Documentary debates – Page 3 – Documentary Field Notes and Flashpoints

Inspiration: The artists in my family, part 1

8-Båt-i-vinterfjord-1987 — Båt i vinterfjord, 1987 ( Boat in fjord, winter, 1987)

I come from a family of teachers and the artists. From the former, in particular my mother Kerstin and her father Effe, I learned about the value of intellectual curiosity and learning. From the artists I feel I learned not just about aesthetics, but also about the value of a creative interpretation of the world around you.

And most of all an attitude: when you have something to do, do it. When you have something to say, say it. Even if it isn’t what’s popular at the moment, even if it isn’t easy, even if it costs you a lot.

I see myself more as an artisan than an artist, but that heritage is precious. I think of it when people look at my sometimes almost-impossible five- or six-year projects and tell me that in my place, they might have given up.

Pål Svensson and Arne Isacsson — Pål and Arne, with a scale model of their sculpture PålArne.

My father Arne Isacsson founded an art school, Gerlesborgsskolan, on the Swedish Atlantic coast in 1944. It soon operated summer courses in Provence and a division in Stockholm, and it soon grew to become the biggest private art school in Scandinavia.

When I was young my dad was mostly busy running the school, but since he retired some twenty years ago he has had more time to devote to his own art. Working mainly in aquarelle, he has pioneered new techniques, notably with laminates of watercolours, which make it possible to produce large-scale works for public installations.

Last year, he completed two “watercolour sculptures” together with the sculptor Pål Svensson. Totally original works, they stand several meters high and look out over the ocean. If I had lived in Sweden and not in Canada, I would have made a film about their joint creative process.

Still innovating, at the age of 93, my father really is an inspiration!

Arne’s wife Margareta Blomberg is also an artist, often they exhibit together. My sister Eva, also an artist on the Swedish west coast, combines the heritage of Arne and my uncle Torsten Renqvist in sensitive drawings and more conceptual collages.

Thanks to Tobi Elliott for her help with this post.

The crisis ad marem usque ad marem: the NFB’s GDP web docs

PIB/GDP: 'Famille à la casse' — Copyright: ONF/NFB

This week at Sunny Side of the Doc at La Rochelle, the NFB and Arte.tv France announced a collaboration for the production of webdocumentaries. They will produce one documentary per year, with a budget of $100,000 CDN. The two companies already have considerable experience with webdocs.

For almost a year, the NFB has hosted a major online project, GDP – Measuring the Human Side of the Canadian Economic Crisis. The NFB’s director of French programming, Monique Simard, a longtime union leader and former politician known for her involvement with social issues, took the initiative for this endeavor.

From the beginning, her intuition was that the economic crisis would not be a passing thing, but would profoundly affect the lives and directions of many people. The GDP project allowed many filmmakers and photographers across the country to follow people affected by the crisis. I haven’t had a chance to look at all of the stories, naturally, but here are some initial impressions.

First off, the site’s architecture is impressive, as is its design. We have access to stories told in both official languages, with subtitles as needed. You can watch multiple episodes in the order of choice. You can comment, share, and use social media tools to talk about the stories.

As for the content, I found it very uneven generally. There are some excellent stories, such as “Auto-workers at a crossroads“, the story of a couple who both work in the auto industry in Oshawa, Brian and Cassandra, who lose their jobs and must fight to survive. It’s very much in the documentary tradition, without the dramatic structure but in exchange having the advantage of following their story over time in several episodes.

The same goes for a report on an immigrant family who are staying in a motel in British Columbia – we enter in their universe, we understand the challenges they have to surmount, and their emotions. Occasionally a series starts well, like the story of a group of young women in the West who are trying to get out of debt – but at a certain point nothing much happens, the story isn’t going anywhere. In addition there are some stories that don’t reveal much of anything, neither a strong human story, nor strong production values.

Daniel Poulin / St-George de Beauce — Copyright: ONF / Photo : Renaud Philippe

One of the positive surprises of this project is the quality of the photo essays, produced notably by Renaud Philippe in Quebec, Brian Howell in Vancouver, Goh Irotomo and Craig Chivers in Toronto. The above photo is taken from one of Renaud Philippe’s photo essays titled “Willpower is power.”

Next week: a conversation with Hélène Choquette, director and coordinator of GDP/PIB.

Thanks to Tobi Elliott pour her help with this post.

La crise économique ad marem usque ad marem: PIB

Cette semaine à Sunny Side of the Doc à La Rochelle, l’ONF et ARTE France ont annoncé une collaboration pour la production de documentaires pour le web. Ils produiront un documentaire par année, avec un budget de 100.000 $ Can. Les deux ont déjà une expérience considérable avec les webdocs.

