Film fans are still reeling from the recent shock news that the Abu Dhabi Film Festival has been shut down, but at least one industry big-hitter is convinced that festival bosses made the right decision.
Jerome Paillard is the executive director of the Cannes Marché du Film, the industry film market that runs alongside the glitz and glamour of the main festival. He was also an adviser to ADFF and has attended it and the Dubai International Film Festival many times.
“I didn’t advise Abu Dhabi to close, that’s not my job,” he says. “But my advice to them was that I don’t think there is a place for two – and even three events, with Doha – all at the same time in the same small region.
“I said that really you should find all the ways you can to collaborate with Dubai, which, after all, is in the same country. I’m very interested in what they did, and I think they did very well – but I think for financial, and perhaps political, reasons they’ve decided to reconcentrate on Arabic films, which is a good thing for the industry in the Gulf.”
Paillard is well placed to offer advice. He has been with the Marché du Film for 20 years, from its earliest days as an intriguing add-on to the main festival to its current place as one of the key industry events in the global calendar.
“I’ve been lucky to be with the market since it was not the biggest in the world, and now it’s recognised ... as not just the biggest festival, but the biggest market, and that is a unique recipe for success,” he says. “New people have tried to copy the recipe. People with a festival go: ‘Oh, I have a festival, maybe if I have a market, too, I will be bigger,’ or people with a market say: ‘Oh, maybe if I have a festival I will be bigger.’ It’s true that the festival does the promotion and gets the audience, and that is very important to driving the market. It’s a fantastic combination. We have the excitement, the ambience, the glamour, and that really helps the business side along.”
Over the course of 20 years, Paillard must have seen some amazing films pass through the market, seeking funding or other assistance, before going on to achieve huge international success – but he is coy about his favourites.
“I couldn’t pick one moment,” he says. “It’s been a wonderful adventure with a fantastic team and when we look at the evolution and the changes over the years it’s been fantastic.
“And I think, not in a pretentious way, but I think we’ve been inspiring to a lot of people in the industry, the way we try to open doors. It’s really quite a small industry, especially when you look at producers.
“They have very small teams and don’t really have the staff or the time to brainstorm, to take the time to think of the future, so we always try, instead of waiting for a need to be expressed, to be a step ahead and open those doors and give direction.”
For example, he notes, in 2000 the Cannes market was one of the first major international events to look seriously at the emergence of digital filmmaking.
In keeping with its trailblazing status, the market last year launched Next.
“What is really changing now is the way we go the audience and that’s what Next tries to address,” says Paillard. “We have to look at ways for smaller filmmakers to reach their audience.
“You have the social networks and video on demand, but the question now is how, as a filmmaker or producer, I can get the audience watching my film. It’s an open field right now.
“Compared to the past, when you could look at a film that was successful and go: ‘OK, well they did this and that, my film is quite similar so I’ll do the same and it’ll work’ – that’s impossible now. There are so many channels with social networks and viral marketing that two things will never be the same.”
As well as the link to ADFF, Paillard and his team have developed close links with Diff, and one of the key programmes this year was the Dubai Goes to Cannes section, where five Diff-backed Arabic films in progress were presented to sales agents.
“I think that’s a very smart idea,” Paillard says. “We have similar programmes with the Buenes Aires Lab and Guadalajara Festival in Mexico, and there’s a reason to do that with works in progress in countries where films aren’t attached to sales agents.”
In the midst of the glitz and glamour of major festivals, it can be easy to forget about the vital commercial side of the business that keeps the films reaching cinemas.
Thanks to carefully planned partnerships with the likes of Paillard and his team, it sounds like Abu Dhabi and Dubai are heading in the right direction – even if those directions now seem to be heading down different paths.
cnewbould@thenational.ae
