Magnus Isacsson – Page 9 – Documentary Field Notes and Flashpoints

Challenge for Change revisited

The Zebra never loses its stripe: Martin Duckworth and Terence Macartney-Filgate check out a new camera.

Last weekend I attended the launch of Challenge for Change: Activist Documentary at the National Film Board, an anthology edited by my friends Tom Waugh ( Concordia Film Studies professor, in red shirt) and Ezra Winton (Cinema Politica Founder, to the right in picture) along with McGill PhD student Michael Brendan Baker.

The authors Michael Brendan Baker, Tom Waugh and Ezra Winton.

Challenge for Change ( Société Nouvelle on the French side) was a groundbreaking National Film Board of Canada program, exceptionally progressive for a government institution, aiming at putting film and later video at the service of active citizens and their movements, and even sometimes giving them varying degrees of control over production. Many of the veterans of Challenge for Change participated in the launch event, while the francophones from the French program équivalent Société Nouvelle – some of them leading filmmakers like Maurice Bulbulian, Anne-Claire Poirier and Fernand Dansereau – were practically all absent, each for their own reasons. The authors had wisely decided to show clips from films made by those who were present, which made for some interesting presentations and comments. As there is a digital program playlist for Challenge for Change on the NFB site, created for this occasion, I won’t ask my assistant Jessica to link to all the individual film titles here. Among those who presented clips from their films were Colin Low ( Billy Craig Moves away), Terence Macartney-Filgate ( Up Against the System), Challenge for Change Executive Director 1968-70 George Stoney and Mike Mitchell (You’re on Indian Land), Dorothy Hénaut ( VTR St.Jacques), Martin Duckworth ( Cell 16), Peter Pearson ( Encounter with Saul Alinsky), Adam Symansky ( producer of Paper Wheat) and Francine Saia ( A qui appartient ce gage.)

Dorothy Hénault

George Stoney

It was great to meet these old-timers from Challenge for Change, and to see that some of them are still active and just can’t stop shooting. I thought it would have been interesting to have a discussion, notably to compare what was done during those heady years with what is done now with digital technologies and the web 2.0 interactivity, but time was up and we had to settle for refreshments and smalltalk. Presumably in the 38 articles and 500 pages of the book one will find many elements to enrich this discussion. Anyway, congrats to the authors for finishing a huge research and editing job, and for documenting this very important experience.

Publsiher: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

For Montrealers: you can buy the book at the Concordia Community Solidarity Co-op Bookstore.

Thanks to Jessica Berglund for the help with this blog.

The Reboot Experience and the guinea pigs.

Guinea pig detectives cover page. Illustration by Pierre Durand.

Together with my friend and colleague Patricia Bergeron I spent last week in intensive consultations about cross-platform documentaries – meaning documentaries which aren’t just a film or a TV program but also play themselves out on the web, including in the social networks. ( Cross-platform or transmedia is different from multi-platform in that the content actually varies from one platform to the other, making for complementary parts of a greater whole.) With our project Guineapig Detectives – about citizen investigations of new forms of advertising – Patricia and I were finalists in the Reboot competition organized by DOC Canada. I will tell you more about our project at a later date but the graphics will give you some hints. As finalists we had the privilege of several sessions with pioneers of multi-platform production and even ARG‘s – alternate reality games. Among the mentors were moderator and Reboot organizer Brett Gaylor ( the director of Rip! A Remix Manifesto), Evan Jones of Stich media, Katarina Cizek who made a Filmmaker-in-Residence at the National Film Board and Lance Wieler, a partner in Seize the Media. You can actually see presentations by these people on the DOC web site, along with the keynote by digital distribution pioneer Robert Greenwald. Since Patricia is herself a new media expert ( lots of good material on her blog about the subject !), I am sure I learned more than anyone else during this week which ended very well indeed, because Patricia and I actually won the coast-to-coast competition ! Thanks Jessica Berglund and Franck Le Coroller for research help with the project.

Guinea pig detectives cross-platform overview.

New directions 1: short film competitions on the web

Béthièle when she was five.