Depuis presque un an déjà, l’ONF a mis en ligne un projet majeur, PIB – L’indice humain de la crise économique Canadienne. La Directrice du programme français, Monique Simard, une ancienne dirigeante syndicale et politicienne dont les préoccupations sociales sont bien connues, a pris l’initiative de cette expérience.

Son intuition de départ: la crise économique ne serait pas passagère, et elle serait assez profonde pour changer le cours de la vie de beaucoup de gens. Le projet PIB a permis à beaucoup de cinéastes et photographes à travers le pays de suivre des personnes affectées par la crise. Je n’ai pas regardé tout, évidemment, mais voici quelques impressions.

D’abord, l’architecture du site est impressionnante, le design aussi. On a accès aux histoires racontées dans les deux langues officielles, avec sous-titres au besoin. On peut voir des épisodes multiples dans l’ordre qu’on choisit. On peut commenter, partager, utiliser les médias sociaux pour en parler.

Pour le contenu, je l’ai trouvé très inégal. Il y a d’excellentes histoires, comme ‘Famille à la Casse’, l’histoire d’un couple formé d’un travailleur et une travailleuse de l’automobile, Brian et Cassandra, qui perdent leurs emplois et doivent se battre pour survivre. C’est très dans la tradition du documentaire, sans la structure dramatique mais en échange l’avantage du suivi de l’histoire à travers les épisodes.

La même chose vaut pour un reportage sur une famille immigrée qui tient un motel en Colombie Britannique – on rentre dans leur univers, on comprend les défis qu’il doivent relever et leurs émotions. Parfois une série commence bien, comme cette histoire d’un groupe de jeunes femmes dans l’Ouest qui tentent de sortir de leur endettement – mais à un moment donné il ne se passe plus grand chose, on tourne en rond et on fait du remplissage. Et puis, il y a malheureusement des histoires qui ne donnent pas grande chose, ni côté humain ni côté production.

Une des plus belles surprises de ce projet est la qualité des reportages photo, réalisés notamment par Renaud Philippe à Québec, Brian Howell à Vancouver, Goh Irotomo et Craig Chivers à Toronto. La photo ci-haut est tirée justemment d’un reportage de Renaud Philippe intitulé ‘Le vouloir c’est le pouvoir’.

La semaine prochaine: une conversation avec Hélène Choquette, la réalisatrice qui coordonne PIB/GDP.

Merci à Tobi Elliott pour son aide avec ce blog.

multi-platform: just another way to tell a story?

Gaza Sderot Arte.tv — arte tv's webdocumentary 'Gaza/Sderot: Life in spite of everything' can be found at http://gaza-sderot.arte.tv

I have heard many people say that multi-platform production is ‘just another way to tell a story.’ It sounds simple, clear-cut, reassuring.

But is that it? I think not. There is a huge difference in the way you can communicate content with a multi-platform project.

When you tell a linear story, you are grappling with some time-honoured issues such as dramatic structure, character development, narrative progression, resolution. I have struggled with these for so long, in so many projects, that I feel they have become second nature. Now, when I approach a film idea, I look at it from that angle right away, not just as a subject or a theme or an issue.

But in conceiving a multi-platform project, you are NOT just telling a story, you are conceiving an experience. Not even just a viewer experience, but – due to the interactivity of Web 2.0 – a user or participant experience.

I worked with producer Patricia Bergeron for a couple of months, and learned from her that the user experience is central to any multi-platform experience. (Patricia has many excellent texts about cross-platform production on her Delicious account.) As the winners of the DOC Reboot contest, we had the opportunity to consult with several leading experts in the field, and with Brett Gaylor of Eyesteel films. (See my previous post.)

But one of the best explanations I have heard of multi-platform production was provided at an NFB panel at Hot Docs a few weeks ago, by Hugues Sweeney and Rob McLauglin, respectively from the French and English production branches of the NFB.

Said Sweeney: “In multi-platform, the creator is an architect. Even before shooting, he/she has to edit, to conceive a space into which the user can come to live an experience. The role of the author really is to define that experience. This means a lot of preparation, and you have to think of the audience as being actively involved in the experience.”

For my own work, I certainly hope to continue making feature length documentaries. But I see multi-platform production as a way to actually bring back many of the things I felt I had to sacrifice in making a film: the context and background, information about issues, debates and points of view on the subject. I think actually that films sometimes aren’t as good as they could be because they try to incorporate too much of this kind of material in a linear story.

