The final reason we were at Sunnyside of the Doc in France was to screen Up the Yangtze as part of their retrospective of big feature docs of the last 20 years. The screening was set for Friday at 3pm; unfortunately, the festival was officially over by Friday at noon. So we managed to convince one industry dude to come to the screening (Bernardo from Quiet Pictures in New York) and thought that we were going to end up screening the film to an audience of one. So we walked over to the screening venue, and were pleasantly surprised by a huge line up of the film's core demographic (retirees in travel clothing). In the end, it was sold-out (they even let people sit on the floor, on cushions). But what was truly surreal was the question and answer period that followed. The entire audience stayed for over an hour, bombarding us with questions, interrupting each other, arguing with each other, not waiting for full answers, giving broad overviews of China and cinema - the most interactive audience we've ever had! But they seemed to enjoy it, and their final question was why wasn't the film distributed in theatres in France? Good question. Anyway, we wrapped up the day by sitting outside and eating seafood, then walking half an hour to go to the casino but being denied entrace because we didn't have I.D., then meeting Sunnyside workers who took us to some cool basement club, then Yung having his phone, watch, jacket etc. stolen somehow, then going home and sleeping for two hours then realizing we had 11 minutes to run to cathch the train back to Paris. Well, we high-tailed it as fast as our lugge wheels would allow us to go on those cobblestone streets, and local merchants who were just opening up and who'd been serving us all week were laughing at us running down their streets and yelling "bye, Americanos!", and we got into the train just as the doors were closing. Phew. A big thanks to Yves, Jean-Jacques and the whole Sunnyside team who put on quite an exciting event this year!
Good pitching done late yesterday, with Yung pulling out the Miracle fruit on the people at National Geographic and pitching his Fruit hunters film. The fruit turns everything in you mouth from sour to sweet ... so we handed out lemons wedges that became magically delicious. However, the weird side effect at a cocktail party is that wine tastes like bad sangria. And beer is just weird. Later, attended (semi-crashed) a nice birthday dinner celebration for Stephanie from Virage, with fine Montreal and Paris colleagues. Monique Simard from the NFB hosted the evening and taught a table of 20 people the simplest way to seperate a cheque for 20 people: everyone pays the same amount and if you didn't drink wine or eat lobster that's too bad for you. The streets and bars got weird late at night, as it was graduation day at the local university, and it was last night for the Sunnyside doc market, and the King of Pop died. A strange whirl of emotions certainly. And even stranger with the miracle fruit effect lingering in one's mouth.
Yesterday was a blast here in sunny (to the point of sun stroke) La Rochelle, with a full hive-like day of pitching and such, ending in a night of dancing and karaoke. Among the french classics (Yves Montand's Bicyclette) and the American sentimental songbook favoured by the host Finns from YLE ( Sittin' by the Dock of the Bay) I found one song in (more or less) my vocal range and age demographic, White Wedding by Billy Idol. I could have used some rehearsal but it was an experience. The DJ kicked off the night with Jive Bunny (?) and ended it with Beck's "Loser" with a whole lotta "I like to Move it Move it" in between. I can't say I danced much, but it's great to dance to Daft Punk along with the fine people from ZDF/ARTE. So Yung woke up bright and early with his voice restored, as if by miracle, and got on the panel "The Future of Documentary" with John Walker (the filmmaker, not the beverage) and moderated by NFB film czar Tom Perlmutter. It started off as a kind of standard conversation about motivation and process (Yung explained how he initially wanted to hire actors to play all the roles in Up the Yangtze, concieving it as some kind of bizarre british upstairs/downstairs comedy - I can't believe he likes to say that in public) and almost turned into a full-on fight when John Walker told Tom he was wrong and that "new media" is not "new" it's old - the internet is just a typewriter connected to a TV, and I think I saw steam shoot out of Tom's ears: "it is new! it just hasn't found it's grammer yet!" and Yung had to defend exactly why his new film on fruit should be shot in 3-D (he said it as if it was self evident). John Walker lobbied in Yung's defense: "have you ever picked fruit, on a tree? that's 3-D!" but I still don't know if I buy it. Anyway, we then had lunch with Elizabeth Radshaw from TDF (who just might be the most super-organized person in the world) who sent me and Yung on an errand to fetch her water at a market for her Hot Docs boat party (which we weren't even invited to) and we went to buy some but the market was closed for mid-day (it seems like the French also siesta) so me and Yung split up and scoured for a market. We bought 6 large bottles from the market - but they wouldn't give us a shopping bag! With yung on a bike, I was left carrying them all, so Ally Derks saw me and helped me carry. She said she would get herself invited to the boat party.
