Buyers Be Aware: Notable Projects From Toronto’s Doc Forum
indieWIRE
May 6, 2009
by Peter Knegt
The 2009 Toronto Documentary Forum – the largest doc market in North
America – kicked off this morning on the campus of the University of
Toronto, with hundreds of filmmakers, producers, broadcasters and
distributors gathering to witness twenty-five presentations of
documentary projects at various levels of completion. Despite an
economic climate that isn’t exactly conducive to stimulating the
international co-production financing, the Forum – celebrating its tenth
anniversary as part of the Hot Docs International Canadian Documentary
Festival – wagered on.
`These last 10 years have seen unprecedented growth in our industry – a
growth that has been clearly paralleled with the world’s economy,’ TDF
director Elizabeth Radshaw, having the unfortunate role of taking on her
first year in the position in the midst of a recession, said. `While we
have learned that this wider economic growth was built on a shaky
foundation, let us not doubt that the growth in appetite for factual
content and documentary film couldn’t be more true and lasting.’
Projects ranging from a story of a boy and his quest for a donkey to an
examination of the Bush Administration’s war crimes case to a detailing
the dark closet of Rock Hudson will fill out the 2-day event, which
culminates in the very first Good Pitch event in North America. But
first, here’s the lowdown on nine notable projects from the Toronto
Documentary Forum:
A Donkeymentary: Through The Eyes of a Donkey
Directors: Arman Yeritsyan, Vardan Hovhannisyan
Producers: Vardan Hovhannisyan, Vahe Ohanan
Country: Armenia
Production Company: Bar Media
Proposed Delivery Date: 12/01/10
Financing Sought: $202,200 (72%)
The Lowdown: `This is a donkeymentary,’ the film’s treatment begins.
What this means is that it’s a film that explores the small island of
Lamu (off the coast of Kenya), which consists of 24,000 people, 6,000
donkeys, and 2 cars. `The donkey capital of Africa,’ the island is a
place where donkey traffic jams occur, where the largest humanitarian
organization is a donkey sanctuary, where donkeys are the key to earning
a living, and where `a young boy’s fondest dream is to have a donkey of
his own.’ The film follows 14-year old Shefama as he pursues this dream.
After winning a donkey race with a borrowed animal last year, Shefama is
determined to provide for his family by owning his own, and winning more
races. As the treatment notes: `Through Shefama’s eyes we will see the
traditions of Lamu’s Swahili culture – the festivals, the music, the
races and especially the donkey races.’
god Is Not Great
Director: Jeff Scheftel
Producer: Carolyn Pfeiffer
Country: USA
Production Company: Magnolia Pictures/Magnet Releasing
Proposed Delivery Date: 09/01/2009
Financing Sought: $744,854 (80%)
The Lowdown: Closely following Christopher Hitchens’ book of the same
name (which spent 19 weeks on the New York Times’ bestseller list),
`god’ will feature Hitchens’ onscreen persona, and will be divided into
sections similar to Hitchens’ book (`The Pantheon of Religious Failure,’
for example, which looks at some eccentric sects that never quite made
it to the status of `religion’). The film will feature interviews with
figures like Ted Haggerty, once an evangelical superstar but now
enjoying his new life post-revelation of his methamphetamine addiction
and his use of drugs to enhance sex with gay prostitutes; Tony Blair,
who recently converted to Catholicism; and Ayaan Hirsi-Ali, a crusader
for the rights of women and the rule of law within both Islamic
countries and those Western countries with Islamic immigrants. In the
film’s treatment, the producers state that through these interviews,
Hitchens `will continue and enlarge his crusade against the sinister
intrusion of superstition into the life of our
planet.’
The Guantanamo Trap – The War Crimes Case Against The Bush Administration
Director: Thomas Wallner
Producers: Amit Breuer, Thomas Kufus, ZeroOne Films
Country: Canada
Production Company: Xenophile Media, Inc/Amythos Films
Proposed Delivery Date: 04/01/10
Financing Sought: $522,116 (56%)
The Lowdown: An HD doc that follows the journey of Murat Kurnaz, an
innocent man and former Guantanamo detainee from Germany, `Trap’ aims to
explore `how people can get swept up in the great currents of history
and how fate can propel them on twisted and unpredictable paths.’ Kurnaz
was captured in Pakistan just after 9/11, and incarcerated for five
years based on fabricated charges. He is now a key witness in the war
crimes case against the Bush Administration. The film will draw on
stock footage, personal testimonies and facts not available until
recently to tell his story. The producers assert in their treatment: `In
the coming year, the final chapter of Guantanamo, the secret CIA prisons
and the illegal war on terror will be written during the making of this
film.’
MATCH+: A Story About Love in the Time of HIV
Directors: Priya Giri Desai, Ann S. Kim
Producers: Priya Giri Desai, Ann S. Kim
Country: USA
Production Company: N/A (e-mail: [email protected])
Proposed Delivery Date: Fall 2010
Financing Sought: $375,000 (93%)
The Lowdown: This film aims to tell the human story of HIV/AIDS through
a new lens: the growing movement of HIV-positive marriages in India.
