The post Khary Saeed Jones has been selected as the 2021-22 recipient of the Film Study Center-LEF Foundation Fellowship appeared first on LEF Foundation.

 LEF is excited to have been a sponsor of the International Documentary Association‘s Getting Real Conference back in September 2018, and over the next several months, LEF Program Officer Gen Carmel will be sharing notes on several of the more resource-rich panels she attended at the conference. This month: five takeaways from the panel “Working with International Broadcasters“.

• Takeaway #1: At the BBC, Storyville is the only broadcasting strand that accepts international feature documentaries. They like to come into co-producing early on in the project if possible (and this is most of what they do), but Storyville can also fully commission work and offer pre-buy investment. The program is open to more experimentation in form (NOTES ON BLINDNESS and THE RAFT were two examples offered), but they generally look for films that will always have a broader resonance. Learn more from Storyville’s Commissioning Editor Mandy Chang on the BBC’s priorities and how to submit your work.

• Takeaway #2: Margje de Koning, the Chief Commissioning Editor for EO/IKONdocs in the Netherlands, shared that they look for creative documentaries and journalistic pieces, especially works that offer ideas, solutions, and examples of positive reconciliation in the world. She shared that Dutch audiences don’t need hand-holding in their films, and that films with a slower and more subtle pace are fine (whereas she is aware that many US filmmakers are accustomed to being told they need to have fast, catchy film openings). She also offered that pitching sessions in person are the best place to connect with her. See a selection of past films.

• Takeaway #3: Axel Arnö, the Commissioning Editor for documentaries appearing on Swedish Television (SVT) shared that Sweden has a broadcast audience of 10 million people. SVT’s release strategy is increasingly to release all content on the web first, on the Sunday before its television broadcast date, to be inclusive of both younger and older viewers. The films that SVT looks for are generally about “big, bold issues”, and Axel shared “we need you to give us your view of the world”. Documentaries with a strong narrative are more dominant, whereas essay films are also important, but in the minority for what SVT picks up. See a selection of past films.

• Takeaway #4: Rudy Buttignol, who heads British Columbia’s public broadcaster, Knowledge Network, shared that they are looking for documentaries about arts and culture, history, and social issues, but that it’s more effective to connect with him in person at a festival pitching session, rather than by sending a proposal to him by e-mail. At this, several members of the audience spoke up later to ask about how broadcasters were committed to ensuring diversity behind the camera when the only way to meet international broadcasters is via the attendance of in-person pitch sessions, which are often expensive for any emerging filmmaker to attend.

• Takeaway #5: Annie Roney from Ro*co Films responded to the issue of inaccessibility and diversity by suggesting that another path filmmakers can take is through acquisitions – a company like Ro*co can go to international film markets and festivals to represent your film when you’re not able to attend. Annie shared that there are films that really benefit from a local broadcaster championing them with both money and reach – what Ro*co does is to form an international coalition of buyers who trust Ro*co’s curation, and who agree to pool their money into a signed broadcasting/distribution deal with an unknown film of Ro*co’s choosing. She shared that this doesn’t always compete with a global Netflix deal in terms of licensing fees, but that the marketing power and local reach of a coalition of broadcasters can be very powerful. Learn more about submitting to Ro*co here.

The post Notes from Getting Real, Part 2: International Broadcasters appeared first on LEF Foundation.

• Takeaway #1: NEH prefers funding projects that are based in humanities research (including history, art history, film studies, literature, religious studies, philosophy, or anthropology), and which take an analytical approach that helps to engage critical thinking. This means having a certain mastery of the subject matter you’ll be exploring, a team of humanities scholars on board as academic advisors for your project, and avoiding a more celebratory approach to your project.

• Takeaway #2: If you are thinking of applying for NEH funding, send an e-mail to Senior Program Officer David Weinstein three months ahead of one of their two deadlines in August or January to ask for a phone call about your project, and David can help to advise about whether your project is a good fit for NEH’s funding priorities. When first sharing your project, David gives the advice of approaching this initial e-mail to NEH as a conversation, rather than providing all of your film’s details at once. Also, leave your phone number in the e-mail. David’s e-mail address is dweinstein (at) neh.gov.

• Takeaway #3: The NEH panel process involves 2 rounds of review, including an initial decision made by a group or peer review panelists chosen by NEH staff, and then a second round of decisions made by the National Council on the Humanities, a group of 26 presidential appointees.

• Takeaway #4: Prepare to write – a lot! Applicants are expected to submit 20-25 pages per intended runtime hour, in the application’s narrative section.

• Takeaway #5: It is rare to be awarded funding the first time around, so persistence pays off! If you are declined by the NEH on your first grant attempt, get in touch with NEH again and try to learn what steps you can take to improve your application, and then make those changes the next time around.

For more details on NEH development and production funding for media projects, visit: https://www.neh.gov/divisions/public

The post Notes from Getting Real – Part 1: Applying to the National Endowment for the Humanities appeared first on LEF Foundation.

