Magnus Isacsson – Page 15 – Documentary Field Notes and Flashpoints

CSTC Summer Institute just around the corner

Documentary instructors Peter Raymont and Steve Lucas with director Derreck Roemer and Jan Rofekamp, president and CEO of Film Transit International, at SIFT 2007.

Last december I had the opportunity to teach a two-day workshop on the basics of doc-making for the Canadian Screen Training Centre in Montreal. At the same time Nettie Wild and others were doing the same in other cities across the country.

Right now is registration time for the CSTC’s main activity, the Summer Institute of Film and Television (SIFT), which annually draws 250 participants from across the country to Ottawa for an intensive week of workshops, screenings and networking. ‘In sessions taught by seasoned documentary filmmakers, workshop participants explore the art and the business of capturing true stories on film, learning the essentials of concept development, pitching, shooting, editing and distribution.’ This year’s session starts on May 27th.

Here is a summary of who will be teaching and what (edited down from the CSTC’s material.)

Documentary : Getting Greenlit
From Development to Production with Steve Lucas
Five-day workshop (May 27-June1)

Level: Introductory

Getting Greenlit covers getting your documentary idea out of development and into production. If you’re ever going to make this film of yours, you’ll need to come up with a compelling way of talking about it. You’ll need to write about it in a compelling way, too. It’s a daunting proposition, no question, but it can be done. Thousands of people have done it—and so can you. This workshop is designed to help. You’ll meet documentary filmmakers who will share their films and experiences, and be able to pitch your idea for valuable feedback. There’s special focus on the art of the pitch and on what constitutes a promising film premise.

Suitable for: People who have a film idea or a story they want to develop and who are looking for a practical guide to documentary filmmaking. This is not a production course. Participants should bring two different ideas for a documentary or reality-based film – and come prepared to pitch.

About the instructor: Steve Lucas received an Academy Award nomination for his first film, a documentary feature entitled After the Axe, in 1983. He has been in the film and television business ever since.

Interventionist and Participatory Media
Making documentary media that matters with Katerina Cizek
Three-day workshop (May 28-30)

Level : Introductory/Intermediate

The course covers the basics of building media projects with partners that aim to change world-views, lives, policies, conditions – and tell good stories too. In this highly interactive workshop, you’ll learn about proven methods, projects and experiences, and we’ll brainstorm your own ideas and projects to develop concrete strategic plans. Bring your bright mind and ideas for projects.

Suitable for: Those who have made at least one film or media project (in documentary or other format).

About the instructor: Katerina Cizek explores the boundaries of the documentary genre with many and any media: video, internet, photography, audio, text, digital, blogging. She is this year winner at the 2008 Webby Awards (called “the Oscars of the internet” by The New York Times), winning for best online documentary series.

DOCOLOGY: Transforming Ideas into Images
with Peter Wintonick
Five-day workshop (May 27-June1)

Level : Intermediate/Advanced

This is a complete meal of a workshop including a few appetizers and drinks for dessert. We’ll examine the process of making marketable, idea-driven documentary from start to finish. From conception through to financing and how to gain exposure across the nowmedia world of multi-platform possibilities for documentary. An excursion into non-fiction whirl-wind of docmedia-making for intermediate and advanced level documentary a-fiction-ados, this workshop is suitable for everyone looking for wide-ranging exposure to the art, craft, philosophy and business of idea-driven, social filmmaking. For everyone hoping to turn fiction into faction.

Suitable for: Those who have made at least one film (in documentary or other format).

About the instructor: Peter Wintonick is a docfilmmaker and nowmedia maker among other incarnations, with a career spanning 30 years and more than 100 films. Known internationally as an Ambassador for Documentary Film, he was recently winner of the 2006 Governor General’s Prize in Media Arts, Canada’s highest such honour, and the Ontario Premier Prize.

