Carlos Reygadas of Mexico, director of Silent Light

This evening at 8.30 at MovieTowne, the Mexican film Silent Light will be screened, with its director Carlos Reygadas in attendance. The following Q&A; gives a tantalising peek into the mind of one of contemporary world cinema’s leading auteurs.

What was the first film you remember seeing?

Airport 77.

What was the last film you saw?

You the Living. At least the last I remember. Pure beauty.

If a Martian came to earth and asked to be shown a film, what film would you recommend?

Mother and Son, by Aleksandr Sokurov.

What’s the best piece of filmmaking advice anyone’s ever given you?

Work with people that share your feeling.

What’s the worst piece of filmmaking advice anyone’s ever given you?

A director should just think and order, not do anything else.

What film have you seen more times than any other?

The Innocent, by Luchino Visconti.

If you could go back in time and be a part of any period in cinema, what would it be?

Yesterday.

What’s the biggest misconception people have about your films?

I don’t know. Don’t want to.

What’s the most important thing you’ve learned about life from filmmaking?

To wait. And to never surrender.

The attendees at the Alternative Marketing in the Digital Era workshop

In one of my previous posts I said that without an audience to watch them, there wouldn’t be films in the first place. That might seem to be stating the obvious, but the fact is that many filmmakers are so focused on making their films that they often don’t think about what comes after the film is finished. How do you get your film to its intended audience? How does it get seen?

In the established film industries, marketing and distribution aren’t usually the filmmaker’s concern. There are others whose job it is to engage in these tasks, leaving the filmmaker free to get on with the business of making his or her film. But when you’re an independent filmmaker or in a fledgling market (or both), the task often falls on you to market and distribute your film yourself. Luckily, with the advent of the Internet, there are new tools at the filmmaker’s disposal to help bring the film and the audience together. And yesterday’s TTFF workshop at the Hotel Normandie saw a number of nascent and potential filmmakers come to learn how to tap the vast resource that is the World Wide Web. The workshop took the form of a panel presentation and discussion, followed by a Q&A; session with the audience.

Leading the workshop were three individuals who come to marketing and distribution from quite different, but inter-related angles. Trinidadian Georgia Popplewell, who has been in the film and media industry for two decades, is a multimedia producer. Trinidad-born, Canada-based Frances-Anne Solomon is a well-established filmmaker. And Christopher Meir is a US academic based at the Film Programme of the University of the West Indies at St. Augustine here in Trinidad.

So, how do you get a film to an audience? First, the filmmaker has to decide who their audience is, and actively go after it–a film won’t sell itself, however good it may be. “There’s no shortage of films in this world,” said Georgia.”There’s no reason for people to choose your film over another, unless you give them one.”

Frances-Anne said that even before she began making her last feature, the TTFF-award-winning A Winter Tale, she thought about her primary, secondary and tertiary target audiences. Not that she allowed thoughts about her audience to dictate her filmmaking process, but she said she found that once the film was made and began to be screened, the audiences she had had in mind beforehand became the audiences who came to see the film.

Getting to the issue of the Internet, Georgia noted that potential audiences for films (and other works of art) have increased tremendously, and one can now reach markets across the globe in way that was not possible before. If you made a film about the Amerindian presence in Trinidad, for example, you could now potentially market your film to Aborigines in Australia.

Once you’ve worked out your potential target audience, the next step is to engage the tools to reach them. The panelists listed five websites key to any filmmaker in this endeavour: IMDb, YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia and Twitter. The advantages (and disadvantages) of each site in managing your online presence and your personal brand was discussed. Everyone agreed the first four sites are indispensable, while the jury’s still out on Twitter, the new kid on the block. Then Georgia mentioned the sixth key website: the filmmaker’s own. “Buy your own domain name,” she said more than once. Even if you have no real need for it now, you will in time.

But what about the old media? Are the old ways of marketing a film still useful? Of course. “Nothing beats great poster art,” said Chris. And a well-edited trailer of your film is essential. But the best marketing tool for a film, said Chris, is the film itself. “No amount of websites can made a bad film good,” he declared. Frances-Anne, however, begged to differ, saying (with some annoyance) that she had seen savvy marketing campaigns do wonders for poor films. But if that’s the case, the reverse is also true. As Chris observed, “You can really kill a good film with bad marketing.”

At the end of the day, however, as important as marketing is, it should not take over the entire filmmaking process. “We want the dog wagging the tail, not vice versa,” said Chris. He did note, however, that the creativity a filmmaker puts into making a film can also go into marketing and distributing that film. And Frances-Anne made the point that, whatever way you decide to go in marketing your film, make sure you love it, because you’re going to be using it constantly–before, during and after filming. Georgia picked up on this point, of the hard work and discipline needed to effectively get a film out to the world. “The Internet is not going to market your film for you,” she said. “You still have to do that.”

