How To Let Cinema Change Your Life, Pt 2

The conversation with Hussain Currimbhoy, the Artistic Director Of HotDocs Film Festival continues!

Last week, Hussain and I dug in to how we both grew committed to a life in cinema, where inspiration bloomed for each of us, and how the whole of it continues to evolve — and off we go in that direction from there today, with Hussain taking the lead this time.

Hussain (l) with with our friend Andrea Romeo of iWonder pictures — the winner of the #1 house party host at Sundance 2024.

Hussain : How have you seen the festival landscape evolve over the years? 

Ted: It depends on what years you are talking about. Hal Hartley’s The Unbelievable Truth played festivals in 1989 I believe. In those days, films arrived without. Without sales agents, without publicists, without lawyers, without knowing what they needed to use the festival to launch. But it still worked. And films could pop out of numerous festivals.But there weren’t so many.  Now filmmakers HAVE TO arrive prepared generally, with an army intact. And there’s a festival hierarchy. So many everywhere and it matters a great deal where you play and when you play. Buyers evaluate not the movie, but its trajectory. We’ve allowed it to become a campaign and everything needs a reset. I think there is a tremendous amount of potential in the festival set up to better prepare filmmakers for all that can come. We are still in a rudimentary mindset where artists focus almost exclusively on getting the work done. We need to not only strategize the launch but also the maintenance, How do you prepare to travel your film for over a year? It’s like a rock band who cut an album; we have to take our work on the road. But we can’t believe magic happens (even if occasionally it does!). We have to use the festival tours to build the alliances that get our work and others to resonate.

Ted: Let me ask you a question in a similar vein. What do filmmakers most misunderstand about festivals? 

Hussain: Filmmakers, for the most part, know how to hustle and I love em for it. I love festivals, especially regional festivals because they feel so algorithm-less. But I also value festivals with a market attached. For me a film festival is best when it helps to position your film in the best way for a potential release,  and helps you get your next film made. Keep that in mind when entering film festivals. It is always great for the filmmaker when a festival has our friends from the industry attending. And even better when the festival helps you connect with buyers, especially if you are an emerging filmmaker. 

Ted: Hell, yeah!

Hussain: I would say what filmmakers need to focus on is that once your film is selected to a festival, no matter how big or small the fest is, you have to gather a good marketing strategy and get on the ground and support your screening. Posters, cool or unique promotional materials, a good website, help with social media, these are the elemental pieces of promoting your film at a festival that filmmakers need to keep some funds in reserve for when they are planning their release. Getting your team together to help with that in a systematic way is crucial. Having a publicist is an expense but it is more often than not a great way to secure coverage and get the themes (and the filmmaker themselves) in the spotlight during a festival. 

Ted: Good advice!

Hussain: Sundance has been such fun, I have been seeing some brilliant films. Some of the best in a long time. Seeing filmmakers try to manage the press and all the attention is inspiring, but I also feel for them! Can you give me an example of a time when you saw a filmmaker make the most out of their festival experience? 

Ted: I think it is all changing, because the nature of film releases are changing, but to maximize the festival experience it is still the same process. You have to know your goals. Unfortunately, I suspect most don’t dig in deep enough into the assessment of the goals, particularly now that many filmmakers arrive at festivals with a busload of various advisors and supporters. Most filmmakers are already thinking about their next movie by the time they’ve finished this one. I think we need to give our films far more support than we used to now,if we want them to both break through and then have a sustainable life and enter the conversation. I think we all need to accept that each film needs at least a year of support  after it’s debut. And you need to plan those in about four month increments. So when you premiere you should know where you follow it. It’s so hard to actually be a discovery now. But it is not as if you can plan everything, but you can to some degree engineer serendipity. Thinking of your current film and not the next one requires a focus on building supporters, and this is across all sectors of the industry and community. I think the most important part of this though is fellow filmmakers. Connecting and making friends – people you can trust – is perhaps the biggest win one can have at a festival, but they are rarely structured for that any more. It used to be one of the real joys of a festival was bonding with the other filmmakers, and I think we’ve lost that to a degree. 

Ted: How would you answer that question, Hussain?

Hussain: When you get a festival invitation it's pretty exciting (some films that I worked on have been doing festivals recently and its been so much fun to be on the other side) but it is totally fine to ask to get a call with the festival and understand the resources and mechanisms they have to help you in the lead up to the festival, and most importantly how do they see you tapping into the local audiences that will connect with the story of your film. 

Remember to make the screening something that audiences will want to come out for: bring a subject from your film if you can, bring your DP or editor, offer some insight into your process for an audience because you can not get that on Netflix.

It also helps your chances of an audience prize. Do not forget the power of the audience prize. Even getting into the top 20 of an audience prize is a valuable flex that you can use in your promotion of the film. 

Lastly: its all about the follow up. When you meet with buyers/distributors, or make friends at a festival, keep in touch. It is a hard market out there, but just  know that this will pass and industry peeps will remember you when the tide turns. 

Ted: These are such good points. Thank you. Filmmakers need a checklist. There’s so much that  they are juggling, and racing towards. I am always amazed that both festivals and filmmakers keep it together. I sometimes think it like a giant orchestra, only they never were told what music to play. They get a date and a location, and they are up on the stage and everyone is in the audience, and they just have to jam and make something beautiful, and somehow, by some miracle, they make something beautiful — each and every time.

