When a classic film industry meets at a market, what do they debate. One issue is maybe paramount these days: Distribution. The distribution of classic documentaries was at the heart of discussions at the Lumière Film Festival’s International Classic Film Market (MIFC) in Lyon, France on Oct. 18.
Industry members ran through the challenges they face in bringing not just doc, but heritage doc, to the audience – a “niche within a niche,” according to Gérald Duchaussoy, who oversees programming and coordination for the MIFC.
For Catherine Bizern, managing and artistic director of doc fest Cinéma du Réel(CdR), heritage documentaries have their place in a booming classic film market.
“The key to getting classic docs back into theaters lies in restoration,” she says. “Instead of organizing retrospectives of forgotten movies that would be shown in poor-quality copies only once at our festival, it’s more interesting to support film restoration and support the release of good quality, restored films in theaters and on platforms.”
With this in mind, CdR launched the European Classic Documentary Film Rendez-vous in 2020, where film restoration project coordinators get to showcase their projects to industry professionals. Prestigious institutions like Cineteca di Bologna, a world leader in film preservation, and other major European cinematheques, as well as specialist private outfits like Films du Jeudi, have attended the Rendez-vous.
This year, the fest launched a prize to support the restoration of a first feature-length doc in partnership with Préludes, a platform dedicated to first films.
What is key, too, panelists agreed, is to build bridges between past and present. That is one of the key marketing strategies of documentary screening platform Tënk, which tied in the launch of Agnès Varda classic “Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse” [“The Gleaners and I”] and its follow-up “Deux Ans après” (2002) with the opening of the “Viva Varda” exhibition at the Cinemathèque Française.
“We are constantly reaching a new audience,” explains Annaëve Saïag, head of communication and marketing at Tënk, whose audience is made up 50% of under-35s.
“These milestones in doc cinema are in demand, the audience needs this kind of classic film to start building their doc culture. These classics are a way for us, as a platform, to educate our audience about docs – we need them.”
Tënk has been building a strong strategy based on subscriptions with public institutions like film schools, art schools and universities. “75% of art students in France have access to our content,” says Saïag, adding that the platform’s programmers make no difference between classic and contemporary films. “Our goal is to show independent doc cinema about the world we live in. Our second goal is to support young filmmakers,” she tells Variety.
35% of the films released on Tënk over the last 12 months were more than ten years old. “For us, it’s part of the programming, we are not a platform that puts heritage doc in the corner of our catalog, it’s really part of it, we treat them in the same way as we do contemporary films,” says Saïag. To mark France’s Year of the Documentary, the platform has released one film for free every month throughout 2023.
While it has developed partnerships with major cultural institutions, including museums and opera houses, the platform also relies heavily on an active social media campaign to draw in new audiences.
“We produce really high-quality content, which includes specially selected film clips for TikTok and Instagram. We know we have just three seconds to catch the audience’s attention, and doc is a cinema that takes its time, so we need to be able to create content that catches the attention without adulterating the film. We also create shorts for YouTube and Facebook as well as Linkedin because part of our audience are industry members,” concludes Saïag.
Rarely discussed at the MIFC, heritage docs proved a common thread running through several events at this 11th edition.
The MIFC ran alongside Lyon’s Lumière Festival from Oct. 17 through Oct. 20.