The 2017 Robert Flaherty Film Seminar took place from June 17-23 at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. Since 2009, LEF New England has supported an annual fellowship program for four New England-based artists working in non-fiction film/video to attend the seminar. This year’s LEF New England Fellows included Sarah Bliss, Allison Cekala, Madsen Minax, and Darian Stansbury.

After sharing Allison Cekala’s notes last month, this week on the LEF blog, we share new reflections from Darian Stansbury’s experience at the Seminar.

Darian writes:

I’m still thumbing through and highlighting 53 pages of notes taken over 7 days. Still captioning 118 photos and 16 videos. Still feeling the electricity of 5 nights on the dancefloor, 3 of them barefooted.

Trinh Minh-ha stated in discussion on June 20th, “People bury in order to remember.” I have deeply buried my memories as a Flaherty fellow in my mind and heart of hearts, and will mine them for ages to come. Programmer Nuno Lisboa began his first morning screening by stating that he was “jealous” of those who were attending for the first time. Shortly thereafter, I knew exactly why: I could be taken by surprise only once. Like Frances Flaherty would have wanted, I had very few preconceived notions. I had not spoken to anyone who had attended the seminar before. When the theatre lights were being lowered, I was passing through the “dark partition” (Trinh) into a kino-fire hydrant blast of 40+ films.

Laura Poitras said she “likes to implicate the audience.” I was implicated and stirred to decisively evaluate my own practice. As an artist, I usually have a constellation of rotating projects in mind at various stages of development. During the course of the seminar, I was affirmed in which concepts and themes to continue exploring and experimenting in, as well as the ideas and courses to abandon. I received new ideas of my own; ideas that I experienced more viscerally and emotionally after having my senses heightened and stamina broken down by the sheer volume and weightiness of content.

I admired how each of the filmmakers not only addressed their own implications and biases, but absorbed them into their work. They did not avoid or sidestep the tensions therein as many commercially-focused artists do.

It was a privilege to hear the thoughts of brilliant people from several countries around the world. I wished more of them would have spoken their thoughts in the formal discussions more often. Because of this hesitation, further intimacy occurred outside of the scheduled outline. Some of the most meaningful moments were to and from meals, at happy hour, or in threesome huddles in front of Bill’s Bar. It was no coincidence that after the most heated discussions were the longest nights on the dancefloor in President’s Hall, where we stayed once until dawn.

___________________________________________

I discovered while attending that the fellowship program was once referred to as the grants-in-aid program. While it may not be the case for my colleagues, this title would have been applicable to me. Without this grant from the LEF Foundation to attend, the Flaherty Seminar would have remained on my ‘Someday/Maybe’ list, in direct competition with other practical considerations like: “Should I buy a camera?” or “Should I take a summer course instead?”

In addition, the Flaherty fellowship program was my first ​yes in a political environment that is very much influenced by the other yes’s already on the list. As I overheard it repeated by another participant, “I feel as though I’ve found my film tribe.” Gaining exposure to this tribe of contemporaries who are eager to offer critique on my work is not just encouraging, but crucial to survival. The direction I was so generously and immediately given by other fellows on navigating the world of fundraising, residencies, and grant-writing will be invaluable.

Arriving a day earlier, as the fellows are expected, gave me the opportunity to become acquainted with my surroundings and begin conversations more slowly. I had the privilege of being fully present. The time spent with the fellows prior to the Opening Reception was like a private appetizer before the full excitement of 130 more people being added. Being identified as a fellow was a primary factor to my not becoming lost amongst the crowd. My duties bartending during the evening and happy hour afforded me interactions with participants and staff that were informal and earnest. You get to know people best when you are serving them. The radical access to the featured filmmakers (and participants) throughout the master-class, meals, and in between screenings was counter-cultural. I was free to obtain the information needed, to gain insights on their philosophies and thinking processes, and to challenge areas growth in myself.

The post Notes from the Flaherty Seminar 2017 (Part 2) appeared first on LEF Foundation.

The 2017 Robert Flaherty Film Seminar took place from June 17-23 at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. Since 2009, LEF New England has supported an annual fellowship program for four New England-based artists working in non-fiction film/video to attend the seminar. This year’s LEF New England Fellows included Sarah Bliss, Allison Cekala, Madsen Minax, and Darian Stansbury.

This week, we share some notes and images from Allison Cekala’s experience at the Seminar.

Allison writes:

It is hard for me to try to synthesize my experience this past week at the Flaherty Seminar. It felt like entering an otherworldly, never-ending, immersive world of documentary film, film criticism, and non-stop discussion. It was exhausting and intense, but I have come away with new friendships, connections, and a deeper understanding of cinema.

As one of the 35 fellows this year, I arrived a day before the rest of the participants. We were able to get to know each other, and each others’ work as well as attend a master class by Trihn T. Mihn Ha, a highlight for me. When the rest of the participants arrived we became part of a 175-member community of makers, critics, academics, and film enthusiasts from 22 different countries; a community committed and devoted to not only talking about film, but larger the implications of cinema and documentary, questioning representation, authenticity, performativity, truth, class, race, aesthetics, and a myriad of other concerns both about the world at large and the medium of filmmaking.

