Latest from Katherine Butler

Katherine Butler on what Cannes and other festivals mean to Film4, in 2013 and over the years

Cannes is fast approaching, and very excitingly we’ll be launching two British films there this year – Clio Barnard’s The Selfish Giant and Paul Wright’s For Those In Peril – which have been selected for Directors’ Fortnight and Critics’ Week respectively.

Both are low budget British films from directors at the early stages of their feature filmmaking careers. Paul is a first-time feature director, recently graduated from the NFTS and with a background in short films, including the BAFTA-winning Until the River Runs Red. The Selfish Giant is Clio’s second feature (and first fiction film) after her critically-acclaimed and award-winning Channel 4-backed The Arbor which merged documentary and actors to ground-breaking effect.

“From first short to international festival debut” 

Cannes can be a great launch pad for British directors, and for first or second-time filmmakers it’s often just the beginning of their story. A big part of our role here at Film4 is to support filmmakers throughout their filmmaking careers: from first short to international festival debut to established British auteur.

Just as our current slate features the next Mike Leigh and Ken Loach films, we are also funding and developing the latest films from other former Cannes debutantes. Lenny Abrahamson, whose second feature Garage won the CICAE Art and Essai Cinema Prize in Cannes in 2007, is currently in post-production on Frank.  Steve McQueen, who followed up the Camera d’Or-winning Hunger in 2008 with the multiple award-winning Shame, is currently in post-production on 12 Years A Slave, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Brad Pitt, Benedict Cumberbatch and Paul Giamatti. In 2012, Ben Wheatley’s murderous caravanners were the talk of the Croisette with Sightseers, Ben’s third feature.  Less than twelve months later he’s finished production on A Field In England, and will later be starting work on US big-budget Freakshift. Casting our minds back ten years, David Mackenzie’s Young Adam played Un Certain Regard in 2003 – he is now in post-production on Starred Up, starring up-and-comer Jack O’Connell alongside Ben Mendelsohn and Rupert Friend.

Beyond Cannes….

However, our festival relationships extend well beyond Cannes. We work hard all year round to make sure each film finds its best possible way to audience and a big part of this begins with finding the right festival home to start each film’s journey. In the past 12 months, we have premiered films at Sundance, Toronto, Telluride, Venice, Edinburgh and played many many other festivals in between. This year will be no different – we have a larger than ever slate of films launching across 2013 featuring  a mix of both new voices and established directors working at all sorts of different levels.

To give you a quick flavour… Jonathan Glazer’s long-awaited third film Under The Skin stars Scarlet Johansson and is based on Michel Faber’s cult novel.  And speaking of cult novels, Kevin Macdonald has brought Meg Rossoff’s award-winning How I Live Now to the big screen with Saoirse Ronan in the lead role. Anton Corbijn’s third film, an adaptation of John Le Carré’s A Most Wanted Man, stars Philip Seymour Hoffman and Rachel McAdams. And judging by the reaction to a sneak industry preview of a few seconds of footage of Richard Ayoade’s second film The Double, starring Jesse Eisenberg and Mia Wasikowksa, the world can’t wait for a follow-up to his first film Submarine.

As if this isn’t enough, we have several more feature debuts in the works including award-winning promo director Daniel Wolfe’s Catch Me Daddy, multi-award winning playwright and Bafta Single Drama winner Debbie Tucker Green’s Second Coming and Yann (Top Boy, Criminal Justice) Demange’s thriller ’71.

This huge wealth of British film-making talent brings a depth and breadth of vision and audience appeal which shows us what rude health the home-grown industry is currently in. Our Cannes debut film-makers Paul Wright and Clio Barnard epitomise the kind of talent we are honoured to work with here at Film4. Instinctive British filmmakers with truly distinctive voices, making films that are both intimate and cinematic, exploring stories that are of a certain place and time and yet speak to us all. Their films are beautiful, moving, powerful, poetic – more than that, they could only have been made by British filmmakers. Or rather, British auteurs. We feel very privileged to be premiering these two films in Cannes, and look forward to seeing the other British films playing there (Ruairi Robinson’s The Last Days On Mars, Mark Cousins’ A Story Of Children And Film, and Andrew Kötting’s Swandown). And here’s to a whole year of premieres across many different festivals with a superb slate of British talent.

