3rd Symposium 2009

Friday, 3 July 2009

20:00
Get-Together
for Open Training Session Experts & Delegates only. The Get-Together is sponsored by Documentary Campus, Story Doc and EDN.

21:00
Screening: The Yes Men Fix the World

The Yes Men Fix the World (dir. Andy Bichlbaum, Mike Bonanno, Kurt Engfehr, 2009) is a screwball true story that follows a couple of gonzo political activists as they infiltrate the world of big business and pull off outrageous pranks that highlight the ways that corporate greed is destroying the planet. Along the way the duo discover the culprits behind the cult of greed, and in a wildly uplifting ending, they find a way for everyone to defeat the cult and save civilization from its own worst excesses.

Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno are two guys who just can't take "no" for an answer. They have an unusual hobby: posing as top executives of corporations they hate. Armed with nothing but thrift-store suits, they lie their way into business conferences and parody their corporate nemeses in ever more extreme ways - basically doing everything that they can to wake up their audiences to the danger of letting greed run our world.

---

Saturday, 4 July 2009

09.15 – 09:45
REGISTRATION

09:45–10.00
WELCOME & INTRODUCTION

• Donata von Perfall, Documentary Campus, Germany
• Dimitris Antonakakis, KAM, Greece
• Christoph Jörg, Pumpernickel Films, France
• Alan Hayling, Renegade Pictures, UK

10.00–11.00
THE SECRETS OF MAKING A FUNNY DOCUMENTARY
THE YES MEN FIX THE WORLD

• Alan Hayling, Renegade Pictures, UK

Alan Hayling produced and wrote the script for The Yes Men Fix the World, the documentary which won the audience award at this year’s Berlinale. He has also worked with Michael Moore on his series The Awful Truth and his hit documentary Bowling for Columbine, and has produced a host of funny and satirical documentaries while at the BBC and Renegade. But making a genuinely funny documentary – which makes serious as well as satirical points – is an art in itself. It is not easy – as he discovered when he first tried it himself. In this session he’ll show a series of clips from the films he has produced to illustrate how humour can be a useful device in the documentarist’s tool-box.

11.00–11.30
COFFEE BREAK

11.30–13.00
HOW TO RUN A SUCCESFUL INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY STRAND? THE SECRETS OF BBC’S STORYVILLE AND MORE4’S TRUE STORIES

• Tabitha Jackson, More 4, UK
• Greg Sanderson, BBC Storyville, UK

Authored international documentaries are alive and well on British TV largely thanks to the existence of two documentary strands – Storyville on the BBC, and True Stories on Channel 4’s digital channel More4. They show a huge range of work – and not just from British producers. These are the documentary strands that depend on international coproduction and in this session Greg Sanderson from the BBC and Tabitha Jackson from Channel 4 tell us how they scour the world looking for documentary projects that they believe will work for their audiences – and, hopefully, win awards. What are they looking for? How much can they spend? What are the challenges of executive producing these kinds of films? Greg and Tabitha will reveal the secrets of running a successful international documentary strand – and on the way we’ll get an insight into the complex world of international documentary coproduction.

13.00–14.30
LUNCH BREAK

14.30–15.30
HOW TO NAVIGATE THE CHALLENGING WORK OF RESEARCH AND CLEARANCES?

• Elisabeth Klinck, E. Klinck Research, Canada

Elizabeth Klinck will share her secrets of navigating the challenging world of research and clearances. Using examples from a wide array of international productions on which she has worked, she will explain her methods of editorial and character research, how to obtain and reduce costs for archival footage and stills, and the ins and outs of clearing music. Areas of discussion include the current rights marketplace and new frontiers, and negotiating contractual terms and conditions.

15.30–16.30
HOW TO MAKE SCIENCE SHOWS THAT PEOPLE WANT TO WATCH?

• David Glover, Channel 4, UK

Channel 4 in the UK is at the forefront of developing new, bolder kinds of science documentaries. More and more viewers don’t want their science on television to resemble a school science lesson – and this is particularly true of younger viewers, and the kind of discerning, edgy viewers who like Channel 4’s programming. Research shows that they come to Channel 4 for quirkier, more startling, shocking, and innovative forms of science television. David Glover is the commissioning editor at Channel 4 who is responsible for its science output. He says: “We still wish to educate and inform, and viewers also want this from our output. So to some extent we are in the business of smuggling - giving viewers something really educational, thought provoking and worthwhile, while also being entertaining, new and exciting.” In what promises to be a fascinating session, David will show us clips from some of the innovative science films he has been commissioning and let us in to the secrets of how he’s trying to re-invigorate the science documentary genre.