For complete workshop and registration details visit www.cstc.ca/sift

CBC commissioning editors disagree with perceptions

791[1]
Up The Yangtze, a film by Yung Chang

When I attended the Hot Docs Festival in Toronto a few weeks ago, a heard a lot of talk about the CBC, much of it disgruntled. Once back in Montreal, I summarized these concerns and sent them to Andrew Johnson, Commissioning editor and senior producer of ‘The Lense’ who was very generous with his time and also consulted his colleageues, Catherine Olsen and Michael Claydon. Here’s our exchange:

Dear Andrew, hope this finds you well. I publish a blog on doc matters. I noticed at Hot Docs that there’s a perception that the CBC no longer plays the role it used to in documentary, especially social-political, and that the private broadcasters are picking up the slack. Some com-eds from private networks told me they find themselves with a lot of projects which even they think would be – or used to be – a natural fit for the CBC. Who at CBC would be the right person to ask a few questions to about this ?
Do you yourself have a (quotable) opinion on the subject ?

The response:

Magnus:

Thanks for your note and the information about your blog. I’ve consulted with my colleagues Catherine Olsen and Michael Claydon and, with respect, we all disagree with the implication that CBC is somehow less interested in or less engaged in the creation of documentaries, “especially social-political” documentaries. Each of us has the following response…

Catherine Olsen:

“The CBC & CBC Newsworld continue to be a champion of documentaries dealing with political and social issues. Is it true that we’re focusing more on Canada and Canadian social political issues in our commissioning – possibly – just as many other Canadian and international broadcasters are championing stories on their home turf. This is a worldwide trend …. but we still have some extraordinary examples of international stories that we commission including the theatrical and television hit Up the Yangtze, Liberty USA, Anthrax War, Stolen Babies, The Last Planet (the latter 4 still in production). On the acquisition and pre-sale front, The Passionate Eye continues as it has for the past 15 years to show more docs dealing with international social political issues than any other channel in Canada. (2 nights a week, 52 weeks a year).”

Michael Claydon:

“Most of the documentaries shown on the DOC ZONE are social/political in nature – what has changed is that we are putting more of an emphasis on a more journalistic approach at the main net, and trying to develop a brand that CBC viewers will respond to. That may not fit with the approach of some documentary makers, but the fact remains that CBC TV, CBC Newsworld and Documentary commission more hours than any other broadcaster in Canada.”

Andrew Johnson:

“Lens docs primarily deal with contemporary social and political issues – in fact we’re more committed than ever to these films, but they do need to connect with the national audience we serve at CBC Newsworld – a news and current affairs network. All of our docs are, of course, are made by independent Canadian film-makers, mainly through commissions.

This season and next we have aired or will air commissioned films dealing with everything from anti-Wal-Mart activists, same-sex couples trying to adopt children, and the collision of drug issues & US-Canada relations to an experimental diet that may lead to a breakthrough in the fight against the obesity and diabetes epidemics in First Nations communities, the human cost of Canada’s refugee backlog, and the enormous social cost of revenue-generating video lottery terminals. We also look forward to airing a film about the collision of conflicting interests (government, environmental, tourism & First Nation) as efforts to cope with a unique, people-friendly orca lead to a tragic ending. This documentary has already won a dozen international and Canadian awards.

All of these films deal with tough or difficult subjects through engaging and dramatic stories. They pursue social-political issues through a wide range of approaches and are of real interest to Canadians. At Newsworld, we’ve been very pleased with the huge audience response to our documentaries this season just we’re gratified by the numerous awards our films and our filmmakers have won in recent years.”

Of course, there are other outlets for documentaries (including social-political) on CBC – such as The Nature of Things and Documentary.

In conclusion, we simply can’t accept the assessment of CBC that you’ve mentioned -we believe we’re still a home for provocative, cinematic and entertaining social-political docs. Of course, we can’t participate in all of the worthwhile projects that come to us so we’re happy to hear that the private networks are now entertaining these kinds of stories too. Nevertheless, we remain open to receiving new proposals from Canadian documentary-makers at anytime – and we will continue to commission and broadcast powerful, independently-made documentaries.

with best wishes,
Andrew

Andrew Johnson
Commissioning Editor &
Senior Producer, “The Lens”

A beautiful film : ‘My father’s studio’

Jennifer Alleyn with her dad Edmund.

Not long ago I had the chance to see ‘My father’s studio’, a beautiful film by Jennifer Alleyn produced by Jeannine Gagné at Amazone Films. The opening screening will be at ExCentris in French and at Cinéma du Parc in English starting May 9th. Excellent editing by Annie Jean. It’s one of those films one should see on a big screen. It won the award for best Canadian production at the Festival des films sur l’art (FIFA) in Montreal.