Back home from eight days at the Sundance Film Festival, Katherine Butler gives us her second update on what characterised Sundance 2013…

Sundance shouldn’t really work – a small mountain town which takes ages to get to, is impossible to move around, is snow-bound and blocked by too much traffic and too many people… And yet, it’s a wonderful place to kick off the year in film-making – we’ve return exhausted but energised, full of admiration once again for the world of independent cinema, and excited about the year ahead. Our earlier blog rounded up our favourite screenings – but what about everything else that makes up the Sundance experience? What characterised Sundance 2013?

Beautiful weather…
As any veteran of Sundance 2012 will tell you, when the snow comes down, it really comes down. A blizzard last year half way through the festival made life colder, wetter and all the traffic grind to a halt (including a bus load of directors on the way to Robert Redford’s lodge who were stuck half way up the mountain). This year, the weather was blissful. Blue blue skies, bright sunshine every day made the snow shimmer and sparkle, and raised our spirits. It was all so damn purty that we just couldn’t help tweeting pictures of sunny splendour from our front door as the UK moaned and shivered and froze over.

Lots of sex…
In the films of course. The over-riding theme of the film selection was definitely sexuality. It was inescapable. From Joseph Gordon Levitt’s debut Don Jon’s Addiction which was a funny, charming film with an extraordinary performance from Scarlett Johansson as the New Jersey girlfriend of porn addict Jon; from real-life characters Paul Raymond in The Look of Love and Deep Throat herself in Lovelace; from much heralded ‘lesbian-housewife-gone-wild’ film Concussion… And many more that we didn’t manage to catch – including much-loved The Spectcular Now; Very Good Girls; Two Mothers. Sex was everywhere, and in the main, the films were smart, provocative and with amazing performances.

And some vegetables…
Not many. But we did find some broccoli on night one, and then much later on, there was good asparagus to be had. This is a good result in Park City, and we return having avoided scurvy, although only narrowly.

New Frontiers section…
This year I spent a couple of hours at the New Frontiers section which celebrates art/video installation work and the more experimental end of the film-making spectrum. As I stood watching the hypnotic piece inspired by the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull by Joanie Lemercier that erupted in 2010, I realised that standing next to me was none other than Robert Redford himself. I like to feel that we communed together with the art work for a while before he carried on around the exhibition. It’s the first time in five years that I’ve come across the great Redford, and we definitely shared a special moment. I’m sure he remembers me too….

 

 

 

Back home from eight days at the Sundance Film Festival, Katherine Butler reflects on her screenings highlights of snowy Park City, Utah

I love Sundance – it is the festival that feels the most Film4 of them all, with its focus on the lower budget end of independent film-making, and its lack of black tie glamour and Hollywood showbiz. Yes, it’s difficult to get around due to snow, altitude (you set off determined to walk the short distance to your screening and within 10 minutes of walking up a small incline you are puffing and panting like an old man with emphysema), and your own inability to get on the bus going in the right direction. And ok, so the food is perhaps not great for those vegetarians amongst us who like a bit of broccoli with our dinner. But in terms of the films, the people who attend, the people who run the festival and the whole ethos of the celebration of independent film, it can be the best festival experience of the year.

So, some of this year’s Sundance cinema highlights for me included…

The films overall
This year, the selection of films was felt by all to be very strong indeed. The quality was high throughout, with very strong US dramatic and premiere sections, and great docs across the board. We don’t always get to choose the films we can see due to our meetings schedules or the availability of tickets, so we just have to take pot luck a lot of the time. This year we barely took one misstep. Pretty much every film was terrific, from amazing docs like Alex Gibney’s We Steal Secrets about Wikileaks, and the Israeli The Gatekeepers; to great US indie films like Ain’t Them Bodies Saints (Rooney Mara, Casey Affleck, Ben Foster in what might be this year’s Winter’s Bone) and world cinema like Sebastian Silva’s two films in the fest, Crystal Fairy (Michael Cera goes on a trip to the beach, where he then goes on a trip) and the midnight film Magic Magic.