Now, with the possibility of exploring these kinds of materials on the other platforms, we could feel even freer to focus a film on excellent storytelling.

Provided, of course, that there is continued support and funding for linear docs as well as the new platforms.

Thanks to Tobi Elliott for her help with this blog.

The Socalled Movie

I went to see Garry Beitel’s film The Socalled Movie when it premiered in Montreal a few days ago. A terrific evening: great film, great audience, all very Montreal. The post-screening Q & A was followed by a concert by the film’s main character, musician Socalled (aka Josh Dolgin) with his band.

Socalled is a truly original creator of hard-to-classify music which (to borrow a few lines from the press release) mashes up funk and hip-hop with Jewish klezmer. “Socalled is a pianist, singer, arranger, rapper, producer and composer – and also a magician, filmmaker and visual artist – a creative force who blasts through the boundaries that separate music of different cultures, eras and generations.”

Josh is funny, creative, touching, and unstoppable. Garry Beitel sees the star of his film as having “an amazing ability to take great music from the past and plug it into the current moment.”

The Socalled Movie is structured in neat little chapters, inspired by François Girard’s Thirty-two Short Films About Glenn Gould (1993). In spite of this, the film has real unity and a dramatic arc that really works. During the Q&A, Garry said he felt this approach was appropriate because the main character is such a multi-talented chameleon: “Just when you think you’ve figured out who he is, you discover another dimension which challenges your perception.”

Seeing Garry’s film, I had a sense of a filmmaker having reached real maturity. Everything about the film breathes experience and long-standing collaborative relationships – notably with DOP Marc Gadoury and editor Dominique Sicotte, who both did fantastic work.

The film was produced by Barry Lazar (reFrame Films) and Ravida Din (The National Film Board of Canada.)

The Socalled Movie begins its cross-Canada theatrical run June 4 – 11 here in Montreal @ Cinéma du Parc (3575 Ave. Du Parc), and June 5 – 8 & 10 @ CinemaSpace, Segal Centre (5170 Cote-Ste-Catherine).

It opens in Quebec City June 4 @ Le Clap (2360 chemin Sainte-Foy) and plays New York City’s NewFest June 08 @ JCC in Manhattan (334 Amsterdam Avenue.)

Other release dates on the film’s blog here.

Thanks to Tobi Elliott for help with this post.

The multi-platform revolution

This is a still taken from an excellent interactive web documentary, Prison Valley by David Dufresne & Philippe Brault, produced by arte.tv and upian.com, in partnership with FranceInter, Libération.fr and Yahoo.com.

The world of documentary production is in the midst of an upheaval, the likes of which have not been seen since the coming of cinema vérité/direct cinema in the first years of the sixties.

Digital technology and the Web 2.0 has meant that virtually anyone can be a content producer – or filmmaker – and that the user can express opinions and interact with other producers. We are no longer limited to watching programs on TV at predetermined times – and with commercial breaks.

There is no longer “an audience,” there are audiences. What used to be small niche audiences on a given territory can now be a substantial global audience. It is a revolution, and as all revolutions it comes with pain and loss as well as increased freedom.

We are experiencing this transition in quite a radical way in Canada right now, because government agencies such as the National Film Board and the new Canadian Media Fund have decided to invest heavily in multi-platform production.

Some filmmakers are focusing on the negative consequences. I think this is a mistake, because multi-platform production opens the door to new ways of reaching and audience, and new ways of telling stories. I don’t see these as replacing the traditional ‘linear’ stories but rather, complementing them.

But even this means a substantial change in the way we work.

More on this another day, as I will review several of these multi-platform projects and interview their authors.

Thanks to Tobi Elliot for help with this post.

Marcel Simard’s last film

MARCEL SIMARD, filmmaker — Director Marcel Simard

There is a reason why I write this in English. Most francophones in Quebec who take an interest in cinema will already be aware of what I’m about to tell you.

“There are adults who have antennas for the secret pain of our little ones – forms of suffering that are often taken to be unimportant.” Those are the opening words of Marcel Simard’s last film, spoken by himself. ‘Last film’, because Marcel is no longer with us.

Like the people he portrayed in his films, Marcel was incredibly sensitive. The sometimes overwhelming challenges of being alive and people who were close to the edge were not only his subjects, they were also an inescapable part of his own life. As he said in a statement read at his funeral, this suffering had become unbearable, and he wasn’t able to face it one more day. He isn’t here to enjoy the success of his film.

Le petit monde d’Elourdes, the title of Marcel’s beautiful film, is a play on words. It means Elourdes’ children, or Elourde’s little world. It follows the first- to third-grade students of a special Montreal school, and their incredible teacher Elourdes Pierre over a period of a year.