He was a great artist, Edmund Alleyn: a master colorist, very creative and original. We learn from Jennifer’s movie that her dad made many new departures during his career. Every time he had a real success, he let go of whatever style he’d been working in, and started again in a new uncertain adventure.

Creative, original, but not talkative. Jennifer did one interview with him which is placed right at the top of the film. What he sais is heartfelt and full of meaning, but she had to work really hard to get just a few sentences from him. He died not long after. The movie is a testimony about his life and his art.

Beyond the cinematic qualities of the film, I found myself in familiar territory, because my dad Arne is an artist. He lives in Sweden and he still painting and teaching at age 91. My uncle Torsten, who died one year ago, was a painter and sculptor. My sister Eva paints watercolours and does drawings. Watching Jennifer’s film, I almost could smell the oil paint of the artist studios of my childhood.

I am sure it was not easy for Jennifer to make a film about her dad, and I asked her some questions.

How came up the idea to make a movie about you’re dad?
I’ve been wanting to do a film about my father for a long time. His double identity intrigued me. Born to an English family in Quebec City, he liked to say he was “French to the skin, English to the bone”. I feel connected to that reality. I was born in Paris in May 1968 and we immigrated back to Quebec in 1971. His life span covers recent Quebec history.
But it took me years and his departure, to find the approach that would allow me to plunge into his universe, his imaginings, while remaining respectful of his privacy. Can we ever access the soul of another being? During the research, I discovered he was quite a free thinker, and a philosopher as well as a painter. But the film doesn’t resolve or explain anything. It offers images to the viewer’s own interpretation. One mustn’t forget it is a posthumous dialogue, taking place in the silence of painting..

What are, do you think, the big themes in the movie?
I was very inspired by his work & notes . The fact that I started filming while he was alive and persued the shoot in his absence, gave a particular tonality to the film. In a way, it gave me the opportunity to follow some of his privileged themes: movement and stillness.
Life and death coexist in the film. But it was a celebration of life that I wanted to put on the screen. The title of the film refers to the physical space in which he worked for 40 years, but also to the creator’s mind, constantly processing images, memories, ideas, hopes or unfinished projects.

It’s a really personal film, did you hesitate before starting the process?

I never hesitated, but I went to television to see if the subject could interest others. Surprisingly, the French CBC immediately agreed to the voyage I was proposing. I knew my father was not a celebrity in Quebec, like Jean-Paul Riopelle or Borduas. But his path was very inspiring. He was as free spirit. Now that the film is finished I wonder what will be the next project that will drive me with such strength. It was so dense and deep.

Could you have done the movie while you’re dad was still alive? Do you regret that you didn’t ?

My only regret is that he couln’t be at the premiere of the film!

But had he still been around, it would have been impossible to do this film . He was quite a director himself. He would have called the shots and hired me as his assistant! So I waited for my turn. After his departure, I could revisit his life, question his trajectory, search for the missing fragments. Inheriting his studio gave me a dramatic starting point. The idea of structuring the film according as a stream of consciousness imposed itself very soon. Knowing my father’s love for Virgina Woolf, I would’nt be surprised if she whispered from the darkness…

In the narration,you decided to talk to you’re dad. Is it mainly a choice you made to communicate with the public, or is it because you had things to tell him, to clear up between the two of you ?
During the scriptwriting process, I wrote short texts to my father. Like Haicu’s. Some of them were too personal, but some made their way to the final narration.Through this very intimate dialogue, the father-daughter relationship is offered up. I though people could enter more easily into this intimate space if it was raw. No detour, no mask. Bluntly intimate!. The father figure has always been one of knowledge for me. His absence made me realise I had to turn to other sources to find answers. I guess I had a few unanswered ones I needed to bounce at him. I hope people can interchange characters and address their own parent, in the anonymity of the cinema!

Un trés beau film: L’atelier de mon père

Jennifer Alleyn avec son père Edmund.

Il n’y a pas longtemps j’ai eu l’occasion de voir ‘l’Atelier de mon père’, un trés beau film de Jennifer Alleyn produit par Jeannine Gagné à Amazone Films. Le film prend l’affiche à ExCentris en français et au Cinéma du Parc et anglais à partir du 9 Mai. Excellent montage par Annie Jean. C’est un film à voir au grand écran.