Another interesting thing to note is that Yung Chang and John Walker are giving a panel here tomorrow with Tom Perlmutter on "The Future of Documentary". Today Yung woke up having lost his voice. So he's whispering like a mafioso all day (which make all the broadcasters seem to lean in and take notice more). Will his voice return in time for the panel? Or will John Walker have to lay out the future of documentary all by himself? Tune in tomorrow...
Must say this even has felt pretty productive this year (or, at least, active). Got to meet many top European broadcasters (or, "decision makers" as they're now called). Aside from all-day, 10 minute rapid-fire pitch meetings, also have time for leisurely seafood meals with the nice folks at Bonne Pioche, late night strategy sessions at the Academie de la Biere, and long walks with Jane Balfour where she teaches us profound lessons in the art of documentary distribution (and life). Today is karaoke night (how this relates to pitching a film on the history of the computer is unclear).
Another day, another pitch: today, Yung just pitched his new film, Tienanmen Most Wanted, at the new Sunnyside pitch sessions. Another allnighter for Yung writing his pitch and editing his demo. We have a nice little apartment here in dodgy section of La Rochelle, which we have transformed into a little sweatshop of pitch prepping. We get to leave the apt. evety once in a while to drink coffee and eat moules. Another nice thing about Sunnyside of the Doc is they give out free yellow bicycles, which seem to be sponsored by ARTE. There doesn't seem to be that much money to make documentaries here but at least there are bicycles.
Daniel Cross, Yung Chang, Peter Wintonick and myself are all at the 20th anniversary of Sunnyside of the Doc in La Rochelle, France. Today we had a 9am pitch of OpenSourceCinema to 50+ members of the European Broadcasting Union. We kicked things off with some loud GirlTalk music (which always enlivens Powerpoint presentations!) and powered through 45 minutes of open source content from all our projects--from Homeless Nation to wacky Xmas music. Definitely fun. Got to use that little remote control that comes with Macs. Sunnyside is a massive market in LaRochelle, the Atlantic-side port city where the Huguenots and Jacques Cartier sailed from. Today is technically the day before the documentary market officially kicks off - they're setting up all the booths. Tomorrow, the meetings start. We're also pitching Yung's new film and playing Up the Yangtze on Friday part of their retrospective on the last 20 years of documentary.
What a great week at Hot Docs. First of all, it didn't rain nearly as much as it was supposed to. Some HotDocs highlights: -Laura Bari's ANTOINE and Yung Chang's ALI SHAN both premiered to great acclaim. Great Skype Introduction by Antoine himself at the Royal. -Wim Wenders spent the day on Sunday helping turn Fruit Hunters into a film -Toronto Documentary Forum (hosted for the first time by Elizabeth Radshaw - great job) in which we had an installation of Brett's opensourcecinema.org and showed filmmakers how to use our collaborative website. -Yung Chang (pitching his Fruit Hunter film) waited until the final sunny afternoon of the TDF to set out a tray of Miracle fruit (the fruit that tricks your tongue into thinking everything sour is sweet) and lemons for the TV folks. We convinced many broadcasters to try the fruit, except, oddly, the people from at the Nature of Things. -We had a great EyeSteelFilm party at Omar and Azed Majeed's BASEMENT space. In lovely east Toronto (perfect for weeding out the non-adventurous). -Mitch, Will, Dan, Brett, Yung all pitched new films. -I saw two great films at the festival: OLD PARTNER and ENJOY POVERTY. -And to cap it off, Brett Gaylor won the Don Haig Award, and Will Inrig and Laura Bari shared the Lindalee Tracy award. Congrats!
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