DAY 2
Participants looked forward to the second day of the live conference, which was again moderated by Heidi Gronauer from ZeLIG, Savyasaachi Jain from Thomson Foundation and Neelima Mathur from Formedia. Recapping on the first day, Heidi said the vibrant (even if chaotic) conference of the first day showed there is a need to talk, to exchange, to get to know each other. It was the proof, that LINCT is needed! As part of lessons learnt, some rules were set up to make the discussion easier. After which, Saachi announced the topics for the day: 1. funding and budgets. 2. marketing and distribution. 3. equipment and technical issues.

One of the panelists, Gargi Sen, made the opening remarks: “Funding is almost non-existent here in India, and broadcasters do not fund documentaries. The only exception has been the Public Service Broadcasting Trust that was, till recently, funding 52 documentaries each year. But their budget is very limited, something to the tune of $7-8000 per production, which is really low. And of course there are NGOs, national and international, but both have editorial consequences. And lastly there are now co-productions except I feel that that's a misnomer.

“There is no co-production between India and other countries BUT international channels funding Indian filmmakers. And this too has consequence on content and form. But perhaps, one should also look at other avenues in India that are somewhat ignored. The Films Division of India produces 52 films per year too. Only either their production is done by in-house employees or in the rare case they invite independents their crew and equipment has to be used. But definitely Films Division is a possibility. And if FD can be brought into the picture, co-production maybe thought about. Otherwise co-production is really Indians asking for funds from International channels.”

She further stated, “There is a growing interest in India as a subject. And perhaps, this interest in India might be a window for Indian filmmakers to pitch projects with a difference.”

Savyasaachi Jain took the discussion in the direction of the kind of budgets documentary film-makers work with. As he said, “The reality is that in India we usually work with very poor budgets. What often happens in India is that we work to such small budgets that a) our vision is limited and b) film-makers take out money to live on, so very little goes into a typically commissioned film. The point I am making is that India and European filmmakers are coming from very different environments.”

Sunita Thakur responded by saying that, “It seems to me that these small budgets give the impression that Indian film makers are not upto the mark”. Paromita felt the need to clarify this further. She said, “I have seen enough films with excellent budgets - often funded by European broadcasters - that are absolutely mediocre - not only by Indian filmmakers I'd like to specify. So I think there is a link but not a definitive one between the quality of work and the kind of money offered - and I think we need to be watchful of the easy lapse into saying less money = poor work.”

Saraswati Kavula (film-maker, India) went ahead to say, “Budgets and quality need not necessarily go hand in hand - but yes low budgets do make us compromise at least on the technical level.” Alida Szabo (film-maker, Germany) clarified in the context of Europe, saying, “The "making everything yourself" is a tendency that is coming-up in Europe, for sure. It happens, that you make a slow-budget film for years and finance your living from other project/jobs - which is a pity, but gives big freedom for the film.

In this context, Pankaj Butalia (film-maker, India) candidly stated, “Let's accept one reality - we all work at the margins. Once in a while someone may make a killing but on the whole it's a dismal scene. But we've chosen to work in this domain - and we need to argue for ourselves everytime.

Also, for Anirban Datta, the big point was, “One also gets carried away with the possibilities that are sighted by the pitching workshops, and start developing the film in different ways which attract a lot bigger budget and time. And in most cases, the sighted possibilities are ideal, and mostly a very little of that materializes. So, a filmmaker, by the end of the making process, gets into a financial soup.”

Prem Kumar Aman then raised the issue of the creative worth of directors. “I think what really bothers a lot of documentary filmmakers is their fee. It would be a good idea to have some benchmark figures for their creative contributions.”

The discussion reverted to the little that documentary film-makers earn wherein Alida said, “In Europe it`s even difficult to live only from documentaries....” And in response to the minimal rates Indian film-makers get for telecast of their finished films, Elena Zervopoulou (film-maker, Greece) responded by saying, “1250 US is also what you could get for a finished 20 min documentary in Greece for example...”

To this Heidi responded by saying that, “All try to get us cheaper, and cheaper, and cheaper. The only possibility we have is to agree on minimal prices. As Europeans don't know Indian prices and Indians don't know the European, we could use this platform to post example budgets.” Abhijit Das Gupta concurred saying, “I think a standard budget for a standard technical format needs to be drawn.”

Further ahead, coming into the middle of the discussion on corporate funding, Mick Csaky (film-maker and producer, UK) said’ “I am in complete agreement about the need for agile producer who are able to pull documentaries together at at time when the TV broadcasters are being very cautious. And, YES, I am all for securing corporate funding, although there can be many strings attached. That said, I have found corporate sponsors to be very professional and good to work with - so long as their objectives are taken into consideration.