Il était tout un artiste, Edmund Alleyn: un grand coloriste, créatif et aussi très original. Il ressort du film de Jennifer que son père a effectué bien des ruptures au cours de sa carrière. Chaque fois qu’il obtenait un grand succès il délaissait le style qu’il avait affectioné pour se lancer dans une nouvelle aventure imprévisible.

Créatif, original, mais pas loquace. Jennifer a faut une entrevue avec lui, qui commence le film. Il livre des vérités lourdes de sens, mais elle a du travailler fort pour lui les arracher. Et il est mort pas longtemps après. Le film témoigne de sa vie et de son art.

En plus des grandes qualités du film en termes cinématographiques je me suis en quelque sorte reconnu dans ce film, puisque mon père Arne est un artiste. Il vit en Suède, il a quatrevingt-onze ans, et il continue à peindre. Mon oncle Torsten, décédé il y a un an, était peintre et sculpteur. Ma soeur Eva peint des aquarelles et fait des dessins. En regardant le film de Jennifer j’ai presque senti l’odeur de la peinture d’huile des studios d’artistes de mon enfance.

J’ai imaginé que ça n’a pas été facile pour Jennifer de faire un film sur son père, et je lui ai posé quelques questions.

Comment t’es venue l’idée de faire un film sur ton père?
Je me suis trouvée devant une pensée, une philosophie que j’ai eu envie d’approfondir, de mieux connaître. Le fait qu’il s’agisse de mon père m’est même d’abord apparu comme un obstacle. J’étais consciente qu’il n’avait ni la reconnaissance de Riopelle, ni le pouvoir d’attraction d’un Borduas. Mais son parcours me fascinait. C’est celui d’un esprit libre.

Quels sont, dirais-tu, les grands thèmes que l’on retrouve dans le film?
Le film s’articule autour de deux thèmes chers à Edmund Alleyn, qui sont la mouvance et la fixité. La mouvance, métaphore de la vie, se retrouve non seulement dans le parcours géographique de cet artiste qui a vécu à Québec, puis à Paris et enfin à Montréal; mais aussi, d’un point de vue iconologique, dans les symboles représentés dans les oeuvres, au premier plan le motif de l’eau qui traverse la peinture d’Edmund Alleyn, du début à la fin. L’idée de fixité, qui apparaît plus tardivement dans l’œuvre, est présente dès le début du film. Cet atelier déserté par l’artiste, ce lieu où le temps est suspendu, suggère la fixité de la mort, un arrêt du mouvement.

C’est un film très personnel, as-tu hésité avant de l’entreprendre ?

Je n’ai pas hésité, mais j’ai attendu longtemps. Je savais qu’il serait impliquant et truffé de risques! J’avais déjà tenté d’approcher mon père avec une caméra, mais il redoutait les entrevues, il était secret. Puis, trois ans avant sa mort par un après-midi d’été, il a ouvert la porte et j’ai pu lui poser quelques questions. Après son décès, ces bandes vidéo ont pris une autre valeur. Et lorsque j’ai hérité de son atelier, le projet s’est imposé de lui-même.

Aurais-tu pu faire le film pendant que ton père était en vie? Regrette-tu de ne pas l’avoir fait?

Le seul regret que j’ai, c’est qu’il n’ait pas pu assister à la première du film!
Mais il aurait été impossible de faire le film de son vivant parce qu’il aurait voulu tout contrôler et j’aurais fait son film! Un peintre, par définition, est un créateur total. Avec son décès, un mur est tombé. Maintenant je le remercie d’avoir mis cette paille, si riche, dans mon berceau. Il a fallu qu’il parte, que le lien émotif ne soit plus là, entre nous, comme une interférence, pour que je puisse entrer dans son monde.

Tu as choisi de parler à ton père. Est-ce avant tout un choix de communication avec le public, ou parce que tu avais des choses à lui dire, ou à mettre au clair entre vous ?
En cours de recherche, il m’arrivait d’écrire à mon père de courts textes. Ils étaient souvent trop intimes, mais ils ont nourri la narration. Et j’ai gardé le Tu qui me semblait à la fois personnel et permettant une implication du spectateur. On a tous un père à qui l’on a dit tu. J’ai fait ce film parce que je crois au dialogue, à l’humain, à la richesse des idées partagées. Mais le dialogue dont je parle à la fin du film est celui que j’entame avec son oeuvre. C’est celui de l’art, qui va de soi à soi et qui ne finit jamais.

