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Rikke Tambo Andersen • Producer

"For a producer, there is no obvious road to take"

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- We interviewed Bullitt Film's Rikke Tambo Andersen, Denmark's participant in the 2017 Emerging Producers programme

Rikke Tambo Andersen • Producer

We interviewed Bullitt Film's Rikke Tambo Andersen, Denmark's participant in the 2017 Emerging Producers programme.

What qualities should a documentary producer have these days?
Rikke Tambo Andersen: I really can’t say what qualities a documentary producer should have. I know that one has to face many challenges and handle everything from development, through financing, to distribution and marketing. A producer has to be very adaptable, every project is different, and therefore requires a different approach. I know that the life of a documentary producer is absolutely wonderful and privileged but at the same time it can also be extremely tough and challenging.

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There is no obvious road to take in any of the stages, so I think it first of all requires passion and persistency, then perhaps a bit of naïve enthusiastic optimism. Lastly, I think you need to have a diplomatic talent, the courage to dream and, at the same time, to be a bit reckless.  

To what extent do you, as a producer, get involved in the creative process?
I love to be involved creatively, and to me it’s very important to have a creative attachment to the project, to a certain extent. But the director is always the creative drive – and I work with directors I trust 100%, and that inspire me. But I need to feel personally motivated in order to put in – in some cases - years of hard work. The creative process and the amount of creativity I put in the project differs from project to project. In some instances, I am involved in the development of the project with the director right from the start, in others I’m introduced to projects and directors that I simply have to work with.

What projects do you have underway?
Right now I have 3 projects in different stages on the way; Resort (working title), is in development. Resort is an anthropological, dreamy documentary series about various forms of escapism, staged in a tourist paradise. Through a series of cinematic tableaux and intimate documentary portraits, the project examines the shape of human forfeiture, euphoria and melancholy in a vacation paradise. Director Mette Carla Toft Albrechtsen has just finished another beautiful project that also takes an episodic and poetic approach, called Venus that has been selected for IDFA.

The second project is A Colombian Family, also in development. It is a documentary about a family with a proud history of political struggle that tries to find its way through the new post-war reality in Colombia. But after a lifetime in conflict, they struggle to agree what peace should look like. Director Tanja Wol Sørensen has a background as a visual anthropologist. She’s done fieldwork in Colombia, England and Spain among persecuted and minority groups. She focuses on topics such as family separation, and on interpersonal as well as political conflicts.

The 3rd project, The Night We Fell [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
 is a portrait of a love relationship. It’s about two people who loved each other so much, and about what happens when one of the two suddenly dies, leaving the other behind, grieving. Cille Hannibal, the director, has a background from the National Danish Film School, where she graduated in 2014 with the film 2,7.

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Emerging Producers is a promotional and educational project, which brings together talented European documentary film producers. The programme is organised and curated by the Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival.

Deadline for applications to the Emerging Producers 2018 edition is 31 March, 2017. Click here.

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