Elourdes Pierre, Montreal teacher — Montreal teacher Elourdes Pierre

A woman of colour, Elourdes is beautiful, sensitive, intelligent and caring. With infinite patience she attends to all the seemingly small dramas that play themselves out among the children. Many of them revolve around the conflicts between the girls who often seek exclusive friendship (a father of two daughters, I am very familiar with this. Margaret Atwood has written about it…), but others have to do with the aggressiveness of some of the boys.

For the children these are deadly serious issues, and Elourdes – just like Marcel – understands this. Her interaction with the children is beautifully filmed by Arnaud Bouquet – and kudos to sound man Pierre Duplessis who doesn’t miss one word of what the children say, or sometimes whisper.

In a very moving scene Elourdes explains her agenda: if she can teach these children to resolve their conflicts here, at this age, without violence or residual resentment, they will have learned a skill for life, and our world will be better for it.

In following the class for a year, this film resonates with other French-language films like Être et Avoir and La classe de Mme Lise. In its study of human motions as expressed at an early age, it is reminiscent of Claire Simon’s La récréation.

I made three films with Marcel Simard and his wife Monique Simard, at Les Productions Virage. (For titles see my web site.) Virage produced many of the best social-issue documentaries in Quebec. I loved Marcel’s understanding of people (he seemed to see right through any kind of façade or disguise, seeing people’s soul…) and of cinema.

Like a lot of Quebec filmmakers, social workers and people involved in fights for social justice, I will miss him enormously.

Hommage à Macumba

Patricio Henriquez, Robert Cornellier et Raymonde Provencher.

L’autre jour, à l’occasion de la remise du Prix Arthur Lamothe, dans le cadre du Festival de films sur les droits de la personne de Montréal, j’ai eu l’occasion de rendre hommage aux deux réalisateurs et la réalisatrice de Macumba International: Robert Cornellier, Patricio Henriquez et Raymonde Provencher. Vous trouverez l’ensemble de mon texte ici. Voici quelques extraits:

Depuis qu’ils travaillaient ensemble à l’émission Nord-Sud à Télé-Québec (Radio-Québec à l’époque), ils ont développé une compréhension profonde des défis auxquels font face les populations des pays du Tiers-Monde. Et ils ont développé des antennes: des sources et des canaux d’information privilégiés, qui leur permettent de proposer des sujets de reportages et de films inusités et pertinents. Inusités, pertinents, et aussi avec une orientation très claire en faveur des gens qui n’ont pas normalement accès aux grands moyens de communication. Depuis le tout début et jusqu’aux dernières productions, les gens qui n’ont pas le pouvoir et qui ont de la difficulté à se faire entendre sont au cœur de leur travail.

Robert, Patricio et Raymonde ont amorcé leur pratique du témoignage dans un réseau de télévision publique qui était capable d’y investir certaines ressources, ils l’ont continué en tant que producteurs indépendants en fondant en 1995 la compagnie Macumba International. Depuis, ils ont produit des émissions, des séries et des films documentaires dont l’excellence a été confirmée par de nombreux prix.

….. finalement, l’aspect de leur travail qui personnellement m’intéresse le plus: les documentaires d’auteur. Le premier que j’avais vu, c’était celui de Patricio 11 septembre 1973 : Le dernier combat de Salvador Allende, sorti en 1998. Le film a reçu 17 prix, et j’ai eu le plaisir de pouvoir en rapporter un pour Patricio du festival de Mumbai. War Babies…nés de la haine, de Raymonde témoigne du sort des enfants issus du viol lors de conflits armés – le film a gagné quatre prix Gémeaux 2003; Marée noire, l’héritage de l’Exxon Valdez, de Robert s’est récemment mérité le Gemini Award dans la catégorie meilleure réalisation documentaire. Et il faut absolument mentionner : Sous la cagoule, un voyage au bout de la torture, le film de Patricio qui a reçu le JUTRA du meilleur documentaire en 2009.

Le travail que font ces trois réalisateurs de Macumba est précieux et essentiel. Mais pourront-ils continuer à le faire? Le contexte de production n’est guère encourageant, et les possibilités de financement des documentaires se rétrécissent comme peau de chagrin. Est-ce que cette détérioration des conditions de production arrêtera nos amis Patricio, Raymonde et Robert? Ce serait mal les connaître. Mais disons qu’après trente-cinq ans de travail acharné, ils mériteraient mieux que d’avoir à se battre pour chaque nouveau projet comme si c’était leur premier.

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Merci à Jessica Berglund pour l’aide avec le 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.