Pioneering coalition-building: L’Observatoire du documentaire.

Jean-Pierre Gariépy and Manon Barbeau, respectively Executive Director and President of the Observatoire. My photo.

I’d like to tell you about a pioneering coalition-building experience based here in Montreal, one which could serve as an example for the rest of Canada and even internationally.

Since it was founded ten years ago, I have worked with Montreal’s documentary film festival, the Rencontres. Five years ago, the Rencontres took the initiative for the setting up of the Observatoire du documentaire, which was given the ambiguous english name The Documentary Network. It is actually a coalition, a pressure group which brings together all the main forces producing, broadcasting and distributing documentary film. It brings to the table – for monthly meetings – the professional organizations of producers, directors and technicians, the main television networks producing docs, the National Film Board, distributors, and of course the Rencontres. There is no parallel to this anywhere else in the country. Instead of treating each other as opponents, all these forces come together around common goals: favouring and strengthening documentary filmmaking and its role in society.

Having such disparate organizations working together creates a most interesting dynamic. Everyone has to put some water in their wine and make an effort to come to agreement with the others, but that is only half the story. The representatives of the organizations then have to go back to their respective organizations and fight for what has been agreed on, or what is being prepared for the next meeting. This means that the representatives of the producers or directors have to convince their own colleagues – many of whom produce fiction and television series – to defend the interests of documentary. It means that the broadcasters have to deal with the concerns of the documentary community not just as ‘demands’ from the outside, but as common concerns in which they also have a stake. The Observatoire acts to cement the alliance of all the partners and thereby gives them greater force as a lobby group. During this past year, the Observatoire intervened in numerous ways with the CRTC and other government agencies to favour the interests of documentary production.

Although it’s based in Quebec, the Observatoire has several pan-canadian members. It could serve as an inspiration for English Canada, or it could potentially become a truly representative, bilingual, coast-to-coast organization. It is definitely setting an example.

As a director working in both English and French, I am a member of two organizazations: the Associaction des Réalisateurs et Réalisatrices du Québec (ARRQ) and the Documentary Organization of Canada. Both of these are members of l’Observatoire. I used to be on the executive of DOC, when it was called the Canadian Independent Film Caucus, but these days I attend the meetings of the Observatoire as one of the representatives of the ARRQ.

Cinema Politica faces funding crisis.

Townshop residents in South Africa connect to power grid. From The Big Sellout.

Cinema Politica is the name of a program of screenings which was started at Concordia University in Montreal by Ezra Winton and the Uberculture media arts non-profit five years ago, and which has branched out to a number of other cities on the North American continent and even overseas. Its list of screeings reads like a roll call of the best of recent sociopolitical documentaries: Loose Change, The Corporation, Crude Impact, Seeing is Beleiving, McLibel, The Big Sellout....OK now I can hear my webmestre Kim saying ‘you should have links to these movies.’ But actually, they are all there on the Cinema Politica website, along with many other great films, so check them, out.

The Cinema Politica screenings in Monteal have been a huge success. The two or three screenings I went to last year were attended by about five hundred people. There is a real thirst and enthusiasm out there for political docs, for films that are hard to find on TV. But now, sadly, Cinema Politica’s survival is threatened by a funding crisis. It is really essential for this series of screenings to continue ! I put a few questions to Ezra Winton.

How did Cinema Politica start and how long has it been running ?
I started it in 2001 at Langara College and it eventually migrated
with me to Concordia where it was renewed in 2003. I started in order
to:
a) address the incredible lack of diversity in Canadian movie theatres
b) help build audiences and support independent Canadian documentary
and fiction
c) use film to inspire audiences (especially students) into actions
around social justice and cultural participation.

How did it expand to other cities ?
People have been to the Concordia events or heard about them and know
how hugely successful we are there. They then contact us and we help
them set up in their communities. They are emboldened by the Concordia
success and want to be part of a network that can hopefully breed that
kind of political cinema energy, and they get a lot of support from us
in the way of licensing costs, website support, etc.

