As the world converges towards global homogeneity, a few hundred documentary film-makers converged on Amsterdam last week for the International Documentary Festival (IFDA), to show off their filmed efforts at making sense of it all. Although their in-depth analyses of contemporary issues and intimate portrayals of real lives were antidotes to the soundbite reportage of the information age, they depicted a world where only the fittest survive. From under-age prostitution in Bombay, homelessness in Paris, homelessness in the US, homelessness in Bucharest, life in a garbage dump in Bucharest, starvation in North Korea, life in post-war Bosnia to life in post-war Croatia, many of them featured the struggle for survival.
The best of them were Werner Herzog's Little Dieter Needs To Fly, and Victor Kossakovsky's Wednesday, both of which feature tough, sensible characters, who manage to laugh defiantly at their enormous misfortunes. For the modest price of £150, the most dramatic struggles at IFDA could be seen live at the festival's open forum. This is the most important date on the calendar for all film-makers looking for finance. Having spent months fine-tuning their documentary scripts, producers from all around the world are given only 10 minutes to pitch their ideas to a panel of the biggest commissioning editors in the business. The format of the open pitching session is frightening; producers step up to a spot-lit table, deliver their pitch and sit in silence as the commissioning editors take it to pieces. A negative response can spell disaster for a producer while a positive one can get a project financed within days. Some of the pitches were flattened by remarks such as: "I'm sorry, but you're too vague - I still don't know what your film is about" or "I'm trying to be as helpful as possible but I can't lie. I just don't like your project."
Ireland's Graph films received a good response and a ringing endorsement from Channel 4 for Capital Letters, their proposal about the relationships between Irish women and their pen pals on Death Row in the US. Their other pitch, about master of the universe, Aidan Walsh, also received a good hearing despite their early morning slot, when many of the commissioning editors were still in bed nursing hangovers.
Although producers who do not qualify for the open forum are confined to the margins where they can corner the commissioning editors on their way out of the hall, they are given a chance to pitch to the panel if their names are picked from the hat. It's a nerve-wracking moment for the lucky few, many of whom are unprepared. However, Barrie Dowdall from Dublin's Telwell Productions, whose name was chosen, gave a lively pitch and managed to get the BBC interested in his project.
YOU get a good idea from this year's pitches of what next year's documentaries will be about. Youth sub-cultures are quite prominent, as are projects about Third World countries. Bruce Lapping Productions, probably the most successful documentary production company in Europe, pitched for a project entitled War And Peace In Ireland. With a budget of over £IR2 million, the six-hour series will be a major retrospective on the peace process in Northern Ireland over the last ten years.
Although many of the producers pitching at the forum will return home empty-handed, they will probably be back next year. As long as they don't succumb to the quick-fix of the information age, their determination won't wane.
