Actress-producer Cate Blanchett spoke about how the newly-announced Displacement Film Fund will support displaced filmmakers and those working on stories about displaced people at a panel held at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) on Saturday.
Blanchett appeared alongside Oscar-nominated filmmakers including Perfect Days producer Koji Yanai, For Sama director Waad Al-Kateab and Flee director Jonas Rasmussen, as well as Hubert Bals Fund head Tamara Tatishvili.
“I do think that we’re releasing this fund in a really turbulent time when audiences are hungry to consume stories in many different ways,” said Blanchett. “The industry, in a lot of ways, is in free fall and that’s an opportunity to reforge itself into something more exciting.”
Bestowing up to five individual production grants of €100,000 (approximately US$104,200), the Displacement Film Fund was established to champion and fund the work of displaced filmmakers, or filmmakers with a proven track record in creating authentic storytelling on the experiences of displaced people.
Blanchett emphasized how the fund will approach projects with an open mind and let the filmmakers’ voices shine through.
“We don’t have to lecture people because the displaced people I sat with have not been lecturing me — they have been sharing points of common humanity. That has always surprised and moved me and has really altered the cause of my life,” added Blanchett.
Blanchett will head the selection committee for the fund, which also includes Al-Kateab, Rasmussen, Cynthia Erivo, Agnieszka Holland, IFFR’s Vanja Kaludjercic, Aisha Khurram and Amin Nawabi, among others.
Syrian director Al-Kateab said: “Everyone can see where this world is going and it’s definitely not getting better, so we need more stories, we need more sanity, we need more understanding of each other. I think the first challenge for me was that no one wants to hear this. People are fed a lot of news about displacement and refugees. They see this everywhere and the last thing they want is to go to a cinema and watch another thing.
“For me, it was almost a survival for me. I wanted people to understand. I wanted to live. I wanted to accept what happened in telling this story, and when this film was out, and people came to watch it, I saw how this really changed people’s minds and thoughts. It made the story of so many people like me feel more visible,” added Al-Kateab.
Al-Kateab is currently a refugee in the UK and she is currently working on a documentary about the disappearance of her friend’s father.
“To be honest, when you step into this industry, it’s very challenging,” said Al-Kateab. “It’s challenging even when you have funds, when you know what the story about, when this story is emotional to you and important. I do believe this fund is going to really make a big difference for people whose stories you will never be able to hear without this.”
Rasmussen emphasized how the fund will keep a wide approach toward treating what stories may count as a work by a displaced filmmaker or about displaced people.
“Doing these stories in a way where you have the whole human being is crucial, and that’s why this fund is amazing, because here we give voices to people who can tell their own story,” said Rasmussen. “I don’t even think it’s necessary that the displacement experience is front and center. It could be just a filmmaker who has a story that she or he really wants to tell, and then the backdrop of having a refugee experience. To get this whole human story told is crucial.”
Blanchett shared that watching His House by Remi Weekes on Netflix was a film about refugees that she has been particularly inspired by.
“It was one of the most terrifying horror films that had at its core this Sudanese couple who was being resettled in the north of England and they were being haunted by a sort of witch-like presence,” said Blanchett. “It invited me into a cultural haunting, but through through the lens of the horror genre and it was so memorable and absolutely terrifying. I wasn’t being taught a lesson about Sudanese culture, but the culture was still totally alive, and I went and explored that at 4am in the morning when I couldn’t sleep. It breaks apart common conceptions of what displacement is.”
Perfect Days producer Yanai, who has an extensive corporate background — most recently also working as the senior executive officer of Fast Retailing Group — shared how the Oscar-nominated film grew from a public toilet innovation project in Tokyo in 2018 called “The Tokyo Toilet.” He highlighted how great filmmakers can always push important social messages in creative ways through film without having to be too didactic.
“My hypothesis was that if we have famous, creative toilets, everybody will use it and keep it clean, but the reality was different unfortunately, even in Japan,” said Yanai. “So I requested Wim [Wenders] that I would like to say, ‘Hey everyone, please keep toilets as clean as possible.’ But that message is too simple and straightforward, so I wanted him to tell a story in a more innovative way.
“Originally I was planning to make a short film, but when Wim visited Tokyo, he was so inspired by the toilets themselves that he made the feature film. I think that talented filmmakers always can feel the inspiration about a message from that creative moment and make a very great quality film,” added Yanai.
In the case of the Displacement Film Fund’s pilot version, filmmakers will be making short films. Blanchett highlighted the importance of working in the short film format for the fund’s recipients, especially given the creative freedom that it affords.
“Oftentimes, a feature film can get quite conservative and formulaic,” said Blanchett. “When you start talking about more money, then there’s more pressure on the film to be a certain thing. And often, the three-act structure — the dreaded three-act structure — can squeeze all the creativity, vitality, adventurousness and ground-breaking potential out of a feature, whereas a lot of established filmmakers that I’ve spoken to, they say that a short film is actually a place where they can truly experiment.
“They can take a risk, because an audience member is also thinking, ‘well, you’re not asking a lot of my time necessarily, so I’m prepared to go with you in places I may not otherwise with a feature film,’” added Blanchett.
Tatishvili spoke on the importance on shaping the fund through this pilot version, before transitioning into a long-term legacy fund that will have an open application.
“We all have one clear mission — that this is a long game,” said Tatishvili. “But for that to be achieved, we thought that it would be very important that we acknowledge the pilot and know that this is something which we are using to engage more partners and creating afterwards a legacy plan, hopefully with an open selection and application process.”