As the seminar unfolded, blindly going into each program, we slowly came to recognize each of the ten filmmakers sharing work: Filipa Cesar, Vincent Carelli, Kevin Jerome Everson, Dominic Gagnon, Laura Huertas Millan, Sana na N’Hada, Laura Poitras, Peter Nestler, Trinh Minh-ha, and Eduardo Williams. The Flaherty is a unique experience, not only because we come to each program without preconception, but also, the program is a highly curated sequence, this year by Nuno Lisboa. Different from a film festival, the ways in which the films either compliment or create dissonance are planned to encourage conversation, this year within the theme of “Future Remains”. I was able to see connections to films that were shown at different times of the week and also within the same day. For example, Kevin Jerome Everson’s Tonsler Park employed a similar structure to Dominic Gagnon’s Idea of the North, focusing on long shots of close-up faces, but their affects where distinctively opposed. Idea of the North, depicting a dark view of Inuit people, using appropriated youtube footage, produced some of the most inflammatory and passionate responses on Wednesday evening, (the kind of notorious debate that I had heard rumor of at the Flaherty) while the Kevin Jerome Everson’s generous gaze in Tonsler Park produced a more praiseworthy response.

As a new filmmaker without formal training in film, listening and engaging with the critical discourse that followed each film was most impactful. It felt almost absurd to judge a film without knowing its context and seeing it only once, but often, my opinions about the film would shift as I heard other’s thoughts about the film. I am continuing to unpack comments like “I don’t make films for the subject”, as quoted by Kevin Jerome Everson, or the notion of “speaking nearby”, rather than “speaking for” or “speaking about” another, as quoted by Trihn T. Mihn-ha, whose presence was one of the most meaningful parts of the seminar.

A new book just came out about the Flaherty, “The Flaherty: Decades in the Cause of Independent Cinema”, written by long-time Flaherty participants Scott MacDonald and Patty Zimmerman. During a fellows lunch, Scott and Patty talked about the history of the seminar and their experience writing the book. It was then that I realized the larger implications of the seminar, in how it has shaped film and the discourse surrounding it and we, the participants, are an integral part of that history. The Flaherty feels as though it is at the forefront of the shifting and changing world of documentary, keeping it honest, current, and continually redefining and pushing the boundaries of the genre.

On the final day of the seminar, Sana na N’Hada (through a translator) said, “It has been an honor to be amongst such an elevated assembly. I am returning to my country with optimism because I have hope in the world.” N’Hada is known for filming his country, Guinea-Bissau, during their war for independence in the 60s and 70s. He had seen unimaginable hardship and suffering, but his powerful films have become an important document in his country’s history. Just as Sana observed during the seminar, it also became clear to me that our group was deeply invested in the betterment of humanity and the proliferation of art and new ideas through the medium of moving image. We all feel that filmmaking is important. Its significance is far-reaching and deeply intertwined with social underpinnings of our society. Attending the Flaherty allowed me to understand this further, transforming me into a more sensitive viewer and maker. It is an experience that I will surely take with me as I move through the world.

Thank you LEF for the opportunity to attend this year’s Flaherty Seminar.

The post LEF New England Fellow Allison Cekala on the 2017 Flaherty Seminar appeared first on LEF Foundation.

Since 2009, LEF has supported fellowships for New England-based nonfiction filmmakers to attend the Flaherty Seminar. This year’s Seminar took place from June 18-24 at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, and the 2016 LEF New England Fellows were (pictured, left to right:) Gerald Peary, Amber Bemak, Daniel Hui, and Thorsten Trimpop.

This week, we share some notes from Gerald Peary and Thorsten Trimpop.

Gerald Peary writes:
Thanks
to the LEF Foundation for getting me up to Colgate University. What has
taken me so long? I was by far the oldest of the 31 Flaherty Fellows
this year, and what we had in common was that we were all Flaherty
virgins. And thus, whatever our age, extremely vulnerable and raw,
almost like college freshmen. I thought before I went that, if I ate
well and got enough sleep, all should be OK. Wrong. I did eat well,
stuffing myself on not-so-bad cafeteria food; and I probably slept more
than anyone, getting back to my dorm room by 11:30 pm, when most were
off drinking and dancing.  Even so, I was broken down with exhaustion
each night after films starting at 9 AM and discussions ending at 11 pm.
Fourteen hours of watching movies, thinking about them, talking about
them. Insane!

And some of the time I was feeling anxious, frustrated, angry, bursting with unchecked emotions. What was my problem? Being so tired, I was driven around the bend by the more laborious discussions, in which various Flaherty participants stood up to speak. Their points were all over the place, often without point, often bogged down by the worst kind of impenetrable, pretentious grad school “theoryspeak.” And too much shrill political correctness. I craved an old-fashioned Q&A, where audience members ask short questions of the gathered filmmakers, and the filmmakers do the talking. My frustrations were shared by many others, who wished also that the Flaherty would alter its framework for group communication.