A documentary filmmaker in Canada today might be forgiven for being discouraged. The combined impact of the crisis of television, the more general economic crisis, and the Conservative government’s policies are having a devastating impact on our traditional sources of funding. There is definitely a ‘paradigm shift’ underway. New models of production and financing will surely emerge, but the transition is in many ways painful and the future uncertain. One way or the other I strongly believe there will still be a place and a role for documenting what goes on in society, and for making films which will contribute to public debate. And I would say, observing my own decision-making process so to speak, that I am in the process of finding new directions. In addition to one more traditional film project, I am beginning to explore multi-platform production ( more on that another day) and filmmaking for the web. In this process, I am learning a lot from my younger colleagues and not the least my interns.

I meant to participate in the short film competition about public service, organized by the CSN – deadline a few days ago. But my plans fell through due to the absolutely exceptional circumstance of no substantial snow fall in Montreal for almost a month. ( Last year we had four meters of snow !) Nonetheless, I extend my heartfelt thanks to the Société de Transport de Montréal and their employees who generously helped me prepare for a shoot which had to be put off to another year. On the other hand i will participate in the short film competition Roots, organized by RCI. This is a terrific idea, an initiative which will allow Canadian citizens from different background to tell their stories – or the stories of others, as you can already see on their web site. My contribution will be a video-letter to my daughter Béthièle who was born in Haiti and whose tenth birthday pretty much coincides with the competition deadline.

Thanks to Jessica Berglund for the help with this blog.

HAITI – IMAGES ET BESOINS URGENTS

Orphélins à Port-au-Prince. Photo: Marcello Casal Jr/ABr

Selon l’UNICEF, le tremblement de terre en Haiti a crée la situation la plus désastreuse pour les enfants de toute l’histoire de l’humanité. Il y a des dizaines de milliers d’orphélins parmi les centaines de milliers de personnes blessées et sans-abri.
Ayant une fille d’Haiti, ayant déjà visité des orphélinats en Haiti, cette situation me préoccupe grandement.
Il reste 5 jours pour faire des contributions qui seront ‘matchés’ par le gouvernement du Canada selon les critères plus bas – en plus d’être déductibles d’impôt évidemment.
Il va sans dire qu’avec les pluies qui s’en viennent en Haiti, toute contribution est d’une importance cruciale.

HAITI:

Pour être versé au Fonds d’aide aux victimes du séisme en Haïti, un don doit :

* être un don en argent ne dépassant pas 100 000 $;
* être fait par un particulier canadien;
* être fait à un organisme de bienfaisance enregistré qui reçoit des dons en réponse au séisme qui a frappé Haïti le 12 janvier
* être expressément réservé par de tels organismes à l’aide aux victimes du séisme;
* être fait entre le 12 janvier et le 12 février 2010.

Plusieurs cinéastes ont tourné des images des événements en Haiti et les rendent disponibles sur le web. A l’émission Dimanche magazine de Radio-Canada Akli Ait Abdallah racontait l’expérience des étudiants de la seule école de cinéma en Haiti – Ciné Institute, qui ont mis leurs images du tremblement de terre sur le l’internet.

Pour d’autres équipes voir notamment:

Inside disaster

Merci à Jessica Berglund pour l’aide avec ce blogue.

Women in Swedish cinema: progress

Ebbe the movie by Jane Magnusson and Karin af Klintberg

The nominations for the Swedish Guldbagge, the equivalent of Quebec’s Jutras were very interesting. In the documentary category Ebbe the movie by Jane Magnusson and Karin af Klintberg is a fascinating film about Publisher Ebbe Carlson, a larger-than life character whose social climbing and political manipulations during several were so complex that it’s impossible to distinguish fact from fiction. Wisely, the filmmakers don’t try doing that, opting instead for an exploration of ambiguities and contradictions. And they got the award. Videocracy by Eric Gandini ( who also made Surplus and Sacrificio) takes us behind the scenes of Berlusconi’s media & political power grabs and corrupt schemes in Italy. The Queen and I, which I personally liked less, tells the story of Swedish-Iranian filmmaker Nahid Persson-Sarvestani’s relationship to the former Queen of Iran Farah Diba and the recent history of that country.