The big premiere
Every year we try to get to at least one big evening premiere in the huge Eccles theatre. The buzz is always electric, the theatre completely packed and the stars all turn up to introduce the film. This year’s big film for us was Park Chan Wook’s Stoker. Being huge fans of his Korean films, we were sure this English language foray was going to be a disappointment. After all, how could Director Park (as he’s known) maintain his high level of bonkers violence and extraordinary invention when working with a studio, albeit a mini-major? Well, perhaps the violence wasn’t quite as extreme, but this extraordinary piece of film-making had all the originality, high tension, big ideas, and beauty of his previous films. We loved it. Nicole Kidman is perfectly cast; Mia Wasikowska shines; the film-making is breathtaking. And whilst the audience was apparently split down the middle if the post-screening tweets were to be believed, it was our highlight of the festival. Not to be missed.

Our films

Film4 had three features playing in the festival – Michael Winterbottom’s The Look of Love; Jeremy Lovering’s In Fear and Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers, plus two great short films – Kibwe Tavares’ Jonah and Fyzal Boulifa’s The Curse. We think this might be our record for Sundance – whether it is or not, it is a lovely number of films to be showing in one festival. Shorts Programme 1, including Jonah, opened the festival and was one of the highest quality shorts selections we’ve ever seen. Jonah, shot in Zanzibar and involving extraordinary use of animation amongst the live action, looked stunning.

Sightseers played over at the Marc cinema, and whilst we’ve all seen it many times, it was glorious to find that its oh-so-English humour also plays brilliantly in Utah. The Look of Love debuted on Saturday night in the vast and packed-out Eccles Theatre, and it was wonderful to be amongst a hugely appreciative audience and with many of the film’s team including Michael Winterbottom, producer Melissa Parmenter and star Tamsin Eggerton. In Fear was a very different screening, though just as successful: midnight, in the intimate Egyptian Theatre – no laughter this time but jumps and scares and gasps. The Park City and later the Salt Lake City audiences were well and truly scared shitless. Great result. Finally, The Curse showed once again to an appreciative audience in another rather brilliant short film selection – lovely to see how far this multi-award winning (and Bafta nominated) short has travelled over the past year.

 

 

 

Film4 senior commissioning executive Katherine Butler on entering the wonderful world of documentaries

As someone who has come from a purely fiction background – and by that I do not mean that I’ve made up my entire life-story (and if I had it would be a hell of a lot more interesting) – stepping into the world of the feature documentaries over the past 18 months has been a challenging, stimulating and overall delightful voyage of discovery.

Having had the complete honour of working on two such distinctive and accomplished films as Dreams Of A Life and The Imposter so far, with Sophie Fiennes’ brilliant Pervert’s Guide To Ideology premiering in Toronto and two more wildly exciting docs in production (Shane Meadow’s Stone Roses film and Ken Loach’s The Spirit Of 45), my learning curve has been as steep as the film-making is brilliant and audacious. With that in mind, here are six things I’ve learned about the wonderful world of documentaries.

1. The people are completely brilliant.

I have been introduced to a whole new group of film-makers, producers, executives, distributors I just never came across before. I feel like I’ve walked into a really cool club through the back door and got to hang out with the smartest people before I get found out and kicked out. And what I’ve loved about meeting these incredibly smart people is their passion for the form of feature documentary. Not many people go into this area for the money – let’s face it, feature doc budgets are often very low and box office doesn’t very often reach the figures you hope it will. They do it because they love telling true stories, and finding new and different ways to do so.
And that has been learning point number one for me – the docs world is populated by incredibly smart, dedicated, charming people who are driven by their fascination by the world. I want them all to be my friends.

2. Always listen to people who know more than you.

Both the first two docs we’ve co-financed were bought to me by Tabitha Jackson who was running the Channel 4 True Stories strand at the time (and now is Channel 4′s Arts Commissioning Editor). We felt we should look at pulling out one or two of the docs that True Stories commissions each year as possible theatrical films. Film4 brings more money to match the Channel 4 money thus helping to increase the budgets and theatrical ambitions of the films, and we felt we could complement each other’s sensibilities and experience (ie. she knew loads about docs and I could make the tea). Since then, Anna Miralis has taken over the True Stories strand and we’re continuing this strategy of looking for a couple of films we think have theatrical potential every year. Because it’s so very hard to predict whether a doc will do anything at the box office it is great for us at Film4 to know that whatever happens we have the support of the Channel 4 docs team for each film, so it will end up in a strong slot on the Channel and have its best chance at finding its audience one way or another.
In our first chat, Tabitha talked about a film she was working on set on a Bradford estate which featured actors lip-syncing along to interviews. I thought that sounded like crazy idea – until she showed us the resulting film, Clio Bernard’s The Arbor. The Arbor utterly blew me away. I realised I should pay proper attention to Tabitha’s recommendations in the future…