What was great about the Flaherty is all the private conversations you have with others like you, who are crazy about seeing and making documentaries. I can say I have a whole set of new friends in the documentary world whom I had never met before, including a delightful group of young filmmakers from Philadelphia and others from various Latin American countries.

The key each year to the Flaherty’s success is the choice of programmer, and this year the excellent person in charge was David Pendleton of the Harvard Film Archive. He picked far more experimental films than I would have preferred, but I felt fine with his program. He stretched me and challenged my aesthetic, all good things, and he brought with him a very interesting group of filmmakers from around the world to show their work. It was a great week to see documentaries set on the Azores Islands, in Colombia, Brazil, the Philippines, Germany, and the California desert. And thanks to David for celebrating a Boston cineaste who, forty-plus years into experimental films, still deserves far more recognition: the Mass College of Arts guru and local hero, Saul Levine.

Thorsten Trimpop writes:

“To see is to forget the name of the thing one sees.” This idea, frequently attributed to Paul Valéry, kept coming to mind during this year’s Flaherty, while watching film after film from the amazing program, Play, curated by the exceptionally gifted David Pendleton.

The amount of stimulation during this week is astonishing. Three full film programs a day, followed by discussions, collective meals, and conversations over drinks and dance. The next morning you return to the darkness of the cinema. Schweigend ins Gespräch vertieft (Deeply Absorbed in Silent Conversation) was, fittingly, one of the first films we saw during a master class with Ute Aurand. Shot in the early 80s in West Berlin, the film launched me on a kind of time travel. I’ve lived in Berlin for more then a decade—though almost twenty years after this film was made—and I saw in it a very familiar city, one I’m intimate with, that puts me in a mood for self-reflection. Ironically, Ute’s film happens to be about mirrors and reflections. The central character walks out of her front door and looks down at her reflection in a puddle on the street. Her gaze is constantly mirrored in her surroundings.

If truly seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees, to taste is to forget the name of thing one tastes, to smell is to forget the name of the thing one smells, and so forth —it is the process of forgetting not only the name but all categorical and assumptive thinking that enables us to experience the thing in itself. To sit in a dark cinema with 150 others, not knowing what we’ll see next, is to immerse oneself deeply into Flaherty’s idea of non-preconception. Kidlat Tahimik calls it Be. Here. Now. And thus I immersed myself in the different sensibilities of the filmmakers of this year’s program: The acerbic view of Luke Fowler, the never-resting eye of Saul Levine, the provocations of Luis Ospina, the kind wisdom of Kidlat Tahimik, and the soulfulness of Joaquim Pinto.

In Pinto’s Fish Tail, he arrives at a small fishing village at the Azores and captures the fascination he feels for this small community and the sea. There is a scene which will always stay with me: Rui, a farmer who becomes a fisherman after marrying and joining his father-in-law’s business, does not know how to swim. After several failures in his attempts to learn, Rui finally manages to overcome his fear of water and swim a reasonable distance without drowning. The respectful tenderness with which Joaquim Pinto and his partner Nuno Leonel captured this moment of tremendous drama is beyond words and something that can only exist in cinema. A swim in a pool becomes an Ulysses-like journey. The film is rooted in mutual curiosity and affection, and the result is a documentary as organic and transparent as the friendship from which it sprang.

After a couple of days of such immersion, real life began to blur. Each morning I woke in the midst of a vivid dream, my brain trying to digest it all. A film constructs its own universe of image and after-image and cannot be easily summarized as a chronological experience. I experienced this almost physically as the films occupied me and began to speak to one another. I remember the question we started with in the fellow’s orientation: What happens if you take play seriously? What does it mean to move from what if into what is?

In the end, the real power and quality of a film to me is in the way the filmmaker encounters a new place or way of being, bypassing clichés, moving beyond the surface to uproot the expected image so deeply buried in our unconsciousness. Cinema needs to create something new, not repeat the things we already know. To catch the truth of a moment: that’s the challenge.

I had the great pleasure to meet Billy Woodberry during the seminar and when I told him after seeing his LA rebellion classic, Bless their little hearts, for the very first time on a big screen, how wonderful it was. He looked at me and said: “The wonderful is in you.” And walked back inside the cinema.

The wonder is in us. We, as spectators and filmmakers, create the possibility of the pure, unmediated aesthetic experience we all seek, removed from theoretical or prejudicial frameworks. Cinema not only reflects life, life reflects cinema, and if we can experience something truly vital onscreen–“things you can’t erase from your soul anymore,” as one of the characters in Naomi Kawase’s film Sky, Wind, Fire, Water, Earth puts it–we can bring that deeper perception to our lives.

The post Notes from the Flaherty Seminar 2016 appeared first on LEF Foundation.

^{Lyda in the vault at DuArt}

Last week, LEF Executive Director Lyda Kuth visited DuArt, the film lab and post production house in NYC that has long been the go-to place for generations of American independent filmmakers.

DuArt’s vault contains thousands of film prints and negatives that were at risk of being lost when the company could no longer afford to store them.

Enter Sandra Schulberg, who founded IFP in 1970, and has now turned her attention to cataloging and preserving independent film.

DuArt’s archival crisis lit the fire for Sandra to launch IndieCollect in 2013, in an effort to rescue these prints and to continue building an independent archive and public index of American independent cinema. Lyda is a board member of IndieCollect and looks forward to reporting back on the work of the organization for the New England film community.

Learn more on the IndieCollect website and this New York Times article.

The post IndieCollect: Making Preservation a Priority appeared first on LEF Foundation.

This week, LEF Program Director Sara Archambault shares these thoughts:

We are extremely fortunate in New England to have a wealth of media innovation growing from our region. Much of this activity is centered in Boston at the universities or through start-ups. One such organization making ripples that start here and send waves across the world is AIR – the Association of Independents in Radio. AIR is at the hub of innovative platforms in storytelling for public media throughout the US.

For those of you who are unaware of its work, AIR represents a network of over one thousand independent media producers (audio, multi-platform, public media works) in 29 countries throughout the world. In addition to supporting their core constituency through conferences, mentorships, information, and networking, AIR is inspiring inventive work and collaboration in the public media space. This started in 2010 in their new talent search “Media Quest” that sought to invite new voices into public media (so successful there was an MQ2 a year later! The show SNAP JUDGEMENT is one outcome from this work). This was followed in 2013 by the LOCALORE initiative – an initiative that partnered independent producers with public media organizations in an effort to create sustainable “full spectrum” storytelling (on the air, online, in the streets) connecting stations to their communities in more direct and meaningful ways. LOCALORE resulted in a number of successful projects, some of which continue to this day like BLACK GOLD BOOM, CURIOUS CITY (now Hearken), and iSEECHANGE.

Building on this success, AIR recently announced the collaborators in their newest initiative LOCALORE: FINDING AMERICA. Similar to the last Localore collection, these projects pair gifted independent producers and local public media outlets with a goal of creating new models in storytelling with the ability to draw in audiences new to public media. Please visit this link to learn more about this fantastic collection of fifteen projects about to take off from public media stations across the country.

If this inspires your curiosity, do read AIR Executive Director Sue Schardt’s comments at the gathering of these troops in Boston, getting them ready to go out into the world and create. Sue is a force to be reckoned with, helping to create change across the public media spectrum and taking us all back to Johnson’s 1967 mandate for public broadcasting dedicated “ the enlightenment of all the people.”

In fact, if you’re truly nerdy, like me, you might want to go back and read Johnson’s remarks too – just for fun.

There’s something paradoxical about Lyndon Johnson’s 1967 mandate for a
public broadcasting system bringing “enlightenment to all the people of
the United States.”

– Sara Archambault

The post AIR appeared first on LEF Foundation.

Cameron Bargerstock’s LEF-funded film EXIT MUSIC was selected for Spotlight on Documentaries at IFP’s Independent Film Week, which took place September 20-25. Cameron shares her experience in the LEF Blog this week.

My film Exit Music was selected by IFP for Spotlight on Documentaries, a collection of 50 work in progress films that participate in the Project Forum during Independent Film Week. This was my big chance to escape my little grant-writing cave and make power moves in the big city, face to face with industry players. As a new filmmaker representing my first feature film, this opportunity was a solid immersion into the complex world of producing, financing, finishing, and distributing a film. The Project Forum provides a rare opportunity for independent filmmakers to sit down one on one with industry professionals and discuss a work-in-progress film and strategy for finishing it. It’s not set up like a formal pitch because the industry chooses which projects/filmmakers they want to meet with.

After getting accepted to the event, I provided IFP with succinct written materials about my film, a 20-minute preview, and a 5-minute teaser. Industry representatives can access these materials online and then decide who they want a meeting with. One week before the event, I was sent a final itinerary of my meetings. Over the course of 4 days I had 25 meetings with financers, broadcasters, sales agents, distributors, and programmers like ITVS, POV, Al Jazeera, Chicken and Egg, Cinereach, HBO, BRIT DOCS, Tugg, Gathr, Sundance, South by Southwest, Conde Naste, Preferred Content, and New York Times OpDocs, to name a few.

All the meetings took place in a huge room, speed-dating style. It was an exhilarating chance to practice pitching and get valuable feedback. Each conversation brought forth creative new ideas and important questions that helped hone in my pitch. I came into the event with the intention to make progress toward financing post-production. Overall enthusiasm for Exit Music was strong. But this is what I heard a lot. “When you have a rough cut please send it to me.” This is great news and I’m eager to share it with these inspiring, influential people, but after one year financing the film on my own, money to carry the project through a rough cut is crucial. This is the wild goose chase we independent filmmakers get to solve in unique ways on our own. Regardless, I was forming relationships with people that I can call upon in the future.

I admit I over-analyzed what clothing I would don on this very important threshold into adulthood as a filmmaker and printed way too many postcards I was often too shy to give out, because who actually saves them, but here are my takeaways:

Don’t over-prepare
Performing a canned pitch will cause people to lose focus. They are seeing countless projects and you have to stand out. As #1 expert in my story, I was confident in my ability to present it off the cuff. I approached it less as a formal pitch and more of an opportunity to have a meaningful conversation. I didn’t actually practice a pitch. I had talking points that I could improvise on depending on who I was meeting with and from what point of view they were seeing my film (i.e. distributor, sales agent, programmer, funder). Asking what sparked their interest in my film was often a good starting point. I think my conversational approach made more of an impression in the 30 minutes we had together. You’re not just selling your film. You’re selling yourself.

Passion is infectious
Everyone I spoke with remarked on my passion for the film. They wanted to know why I was the best person to make the film. My film is about one family’s encounter with terminal illness. Many people I met with commented on their own complicated experience with the death of a loved one. I wasn’t shy about my enthusiasm for the project and

Be clear and specific
Have a strong sense of your narrative arc and how the story will unfold on screen. Also, be clear about your timeline and budget. I actually printed a couple copies of my budget and it came in handy a time or two. I actually surprised some with how organized I was.

What are your outreach goals
Be a visionary. What is the best-case scenario. Really think about the impact of the film. Who is the audience? How will they be reached? Who could be partners to spread the message? How will you build a “movement” around the film? These are important questions to answer way before you’re done with the film.

Know what you’re asking for
I was there to find funding, an editor, and to establish relationships for future festival and distribution partners. Be clear on what you need to succeed.

Know who you’re talking to
I researched every person and company I was meeting with.

Everyone asked why I am making the film
Across the board, I was asked why I made this film and my personal connection to the story. It was an opportunity to speak a little about my journey as a filmmaker and how I was led into telling this story.

Ask for feedback
I had nothing to lose. Sometimes I asked at the end of the conversation for critical feedback or aspects of the project that gave them hesitation. This led to interesting conversations about how to set my film apart from others.

Ask for other connections
Many of my meetings led to other recommendations.  I came away with a list of organizations to research, movies to watch, and people to meet. And I made sure to follow through with everyone.

What to bring that’s actually useful
Business cards with your film’s title on it, nicely designed postcards, ipad with trailer ready to watch, and over the ear headphones.

Follow up
I reached back out to everyone that I met with. You never know how they can be useful contacts in the future or who they know.

I didn’t walk away with a fat check in hand to finish my film. But I made incredible connections with people that I hope will lead to collaborations in the near future. My favorite moments were bringing a major programmer to tears (in a positive heartfelt way), getting a second meeting with a potential financer, almost winning at bowling during an afterparty, and making friends with other filmmakers devoted to the craft of storytelling.

—
Cameron Bargerstock is the Director/Producer of EXIT MUSIC.
She can be reached at cbargerstock@gmail.com.
Learn more about EXIT MUSIC here.

EXIT MUSIC Synopsis:

Terminally ill at twenty-seven, offbeat artist Ethan Rice leads his family and doctor through the surreal and stirring decision to die on his own terms. Equal parts comedy and darkness, Exit Music is the last year, last breath, and a letter to the world as a curious young spirit awaits the inevitable and reflects changing perceptions of dying in America.

Photos courtesy Cameron Bargerstock.

Captions (top to bottom): (1) A still image of EXIT MUSIC. (2) The Project Forum meeting room at Lincoln Center. (3) Chatting with my Executive Producer between meetings. (4) New York City skyline. (5) My film postcard (artwork by Mia Nolting). (6) Me with old friends Brian Morrow and Jonathan Lynch, the producers of Once I Was: The Hal Ashby Story.

The post Spotlight on Documentaries 2015 appeared first on LEF Foundation.

Massachusetts-based filmmaker Margo Guernsey’s LEF-funded project COUNCILWOMAN was one of five feature documentaries to participate in the inaugural Camden/TFI Retreat presented by CNN Films. The retreat, which took place from June 21-26 in Camden, Maine, also included the participation of Pacho Velez and Sierra Pettengill’s LEF-funded film THE REAGAN YEARS and three other works-in-progress from emerging US-based filmmakers.

COUNCILWOMAN follows the first term of Rhode Island politician Carmen Castillo as she balances her new role in public office with her day job as a hotel housekeeper, inspiring questions about democracy and its conditions.  

In the LEF blog this week, Margo shares some of her reflections on the retreat.

It is another day at the computer in my home office, which doubles as my two year old daughter’s bedroom. Left-brain me is arguing with right-brain me about next steps for my film, COUNCILWOMAN. I have been working on this film for four years and it feels like I am running a marathon I did not sign up for. I was expecting more of a sprint. No new funding is coming in with little chances of getting anything any time soon, and there are no obvious ways to reach people who might help. We will need at least $200,000 to finish. It feels like I have stopped at mile 17 to vomit, and I’m not sure I’ll make it to the end.

Then in comes the email. “On behalf of the Camden International Film Festival and Tribeca Film Institute, we would like to invite Councilwoman to participate in our inaugural retreat, presented by CNN Films…” My eyesight goes blurry. I feel dizzy. I am not making that up. It was a little too good to be true.