Programming is terrific, how does it work ?
Thanks! I’ve been the programmer for five years at Concordia, and
every year I make suggestions to the 30+ locals in Canada and Europe
on films I think are excellent, but ultimately the other locals do
their own programming. As for how I select, it’s about the quality of
filmmaking, the level of commitment to the politics (ie, films that
take a stand or illustrate a stand), and diversity. I think that our
screenings have resonated with students at Concordia especially,
because every week they know they will experience cinema that is
politically, geographically, and issue-oriented diverse. We even throw
in the odd fiction feature and short to keep things interesting. I
should also mention that my partner, Svetla Turnin, plays a big part
in helping me sort out the gems we will screen from the 100+
acquisitions and submissions I go through every year.

With such an incredibly successful initiative ( when I was there, there were 400-600 people) can you not finance it with ticket sales ?
Part of the mandate of our parent organization (non-profit
überculture) is to promote the media arts to new audiences and to
ensure accessibility. We therefore have asked that none of the locals
charge admission. We do ask for donations, and raise a bit at each
screening that way. The Concordia CP also has its own funding
apparatus – a fee levy that all students pay into, amounting to 2
cents per credit and giving the series almost the budget it needs to
clear great films and bring in speakers. This kind of “collective
payment” method works wonderfully at that one local, our flagship
local, but the funds need to stay there. Funding the rest of the
network is the problem we face. Basically, for $40,000 a year as a
base minimum, we could get a phone and hire a coordinator to keep
things going. With more, we could build the biggest and most active
alternative distribution and exhibition network for documentary and
independent political cinema Canada has seen. For now, we’ve been
running the network on $5,000 per year, thanks to CitizenShift’s
ongoing support and faith in the project.

What happened with Canada Council funding ? Any explanations ?

It’s the second time we’ve been turned down. This time the jury
recommended we get funded and had comments that were all incredibly
positive. They even commented that they couldn’t believe we had
survived so long on volunteer labour!! Unfortunately the jury ranked
us so low the money in the envelope ran out by the time they got to
us. We are actually a bit shocked, as there was even an alternative
video distribution person and a doc filmmaker on the jury….We know
it’s not the Council’s fault, but I am starting to realize how
documentary is discriminated against in the media arts world when it
comes to funding. So many people told us that the jury would love us
(the grant was for organizational funding, exactly what we need) that
we kind of held our breath thinking we’d get it. We are now left with
the option of finding $30,000 to 40,000 over the summer or shutting
down the project. We are discussing a Network membership fee for
locals that would be instituted in the fall and be sliding scale. DOC
has also contacted me to have a meeting later this month, but I know
DOC is not like Toronto International Film Festival – not a lot of money to throw around. So, if
anyone has ideas or access to suitcases of cash, please contact us!
The wind is gone from our sails, but I guess we’re not sunk yet.

Thanks Ezra, keep up the good work !

Ezra also publishes aa news and resources blog and website on Canadian
independent cinema called “Canada Screens” – http://www.canadascreens.ca

Well-deserved award to Serge Giguère (with videos.)

If you are a subscriber to this blog and you receive this by e-mail, you need to go to the blog to see all video excerpts.

The other day one of our great Quebec doc makers, Serge Giguère, received one of the Governor General’s awards for creative achievement in media arts. And he deserves it ! Last year Serge and his producers at Les Films du rapide blanc released A Force de Rêve, a fantastic film about elderly people who remain passionately active, for which he received a Jutra award.

Serge has his finger on the pulse of the Quebec population, not the elites but the ‘ordinary people.’ His films look at lives lived and popular culture, but always with a strong creative twist. He is extremely close to the people he films, but at the same time he uses his imagination. In fact, his imagination seems to be triggered by incidents in the lives of his characters, or the locations, and he just takes off from there. Since he does his own camera work, his images express exactly what he saw and imagined, in a very organic whole.

Some time ago my close friend and colleague Simon Bujold and I filmed a presentation by Serge organized by the Quebec chapter of DOC. Here are a couple of excerpts, with a little english summary translation. I’m puttint the translations first for those of you who have some highschool French.

Characters is everything says, Serge in this first clip. You may have a good subject, but without the characters that doesn’t take you very far. He learnt that from the pioneers of cinema direct in Quebec, Pierre Perrault in particular.