For Sara Zavarise (film-maker, Italy), it was not corporate budgets but NGO budgets. “This is my experience of two projects in India funded by Italian NGOs. I've made a short doc for an Italian foundation on a house for street children in Hyderabad. The budget was 10.000 euros. Then I've made a doc on microfinance with the Italian NGO ACRA funded by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, filming also in Hyderabad. The total budget of the doc was 36.000 (but the Indian part for one week of filming was 8.000 euro).

Talking about the enormous effort that goes into raising funds for a film, Mick said, “Finding the funding can take months and sometimes years. It goes with the territory of making documentary films for me. I resent all the time it takes to raise all the money. However, it can really be worth all the trouble and effort. If I was absolutely honest, I think my time is split between 25% film making and 75% finding the funding in order to make the films!”

In response, Rajesh Thind had an interesting personal example to share. “I did a crowd-funding exercise last year. It was very useful and very interesting. And so I decided to use a website some US friends had used to raise money directly. I put a pitch up there, explaining my film, how much money I needed (about 5000USD). I raised 3000USD from direct contributions, from all over the world, plus had someone else make a 2000USD donation. I think people want to be part of something that is positive and as we have less and less power in terms of structures, that desire can be mobilised to get films made. We HAVE to move beyond the broadcast / traditional strucutres of funding.

Taking the concept of creating linkages with NGOs further, again Rajesh had interesting information to share. “Britdoc, they are doing some very interesting things in this area - connecting the Third Sector (NGO, government, transnational bodies) with filmmakers, in innovative ways that bridge the gap in vision.

Sara felt “Working with NGOs opens the possibility of getting funds from international cooperation. When a filmmaker works with an NGO, he/she shouldn't go to an NGO asking for money for his/her project, but can write a project with an NGO that has many actions, including the documentary.”

Reverting to the gap between funds and film-makers, Rajula Shah said, “If we agree to look at addressing the question of the gap between the interest of the funder and the audience; the filmmaker and the audience in terms of screening/reaching our films; locating the potential audience apart from the usual tv watchers...the answers are somewhere there to find, but that needs some work which Magic Lantern Foundation (Gargi’s alternative distribution company) has begun, perhaps we can pitch in there...

This brought the discussion back to the possibility of setting up a documentary channel. Pramod Mathur reiterated, “We should begin to explore the possibilities to find funds to launch an Indo-European TV channel and then dovetail it with the cable operators for household contribution. There is enough material between India and Europe to fill the channel for atleast one year. In the meantime the revenue can start coming in for fresh productions. And ofcourse there would be the web portal connected with the channel.”

Even before such an idea could be discussed in detail, participants were worried and talking about the content of such a channel. The main point being to exclude news and current affairs, as Sourav Sarangi (film-maker, India) said. To which Sunita Thakur asked, “Why not hard current affairs issues too - very little in depth going on at present in current affairs.” To which Prem Kumar Aman added, “I think news and current affairs from the documentary point of views will certainly throw up new ideas for films and would also highlight the relevance of documentaries we show and their context.”

While Abhijit Das Gupta wanted to be spared from politicians across all parties, Taranjit Kaur was already worried about first-time film-makers: “I hope the channel gives equal opportunity to the first time filmmakers and not only to the masters.” Rajesh added, “I hope the channel shows the best work it can possibly show, regardless who made it.”

Continuing further, Rajesh tilted towards issues of sustainability of such a channel. “The audience segment which would watch a doc channel in India would tend towards the higher end of the socio-economic scale, and because at the top the Indian system is a tapering pyramid, with the affluent way off the scale compared to the mainstream, it does become an attractive audience to the higher value brand advertisers, and because the audience would also be formed of opinion formers, it would be of interest to government, NGOs and other types of "advertisers" / funders.”

The discussion then moved onto technical issues. And there was mention of as many cameras and editing options as there were participants. It was generally clear that technology changes very fast and keeping track of those changes and taking the right decisions are crucial to the survival of film-makers.

Heidi made the point that the complexity of matching and moving technologies actually creates a further scope of creativity for the film-makers.

Participants were keen to know about the best and cheap cameras available today. They also had a lot of concerns about the HDV and HD phase that film-makers are facing today, with all the commensurate problems that come up during editing, if one choses cheaper options during edits. Many participants pitched in with their own personal experiences. Please read the full log for details.

Then the discussion was on distribution. Gargi set the stage by saying, “Distribution often gets conflated with dissemination and we should separate the two. And distribution, with a revenue model is necessary. And there is a need to think though the notion of the 'audience' beyond box office and television eyeballs or even large audiences for films.”

She ended by saying, “I hope we can take ahead Pramod's proposal about a documentary channel, also the idea of a basic budget, ideas of cooperation (not just co-production) and ways to link independents”.