It’s interesting to see that two of these films were made by swedes born outside of Sweden. And overall in this years Swedish Jutras, the women had the majority of the important nominations. Not only among the documentarians ( 2 out of three for best documentary), but also in fiction: 2 out or 3 of the directors ( Lisa Siwe got the nod) and 2 out of 3 script writers. According to a film industry agreement, signed in 2006, the women “should” receive at least 40% of the subventions for script, directing and production. So far the goals haven’t been reached (it’s still between 20 to 30%) and the Swedish organization WIFT demands a change into making the 40% obligatory.
For more information, contact: info@wift.se

Thanks to Jessica Berglund for the help with this blog post.

Femmes et cinéma en Suède: du progrès

Ebbe the movie de Jane Magnusson et Karin af Klintberg

Plusieurs films intéressants étaient en nomination pour l’équivalent des Jutras en Suède, les Guldbaggar.
Dans la catégorie documentaire, Ebbe the movie de Jane Magnusson et Karin af Klintberg est un portrait fascinant de l’éditeur Ebbe Carlsson qui a monté les échélons de la politiques suédoise grâce à des manoeuvres tellement complexes qu’on ne saurait distinguer la réalité de la fiction. Le film d’ailleurs évite sagement de le faire, et opte pour une exploration des ambiguités et contradictions. Récompense: prix du meilleur documentaire. Videocracy de Eric Gandini ( à qui on doit également Sacrificio – Who Betrayed Che Guevara et Surplus – Terrorized into being consumers) nous amène derrière les coulisses du régime médiatique et politique corrompu de Berlusconi en Italie. La Reine et moi, que j’ai personellement moins aimé, explore la relation de la réalisatrice Nahid Persson-Sarvestani’s avec la Reine déchue de l’Iran Farah Diba et l’histoire récente de ce pays.

Intéressant de voir que deux de ces films sont réalisés par des Suèdois originaires d’autres pays. Mais surtout,cette année, les femmes avaient une majorité des nominations importantes pour les Jutras Suédois. Pas seulement parmi les documentaristes, mais en fiction: 2 sur 3 en réalisation ( Lisa Siwe a eu le prix), et 2 sur 3 en scénarisation, 2 sur 3 pour meilleur documentaire. Selon une entente pour l’Industrie du cinéma signée en 2006 les femmes ‘doivent’ reçevoir au moins 40 % des subventions pour scénarisation, réalisation et production. Cependant l’objectif n’est pas encore atteint (on est encore entre 20 et 30 %) et l’organisation suédoise de WIFT réclame un changement pour rendre le 40 % obligatoire.
Pour plus d’info communiquer avec info@wift.se

Merci à Jessica Berglund pour l’aide avec ce blogue.

‘Inside Disaster’ shooting in Haiti

We are all of course terribly sad about the tragedy in Haiti – our family not the least since we have a daughter who lived her first years in Port au Prince. I of course encourage everyone to contribute money to the relief and reconstruction efforts.

Among the many film crews now in Port au Prince there is one which has a particularly interesting documentary mandate: Inside Disaster. Conceptually planned and negotiated well ahead of the Haiti earthquake, it will allow for both complexity and follow-up.

Katie McKenna who is the Internet director for PTV Productions told me about the origin of this project:

“Nadine Pequeneza has been developing the idea of, and negotiating access to the Red Cross Field Assessment and Coordination Team (FACT), for over a year. She’s producing it with Andrea Nemtin and Ian Dunbar at PTV Productions (and where I’m now working as Internet Director, developing the company’s plan for the new “multi-platform” doc funding universe). The series will air on TVO and Canal D in 2011 and is being distributed by ITV Studios Global Entertainment. It’s being produced with TVO, ITVS Global Entertainment, Canal D, ACCESS, SCN and ichannel, with support from CIDA and the CTF.”

Katie McKenna

“The website that is up now is Phase 1 of the overall web plan for the film – we’re developing a much larger version that will launch alongside the doc at the end of this year. It’s intended to be a community and educational resource for people interested in the world of humanitarian aid – we’ll have debates, data visualization materials and a glossary, all illustrated with photos and video from this website and of course, the film. To encourage redistribution, we’re taking the creative commons, “open” approach to all the current content on the site and using tools like Flickr and YouTube for distribution. Our site is currently funded by TVO, Bell Fund (Development funding), and the CTF Digital Fund.”