`Despite stigma and controversy,’ `MATCH+“s treatment notes, `doctors
connect patients, NGOs run marriage bureaus, and singles place
classified ads seeking HIV-positive matches.’ The film will focus on
the specific story of AIDS doctor Suniti Solomon and her clinic, which
has a matchmaking service for HIV-positive patients. Her voice will be
integrated through the film to illustrate the trajectory of matchmaking
in her patients. The treatment claims: `MATCH+ will create a larger
story about a universal human truth: that all people – positive or
negative – want to be accepted and loved as they are.’
Rock Hudson: Dark and Handsome Stranger
Directors: Andrew Davies, Andre Schafer
Producer: Marianne Schafer
Country: Germany
Production Company: FLORIANFILM GmbH
Proposed Delivery Date: 10/01/10
Financing Sought: $388,749 (71%)
The Lowdown: Rock Hudson died of AIDS 25 years ago, and it would have
been his 85th birthday in November 2010, a month after `Dark and
Handsome’ aims to be completed. The doc aims to ask in reflection: Who
was the real Rock Hudson? Was he a kind of invented personality? By
examining the `intimate and private world’ of Hudson through interviews
with former co-stars like Elizabeth Taylor, Paula Prentiss, and
`Dynasty’`s Heather Locklear and Linda Evans, as well as family members
and friends, like novelist Armistead Maupin and Hudson’s assistant of 10
years, Tom Clark. As the producers note: `The film will reveal a gay
star doing a secret balancing act between the heterosexual world of an
obviously very male-looking star and the dark side of forbidden
sexuality as a closeted gay.’
Shi*t!
Directors: Annika Gustafson, Phil Jandaly
Producer: Annika Gustafson
Country: Canada
Production Company: Bedouin Viking Inc.
Proposed Delivery Date: 09/10
Financing Sought: $204,000 (42%)
The Lowdown: `Sh*t!,’ as the producers note, is about solutions.
Solutions to the serious threat that human bodily waste has on the
world: In the West, under-dimensioned and decaying sewage systems leak
into basements and rivers; A whopping 2.6 billion people are without
toilets, forced to defecate in the streets (which poses the single
largest threat to drinkable water and public health on the planet); 50%
of the world’s hospital beds are filled with sanitation-related cases.
`We want our audience to feel the real danger behind ignorance of the
problem before we present sensible, almost unbelievable solutions.’ So
what are they? Many examples come from Sweden, where biogas digesters
harvest `the innate power of poo’ and turn into natural gas. As the
film’s treatment cleverly notes: `Imagine a world that sees poo for what
it truly is – brown gold!’
Terror in Mumbai
Director: Morgan Matthews
Executive Producers: Nick Fraser, Greg Sanderson
Country: UK
Production Company: Minnow Films Ltd
Proposed Delivery Date: 08/09
Financing Sought: $510,000 (78%)
The Lowdown: Retelling the events of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, `Terror’
aims to `unfold as a gripping cinematic thriller.’ The film will weave
together filmed testimonies from survivors and victims’ families with
the back-story of the terrorists and their handlers, making us of the
extraordinary catalogue of media-sourced and personal archives on the
60-hour ordeal. As the producers note in the `Terror’`s treatment:
`From the backstreets of Mumbai to the palatial surroundings of Indian
high society, this film will use award-winning director Morgan Matthews’
trademark intimate observational style to tell the most astonishing and
compelling stories in graphic and poignant detail.’
Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People
Director: Thomas Allen Harris
Producers: Ann Bennett, Alison Duke
Country: USA
Production Company: Through The Lens Darkly, LLC
Proposed Delivery Date: 02/01/10
Financing Sought: $1,958,000 (78%)
The Lowdown: A `documentary and media outreach project,’ `Lens’ explores
how African-American and African diasporic communities have used
photography as a way to create political, aesthetic, and cultural
representations of themselves and their world. As the producers note:
`This will be the first film to vividly bring to life the individual
photographers and photographer collectives whose images and
personalities helped define and transform the lives of African-Americans
through the magic and power of the camera lens.’ Director Harris, a
former photographer, will guide audiences through the project by
building a dialogue across generations, time and geography. `Our
project will invite audiences to creatively engage in their futures by
fearlessly exploring their pasts,’ Harris said in the film’s treatment.
Town of Runners
Director: Jerry Rothwell
Producers: Al Morrow, Dan De Missie
Country: UK
Production Company: Met Film Production
Proposed Delivery Date: 2010
Financing Sought: $208,800 (75%)
The Lowdown: This HD doc follows a group of young athletes in rural
Ethiopia as they made the journey toward national track competitions.
Set against a backdrop of sharply rising food and fuel prices, which
have a huge impact on farming regions in Ethiopia, `Town’ depicts coach
Sentayehu Eshetu – who helped Derartu Tulu become the first African
woman to win an Olympic gold medal – and his group of pupils, aged
12-18. Their preparation for defining races aims to, as the film’s
treatment notes, `understand the significance of running for them and
the obstacles they face – to create a portrait of African youth seen not
through the standard lens of poverty, but of ambition and hope.’
For more information on these and other projects, please visit Toronto
Documentary Forum’s website.
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