Think-Film Impact Production is celebrating its 10th anniversary with a packed Cannes schedule.
The UK-based impact specialist is presenting a Marche panel on the Plage des Palmes at 15.00 today on Film, Storytelling and Confrontation, ahead of Eugene Jarecki’s Special Screenings title The Six Billion Dollar Man about Julian Assange’s battle against extradition to the US.
Jarecki, Wikileaks ambassador Joseph Farrell, and human rights lawyer Jennifer Robinson will discuss censorship with TIFF programmer Thom Powers; while Assange is set to attend Wednesday’s world premiere.
The panel will be followed by the inaugural Cannes Golden Globe prize for documentary, created by the Artemis Rising Foundation and supported by Think-Film.
Think-Film has already held a producers breakfast and workshop for the impACT lab; will co-host a conference on Wednesday on democracy, technology, climate and the future of film and society; and will present and Impact award to a Cannes docs-in-progress title.
Having given impact guidance on docs such as Navalny and Black Box Diaries, Think-Film moved into production last week via a partnership with Dutch company Scenery.
“We were seen as gentiles with our political approach to doing campaigns with movies,” said Think-Film founder and CEO Danielle Turkov of the company’s anniversary. “There was definitely a cynicism and fear around strategic political change.
“Today, doing political campaigns for movies has mainstreamed – people want it now.”
The success of the company is often tied to market forces, says Turkov. “If docs are doing well, then films have budgets, and they can do impact.” There is also greater competition in the work Think-Film does, which Turkov welcomes. “You’re kept on your toes because you’re constantly trying to be better or different.”
Globes partnership
The partnership with the Golden Globes and Artemis for the Cannes documentary award came about earlier this year after a call with Globes president Helen Hoehne.
“They wanted to use Cannes as a platform to show their renewed commitment to this idea [of the importance of documentaries],” said Turkov. The award is open to all feature documentaries which are eligible for the L’Œil d’or, the prize given to the best documentary across Official Selection, Directors’ Fortnight, Critics’ Week and Cannes Classics.
Turkov runs Think-Film with COO Amy Shepherd. “We’re optimists at heart, and we focus on solutions,” said Shepherd. “There is nothing in this business or this world that’s clear cut; and we are on the side of good. If the Globes are coming to us and wanting to do something good, that’s an opportunity we don’t want to miss.”
The winner will be selected by a jury composed of Hoehne, Artemis Rising founder and CEO Regina K. Scully, Geralyn Dreyfous, producer and co-founder at Impact Partners; and US actress Tessa Thompson.
“There’s a challenge for actors to be advocates – there’s a lot of risk if they do something wrong,” said Turkov, but Thompson had no such concerns. “Given the time and what’s going on in the world, she felt if she could lend her name and power to uplifting something, that she would.”
Announced last week, Turkov sees the Scenery partnership as a natural next step for Think-Film. “There was a really nice crossover of us knowing talent, studios, connections, securing financing – using some of the impact strategy to elevate and secure budgets.”
“In this business you can have marriages with people where it just works. They had this slate of projects where we were like ‘we’ll take the next one, and the next one.’ Then we thought ‘this is ridiculous; we’re working on every one of your films, let’s just make this happen.”
While not necessarily on-the-ground during a shoot, Think-Film’s role in the partnership will involve taking a weight from Scenery and allowing it to focus on making its films.
“We’re doing creative impact production,” says Turkov. “We’re doing the field bit that a producer does afterwards – the distribution, the big events, the award strategy.”
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