3. Script? What script?

Dreams Of A Life came through first – Carol Morley’s beautiful, moving film about Joyce Vincent, the London woman who was discovered dead three years after she died and who was never reported missing. The central story grabbed us both – how could this happen? – and when we met Carol and her producer Cairo we knew that their passion and integrity could make this film brilliant. But for me the challenge was more to do with the process of documentary film-making, how a film is shaped, what comes first, how you have to plunge in without really knowing where the film will end up. Even in our most experimental fiction work, we know pretty much what the main elements of a story are going to be, and pretty much where it’s going to finish. With Carol’s film we had a starting point – Joyce’s death – and a methodology, but we really didn’t know what the interviews would reveal, who would talk to Carol, and where her investigations would lead. We also knew that the film would contain a strand of imagined, impressionistic reconstructions running through it, but we didn’t know yet quite what story they would be telling or how they would thread through the film.
And this has been my number three learning point with docs – and it’s a pretty obvious one really – there’s no script to start with. Or quite often ever. You don’t know where the story is going to end. Or sometimes begin. Or what the middle might be. For someone who has lived and breathed script development for 15 odd years this has been a big challenge to say the least. The number of times I’ve sat in a meeting about a doc and said, very helpfully, ‘yes, but what’s the ENDING?’

4. Get ready to move quickly.

When things start coming together on a doc, it all moves pretty fast. So if, for instance, you get those first few interviews in the bag, you often have to make the decision to move into production proper without much delay. We in Film4 are used to having a large number of projects on our development slate (most of the film industry works to a one to ten rate, so reckoning that roughly one film will go into production for every ten films developed). And we’re used to these films being in development for quite a long time before moving into production – 18 months is super speedy; 2 or 3 years about expected; 5 years not surprising. The thing about docs is, they do not hang around in development. Either the story can’t be told because, say, the key interviewee changes their mind, or, you all figure, it can. So doc projects in development either die fast or move into production very fast. And if like Tabitha or Anna you’re really good at picking them, that development to production rate is very fast and very high.
So learning point four – if you put lots of docs into development, you’ll get lots of docs into production, quickly. Again, not rocket science, but something that has kinda taken me by surprise. In a very good way.

5. It’s the edit, stupid.

As first Dreams Of A Life and The Imposter moved into production proper, it was fascinating to see how both production and then the edit differ from fiction film making. Production on both was done in blocks, with the dramatised sequences left right to the end – and in the case of The Imposter only after all the interviews were edited together to provide a structural framework for the film, in order to know exactly what they needed to say. So on these particular projects at this point there were scripts, but only of these moments that would intersperse through the films. And the films were therefore in the edit for a much longer and much less obviously structured period of time than most films dealing with fictional stories.

Very often no one quite knows how long the edit will take because of course that’s where the major creative process of finding and shaping the story happens. And the lovely ability to go back and shoot a particular interview because you get to a point in the jigsaw puzzle where it suddenly becomes obvious there’s an important piece missing is a flexibility to be relished. This (to me) backwards way of constructing a story has been utterly stimulating, really demonstrating how the shift of one piece of information or the change in an emphasis can completely shift the entire message of a film. And when you’re dealing with real people, the responsibility to get those details right feels all the greater.

6. They really are about real people.

And that ‘real people’ thing also informs my last point. This responsibility extends to everything that happens to the film once it’s finished. This is going to sound facile, but obviously made-up stories don’t bring with them this level of responsibility in the same way. Whenever I go to a Q and A of a doc and the people about whom the film has been made turn up at the end, it always seems like magic to me, like the characters from a story have come to life and now you can ask them loads of questions. Great moments like all of the people who looked after the chimpanzee Nim in Project Nim coming on stage all together in Sundance; or Rodriguez appearing and then actually playing after the Searching For Sugarman premiere…. Similarly, the support we had from interviewees on Dreams Of A Life or private detective Charlie Parker on The Imposter has, I’ve no doubt, enriched the experience of those lucky enough to attend screenings they’ve been present at.

We’re looking forward hugely to premiering The Pervert’s Guide To Cinema at Toronto, and to bringing both Shane and Ken’s films out next year. It feels like we’re in a bit of a golden age for feature docs – and we at Film4 are overjoyed to be allowed to join in.

