special industry
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THURS 19 & FRI 20 NOV
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Filmmaker and consultant David Wilson of the First Appearance jury, critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, who is on the Feature-Length jury, with documentary great Errol Morris at the VIP drinks ahead of Wednesday night’s festival opening. photo: Nichon Glerum
Winning ways
Rofekamp takes on new role
“I’ve said this before, but when I do have a good Dutch
Films Transit chief Jan Rofekamp is at IDFA this year with a new string to his bow as the newly appointed head of studies at the Documentary Campus Masterschool.
film, I want to open the festival with it. IDFA is in the Netherlands,” Festival director Derks declares of her decision to kick off the festival with A Family Affair by Tom Fassaert, a young, local director. “We have a good documentary tradition and this is a way to promote Dutch documentaries abroad”, Derks continues. Anyway, A Family Affair is just the kind of film you want to open a festival: funny, emotional, personal and it should strike a chord with every spectator, she says. “We all have grandmothers. It is kind of weird when your grandmother falls in love with you though!”
“It is kind of weird when your grandmother falls in love with you” As ever, the festival has attracted some of the biggest names in the documentary world to Amsterdam. Oscar winner Errol Morris will present his Top 10 and hold a masterclass, moderated by Bill Nichols. Many of Morris’ films have screened at IDFA over the years and Derks is delighted that the man himself will be in town for a full 6 or 7 days. “It took me a couple of years to get him here. I am happy we finally succeeded.” Alongside Morris and Bill Nichols, various other big beasts of the documentary jungle are due to visit IDFA this year, including Barbara Kopple and Naomi Klein. Renowned film
By Geoffrey Macnab
critic Jonathan Rosenbaum is on the jury of the feature-length competition and Stanley Nelson and Victor Kossakovsky (“the unavoidable Victor” as Derks refers to him) are also festival-bound. Derks is heartened by the increasing prominence of documentaries on cinema screens, but wary of the very short runs many of them have, and their struggles to find audiences. “The same goes for fiction. There are so many films out there and all these cinemas are very competitive,” Derks reflects. “It is very difficult, but I do think if docs could stay in the cinemas a little longer, they would really profit from this.” Derks points out that docs benefit from word of mouth. If they’re given time on the screen, audiences tend to increase. The IDFA ‘brand’ can also help attract spectators. Docs shown as part of IDFA on Tour tend to be sold out, but “when you put on the same films without the IDFA ‘quality stamp,’ there is nobody there.” This year’s prizes are being awarded earlier in the festival (on Wednesday 25) and there is a new awards structure. Instead of a single winner, juries will give two awards: one for best documentary, and a special jury award. “The whole background is that we don’t have losers. Now, we only have winners!” Read more at www.idfa.nl/industry/daily
Organised by Berlin-based training and development agency the Documentary Campus, the Masterschool selects 16 director-producer teams a year and helps them develop their projects over the course of four five-day workshops running over a 10-month period. As well as selling his slate, Rofekamp will also be keeping an eye out for suitable projects for the programme. The deadline closes just after IDFA, on November 30. “I think one of the reasons they picked me is because of my long experience in sales. I know inside-out the process of financing, selling and getting a film to a festival and what to do once it’s selected,” says Rofekamp. Recent alumni of the Masterschool include Polish Hanna Polak, who developed IDFA Special Jury Award winner Something Better to Come with the support of the programme. The veteran salesman says he did not think twice about accepting the role when Documentary Campus director Donata von Perfall approached him at MIPTV this year to see if he would be interested in replacing Elizabeth McIntyre, who is taking over the reins of the Sheffield Doc/Fest as of 2016. The timing was perfect, notes Rofekamp, coming just as he was in the throes of restructuring 30-year-old Films Transit. “The company is doing well but I’ve decided to rein in our activities a bit and handle somewhat less films a year, with the focus on high-profile titles and maybe a bit more from the art
sector,” he explains. Over the summer, he also took the decision to stop handling library sales, brokering his 200-title back catalogue to Israel-based educational rights Filmplatform.net and Ellen Windemuth’s Amsterdam-based Off The Fence. Rofekamp will be busy at IDFA with four festival titles: Guantanamo’s Child: Omar Khadr (Masters); Requiem for the American Dream (Best of Fests) and two IDFA Competition for Dutch Documentary contenders: Inside the Chinese Closet and Jheronimus Bosch, Touched by the Devil, which will be released to coincide with 500th anniversary of the 16th-century master’s death and is the directorial debut of prolific Dutch documentary producer Pieter van Huystee. Inside the Chinese Closet is a first-time work by Italian director Sophia Luvara, produced by Boudewijn Koole and Iris Lammertsma’s Amsterdam-based Witfilm, and explores the challenge of being homosexual in China. Melanie Goodfellow
Guests Meet Guests 19/11/2015, 18:00 hours De Jaren Café Hosted by the Documentary Filmmakers’ Association 20/11/2015, 18:00 hours De Jaren Café Hosted by IMCINE