Georgia Popplewell and Christopher Meir

Frances-Anne Solomon

The programme for the three nights of screenings at SFC as part of the TTFF, curated by Hilton Als

Last evening, the three nights of screenings at StudioFilmClub curated by Hilton Als as part of the trinidad+tobago film festival/09 drew to a close, with a series of short films by the black US artist Kara Walker. In his introduction to the films, Als spoke of the way he came to Walker’s art, and specifically these films, and about Walker herself (Als has written a profile of Walker in the New Yorker magazine; photocopies of the article were available at the screening). He spoke in a way that made me sense that for him, of the entire programme of films, Kara Walker’s were the ones that meant the most to him, had the most personal resonance.

Walker’s work, both filmic and non-, uses tableaux of paper cutouts or silhouettes to explore the issues of racism and slavery, issues that still plague US society. Though much of the work is literally in black and white, figuratively it is anything but, as Walker goes beyond the stereotypical and reductive black-is-good, white-is-bad notions that often inform such work and engages in a more nuanced critique of slavery and history and race relations. And with this thematic complexity comes moving images that are at once striking, disturbing, and as Melanie wrote previously, eerily beautiful.

Walker made her series of short films over a period of seven years, but last night, in an act of curatorial daring, Als showed them back-to-back over an intense period of around an hour. “It’s hard to say I hope you like the films,” Als said as he ended his introduction, “but I hope they’re deeply enlightening and emotional.” There were some among the audience who found the films perhaps too emotional (or maybe just offensive) and who left the screening, but most people sat utterly transfixed as haunting image after haunting image appeared on the screen: a large human head cum island swallowing black bodies whole; a man self-fellating; another man being sodomised and then giving birth.

There was also the presence of a recurring character called the Negress, a stand-in for the filmmaker herself–though Walker was also literally in the films, as her hands were often in view manipulating the cutouts, and in one ultra self-reflexive moment, when the camera moved behind the tableau to briefly show Walker and her collaborators at work. No unseen narrator here: this is work rooted in reality and personal experience.

“One of the ways we get to be good adults is not to varnish history,” Als said at the end of the screenings. In other words, we must always strive to tell the truth. And speaking true about our human reality and experience is one of the aims of the trinidad+tobago film festival. In sharing Kara Walker’s–and Kalup Linzy’s, and Leslie Thornton’s, and Robrt Altman’s–films with us, Hilton Als has helped us in this mission. For that, we give him our thanks.

Peter Doig, co-founder of SFC, introduces Hilton Als

Artist Embah plays one of his creations at the party after the screening

Artist Tessa Alexander, left, and academic Gabrielle Hosein at the after-party

Hilton Als and my co-blogger Melanie Archer (with Shelley Duvall in the background)

The filmmakers’ panel: Dalton Narine, from left, Francesca Hawkins, Francis Escayg, Bruce Paddington, Ida Does and Vero Bollow

Passion. If one word could serve as the keyword for this morning’s filmmakers’ panel at Chaud restaurant in Port of Spain, that would be it. If you’re a filmmaker making independent or non-mainstream films–in Trinidad and Tobago, the wider Caribbean, and really, just about anywhere outside of the major film production areas in the world–you’ve got to have passion for what you do, or the obstacles you will inevitably face will ensure you never get your film made.

That seemed to be the consensus of the five filmmakers on the panel (as well as panel chair Bruce Paddington, TTFF Director) and most, if not all of the audience. Each filmmaker had his or her own horror story to tell of the difficulties in getting their film made, from raising funding for production to being able to market their film effectively to getting a proper distribution deal.

But it wasn’t all gloom and doom. The fact that there was a panel at all (and will be another one next week) is testament to the tenacity and resourcefulness of the filmmakers who were more than willing to share with the audience and each other how they went about getting their films made. They all acknowledged that the process starts with the passion for telling stories; as the Netherlands-based Surinamese documentary filmmaker Ida Does said, “I can only make a film when I sense it very deeply.”

“My passion is to tell our stories,” said Francis Eascayg, writer of the script for the Trinidad and Tobago film The Ghost of Hing King Estate. “If we don’t tell our stories we will lose the essence of our identity.” Vero Bollow expressed a similar sentiment. Her film, The Wind and the Water, was made with the people of the Kuna tribe of Panama. “The Kuna like to tell their own stories,” she said, noting that she worked in such a way that allowed for the Kuna to really make the film, while she and the professional crew essentially only provided technical guidance.