Some people have raised questions about the impact of numerous camera crews using precious resources in Haiti presently.
On the DOC Canada discussion forum, Katie had this to say:

“the bigger picture problem is that the huge influx of international media creates an artificially inflated market for everyday supplies – gasoline, fixers, cars, bottled water, etc. The “internationals” will pay whatever it takes, and that pushes prices for essentials out of the reach of everyday people. Yesterday’s NYT is reporting that a bottle of water in the downtown markets is now going for $6 – prices like that force people to be dependent on aid, even if they have the resources to be self-sufficient in a “normal” Haitian economy.

So, that is definitely a legit criticism that can apply to our team and the rest of the media down there.

The flipside, of course, is that the huge media presence is driving a record amount of donations into aid organizations; these donations matter, and their numbers are directly tied to media coverage. Our team is going to be there until February 16th, long after most of the international media has gone home.

They’re also going back in six months to film a follow-up on the recovery. And then when the film is released early next year – likely one year after the event – it will bring Haiti and its reconstruction back into the spotlight in Canada, and hopefully internationally.

So: we’re primarily storytellers, not fundraisers, but we’re glad when the two get tied together (which is why we have a IFRC donation button on our site).”

The documentary on the Haiti EQ: http://insidedisaster.com/
Twitter: @insidedisaster
Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/ydkerkf

Thanks to Jessica Berglund for the help with this blog post.

Based on a true story: the Informant!

I just saw the film The Informant! labeled a dark comedy, directed by Steven Soderbergh, starring Matt Damon, based on the 2000 non-fiction book by the same name by journalist Kurt Eichenwald. It tells the story of a bumbling whistleblower who takes on the management of the giant agribusiness corporation he works for, but who is too naive and too compromised by his own complicity in the corporate game to succeed. Indeed, at the end of the movie he ends up in jail.

I often find fiction films more inspiring than documentaries when it comes to structure, style and texture, and this is one example. ( Another fairly recent one, which I loved for the style of shooting and editing, was Enemy of the State.) You can learn an awful lot from watching The Informant! about the amount of complexity a film can handle, about character development and ‘narrative economy’ and about a creative and entertaining way to convey the thoughts of the main character.

In addition, I have a long-standing interest in the role and fate of whistleblowers who play a key role in the fight for accountability and democracy. I sometimes discuss these issues with the Executive director of FAIR ( The Federal Accountability Initiative for Reform) David Hutton.

David has this to say about The Informant! :

“Yes I did see the movie, and it was very entertaining. However, although Mark Whitacre helps expose a massive corporate fraud, he turns out to be a delusional fraudster trying to cover his own tracks with layer upon layer of untruths. This makes him completely unlike any whistleblower that I know.

The common characteristic that I have found among whistleblowers is personal integrity. They are ordinary people whose personal values simply would not allow them to collude in wrongdoing that would harm others. So they feel compelled to speak out even though this puts their own careers at risk. Even when their careers have been ruined, they often express no regrets, saying that they felt they had no choice but to do what they did. So in my mind the word ‘whistleblower’ is synonymous with ‘truth-teller’. Thank goodness that there are so many of them: they typically pay dearly for their courage, but the world would be a poorer and more dangerous place without them.”

The personal crises typical of the whistleblower experience are well rendered in another Soderbergh film, Erin Brockowich, one whose strength lies more in the writing and in the performances than in the visual treatment. Brockovich, as played by Julia Roberts, gets so caught up in her inquiry into corporate wrongdoing that she starts neglecting her children and her lover. When she receives a threatening phone call, it leads to increased stress and separation. The personal crisis theme is even more developed in The Insider, where Jeff Wigand (played by Russell Crowe) is subjected to all manner of blackmail,threats, intimidation and violence, with disastrous consequences for his family life. Again, the story line of The Insider stayed very close to the real life story, as told in the Vanity Fair article on which the film was based.

Thanks to Jessica Berglund and David Hutton for help with this post.

