A year ago I travelled to IDFA for the first time. While I’d like to tell you I had a
great time, in reality I was terrified. I got there far too early, saw some mind-
bendingly brilliant films and by the time I was due to screen my film, Forerunners,
I almost threw up. A year later I went back with 37 South Africans to watch films,
network and party.
Documentary Filmmakers’ Association (DFA) stalwart Pascal Schmidt came up
with the extremely bright idea to utilise the Department of Trade and Industry’s
(the dti’s) EMIA (Export Marketing & Investment Assistance) scheme to send an
official South African delegation to the 2012 festival. The scheme funded flights,
accommodation, marketing material and a South African stall.
Brand SA also chipped in with a lot of scarves and beanies, allowing the South
African delegates to survive Amsterdam’s “ice age’ weather conditions, and also
made the delegates identifiable from roughly
300 metres as all these products featured the South African flag.
Hans Boscher, a Dutch independent producer, coordinated many of the
delegation’s meetings and guaranteed they met the right people.
Sadly, there were no South African films showing in any of the competitive
sections at this year’s festival. Truth be told it hasn’t been a great year for South
African documentaries with none of the latest batch of films managing to impose
themselves on any of the major festivals.
SA’s Forum films
The good news, though, is that there are some incredible films on the way. At
IDFA’s co-production market, The Forum, South Africa had two films, represented
(unbelievably) by the same producer – Neil Brandt of Fireworx Media in
Johannesburg.
One of these films is Capetonian Riaan Hendrick’s The Devil’s Lair, which has to
be one of the most anticipated films of 2013. The recipient of IDFA’s Worldview
Award and the Blue Ice Production Grant, the film had commissioning editors
vying for pre-sales. Please check out the trailer (http://vimeo.com/23937652), it
will make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. One particular scene
depicts a gangster planning a murder while a faulty light bulb flicks on and off,
constantly plunging the room into darkness.
The second of Brandt’s films, which featured in a new strand at The Forum for
work in progress, is Francois Verster’s documentary, The Dream of Shahrazad. A
kaleidoscope of characters from three countries (Egypt, Lebanon and Turkey),
the film was shot during the Arab Spring and has been three years in creation.
Verster screened a 90-minute rough cut to great acclaim and the film promises to
be a strong presence on the 2013 festival circuit.
Outside of the official co production market, Rehad Desai was making a solid
impression on European producers with his new project about the infamous
Marikana massacre which resulted from a strike at the Lonmin mine.
Festival highlights
Five days into the festival Pascal Schmidt emailed to ask if I was ok. I replied
telling him it was awful – I was being forced to watch films and party every day,
which brings me to my next and most favourite part of any festival – the parties.
Just kidding! The films (I think) are my best part.
My IDFA film highlights this year come from Brazil and Georgia. Firstly Elena, an
incredible tale of a young woman coming to terms with her sister’s suicide, with
each scene pushed to its creative apex. The film, framed around a searingly
personal and poetic letter to her sister, is a perfect combination of creativity and
content building to a conclusion which left me unable to leave my seat for
several minutes. The film took eight years to make and was in post-production
for three of those years.
The second film, The Machine Which Makes Everything Disappear, was a
delightfully simple idea (good ideas generally are). A Georgian filmmaker placed
an advert in a national newspaper requesting people who would be interested
in appearing in a film. She shoots the interviews and if she finds them interesting
enough, returns home with the interviewees to carry on filming them. The film is
a patchwork of characters and landscapes that leaves you with a deep visual
understanding of Georgia, a country struggling to come to terms with itself.
Each night at IDFA there is a party. Worryingly, due to a slowdown in global
economics, this year you had to buy your own drinks. That is until the South
African party, which thankfully was sponsored by the South African Embassy in
the Netherlands, which clearly recognises that there is value in getting a lot of
producers and filmmakers drunk. Consequently, hundreds of people turned up
and the party was an extraordinary success featuring pantsula dancers from
Soweto and DJ Clive from Johannesburg. As the party drew to a close Rehad
Desai was at hand to marshal everyone to another venue, guaranteeing some
serious hangovers the following day.
Leaving IDFA I bumped into Peter Wintonick, one of the festival’s organisers. He
asked me if I’d enjoyed myself this year and I told him that going to IDFA was
like traveling to the base camp of Mount Everest – it allows you to stop, look up
and imagine.
Simon Wood is currently working on two documentaries, Untamed, an
exploration into the evolution of the human psyche with poet, psychologist and
ex Springbok Ian McCallum, and Child Free, an examination of prejudice against
women who choose not to have children.
