DFA member, Uga Carlini, drafted a summary of the International Co-production Day at Hot Docs this year. She has incorporated journalist Jennifer Merin‘s thoughts, too.
Took place on Monday, April 30, International Co-Production Day featured networking opportunities and special presentations by Hot Docs’ Official Delegations. The ultimate goal of this day-long gathering of Canadian and international producers was to spark and facilitate new co-production opportunities among attending delegates.
Co-Producing With Canada – A Case Study
Meet The Chinese Delegation
Meet The German Delegation
Meet The South African Delegation
Meet The Hot Docs-Blue Ice Group Documentary Fund Cohort
Meet The UK Delegation
Meet The Israeli Delegation
Meet The Nordic Delegation
Hot Docs 2012 was an extremely well organized and manageable film festival that deserves applause for catering to audiences and filmmakers, presenting an outstanding and varied program of feature length documentaries and shorts, creating an ambiance of genuine collegiality and promoting appreciation of documentary film and production, and for not programming branded documentaries and avoiding sponsorship by egregious corporations.
As several filmmakers commented, the high attendance and quality of audience response makes screening Hot Docs a genuinely rewarding experience.
But the festival presented other significant filmmaker benefits, as well. A full week of industry programming entitled Doc to the Future was attended by 2279 delegates from around the world. Hot Docs mounted a roster of four workshops, 10 conference sessions, 20 networking and market events, three Kickstart panels for emerging filmmakers, 12 micro meetings, the Doc Summit, and an International Co-Production Day.
The industry conferences were information-filled presentations about production in nations as diverse as China, Israel and South Africa, among other places. Panel discussions and seminars put filmmakers in touch with experts on fundraising, distribution and other subjects of vital importance.
In a nutshell, it all boils down to the fact that money has dried up for everyone and that new and inventive ways have to be found to keep the documentary flames burning. This has forced everyone to start looking beyond their own borders and seek collaborations with others to strengthen possibilities and open up the field of fund sourcing. By now, we all know this, the co-production day just affirmed it – with bells on.
All of the countries represented at co-production day have funds that are still available and to utilise these co-production funds, there are a set of rules per country to follow. All doable, all worth it, if you are eager and willing to pursue this avenue. As with everything, there are plusses and minuses, but again the plusses usually outnumber the minuses.
If you have a project that could motivate a co-production with any of these countries, do your research, find a mutual hook, sign up for their industry media and let the collaboration scouting begin.
Canada has a very strong Doc support from public as well as government and have utilised the co-treaty with SA often.
China is slightly newer at this but very eager and also the country with lotssssss of moolah.
Germany seemed very pessimistic about docs but still had gigantic flickering flames when it came to feature ventures and we of course know, there has been many German and SA co-productions that were executed successfully in the past.
In the UK it is important to remember that within the UK as a whole, the Irish, the Welsh and the Brit docs are often, if not mostly separated, so be country specific if you wish to pursue and of course SA and Ireland just signed a co-production treaty at Cannes.
The Israelis have a big annual co-production guide and docs and co-productions are booming.
The Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) had a very strong presence at Hot Docs and have exploded onto the scene as new power players in the doc and feature world. All their governments offer great incentives, BUT the co-production red tape is very specific and hooks for mutual work on the doc side harder to find in my opinion. Well worth pursuing though.
COMPILED by UGA CARLINI
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