Bollow’s film is perhaps different from those of the other filmmakers who were on the panel in that it was also a development project in aid of the Kuna people, which helped her get access to funding. (When she said this, a member of the audience who works with the Youth Training Centre noted that the boys of the YTC are very interested in making their own film. Perhaps, as I noted in my last post, the model for making The Wind and the Water could work for them.)

Ida Does also had a somewhat different story when it came to getting funding for her film, Trefossa. Working out of the Netherlands, she was able to get a state grant for 100% of the funding. It also helped that her subject is a major national icon in Suriname. And Francesca Hawkins made her film, Sans Souci, as a student project at the Film Programme at the University of the West Indies, which gave her free access to equipment and expertise.

Dalton Narine‘s story, however, was one of an almost constant search for funding over the five-year production period of his film, Mas Man–and the film is still not fully finished. Even though the subject of the film, Peter Minshall, is one of this country’s greatest artists, sourcing local funding proved almost impossible. In the end Narine had to finance much of the film himself. “I emptied out my pension fund,” he admitted.

Francesca Hawkins, who though she is relatively new to filmmaking has worked in the local media for many years, declared, “I wouldn’t be so foolish to look in the Trini market for funding.” She noted that the lack of a large-enough homogeneous audience means that only small, specialised film projects seem to get funding, and that corporate sponsors only want to sponsor projects that will give their products prominence. At this point Bruce Paddington jumped in to “speak a few words in defence of the Trinidad and Tobago Film Company,” noting that the Film Company does provide seed funding for film projects, but is unfortunately unable to give more than that. Audience member Chris Meir, lecturer in film at UWI, made the suggestion that one way of securing funding was through co-productions with such entities as the BBC and CBC of Canada.

Vero Bollow also noted that having generous funding to secure proper equipment perhaps wasn’t as important as having the right people working with you: “Much more important than your equipment are the people manipulating that equipment.” At the end of the day, she said, what matters is the film itself, and getting it made. Make it on a cellphone, project it on a piece of paper in a park for the public to see, and you never know what could happen from there–you could start a whole new film movement.

Bollow’s advice might seem naive, or at best wildly optimistic, but is it? The point she makes is that if you wait until you’ve got all the funding you need, you will never get started. Start, and go on from there. But you have to have the passion. If you don’t, you’re doomed before you even begin.

The audience at the filmmaker’s panel

Audience members Michael Mooledhar, filmmaker, and Georgia Popplewell, multimedia producer

Dear friends of the festival, we’re happy to announce the following special screenings, which are not on our website or our printed materials. Please note that our 11.00 film on Saturday night has strong adult content. We hope you’ll make a note of these screenings and come out to watch a few great films, perhaps even have a beer on us and meet a filmmaker or two. 

Filmmakers Francesca Hawkins of Trinidad and Tobago, left, and Vero Bollow of Panama

Films are made by collaboration. Sometimes, they are also made by a collective. That’s the case with the two films that screened last night at MovieTowne, Sans Souci from Trinidad and Tobago, and The Wind and the Water, out of Panama.

In the typical filmmaking process, many people work together, each with a specially designated role: director, editor, production designer, what have you. When a film is made collectively, however, roles overlap; individuals do more than one task, and often tasks are shared. Sans Souci was made in this manner, as director Francesa Hawkins explained to the audience after the screening.

Sans Souci is a short film (but not a short short: the running time is almost 30 minutes) made by the current graduating class of the Film Programme of the University of the West Indies, a drama about a group of friends riven by differences in opinion around the 9/11 attacks, then brought back together under tragic circumstances. All of the action of the film takes place at a house at Sans Souci (a house owned by official TTFF artist Eddie Bowen), on Trinidad’s north coast, the beautiful, isolated location becoming a crucible for the characters, their emotional experiences there contrasting sharply with the name of the place (sans souci, without a care or worry).

Shot in an intense three-and-a-half days, Sans Souci film had no written script but was improvised by the cast and crew working together. Much of what else is in the film was improvised as well: the visual motif involving a cobo, for example, was not predetermined, but worked into the film as shooting took place. And of course, as usually obtains on student productions, many of the tasks behind the camera were shared. The film’s music score, however, was composed and performed by one person, Jason Dasent. As Francesca explained, Dasent, who is unsighted, composed the score by listening to the film’s diegetic audio: the dialogue of the characters, the sound effects and the ambient sound–the wind, the crashing waves.