Ted: If you were building a festival from scratch today what would be some of the considerations to consider? 

Hussain: Funny you ask because I did start the Gåsbäck Festival in Helsingborg, Sweden last year and it was a hoot. The local cinema was not interested in supporting us. So we got a small grant from the government that was mostly spent on the best projector I could find from a company in Germany. They drove  it to Sweden and did our set up. Also, we spent big on sound. We scheduled for the last weekend in March, not as cold, people are ready for the spring and their mindset is more open. Just a 3 day event, super lo fi apart from the tech. I found an abandoned industrial space on the outskirts of the city, called the landlord and pleaded for months to have it. We approached the local church that ran a second hand store and borrowed their furniture, sofas, chairs, lamps, carpets. If people wanna be comfy like they are at home on watching netflix, well, here you go! Then I focussed on securing some of the hitters from Sundance and Cannes: we screened The Mountain, it won directors fortnight in 2022 and I loved it but it was not released in Sweden so we played it. I budgeted for screening fees / DCP fees to ensure we had a program of smart independent films that have cache, but also were unique in form. I built the program around surprising films. Then I put together a climate change strand dedicated to documentary on a Sunday afternoon with in-depth Q&As. People loved it. But the key was to have a short film program that included local, new, directors. That is what attracted local press and audience. It was eclectic and fun and there was no money in it but there was nothing like it in the city so it attracted so many cool people. Internationals, students, artists, the local communist party, it was wild. If you are doing a festival ensure you cover the breadth of your community’s demographic, have a message, be humble, but ensure it is a good quality show. Now we are looking for a sponsor for 2024, wish me luck. 

Ted: Is it festivals' responsibility to address social issues? If so, how to rank priorities? What can a festival actually do to make the world a better place?

Hussain: A good festival programs their slate by following the work. In a documentary festival context we have to be responsive and open minded to the films that come in. Many docs dedicate their stories to major social issues, we can not escape that. Many of these social  issues filmmakers explore  resonate with communities internationally. Yet they are not on the pages of any newspapers or discussed in media outlets. That is what makes  these films vital and urgent: they open doors in the minds of our audiences to the reality of greater society around us. 

Docs offer a context, and that is sorely missing in much of our public discourse. I do not rank priorities. In a festival setting, we celebrate excellent filmmaking, deep journalism, courage and integrity. We give films that exemplify those ideals a huge platform to have their voices heard, but also for industry to pick up these vital stories and carry on the sling shot into the cultural ecosystem.

Festivals have only expanded their relevance recently as a place where people can meet eye to eye and share a point of view. I have loved some of the films I have seen recently, even some coming out of the mainstream system, but sometimes I do scratch my head at some of the films that get greenlit and think that Hollywood is losing touch with reality. They elevate emerging filmmakers from all over the world and fight for real representation. 

As for making the world a better place, gosh, that is a big debate. I see many films that move hearts and minds with audiences every month when I attend a festival. We know first hand that festivals and the stories we elevate matter to our perceptions and help us grapple with social paradoxes as a community. But I resort to my favorite quote by Tupac Shakur to answer your question: “I know my music might not change the world but it might change the mind of the person that will change the world.”

Ted: Yeah, that’s really the realistic goal right? Just one. We only need that one.

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Hussain Currimbhoy is a film producer, director and film curator with works spanning documentary and fiction film since 2002.  In November 2023, Hussain was appointed Artistic Director of HotDocs Documentary Film Festival in Toronto, Canada.

Through Hussain’s film company, Master Mechanic Films, Hussain was executive producer for feature documentaries such as And, Towards Happy Alleys (Berlinale/CPH DOX),  Praying For Armageddon (CPH DOX), Tomorrow’s Freedom (Sheffield Docfest) and The Beloved (Melbourne International Film Festival).  As a filmmaker, Hussain shared the Breakthrough Prize to direct and produce two short films about groundbreaking scientists. A passion for science related storytelling led Hussain to produce The Faraway Nearby, a feauture documentary about famed scientist, Joesph Weber (Launching in Q1 2024).

Hussain has worked with the Chicago Media Project (CMP) as their director of investment and global strategy, bringing the best of independant documentary films  to life through granting and investment.  Hussain also led CMP’s Shifting Voices Film Fund, a mentorship program designed to elevate and support feature documentary works by marginalized filmmakers.

In 2021 Hussain received support from Boost for research in AI and screenwriting.   The city of Helsingborg also collaborated with Hussain to initiave a program dedicated to mentoring young filmmakers from marginalised backgrounds to produce their first short films. Hussain is also a mentor for the 2023 Cuban Migrant Artists Resilience Fellowship and for Screen Australia.

An extensive track record as a film programmer and curator, Hussain has worked for film and industry events around the world including Sundance Film Festival, Sheffield Doc/Fest, Melbourne Int. Film Festival, Nordisk Panorama, Doc 10, Red Sea Int. Film Festival and FoodxFilm Festival. In March, 2023 Hussain created and launched the Gaseback Film Festival, an independant film event in Helsingborg, Sweden that is dedicated to showcasing international cinema, regional short films and masterclasses with filmmakers.