Fewer projects but more attendees signal the way ahead for CineMart, director Marit van den Elshout tells Nick Cunningham
As doors closed on CineMart 2010, director Marit van den Elshout reflects on the event's continuing importance as a key facilitator within the finance of global independent cinema. “Last year's CineMart was played out against a mood of depression – people were anxious about what was going to happen financially,” she points out. “But this year the market was extremely active. We received great feedback about the selection and all of the projects had a very impressive schedule of meetings.”
Targeted
What seems evident this year, she claims, is the extent to which participants had prepared in advance for the event, resulting in a less scattergun, more targeted assessment of the market offerings. “This is what we have seen this year,” she confirms, “and that's why we've decided to present a smaller selection.” In 2010, thirty-three projects were selected, a marked contrast to the forty-eight presented in 2007.
Illuminations Films Keith Griffiths concurs. “Different people approach CineMart in different ways,” he stresses. “Some visit every table and every project, but I am much more choosy. I am a small cottage industry, not a major production studio. If I can find one really good project during CineMart, then I'm very happy. So I select at the beginning and rarely choose more that four projects to talk to.”
This reflects Van den Elshout's belief that less seems to be more, as this year's market attracted approximately 890 participants: a 20% increase on 2009. She expressed further satisfaction with a Rotterdam Lab programme that is now considered a staple of the Rotterdam and CineMart experience. “We had a diverse group of 67 new producers this year, for whom we provided a very strong schedule of events. I thought that Tuesday's case-study on post-production was excellent, as was the case-study on Agua Fría de Mar about the construction of a Latin American/European co-production.
The Rotterdam Lab is such a solid part of CineMart and will allow it to evolve and professionalise even more. Maybe one thing for the coming years is to combine the emerging producers and their established counterparts in a meeting of minds; a think-tank to help cook up what the future of CineMart may be.” Future plans, Van den Elshout suggests, may include a series of work-in-progress screenings of HBF and CineMart projects.
“But I've been using these last few days to talk to the industry about what we should be doing,” she continued. “And in general, people say don't change anything. Yes, we have a problem in that we are crunched between Sundance and Berlin, but I don't think that we should change our dates because of that fact. Rotterdam and CineMart constitute the start of the European film year. Once again we have received affirmation that what we are doing has a purpose, that the organisation is good and that we enable people to achieve as much as possible in a short period of time.”
Cinema Reloaded
Van den Elshout seems generally pleased with the the Cinema Reloaded experiment, as well as the debates the project has spawned, but was realistic about the level of future endeavour necessary to see one or more of the projects come to fruition. “There was a great energy around the project,” she confirms. “It has indicated to both the industry and our audiences just how willing we are at Rotterdam to try anything, to experiment, to see what the future may be. We are not claiming to have devised a new model. But in terms of success, we had a great rapport with the filmmakers and I think that they have seen from all the discussions around the topic that they really need to be a little more proactive in the future. After the festival, I'll be calling to get them blogging and to get more and more stuff up online: communication with the audience is key to the success of the project.”
Realistic
Commenting on this year's CineMart, Frans van Gestel of Amsterdam-based production house IDTV stresses how he saw a move on the part of investors to target more commercially-oriented projects rather than ostensibly festival fare. “I feel in my mind that people are looking to the market,” he pointed out. “They look very carefully at projects from the start and tend not to gamble. They don't want to speculate over a number of projects.” Trust Nordisk's Susan Wendt also recognised the need for continuing financial prudence. “It feels like everybody is more realistic about the potential and possibilities of the projects, and of course the economic situation worldwide means that you have to be a lot more creative in finding other types of investment and back-ends to get the money back,” she stresses. “Everybody knows that right now it's not that easy, so everybody has to be flexible.”
Marriage
Van den Elshout stresses that, whatever the financial climate, CineMart will continue to provide the conditions for fruitful co-production collaboration. “A good project will get made eventually if it has good partners, a solid finance structure, an excellent script and a very persistent producer,” she concludes. “But CineMart can speed up the process. In the end, making a co-production is like being in a marriage. It's the beginning of a long relationship. At CineMart, we create the atmosphere in which people can work together, feel safe and develop a sense of mutual trust.”