Extremely risky, equally crucial: Burma VJ

A couple of days ago, I had the opportunity to once again see Burma VJ, one of the most remarkable documentaries from last year. The film documents the use of small digital cameras by courageous Video Journalists – VJ’s – to reveal what goes on inside the Burmese dictatorship. With digital cameras and satellite uploads it is possible to distribute images worldwide within hours. Working with the Democratic Voice of Burma, a non-profit media organization based in Norway where it gets some of its funding, these courageous video activists do just this. Their work made all the difference during the 2007 uprising led by buddhist monks across the country. Although international news crews were banned and the Internet shut down, images of both the protests and the repression were quickly communicated to the outside world. This striking footage made the newscasts on major networks including the BBC and CNN. This was in stark contrast to the successful information blackout during the student revolt twenty years ago, in 1988. So, as we have seen with the use of digital images and Twitter messages in Iran recently, courage and technology can be a powerful force for social and political change.

Burma VJ by Danish filmmaker Anders Ostergaard, produced by Magic Hour Films, combines VJ footage with some recreations of their ‘tactical leader’ Joshua directing operations over the phone. As the threat of life imprisonment and even death becomes very tangible for the VJ activists, the tension in the film is almost unbearable.

Burma VJ was shown last fall at the Rencontres Internationales du Documentaire de Montréal in the presence of Khin Maung Win who is one of the leaders of The Democratic Voice of Burma. My assistant Alexander and I took advantage of the opportunity to ask him about the use of small video cameras.

We also asked about the upcoming elections in Burma and what he expects the role of the VJ’s to be in that context.

Burma VJ has won some 30 International awards, the latest being the Grierson Best Documentary Award in Britain. The film is now on a short-list for best documentary at the Academy Awards. The finalists will be announced on February 2nd. I’m hoping that Burma VJ will be among them, because not only is this a cause that deserves all the attention it can get, but because it is also truly a great film.

Thanks for the help with this blog post to Alexander Carson and Jessica Berglund.

Projection-événement: ‘Enfants de Choeur’ à la cinémathèque

Mon film ‘Enfants de Choeur‘ sur la chorale des sans-abris de Montréal, terminé il y a dix ans, sera projeté à la Cinémathéque québecoise à Montréal ce samedi le 19 Décembre. Et ce sera une projection-événement puisque la nouvelle incarnation du groupe, la Chorale sous les étoiles – autrefois Chorele de l’Acceuil Bonneau – sera présente pour chanter. Je serai en Europe, mais le producteur Paul Lapointe y sera, ainsi que le Directeur de la chorale, Pierre Anthian. Le film était en nomination pour meilleur documentaire à Hot Docs (Toronto) et aux Jutras, et il s’est mérité le prix du meilleur moyen-métrage documentaire à Mumbai en 2000. Je suis reconnaissant au cinéaste Bernard Émond (son dernier film La Donation est à l’affiche dans plusieurs salles au Quebec actuellement) d’avoir écrit le petit texte qui suit sur Les Enfants de Choeur en vue de la projection à la cinémathèque. Et j’ajoute que Louise Côté qui a monté La donation et la plupart des autres films d’Émond a aussi assuré l’excellent montage de mon film. Bernard écrit:

‘Il y a deux films dans Enfants de choeur : en surface, un feel-good movie sur des marginaux qui retrouvent la dignité en chantant, et derrière, un film pénétrant sur la difficulté d’être et sur la difficulté d’aider. Il n’y a aucun angélisme dans ce film ; on est dans l’humain jusqu’au cou : les choristes sont poqués, égoïstes, et manipulateurs autant qu’ils sont généreux et attachants, et le désintéressement de leur directeur de chorale bénévole n’est pas exempte de prosélytisme et d’un certain goût du pouvoir et de la reconnaissance. La grande richesse du film tient justement à la tension entre ces éléments. On y comprend que le don n’existe pas sans une forme d’échange, et que dans l’échange, on se compromet toujours. Cela n’enlève rien à la générosité et au courage des protagonistes, sans lesquels la chorale n’aurait jamais existé ; seulement, le film ne cède ni aux simplifications, ni aux bons sentiments. Enfants de choeur rend la vie dans toute sa beauté et sa complexité.’

Merci à Jessica Berglund pour l’aide avec ce blogue.