Flee

Source: Cinephil

‘Flee’

Documentary filmmakers should regard sales agents as strategic partners and not as an afterthought, said international executives at an industry panel at DOK Leipzig this week.

It discussed how filmmakers can best work with sales agents.

Speaking on the DOK Leipzig panel, Shoshi Korman, co-managing director of Israeli sales outfit Cinephil advised filmmakers to start talking to sales agents as soon as they can.

“Quite often, there are people who reach out to us right after the festival premiere. That’s too late for us. We can’t work like that,” he said. 

Freja Johanne Nørgaard Sørensen, senior sales and acquisitions executive at Danish outfit, DR Sales added: “I’ve seen this new trend where people start reaching out right before a festival. They won’t send you the link before. They want you to come watch it at the premiere. I mean, do you want me to break my knee and then go running? That is what you are asking.”

Such a delay, she warned, could stop her from getting “PR on board and buyers in the room”.

Korman also warned producers are too focused on the launch of their films. “A lot of people think the finish line is the world premiere, when that is not even the halfway mark. It’s important to have your sales agent with you [by then] because they follow that journey and can help guide you through the second part.”

“Don’t think that when we come on board early, we are going to compromise creativity,” Sørensen told a room predominantly full of young film professionals. “We might point out who your audience is. If you make a film for everyone, it will reach no one. There is no shame in saying ’we are aiming for this specific type of audience’ because then we can make a market strategy that caters to that audience.”

Sørensen also reiterated that sales of feature docs take time. “Even if your film comes out at a festival, it might take a year or two years before your film finds a broadcaster or distributor.”

German sales agent Benjamin Cölle, managing director of Pluto, underlined the crucial role sales agents can play in “translating” the filmmakers’ vision to the audience.

“What works for us is to talk early. That doesn’t necessarily mean board a film early but what we do in Leipzig here is talk to you, give you some feedback,” Cölle explained.

If a sales agent doesn’t respond to a project, then filmmakers probably will not be able to change their minds about it, Cölle added. “Don’t try to convince us that the film is really, really great and works really, really well when we’ve sat [through it]. It’s like a relationship. You can’t convince someone to go into a relationship - you have to feel it.”

Sørensen called for filmmakers to be more direct in saying what they actually want from sales agents.

“Be very honest. What do you want? Do you want someone to pre-sell your film? Do you want to finance it? Do you want to get it made, or do you want to spend five years going around trying to get soft money? If you want to do that, that’s totally your prerogative. There’s no right or wrong. But don’t try to get a sales agent in development if you don’t want them to pre-sell.”

All the panellists called for a reality check among filmmakers and cautioned them against having unrealistic hopes for their docs.

“When expectations aren’t in line, that’s the biggest conflict we tend to have with filmmakers,” Sørensen warned.

The speakers made it clear there are many ways for documentaries to reach audiences: TV, festivals, educational channels and streaming platforms among them. Theatrical distribution may not be appropriate or even possible.

Korman warned success, even when it is achieved, doesn’t come easily, citing the example of Cinephil’s animated documentary, Flee. “It was nominated for three Academy Awards and distributed everywhere….but what people don’t know is that that film took nine years to finance because no one believed in it - nobody! We kept going to everyone and begging and they said ’animated documentary, that’s not a thing’, ’a refugee story, that’s not a thing’. It ended up being very, very successful. But it took a lot of work and a lot of time.”

DOK Leipzig runs from October 27-November 2.

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