Young professionals of the film industry who take part in the Thessaloniki Locarno Industry Academy International event in the 58th Thessaloniki International Film Festival’s Agora section had the opportunity to attend a particularly interesting discussion with Swedish film director Ruben Östlund on Wednesday 8 November 2017. The director, who won the Palme d’Or at Cannes Festival 2017 for his new film The Square, is in Thessaloniki on the occasion of the retrospective hosted by this year’s festival edition on his work.
After last year’s successful pilot edition, the Thessaloniki Locarno Industry Academy International in Southeast Europe and the Mediterranean –a TIFF collaboration with the Festival del Film Locarno - comes back to the Agora section of the 58th TIFF (6-11 November 2017). Thessaloniki Locarno Industry Academy International is a training program created to help young professionals of the film industry to extend their experience and networking in the fields of international sales, marketing, distribution, presentation and programming. In the past, Locarno Industry Academy International was successfully launched in Mexico, Brazil and New York.
In the course of the discussion, moderated by Vanja Kaludjercic, Regional Project Manager of Locarno Industry Academy International, Ruben Östlund noted repeatedly that it is very important for a film director to receive feedback and listen to the wider reactions on his idea or conception. “Eventually, though, one must take responsibility for the project. One has to decide which ideas will be included in the film and which won’t”, he stressed.
One of the most important parts of the discussion was about concessions, by the director or otherwise, during the creation of a film. “I don’t think I ever compromised, or were pressed by any distribution company”, said Ruben Östlund, noting that each link in the big chain of the film industry plays its own important role. He specifically mentioned the big difference between Europe and the USA, as to the film’s production and post-production process. On state funding, he noted that in Europe no one asks you to make a film, to have an initial idea. It is the director who has to find ways to contact the companies or secure state funding for the film they want to make.
Speaking about one of his previous films, Play (2011) and its subject which has been considered ambiguous, Östlund claimed that the real story which the film was based on (and is about gangs of minors in Gothenburg who rob mostly other minors in city malls) is a source of debate by itself, with no particular intervention on behalf of the director. “In any case, when you have a general idea on a film, the first thing you have to do is convince someone else immediately why this idea is interesting. This is the main rule. And this is perhaps a major problem with European film industry. Here, most people ask for money instead of trying to promote their ideas on the films they want to make. In the US, everything is about survival. You’re out there on the street. It is very interesting to compare the two systems, both of which have pros and cons”, noted the director. Regarding to this, he focused on the different artistic approach of films in the two continents, describing America as more conventional and traditional both in form and in context, while in Europe, as he said, even production companies function differently. “Distributors in Europe are in general safe. They have already been funded by the state for distributing a film and seem not so interested as in the States. This is not always the rule, though”, he explained.
On his films advertisement and promotion, the director noted that he travels a lot and gives many interviews. “This is a very traditional image of a filmmaker who has to fight for his work. It is not bad, just too time-consuming”, he noted. He did not omit to mention the way he constantly tries to “fool” the media, speaking about the video he shot and made public a few years back, which showed him being mad when hearing that his film Force Majeure did not make it to the list of candidates for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2014. “You have to be in a position to play with the system’s conventions, be imaginative so as to exploit the system to your advantage”, he stressed.
As to the recognition of the director’s work, his producer and regular collaborator, Erik Hemmendorff, who also attended the discussion, noted that in spite of general belief, Ruben Östlund’s films were warmly welcomed at home. Nevertheless, the risk of failure does not cease to exist. “We have our own production company and fund ourselves. Thus, we always take the biggest risk. We cannot expect someone else to act on our behalf. We have to constantly find solutions to our problems”, the producer stressed.
On his part, Ruben Östlund insisted much on the need for cinematographers to network widely among them and other film industry professionals, so that not only they get inspiration from new ideas, but have the opportunity to communicate their proposals and opinions as well. “It is very important to be able to maintain good relations”, he noted. “When you graduate from the film school, you think a good script is everything. That a solid script will definitely become a film. Unfortunately, it does not work this way. The quality of a product is obviously based on the energy you put to it. Yet the financial part is based on a social framework you cannot avoid”, he added.
On his relation with the audience, the Swedish director claimed that in general, the reactions to his films are more or less the same everywhere, apart from some minor cultural differences. “Viewers don’t easily surprise me”, he added, with the exception of Poland, where his films were unexpectedly successful with no particular promotion. He also spoke about other important issues about his life, the way he was inspired for his last film The Square, as well as his future plans, topics which he approached, and the particularly interesting discussion which took place on Tuesday 7 November 2017 as part of this year’s festival edition.
The young and promising sales representatives, distributors and new media specialists who participate in this year’s Thessaloniki Locarno Industry Academy International are Maximilien Dejoie (Just a Moment, Lithuania), Anjali Mandalia (Thunderbird Releasing, United Kingdom), Ivan Mihalic (Everything Works, Croatia), István Mráz (Mozinet, Hungary), Joanna De Sousa (Outsider Films, Portugal), Isabella Weber (Europa Distribution, Italy) and Christina Liapi (Heretic Outreach, Greece).
The Thessaloniki Locarno Industry Academy International is spondored by the production company Faliro House.
