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Yes I Cannes!
By Margie Templo | June 12, 2008
I was there!
Looking back now, it was utterly overwhelming.
A few months back, I was invited to participate in the Producers Network of the Festival de Cannes. It’s a gathering of 500 producers from all over the world “designed to stimulate production and promote international co-production opportunities” through organized meetings. I was lucky enough to be offered a complete registration package, including access to these meetings, inclusion in the Producer’s Guide (the official directory) and in the Livre des Projets (roughly translated as Book of Projects), and full access to the Marche du Film (Film Market) and the Festival de Cannes.
Wow.
I had to take a moment to process all that in my head. Were they really offering me a pass to the Cannes Film Festival? I had to read the e-mail over. “It will be wonderful if you can come to present and develop “Akyat-Baba,” it said in our friend Elodie’s e-mail. Oh my god. THIS IS IT.
Fast forward to May 14, 2008, my arrival in Cannes. Same reaction. Oh my god. THIS IS IT.
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Unlike the two other programs I’d attended in the last seven months – the Produire au Sud seminar-workshop for co-production and the Rotterdam Lab (part of the Asia-Europe Film Meeting) – the Cannes Film Festival was the highway (as opposed to the park or the school grounds). I was no longer in a cozy setting for learning and sharing where facilitators knew you and welcomed questions and dialogue, and introduced you to people every producer should know. Oh no. The training wheels were officially off. In Cannes, you’d better know what you’re doing.
As I didn’t actually know exactly what I was doing, I had a goal. I had to sell our films to anyone and everyone who would bloody look my way. That had to be good enough!
Officially, I had two films in my catalogue. The first was “Akyat-Baba, Paikot-ikot” by Arkeo partner Joel Ruiz and the second was “Pinoy Sunday,” a Taiwan-Philippines-U.S. co-production of a film by Malaysian director, Wi Ding Ho. For these two films, I was looking for anything and everything since they are both projects in development. (This means that we had working scripts and comprehensive production plans and just not enough money and resources to begin production.)
Unofficially, I had four other films on the market. Three were films by Joel Ruiz – one full-length and two short films – and the other was a documentary feature by Monster Jimenez. For these films, I knew I had to get a sales agent or a European partner to help me sell the film.
Yes, there was quite a lot to do. Fortunately, nagpaka-good student ako in my previous workshops so I was slowly unravelling the mystery that was international co-production.
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Two tips for anyone attending an important gathering of professionals such as, oh let’s say the Cannes Film Festival. Make yourself known, and talk constantly about your projects. This is what I did all day and every day at Cannes.
I had set up meetings for myself with people I knew and asked them tp refer me to other people worth knowing. I was meeting with people I’d met in Nantes, Rotterdam and Paris, people who’d want to co-produce, people who’d want to buy my films, people who’d want to sell my films, people who’d want to program my films in their festivals, and people who just wanted to catch up and see how I was doing. It was a meeting frenzy I tell ya. And quite frankly, that’s what it was all about.
For the first breakfast meeting of the Producers Network, I sat at the table where The Match Factory exec Tobias Pausinger was going to speak. There were new and considerably older faces at the table all hungry to make Tobias’ acquaintance and it really isn’t any wonder since The Match Factory is quite a dynamic world sales company with a very strong presence in the international scene today.
We went once around the table to introduce ourselves and ended with Tobias telling us all about his company and how they go about choosing the films they would like to represent. It was an hour-and-a-half talk but it was a talk I’d heard before in Rotterdam. I was really just there to see if The Match Factory would like to represent “Baby Angelo,” Joel’s first full-length film that’s in competition in Cinemalaya.
After the talk, out came the Arkeofilms postcards, the company reel and my calling card. Luckily, Tobias remembered me and said we could meet later in the week to discuss my projects. Yesss! That was quite a good start for me I thought. Now all I had to do was set up more meetings just like this.
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I had arranged important meetings with French co-producers even before I left Manila. These were people I’d had some correspondence with already. Two were names I got from Produire au Sud and the other was the cousin of the husband of my sorority sister and ka-batch Lala Gamboa-Lejeune. I also set a meeting with a young German producer who was in my Rotterdam Lab barkada.
I remember first introducing myself to all these French co-producers whose names were on a list given to me by Elise Jalladeau, the lead facilitator of the Produire au Sud workshop. Good god. Almost eight years in the business and I’m back to making cold calls, I thought to myself. A few months later, at least two of them have become friends and there’s a 99% chance we’ll be working with them on our projects.
It’s simple. Make the call. Or shake his/her hand. Or start up that conversation. You never know really. What’s important is that you take the first step. Then the next.
Be ready to pitch though. Know what your project is about. Know what your selling points are. Is it the story? The filmmaker? The basic idea of the film? Or even the country you’re from? Back it up with a good-looking and comprehensive proposal and you’re on your way.
Know what you want from them and know what they’re looking for too.
It’s the same as in the local industry too I guess. But there’s definitely still a huge difference! More in my next entry 