[youtube ZBm4rYTlM1c]

In this second clip, Serge talks aboutwhat we often call a ‘mise en situation’ though he doesn’t use the term. Again referring to Perrault, he says brining people together and encouraging thm to interact can be tremendously fruitful. You don’t script what they are going to say, just make some suggestions, perhaps even pushing them a little to engage in an exchange.

[youtube ZppF4ULGKb0]

In the third and last clip, Serge talks about the imagination, and where he gets his ideas. And it’s always from the characters themselves, although he then takes liberties with them and finds ways to amplify them. For example, in his film on country singer Oscar Thiffault, he made use of a huge mock airplane. But the idea came from Oscar, who already had a smaller one around his place.

[youtube L5CzrkqGOwk]

You can find more info about Serge’s films on the web site of Rapide Blanc films which he co-founded with Sylvie van Brabant in 1984. And here’s a little background from the Governor General’s announcement.

Serge Giguère is one of Quebec's leading documentary filmmakers. Over
the course of three decades and in 11 documentaries, he has forged an
identity for documentaries in Quebec that reflects the collective
consciousness. He began his career as a cinematographer, working on
60-odd films, before becoming a critically acclaimed director. He
co-founded Les Films d'aventures sociales du Québec in 1974 and
remained a partner until 1984, when he joined Sylvie Van Brabant to
establish Les Productions du Rapide-Blanc. From 1998 to 2001, he was
filmmaker-in-residence at the National Film Board of Canada. Mr.
Giguère has sat on numerous juries and has been the recipient of many
awards, including the Prix de l'Association québécoise des critiques
de cinéma for best medium-length film of the year (1988, 1991, 1995),
a Prix Gémeaux (1992), and a Prix Jutra (2007). Hot Docs devoted a
retrospective to his work in 2006. Serge Giguère lives in
Saint-Norbert-d'Arthabaska (QC).

Blog thoughts

The Cathedeal in Siena, Tuscany, my photo.

If you are a subscriber to this blog, you might have noticed that I have been posting less frequently lately. This was not only because I was on a holiday trip in Tuscany, Italy, for two weeks. It was also because I have been thinking about what direction to take with the blog.

8 months after starting this adventure, with the help of my young friend and webmestre Kim Gjerstad, I was feeling both overextended and a little confused. Publishing twice weekly in both English and French was taking too much time, and I found myself tempted to do too much: review significant new docs, do my best help stir up debate about different issues, report on my own work – all this while maintaining good picture quality and occasionally inserting videos. Some of this activity was the result of good feedback: people seem to appreciate the blog and urge me to cover things. But it was getting out of hand and starting to get in the way of my work.

So I took advantage of my holidays to think about where to go with the blog. By serendipity I picked up a special issue of the progressive French paper Libération on fiction writers. There was an article where several writers talked about how they use their blogs – mainly as ‘carnets de bord,’ a sort of log book, a scrap book on the side, a place to talk about things that don’t necessarily fit into whatever they happen to be writing but need to be said. This brought me back to my original intent with the blog: to share my own experiences and thoughts on documentary filmmaking. So from now on I will write mainly about films I see and people in meet in the course of my regular activities, and of course about my own work. On occasion I will continue to use the blog as a tool to satisfy my own curiosity – I have enjoyed doing that and it has led to some interesting cyber-encounters.

I welcome your comments.

Americano prend l’affiche

Mon ami le grand documentariste Carlos Ferrand a déjà été primé à plusieurs reprises pour son film ‘Americano’, un excellent ‘road movie’ continental dans lequel il prend le pouls des Amériques au complet, et arrive à un diagnostic qui n’est pas très encourageant, mais où l’espoir réside dans la force des personnages.

De la terre de feu à la terre de glace ‘Americano’ est le voyage personnel d’un cinéaste québécois-péruvien parcourant les ruelles des Amériques. De la Patagonie au Nunavut, au cours de quatre années, Carlos Ferrand a revu des amis chers, des hommes et des femmes rencontrés jadis lors de ses vagabondages américains : des parents, des cinéastes et professeurs, la cuisinière de son enfance, un médecin, tous porteurs d’une mémoire et d’histoires fortes et signifiantes, qu’il a voulu tirer de l’ombre.