16.30–17.00
COFFEE BREAK

17.00–18.30
HOW TO USE ARCHIVE MATERIAL IN A CREATIVE WAY?

• Jihan El-Tahri , France
• Delphine Jaudeau, UK

Jihan El-Tahri is an Egyptian-born French filmmaker. She has authored, directed and produced award-winning documentary films like The House of Saoud, The Price of Aid, Requiem for Revolution: Cuba’s African Odyssey and most recently Behind the Rainbow on the transformation of the ANC in South Africa from a liberation movement to a state institution.

Delphine Jaudeau’s most recent work was her participation as a director/producer in the acclaimed BBC documentary series Iran and the West marking the 30th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution. Jihan and Delphine are very experienced in making engaging documentaries, tackling and exploring controversial and complex stories of our times. On this panel we will analyze together what makes a good contemporary history doc: How to go about finding new information about known topics? How to get the kind of interview that will build the structure of your film without being boring? How to find the right visuals: use of archives and other options of illustration? We are also talking about fair use and how copyright is blocking creativity.

20.00
BEACH PARTY

---

Sunday, 5 July 2009

9.30–10.30
THE SECRETS OF GREAT DOCUMENTARY STORYTELLING

• George Carey, UK

George Carey is widely recognised as one of the best story tellers in British documentary. After many years at the BBC he was one of the pioneers of independent television production in the UK and the company Mentorn that he founded is known for its powerful current affairs and history documentaries. He has recently retired but for the first time in decades he has picked up a small camera and made his own film as a director about something very strange that happened 100 years ago in Siberia. It is a tour de force of storytelling. And it cost nearly nothing to make.

10.30–12.00
INSIDE THE MIND OF A CURRENT AFFAIRS COMMISSIONER

• Fiona Campbell, BBC, UK
• Hans Robert Eisenhauer, ZDF/ARTE, Germany
• Alex Szalat, ARTE France, France

The world is beset with crises – the financial crisis, the climate change crisis, the Middle East crisis. And with the increasing power of the internet and 24-hour news channels there is unprecedented access to news about these crises. But what should be the role of documentary makers in dealing with these issues? How can we engage audiences and stimulate them to think – and, maybe, - act in our fast changing world? Every day of their working lives, our three panellists have to think about how to make current affairs documentaries relevant to audiences. In this session Fiona Campbell from the BBC, Alex Szalat from ARTE France and Hans Robert Eisenhauer from ZDF/ARTE will give us an insight into the way they think about these challenges, and show us some examples of the work they have commissioned in the past twelve months.

12.00–12.30
COFFEE BREAK

12.30–13.30
GREECE GOES INTERNATIONAL

• Irene Gavala, ERT, Greece
• Olaf Grunert, ARTE G.E.I.E., France
• Kostas Spyropoulos, SKAI TV, Greece
• Kimon Tsakiris, Greece

What qualities have helped Greek documentaries to be successful abroad, and what qualities have so far hindered them from travelling abroad or being sold to broadcasters. Olaf Grunert, Head of Thema at Arte Strasbourg will join the panel and give a POV of someone who has worked on a regular basis with Greek producers and channels.

13.30–15.00
LUNCH BREAK

15.00–16.00
THE SECRETS OF STRANDED

• Gonzalo Arijón, France

Gonzalo Arijón’s documentary Stranded: I’ve Come From a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains offers an incontrovertible argument for the necessity of team spirit in the face of catastrophe. Without it, the 16 survivors out of the 45 passenger in a famous 1972 plane crash in the Andes that decimated a Uruguayan rugby team wouldn’t have made it through 72 days in a frigid wilderness with scant provisions. Gonzalo Arijón shares with us all the details of a difficult and very challenging 4 year production which has been awarded several times for the innovative use of reconstruction and the great interviews with the survivors. The film won the Joris Ivens Award for best film at IDFA 2007 in Amsterdam. Gonzalo gives us also a perspective of what can happen to a filmmaker after having made a very successful international film.

16.00–17.00
THE SUCCESS STORY OF BURMA VJ

• Anders Østergaard, Denmark

Director Anders Østergaard will tell us all the details of his acclaimed documentary Burma VJ. Armed with a pocket-sized video cameras, a tenacious band of Burmese reporters face down death to expose the repressive regime controlling their country. The documentary won the Joris Ivens Award at IDFA 2008 and the World Cinema Award at Sundance 2009.

17.00
FAREWELL

The programme is still subject to change.

---

Conception:
- Christoph Jörg, Pumpernickel Films, France
- Alan Hayling, Renegade Pictures, UK

Moderation:
- Rudy Buttignol, President & CEO, Knowledge Network, British Columbia's Public Educational Broadcaster, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada