Last week, during the 29th annual IFP Market, I had a chance to sit down with Documentary Spotlight programmer and director,
Milton Tabbott. We talked about the state of nonfiction these days and IFP's unwavering dedication to helping independent filmmakers develop their vision and craft, the market and conference being just one way in which the organization shepherds artists through the obstacle course of making, finishing, exhibiting and selling their film.
Filmmaker: How many years have you been culling through the nonfiction submissions that come into the market?
Tabbot: I started as a volunteer [for IFP] in ’95 and then I came on staff in ’96. So since ’96, I’ve been bringing in work, both narrative and documentary. Since 2004, we’ve separated the Documentary Spotlight into its own program.
Filmmaker: Why is that? These days, I’m noticing a lot of strongly narrative programs including full documentary strands in their programming.
Tabbot: We always had documentaries and we always had the same number of documentaries competing in the market. Up until, and through 2003, there was always a small portion of documentaries with producers who had a track record and such, included in No Borders. It became a little complicated because they were at different stages. On the narrative side, they were all at script stage. And on the documentary side, they were always in progress. And that was a time when there was growing interest in documentary, from both the industry and the public. So, the thought was to take those in-progress documentaries out of No Borders and give them targeted access to buyers who were looking for nonfiction. I think there was a concern, at the beginning, that buyers would be overwhelmed with the numbers because we have 60 works-in-progress, but it hasn’t turned out that way. And in 2004, we had the buyers requesting one-on-one meetings. We inform the industry right after we make our selections and we start churning out the publications. We've also added this compilation DVD of all the projects so that they can target what’s relevant to them.
Filmmaker: Do salespeople come for a combination of narratives and docs?
Tabbot: There have always, and continue to be, companies that are looking for both. But, post-
Capturing the Friedmans,
Spellbound, and a whole explosion of nonfiction films that did well theatrically, you started having companies like Focus Features and Paramount Vantage and others looking for documentaries that might work in the theatrical market. There was an increase in the traditional distribution arena that joined the usual suspects--the broadcasters and those other companies like 7th Art Releasing, THINKFilm, HBO, A&E IndieFilms, the international broadcasters--that started out of the gate with a lot of documentaries.
Filmmaker: There’s a strand here that’s covering the doc hybrid, or what’s being called nonfiction film--films that incorporate a lot of narrative elements in building the story. Is that tricky? What do you do with those?
Tabbot: It depends on what the balance is in the film and how it's being marketed. In the past two years, I’ve seen more focus on the story in documentary—what is the story? What is the narrative arc? There’s been a movement to think about that during production and to consciously build the film to play more like a narrative film. There's thought behind that while they’re following the story. Taking that one step further, we have a couple of projects in the market this year that I would say feel like narrative films but are documentaries. One is called "21 Below" that follows a family in Buffalo, New York and another, from what we’ve seen so far, is going to be a really terrific documentary called “
A Rubberband is an Unlikely Instrument.” It’s not a music doc but it follows this musician in Brooklyn coping with his various life issues. It feels like an American indie with a European sensibility. He's [the director,
Matt Boyd,] constructing it just like a narrative film. It’s a first-time feature for him. But, it’s also a hard film for buyers to get a bead on.
Filmmaker: What tends to happen with projects like that?
Tabbot: I try to tell them [the filmmakers] that they may not be popular at the dance right away, but once these films start with their festival screenings, that’s when their life is going to start. They’re going to need that buzz and that stamp of approval that comes with getting into the major festivals.
Filmmaker: Are there certain filmmakers that you, personally, track—watching artistically and creatively what they do, knowing that what they’re creating might change the whole landscape of documentary?
Tabbot: There are all kinds of documentaries. The majority of the group that’s here are still, for the most part, very social-issue driven. But what really does appeal to me, too, are those filmmakers challenging the form. I reiterate over and over at the filmmaker orientation, that the reason they’re here is that their work is really, really good. And there’s also very good work that we just couldn’t accommodate. It doesn’t mean those films won’t get in next year. We try to choose films that are
ready to be exposed. Because there’s such a big group of key people from all the companies here looking at product, if you show it before it’s ready, that’s the impression that you’re going to leave behind.
I want to include films that are doing something different. Even if they’re not the most commercial projects, I feel they should be in some kind of documentary forum. . . . I’m a programmer, at heart, so anything having to do with the content of film or helping filmmakers is what I’m interested in. I’d be perfectly happy having a little theater somewhere to program—I know that’s a bit old school these days, having a brick and mortar theater.
Filmmaker: Has the programming here changed in any way in the course of your tenure?
Tabbot: I think part of it is us and part of it is the filmmaker. We try to structure the market as an extremely professional forum and I think the filmmakers step up to that. What you see in the documentary community is a mix of newcomers and veterans. It’s very rare for a documentary filmmaker to be able to go out and make his or her next movie without having to ask for money. It’s the reality; everybody deals with this.
Filmmaker: Do you think there ever will be any kind of governmental commissioning entity in our country that will act as a fund for independent filmmakers? Or is that too pie-in-the-sky?
Tabbot: I do think that is a bit pie-in-the-sky.
Filmmaker: Is that why you encourage co-productions? What is behind making the No Borders strand such a prominent feature of the market?
Tabbot: It’s because filmmaking can be a very isolating endeavor—it's a lot of working on a Final Cut Pro system on your laptop in your bedroom and sending out intermittent missives to people, but not having any clear guidance. There are a number of forums like this one, but not really anything in the US quite like what we try to do. The idea is to bring all these people together for an intense four to five days of opportunity and connection—that’s basically why we do it. For me, the struggle is not being able to find good work. But we do have a certain reputation at this point for careful curation and tapping if off at a certain number of participants. The challenge is keeping up with who the new players are, where the new money is, if there is any, and who’s got it. The narrative world is still a much more attractive world to most buyers.
Filmmaker: Who are some of your favorite nonfiction filmmakers right now?
Tabbot: Some of the films that I personally respond to are either very traditional or totally non-traditional. This past year, there was a film that I thought was fantastic by a narrative filmmaker who did a doc,
Rob Devor’s “Zoo.” It was a documentary told in a narrative style—it’s almost totally imagined. Those are the kinds of films that get me excited. The thing about documentary filmmakers is that you rarely see the same thing from the same filmmaker from year to year. Each project can take many years to produce and finish.
Filmmaker: What venues or festivals do you hit that you really enjoy from a programming perspective?
Tabbot: I love going to
Full Frame. It’s like a little oasis of nonfiction in a very intimate environment. I hope to get to
True/False; I hear great things about that festival, again in terms of great programming and great community. The doc world community is really special. A filmmaker over at the Doc Spotlight, who had had a series of good meetings yesterday, told me, “It’s amazing how many nice people gravitate to documentary, on both the buyer side and the filmmaker side.” It's not unusual for me to watch a film by a filmmaker I haven't yet met and respond strongly to it. And when I do finally meet him or her, not surprisingly, there’s an affinity there.
Filmmaker: Do you think your job is going to get easier or harder, in terms of how this market is going to run in the future?
Tabbot: I think that any kind of major growth already happened a few years ago, as I said earlier. I’m always a little leery about such intense interest and what kind of life cycle it might have. This business is still driven by commerce and still driven by theatrical, especially for those who are working in the longer form—that aspiration, that hope of theatrical is still very pertinent, for both filmmakers and buyers.
Filmmaker: Is the online film marketing and distribution explosion something that you think will serve up quality content on a consistent basis?
Tabbot: (shrugs and laughs) I’m so old school! Hopefully, yeah, but whether it’s going to be a pipeline or an influencer of the form? It’s still hard to tell. I think there could very well be people who are new filmmakers, or there are people who have been working in nonfiction film for a while, that aren’t even thinking about this kind of structure [theatrical] because they’re young and they’re attuned to that kind of marketing and distribution. It’ll be interesting to see what happens.
We hold an orientation for local filmmakers who are going to take projects to
Hot Docs in Toronto [which takes place in the spring]. I was talking to
Whitney Dow, the co-director of “
The Two Towns of Jasper.” I had him share his experience pitching up there at the forum and he said, “It’s the best of times and the worst of times for documentary, in that there’s a lot of people doing a lot of good work, and there's a lot of interest in that work. But there’s still no money.” That side of things hasn’t kept up—there are still the same outlets out there with the same funding profiles they’ve had for years.
But people struggle and struggle to make their film and then you see the work. And due to enormous creativity, resourcefulness and perseverance, that work and sacrifice definitely does pay off.
# posted by Pamela Cohn @ 9/23/2007 08:28:00 PM
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