Many independent filmmakers, particularly early career filmmakers like myself, work on projects that extend for years and years very isolated from anyone. It is the unfortunate reality of unfunded or barely funded projects, and it is not good for creative work. Creative work requires collaboration on many levels. We crave it and the projects need it, but it can be hard to find.

The retreat took place the last week of June, and it was exactly what the film, and I as its Director, needed. Imagine the creative chemistry of ten early career directors and producers, and roughly ten late career filmmakers, in a rural setting focusing only on five films in progress, for an entire week. Mentors share their experiences, challenges, and ideas for tackling difficult situations. Workshop after workshop, and meal after meal, we, the early career filmmakers are engaged in tough open-ended questions: What is the central struggle of the main character? What is the fundamental nature of the film? Are you as close to the truth as you can get? Watch a scene independently and ask: what does this scene accomplish? Needless to say, each of us came out with a more meaningful and deeper approach to the stories we are already telling.

It is heartening that many successful filmmakers and industry professionals are committed to supporting emerging filmmakers. That does not mean it is an easy path. The documentary landscape is saturated with content, making it very hard to break through. If you have your own passion project, don’t worry about when your email may or may not come. It is your job to focus on your work, where it is at the present moment. Passionately film your story, be honest in all that you do, find collaborators who are at a similar career stage, and share your work often. For now, I am back to that game plan, just a little bit closer to the finish line. Thanks to the people at CIFF, TFI and CNN Films for bringing this together.

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For more details about the film, check out the COUNCILWOMAN website here. 

To learn more about the Retreat, head on over to its website here.

Photos by Spencer Worthley / Courtesy of the Camden International Film Festival

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Over the past month, filmmaker Beth Murphy has been leading an impact campaign for her LEF-funded film WHAT TOMORROW BRINGS. Recently, LEF invited Beth to write about how she has paired her filmmaking with impact. This week, Beth shares her thoughts in the LEF blog.

Since 2009 I’ve had a front-row seat to one of the best stories in the world.  What has unfolded in front of my eyes at the first girls’ school in one small Afghan village has made me laugh, cry…get angry… feel so much pride and hope.

The truth is, I never want this film to end.  And although the film must, the story can’t.  And thanks to the Impact Campaign we launched last month, it won’t.

I think of myself as my film’s first audience member. Don’t we all want to catch that lightning-in-a-bottle moment when the audience sees our film and is inspired to act? But if I—audience member #1—am not moved to action, how can I expect others to be? You might be thinking: Making the film is enough!  Maybe in some cases it is.  But not this one.

Build A School Today Dot Com. That’s the Impact Campaign we launched last month during post-production on What Tomorrow Brings.  Typically, I’d want to wait until a film is released – or at the very least fully funded!– before launching. But we don’t have the luxury of time. The first senior class is about to graduate from high school in November, and there’s nowhere for them to go to college. Razia Jan – founder of the K-12 school—wants to build them a college, and I want to help her.  That’s what this campaign is all about.  I’m excited that the Zabuli Technical College will make history as the first women’s college in any Afghan village, but am even more in awe of these girls and their families, who are so committed to the life-changing power that education brings.

I’ve seen how education can drive change. Girls are learning what it means to become a woman in Afghanistan, how they can use their voice. Illiterate fathers who were wary about sending their daughters to school now express pride that their little girls can help them read letters. Afghanistan desperately needs female teachers and healthcare workers to serve women’s needs. But for me, there’s more to it than that; it’s about having a living demonstration of the power of education to change everything.

The post We Are Our Own First Audience appeared first on LEF Foundation.

Four filmmakers were selected to attend the 61st Robert Flaherty Film Seminar as LEF New England Fellows, including (pictured, L-R) Josh Weissbach, Eric Gulliver, Amahl Bishara, and Colin Brant. The seminar took place from June 13-19, 2015 at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. This week, Eric Gulliver and Josh Weissbach share reflections on their experience.

Eric Gulliver writes:

It had just stormed when I arrived in Hamilton, NY and it smelled of recent rain at The Scent of Places. I’d heard warnings from friends and colleagues to “remember to rest,” and “always sit with somebody new when you eat.” There are so many people to meet, films to see, and discussion to finish, that halfway through the week you realize the impossible task that is the Flaherty Seminar. It is meant to be start of something, a catalyst, and not necessarily conclusive in any way. Here is where Rilke’s dictum to love the questions of your heart, and not just the answers, would be tested. It is then that the “ONWARD!” motto of Flaherty rings true. Just keep watching. Keep talking. And take it with you from there.

The typical day was overflowing, consisting of waking up at 7am, watching approximately 6-8 hours of films, three plus hours of group discussion in some capacity, eating three collective meals, and then continuing conversations over drinks and ultimately dancing until the sun comes up. Flaherty literature describes those who engage in all of this as “die-hards,” a title I was glad to glean in my time as a fellow. I had to carry the torch! The words intense and exhausting are apt when describing the experience, even for a person who functions well on little sleep. Somehow all of it seems needed though; the grueling screening schedule leading to discussion/confusion and releasing it through forged connections and fraternal convivialities. Here is where liking and disliking are fruitful. It’s targeting pressure points and not relenting from them.

