Above: A still from In the Claws of a Century Wanting, a Philippines, Germany and Qatar documentary co-production in the Wide Angle programme. Photo credit: biff.kr
A year ago, South Korean producer Minji Ma hit a roadblock when she realised she did not have enough funds for the shooting of her documentary, even after receiving money from the Korean Film Council and the Seoul Film Commission fund.
“I was awarded in the pitch and got support, but still not enough to pitch my film because I was a newcomer. It was very hard for me to cover the whole budget for shooting,” she said.
Little did Ma know that making her film a co-production would be the perfect solution to her problem. A commissioning editor introduced her to Finnish producer Liisa Karpo, who contributed a third of the film’s US$178,000 budget, and Ma’s documentary was completed this year.
The topic of international co-productions has been a hot one in recent years with an increasing number of China-Hollywood feature film co-productions, though most of them are remembered for the wrong reasons of being high-profile financial failures. But co-productions, which pool resources and funds from multiple countries, have been more instrumental in giving a new lease of life to films which would have otherwise not seen the light of day, especially when it comes to independent documentaries in Asia.
At this year’s Busan International Film Festival, the growing trend of European-Asian co-productions was reflected in its Wide Angle documentary programme, with seven out of 28 documentaries in the showcase listed as co-productions. This included Jewel Maranan’s In the Claws of a Century Wanting (Philippines/Germany/Qatar), Andreas Hartmann’s A Free Man (Germany/Japan) and Jéro Yun and Marte Vold’s Letters (South Korea/Norway).
But hopping onto the co-production bandwagon is easier said than done. More than just a matter of money, the project needs to be creatively suited to the broadcast channels and audiences of both co-producing countries.
Having universal themes in the film which can be translated across cultural differences increases the chances of the project being picked up by an international partner, as in the case of Ma’s documentary, Family In The Bubble. Karpo, the founder of production film company Napafilms based in Helsinki, believed Ma’s story about a Korean family who lose all their wealth overnight in the 1997 Asian financial crisis would be relatable to Finnish audiences, as Finland similarly suffered severe economic depression in the early 1990s.
“In essence, it is a family story about whether a broken family can get back together. That is a universal story. In Finland, it hit us and we are still recovering from the setback of that financial crisis. All of a sudden local becomes global — and it boils down to good stories and characters,” said Karpo, who was speaking at a Platform Busan panel discussion that discussed the possibility of documentary co-productions in Asia at BIFF.
While co-productions are a viable alternative for filmmakers from several Southeast Asian countries that lack supportive filmmaking environments, they should not be regarded as an easy way out for filmmakers who do not have enough funding. Thai-American first-time documentary feature filmmaker Pailin Wedel stresses the importance of filmmakers contributing to the bulk of their original project’s budget on their own, before collaborating with an international partner.
She said: “Very few foreign producers will want to come in on a 100 per cent of your budget. You need to come in with at least 50 per cent. A lot of foreign producers were initially interested in my project but said, “Go find 50 per cent of your funding, then we can talk.”
The greater repercussion is the possibility of the director losing control of the project to the international partner. Wedel added: “If you want to keep the rights and ownership, it all boils down to how much money you have and how many per cent you own of the film.
Wedel is currently working on the documentary Hope Frozen, about a Buddhist scientist from Thailand who decides to freeze his dead baby daughter’s brain in the hopes that she will awake one day in the future. Pitching her project to international film funds overseas helped contribute to 85 per cent of her documentary’s budget — she was awarded US$108,000 from the Whickers’ World Foundation at the Sheffield International Documentary Festival in June.
Establishing the degree of control and decision-making each co-producting country has in the filmmaking process from the beginning to end is crucial. For Family In the Bubble, Ma and Karpo mutually agreed that Ma would be the majority co-producer and Karpo the minor co-producer. Both also decided that the documentary’s editing and on-screen graphics would be done by a Finnish editor, due to differences in storytelling with Korea when it comes to Finnish documentaries.
Another issue was working around the distance and time difference between South Korea and Finland, said Karpo, who insisted on facilitating face-to-face interaction between both parties.
“We had our Finnish editor come into Seoul twice. I thought it was important that our editor met Minji’s family (in South Korea) to understand the story and get to know each other, which would allow the story to be better delivered in its full context. And for rest of the time, she edited in Finland.”
She added: “Towards the end of editing, we started wishing we had a little more money to fly Minji over to Finland because when you have to make final decisions, it gets complicated. Even if you have Skype every day, it is just not the same thing.”
It was more challenging for South Korean documentary producer Sinae Ha, who had to negotiate deals between four countries — South Korea, the Philippines, Japan and China — while making a documentary about the life of a Filipino filmmaker she had met at an international film market. She eventually roped in a Japanese commissioning editor, who liked her pitch and wanted her to make a Japanese version of her documentary. Ha recalled: “A Korean producer, Filipino filmmaker, Japanese editor and Chinese actor all gathered in Japan. Our English wasn’t perfect but we tried to communicated all kinds of stories.”
Not all co-productions are successful, however, added Ha, who has also worked on co-productions with Belgium, France, the United States and currently with Argentina. “We start talking, make a contract, make a decision, find out it’s not a good co-production and we break up. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t.”
For Karpo, her pleasant experience working with Ma has taught her to better navigate between cultural differences, as well as had her discover that perhaps Asia and Europe have more in common than previously imagined.
“Co-production is never easy, even in Europe between North and South Europe. But I learned a lot about working with a Korean director and about the culture, so I think it’s very valuable in the future. There is a strange thing about the Finnish and Koreans — even though countries are different, we share the same humour,” she added with a laugh.