normally on paper at least I’m quite dissuaded by things that are like pick a theme and visit ten places in the world to explore that theme, but he’s managed to do it in a very confident and articulate way.

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Freedom for the Wolf

Do you have a couple of examples of the short films that you would highlight?

What I’ve tried to do specifically with the shorts programme this year is firstly to have the ability to show more short form content, but also giving it a different range of the types of shorts that we show here. I think historically they’ve been reasonably conservative, the types of shortform storytelling that the festival has championed. But we’ve moved into things that are already online – investigative projects that are much more responsive to what’s happening in the world this year. And also experimental pieces that are also artists’ interpretation of the documentary form. Which I think gives the programme more richness in terms of just developing those voices.

In the more experimental area, in the Visions programme we have some emerging talents including a lady called Emma Charles. Who’s a British artist filmmaker. And she’s made a 16 mm film of a subterranean centre. And it’s a really beautiful piece. And I understand that it was developed when she was studying at Royal College of Art and it’s her first piece since graduation.

We’re also giving a platform to a lot of films from the Stop Play Record programme which was a partnership between ICA and Dazed Magazine funded by the Arts Council, with Channel 4. It’s essentially a training programme for young filmmakers aged 16-22 to create 3 minute films. Championing those filmmakers showing new forms of documentary and animation for me is one of the best things a festival can do – to give a platform and exposure to those voices.

I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about how documentary storytelling is evolving creatively and expanding and overlapping with drama?

There are two directions, or trends that I’ve seen in particular. There’s a renewed interest and passion for verité storytelling. Really strong observational films produced over three or four or six years in some cases that are just like really close and warm narratives. The majority of those are family stories, things like The Cage Fighter, or Quest, which is a really outstanding debut by a filmmaker who was a photographer. And he started making a photo project with this family in Philadelphia. And gradually what he was doing evolved into a different form or storytelling, shooting a little bit of material here and there and increasing the confidence of the family and their trust in what they both wanted to do and achieve by telling their story. And Mama Colonel is another one of those,  by Congolese filmmaker Dieudo Hamadi,  which is like a Kim Longinotto film. So there has just been this – I guess it’s not a reemergence of that style of storytelling, because a lot of them are made over a long period of time –  but perhaps it’s a reaction to the presence of fake news these days. People are wanting to return to very much the nitty gritty of factual storytelling and observation and just being very embedded within a community that they’re trying to portray. So that they get some sort of shared truth within that development. And I think the majority are films which have not been initially funded. They are things that have evolved from other projects.

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Quest

Within the Visions strand but also within the Adventure strand there are films that have this really strong conceptual approach to filmmaking and the way that we interpret reality to storytelling. Ghost Hunting is one of the most powerful. A really reflexive piece that explores the power between direction of a filmmaker and those portrayed on the camera, to the point where the tide turns and they start to question what he’s trying to achieve with the film. And he has to then become open and become vulnerable as a director to be part of that shared experience of change within the film. And other films, Do Donkeys Act, a new take on ethno zoology. It’s looking at the relationship of individuals and animals. And again it’s something that’s not developed through the life of a donkey. The filmmakers had a concept and executed it in that case. 

 

You’ve taken the helm during a particularly turbulent time. How much does what is happening environmentally, politically and humanitarian wise inform your choices?

Definitely there’s a spine of films through the programme which are about the environment we live in. Particularly a reflection on European politics at the moment. We’ve got the world premiere of a film called Wilders, which is a portrait of Geert Wilders and has access to him being frank and very strangely open to potential criticism within that piece. 

We also have things like the Jo Cox: Death of an MP and Brexitannia too which are both very close to home reflections of changing politics within Britain and the question of who actually has the voice within media and who is represented through what we consider storytelling.  When politics are questioning essentially whether certain voices in society are ignored, you have to try to look and in some ways address that. And I don’t think there are enough films out there that are coming from the non represented communities within Europe. So yeah it’s a challenge as a programmer: if the film doesn’t exist out there which give an alternative perspective on that political shift then you can’t play it.

 

You are the first British programmer that Sheffield has had in many years. How to you approach to selecting British films for the programme and what are you throughts about the health of British documentary genre in particular?

We don’t preference British filmmakers in the programme. Obviously the festival as a UK institution has a responsibility to British cinema and developing particularly the kind of theatrical form of documentary with the film programme. For me exposing filmmakers to different forms of storytelling is one of the greatest ways to develop cinematic language and allow filmmakers to grow in their own confidence and storytelling…We’ve got a section called Focus UK which will continue to be in the programme. But this is a mixture of celebrating British storytellers but also allowing us to give a platform to filmmakers from other parts of the world looking in on Britain. Because I think that as important as British filmmakers covering stories at home. You can get entirely different interpretations of British narratives from people from other parts of the world. I’d like to see more of that to be honest. There’s been this historical imbalance of British, European and American filmmakers going to what they see as exotic parts of the world. I’d love to see the kind of turn where parts of the world that are now far more developed than they used to be in terms of the film industry and otherwise come and reflect on Britain and see this as an exotic and alien environment or interpret it through a different lens.

Sheffield Doc/Fest runs from 9-14 June.

Does British TV have a problem with independent documentary?

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The Unorthodocs season at Somerset House features acclaimed documentaries never seen on British TV. Are UK broadcasters denying audiences access to a golden age of independent film-making?