To be there among newcomers, Flaherty veterans, and dedicated staff creates a welcoming yet challenging atmosphere. We don’t all use the same terms or know what to expect, and this posed particular difficulties in communication. Then again, Frances Flaherty stressed the goodness in this, that of ‘non-preconception’, which I came to appreciate as the week wore on. You bring your own terms that are redefined. Board Member and former Flaherty programmer Chi-hui Yang described the process of curating as having an ‘architecture,’ which was a perfect descriptor for the endeavor. What helpful contributions the various disciplines can reflect on each other. There is something productive about having 150+ people watch the same films, with all the filmmakers present, and championing each comment from the audience. It is empowering while being slightly off putting (I’m recalling the first time an attendee let the filmmaker on stage know they HATED their film, to which the filmmaker replied “And that is fine”). During the week there is opportunity to make oneself heard both publicly or privately, and this creates a spirited atmosphere.

There was notable absence of documentaries at The Scent of Places, whereas the program was full of experimental/installation art and narrative features. A mystery attendee scrawled “Narrative is safer,” on the screening room chalkboard sometime during the week. Each film in the program spoke to the theme’s implicit suggestion; that films can include subtleties in their minutia. In this sense it doesn’t matter what vehicle we choose to analyze be it conventional, experimental, or otherwise. Indeed, the ‘aren’t we all just representing performances’ debate was settled in one of the first day’s discussions. After multiple conversations, we all realized the vocabulary that included ‘ideological,’ ‘representation,’ and ‘absence,’ was an imperfect syllabus. Therein lies the mission of Laura U. Marks while putting together The Scent of Places. We were all going to have to find other words more suitable, and another path more productive. The we-are-all-in-this-together(ness) of the thesis was problematic in some instances, especially in regards to questions of filmmaker intent and supposed audience. The lack of conversation between installation artists and ‘conventional’ documentarians was remarkable both on the stage and off the stage. Perhaps some are concerned with form more than others. Or some want to see past the frame and not concern themselves with the merits of deconstruction per se. The inclusion of both persuasions though was in perfect Flaherty fashion (as I have come to understand it). Maybe the conversations that happened were because of this –  a guided experiment in detecting unrepresentable potions that manifest themselves somehow on screen.

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Josh Weissbach writes:

First of all, I just want to say thanks to LEF for this experience at
the 61st Robert Flaherty Film Seminar. I would like to attach an
adjective to the word experience in the previous sentence, but which one
do I choose? The possibilities feel and seem endless. Lovely,
wonderful, fantastic, grueling, tedious, exhausting, alien, incoherent,
restorative, extraterrestrial, indescribable, emotional, puzzling,
challenging, searching.

Throughout my week at The Flaherty, I experienced all of these
sentiments and more. And on some level, I think The Flaherty is a game,
or at least it has the feel of being that type of paradigm. What was
Laura U. Marks trying to do with her programming? As the week went on, I
began to settle into the rhythm of her choices when I thought that the
films and videos that were being screened all converged within the
thought that this seminar was about the inability to comprehend. This
conclusion was initially reached while watching Zanj Revolution by Tariq
Teguia. As a singular movie, it felt like it was attempting to map a
cultural landscape that was unable to be mapped. This feeling was
augmented while juxtaposing it to Inland, another one of Tariq Tequia’s
films shown earlier in the week, which partially focused on the physical
mapping of landscapes in Algeria. In this film as well, the act of
mapping failed.

During the last group discussion on the final day of The Flaherty, one
of the other participants spoke to the group about how she saw the week
coalesce into the theme of incoherence. The symmetry that was occurring
between my own thoughts and this other participant’s thoughts made me
feel like there was an unknown and silent acceptance that was
simultaneously happening in our personal reading of the week’s
programming. But how does one work with the inability to comprehend?

When thinking about my own film and video work in the aftermath of The
Robert Flaherty Film Seminar, I do not know yet how the new thoughts and
considerations I both witnessed and individually produced apply to my
own sensibilities. But I can say that it was without a doubt a
generative process for me. For a number of years now I have been working
on a on-going film series entitled The Addresses. This project focuses
on and proposes ways in which to understand the domestic across a
spectrum that includes the intimate at one end and the uncanny at the
other. While at The Flaherty and since my departure, a new set of ideas
and structures have interested me that are now allowing me to consider
both old and new material for The Addresses, whether that material is
appropriated or created on my own.

Lately I have been considering one-point perspective grids, the textual
representation of sound within subtitled movies, small quadrants of the
frame that enhance an image’s “domesticity,” the combination of
geographic and cyborg forms to create a cyborg-ography, and the role of
verisimilitude to mask fiction as fact. These ideas somehow relate to
the failure of the whole and the success of the fragment, which maybe
resides somewhere within the inability to cohere.

–

All images courtesy of Eric Gulliver and Josh Weissbach.

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