Senior commissioning executive Katherine Butler reveals what the Film4 Productions team actually got up to during the Cannes film festival. Think it’s all yachts and rose? Read on…

1. Rain
In all my visits to Cannes I have never see such rain. Having packed my cagoule at the last minute in an ironic nod to our film here, Sightseers, I definitely had the last laugh. Gone were the sundresses and sandals – this year was all about trainers and waterproofs. On Sunday, the winds howled, restaurant ceilings dripped, parties were hastily rearranged from roof terraces to clammy, steamed-up conservatories. The terrace of the Grand hotel looked post-apocalyptic after the canopy had gathered so much rain it then burst and flooded everywhere… There was a kind of blitz spirit, usually not known in Cannes where it’s generally every man or woman for themselves. But mainly it was just really really wet, reminiscent of childhood holidays in Scarborough…

2. Arguing en francais
My French is truly shameful. However, this year I discovered that in the heat of the moment, I can pull out long-forgotten vocab to barnstorming effect. The first was in my attempt to get into the competition screening of Matteo Garrone’s film, Reality. I was all dressed up and had my Orchestre ticket, but just couldn’t find the right entrance, sent every which way by security guys who were definitely enjoying themselves. I ended up in the right place, but hell if I didn’t join a queue rather than barging past everyone. I momentarily forgot I was in Cannes and reverted back to terribly English type. When I realised, it was all too late. I had an entertaining (for everyone around me) run-in with the security guy where I explained in great French how I am British and therefore do queueing and should not be penalised for this cultural behavioural divide. I didn’t get in , but I did feel better.

The next battle was better – our dinner table for 10 people was given away despite us arriving on time. I very reasonably explained that this was not cool, I was on time and had 9 people with me, and it was pouring with rain. And then repeated that several times, louder and louder. We got free drinks, pizza and the owner of the restaurant luckily found me tres amusant – and then got us a new table. Victoire.

3. Mini-eclairs
As many companies do, at the Film4 villa we had a couple of small soirees to entertain the many international partners we work with. This meant that for a particularly frantic 24 hours, between soirees and meetings, I ended up existing solely on a diet of left-over mini-eclairs which lived in our kitchen. I really wouldn’t advise this as the best way of surviving Cannes.

4. Team Run
The one saving grace was that this year, the Film4 team went all LA and we instigated a team run every morning. At 8am we were to be seen wheezing our way down the Croisette in our mis-matched gym-kits at various stages of expiration. We hadn’t really considered that actually, the serious LA players drink only filtered water and go to bed at 11pm, and that might be how they can manage this every day. But by golly, we discovered how those LA chaps keep their mojo, and we sailed through our morning meetings on a wave of endorphins.

5. Meetings
This year between us we held an unfathomable number of meetings, up to 8 or 9 a day for 7 days constantly, often several on the go at once. Agents, producers, film-makers, financiers, distributors, sales agents, funding bodies… We met a lot of old friends, and also a lot of new potential partners too who share our passion for great film-makers. We had a strong sense that there are lots of options for financing our next slate of films which was really encouraging and hasn’t always been the case in the past…

6. Sightseeing on the road
Wednesday night of the second week was Film4 night, with On the Road premiering at the Palais, and then Sightseers’ first screening down the Croisette in Directors Fortnight. Determined not to miss out, four of our team decided we would go to both – despite the fact that there really wasn’t enough time. Dressed up to the nines, we first drank a quick champagne with the On the Road team, and can report from there that Garret Headlund looks great with a beard, and Sam Riley’s wife, Alexandra Maria Lara had a stunning white beaded dress on. We then processed up the red carpet, and took our seats right at the top of the balcony so we could get out fast.

With five minutes left to run, we snuck out, exchanged heels for trainers, and jogged down the other end of the Croisette, just in time to meet the Sightseers team going in. We were particularly struck by Alice Lowe’s toy caravan handbag, with it’s chain sourced from a plumbers, and of course Ben Wheatley always looks great with a beard. The much smaller and more intimate Directors Fortnight cinema was full of people knowing they were going to have fun – and weren’t disappointed. As the credits rolled, the audience gave a standing ovation to the beat of Tainted Love, and cast and crew had tears in their eyes. It was a wonderful Cannes night – having weathered the storms, the sun came out and we were very very happy to have been there.