At first glance, they don’t really have much in common. The Closer We Get is a first person documentary, where filmmaker Karen Guthrie uses a period of caring for her ailing mother to prod into her family’s painful past. In 3 1/2 Minutes, 10 Bullets, director Marc Silver masterfully investigates one of the US’s all too commonplace racially motivated killings. And in The Look of Silence, Joshua Oppenheimer follows up his groundbreaking multi-award winning The Act of Killing with a further journey through Indonesian killing fields, this time through the lens of a single traumatized family. But what these three disparate films do share is the fact that despite widespread acclaim, they have not found a place on British television. Instead they are all running as part of the Unorthodocs strand at Somerset House this winter.  Curated by Dartmouth Film’s Christopher Hird, a champion of independent feature docs, the films in the series collectively serve as an admonishment to UK broadcasters to up their game.

U.S. Protesters Gather For Peace In New York
We Are Many; photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images

Much has been written about how we are in a golden age of documentary. Indeed, with many more potential avenues of distribution – along with the technological advances which give us all the opportunity to become filmmakers – the future looks bright for those determined to persevere in this difficult art form. But what is less “golden” about this age, is the fact that British broadcasters – still powerful and still in control of the best way to reach the masses -have largely turned their backs on commissioning single feature length documentaries.

I recently sat on the Grierson judging committee for Best Documentary on a Contemporary Theme – International. It was striking that very few of the outstanding films on our longlist were given television money up front. All too often broadcasters hedge their bets, forcing independent filmmakers down the difficult path of self-financing, and only deciding whether or not to pick up a film once it’s been made.

The long-running BBC Storyville is often cited as an exception, showing some of the best documentaries in every given year, either through acquisition or commission. But Storyville’s commissions are modest, and usually require filmmakers to find substantial funds elsewhere (a process which took a film I produced, Secrets of the Tribe, eight years to finish). Channel 4’s equivalent strand, True Stories, seems to be defunct, and while Channel 4 claims to be open to pitches for single films, it can’t be seen to be championing them in a way we should expect of our public service broadcasters.

Yes, there are a number of outstanding films in any given year on the BBC and Channel 4. Recent examples to name but two include last year’s The Paedophile Hunter on Channel 4, and the BBC’s The Age of Loneliness. But in my mind, with both the BBC and Channel 4 battling for their future in a nightmarishly hostile political climate, these few standouts should be magnified by a factor of ten. Imagine a world where the same budget put into producing twenty-four episodes of Masterchef is plowed into a new strand featuring fifteen documentary features, all by different directors. Yes, they are more difficult to make, and yes some might fail to attract large numbers of viewers. But aren’t two of the most important tenets of public service broadcasting that it supports risk-taking and programming not driven by the marketplace?

Many filmmakers these days persist in making their passion project, broadcast commission be damned. It can be a long and lonely, but ultimately gratifying route. Franny Armstrong makes it look easy. Her 2008 climate change doc The Age of Stupid was funded entirely through crowd-funding, raising an impressive £430,000. But Armstrong, in addition to being a consummate filmmaker and networker, benefited from another factor: she was the first to fund a documentary through crowdfunding. Many more have followed. Today it is a much more difficult, careworn option which involves a lot of targeting, attention to detail and maintenance. Crowdfunding can work for issue driven films that have a built-in following, but it’s certainly not easy.

Amir Amirani struck out trying to get broadcast interest in his film We Are Many – a forensic examination of the global anti war protest of February 2003. A film that would have taken him roughly a year had it been fully commissioned, instead took him eight. Along the way he maxed out his credit card, and remortgaged his house three times, before a Kickstarter campaignand the endorsement of high profile supporters like Stephen Fry and Omid Djalili began bringing in substantial funding. But the end result has been worth it for Amirani: We Are Many has played to rapturous audiences globally, and continues to screen frequently. But there are still no plans for a UK broadcast.

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Gene Cernan, The Last Man on the Moon, photo courtesy of Mark Craig

Mark Craig also went his own way having not initially succeeded with securing British interest in his film The Last Man on the Moon, about astronaut Gene Cernan. But as he told me when I interviewed him about the making of it, he eventually relished producing it with Mark Stewart Productions, without broadcaster input: “In TV there is a lot of guiding and steering and mentoring from the channel, from the execs, to make it fit the remit of that channel. You’re always serving the requirements of that channel, of that slot, the ad sales, etc., ” he said. “So it was very liberating to be free of that and just be faithful to the story, and the character and tell that story in the most interesting and engaging way that one could.” He’s enjoyed an extended festival run with the film, which is soon to be on limited release in the US.

Whilst still very modest compared to the US, there are a small number of funds that British filmmakers can tap into, particularly from foundations with explicit interests in the subject matter. The Wellcome Trust  supports films with a biomedical theme, such as the outstanding The Man Whose Mind Exploded. On a larger scale, BRITDOC operates as an energetic documentary enabler, supporting films in a number of ways, including partnering up filmmakers and NGOs, as well as helping fund more than 200 films in the ten years since its founding.

When I first moved to the UK from the US twenty years ago, the difference between how docs were made in each country was striking. The UK, with its fully funded commissioning system was seen as a utopia by envious American doc makers who usually had to spend years piecing together the budgets for each film. Now, with British television factual programming dominated by formats and presenter-led series, and with so many film-makers chasing so few slots, that gulf no longer seems so vast.

But there are reasons to be hopeful that the BBC will soon prioritise carving out new space for single documentaries. The much respected Patrick Holland is now Head of Documentaries, and speaks of  singles “as an essential part of what we do on BBC Two.” And with the announcement last week that doc champion Charlotte Moore now oversees the entirety of BBC television, now is the time to show that the production of feature length documentaries can and should be a priority for the world’s leading public service broadcaster.

This article first appeared at OpenDemocracy.net