The Wind and the Water, a feature-length narrative film, was also made by a collective, but under rather different circumstances. It was made by Vero Bollow with the Igar Yala Collective, which comprises mainly young people (working with their elders) from the indigenous Kuna tribe of Panama. The film tells two stories. One is of the Kuna people’s engagement with the outiside world, their struggles with maintaining tradition while also seeking to embrace modernity. The film is also the story of Machi and Rosy, two young people from the Kuna tribe. Their stories are contrasting ones: Machi, raised among his people on a group of islands, goes to Panama City to attend school and see what, if anything, life holds for him there; Rosy, born and raised in Panama City, goes to the islands for the first time when her grandfather passes away. Along the way Machi and Rosy cross paths, and a touching, subtly delineated friendship blossoms.

Working with technical experts from outside the tribe, the Kuna who helped make the film learned the process of filmmaking as the production went along. As an example of how this worked, Vero said that the young man who played the character of Machi also edited the scenes showing his character’s childhood. (Incidentally, all of the main Kuna characters were played by non-professional actors, and in most cases gave wonderfully naturalistic and under-stated performances.) She also noted that the themes and issues dealt with in the film–development, tradition vs modernity, the lack of opportunity for the marginalisation of the indigenous peoples in Panama–reflect quite strongly the actual situation facing theses peoples in contemporary Panama.

Loath to take credit for much of the film herself, Vero almost incidentally noted that The Wind and the Water (Burwa dii ebo in Kuna) is the first feature film to come out of Panama. It is interesting to note that this film was made by a collective. Perhaps collective filmmaking–as opposed to standard collaborative filmmaking–could become a successful mode of filmmaking in other places where the film industry is also developing, not least of all here in Trinidad and Tobago.

Francesca Hawkins and Bruce Paddington, TTFF Director

Vero Bollow

Members of the audience taking in the post-screenings Q&A; session

Narine and festival intern, Celeste Doig have a quick chat after the screening

Vero Bollow, director of The Wind and the Water, from Panama

Originally from the US, Vero Bollow lives and works in Panama. Vero is the director of The Wind and the Water, and she will be at the screening of the film tonight at 8.30 at MovieTowne.

What’s the first film you remember seeing?

Amadeus.

What was the last film you saw?

The Visitor.

Which filmmaker do you admire most?

I admire the films more than the individual filmmakers, but if I had to point to one person in particular, I would mention George Lucas for having created something entirely on his own terms, yet that is very mainstream.

When was the last time you cried during a film?

I usually cry during films.

Who would play you in the film of your life?

Myself!

What’s the best piece of filmmaking advice anyone’s ever given you?

Finish your film.

What’s the worst piece of filmmaking advice anyone’s ever given you?

That you should wait until all the financing is there to believe in a project.

What is the most important thing you’ve learned about life from filmmaking?

Every story is valid.

What’s the biggest misconception that people have about making films?

That documentaries are necessarily more “real” than fictional films.

Can filmmaking change the world?

It already has.

Photo of Shelley Duval from Robert Altman’s 3 Women, on the wall at StudioFilmClub

The late Robert Altman claimed that 3 Women came to him in a dream. It must have been a very strange dream, because the film is a strange, unsettling one. Loosely based on Ingmar Bergman’s Persona, his classic study of two women in a tense, emotionally and psychologically vampiric relationship, 3 Women adds one more woman and a hazy, California-desert feel–as well as some off-kilter humour–to the mix. The film looks at the idea of multiple selves and the taking on of different personae, and as it progresses, each woman, at first with her own clearly defined individual identity, at different times assumes different aspects of the other women’s characters until finally they become some less-than-holy female trinity, three persons in one.

At least, that’s (partly) my take on it, from seeing the film for the first time at StudioFilmclub in Laventille last night, the first of four nights of screenings there as part of the TTFF09. The screenings are curated by US writer and critic Hilton Als, who will be at StudioFilmClub tonight for the second evening of screenings, which includes Leslie Thornton’s experimental feature-length film, Peggy and Fred in Hell.

Last night’s screening was not only the first night of screenings at SFC as part of the TTFF, but also the debut of a new HD projector, which, along with the recently-acquired cinema speakers (one from an old cinema in Trinidad, another from a cinema in Germany) and a Blu-Ray DVD player, will take the audio-visual experience at StudioFilmClub–which has been showing a mix of mainstream and independent, English and non-English language films for some five years now–to an exciting new level.

Also fairly new at SFC is the stand-alone bar area, where patrons last night limed before and after the film screening.

The screening area of SFC, with a Maya Deren film being shown on the new HD projector before the main screening

Artist Peter Doig, one of the founders of StudioFilmClub

Three men: artist Mario Lewis, from left, and journalists Sterling Henderson and Andre Bagoo

The audience liming after the screening

Glenroy (aka artist Chris Ofili), SFC’s resident barman and maker of a mean vodka & tonic