Le visionnement d’Americano nous laisse le souvenir du plus beau legs qu’un immigrant puisse faire à son pays d’accueil: lui raconter d’où il vient et de lui parler de la blessure de l’exil. Il laisse le souvenir d’un cinéaste qui chante, d’une cuisinière qui sait parler aux animaux, d’un chasseur d’ombres et de peuples disparus, de lutteurs masqués et de sacrifices humains, d’une prière à la Santa Virgen de la Guadalupe, d’hommes et de femmes qui se battent pour la justice; souvenir aussi d’un chant gospel et d’un poème d’Aimé Césaire; et enfin de « la princesse d’un futur incertain » et des espoirs d’un cinéaste pour un continent.

Vaste par le territoire qu’il embrasse, le film demeure un voyage intime par le regard qu’il pose et la parole qu’y tient Ferrand. Il se déploie comme un long chant de blues inspiré par la présence des peuples fondateurs. Americano est inclassable : road movie, plongée dans la mémoire, journal intime, film engagé sans être militant, film poétique empreint d’une profonde humanité.

Ne manquez pas ce grand film qui prend l’affiche le 21 mars 2008 au cinéma l’Excentris.

Doc engagé: Numéro spécial de la revue Possibles.

André Thibault, photo Simon Bujold

A l’invitation de André Thibault, j’ai collaboré au numéro spécial de la revue Possibles sur ‘le documentaire, art engagé’ qui vient de sortir. Au menu une table ronde avec des documentaristes ainsi que des articles sur notamment le collectif des Lucioles, Gilles Groulx, le documentaire et les femmes et bien d’autres sujets. En plus de participer à la table ronde, j’ai contribué un article intitulé ‘Le temps joue pour nous,’ et une entrevue avec le grand documentariste de L’Inde Anand Patwardhan. J’ai posé quelques questions à André Thibault, le principal responsable du numéro.

Explique-nous c’est quoi la revue Possibles.

Ce périodique, qui a 31 ans d’âge, s’est voulu dès le départ une revue d’idées progressiste et critique non alignée à une orthodoxie idéologique, combinant des essais sur des sujets sociaux, politiques, économiques et culturels regroupés chaque fois autour d’un thème – et des textes de poésie et de fiction. Les fondateurs incluaient des sociologues engagés (ex. Marcel Rioux, Gabriel Gagnon) et des poètes (ex. Gaston Miron, Roland Giguère). Les valeurs d’autonomie et d’émancipation constituent le fil conducteur de la diversité des sujets traités. Distribuée par Dimédia, la revue est présente dans les principales librairies a vocation culturelle. Autrement, on peut s’y abonner ou commander un exemplaire en appelant 514-529-1316. La page WEB Possibles donne l’éditorial et la table des matières des derniers numéros, mais n’est pas interactive.

Pourquoi vous avez choisi de faire un no spécial sur le doc engagé ?

Il nous est apparu que dans l’actuelle relance des mouvements et de la critique sociale, le documentaire, de plus en plus mûr comme forme d’art, s’inscrivait comme partenaire important à côté des formes plus classiques d’activités de sensibilisation et de mobilisation : revues, livres, conférences, colloques, manifs. Nous avions besoin de mieux comprendre (et de le faire partager à notre public lecteur) la spécificité de son apport et le pourquoi de l’engouement qu’il connaît présentement. Face à la fébrilité éclatée des diverses formes d’intervention en rupture avec la pensée unique, c’était aussi l’occasion de bâtir des ponts entre partenaires poursuivant les mêmes buts mais ayant peu d’occasions de se rencontrer et encore moins de travailler ensemble.

Qu’est-ce que tu as appris en faisant ce numéro ?

D’abord la ferveur de la communauté virtuelle que constituent les documentaristes, ferveur tant sociale que créatrice. Comme je l’ai fait ressortir dans mon édito, l’alliage d’engagement et d’empathie m’est apparu un trait dominant : plus d’émotion humaine dans l’engagement, et plus de vision sociale dans l’exploration de l’émotion humaine. Les documentaristes représentatifs des tendances présentes n’ont pas de solution magique à proposer et encore moins à imposer, ils ne divisent pas le monde en une colonne des absolument bons et une des absolument méchants. Ils viennent chercher l’être sensible et le citoyen dans chacun et l’amèment à se questionner et à ajouter ses propositions dans un débat citoyen permanent revigoré. Et cela en utilisant toutes les ressources de l’art de raconter, mais appliquées au réel.