Creative Europe and Me
or “Being
inside when you really want to be outside” or “Me, a failure”.
Once I was someone else. I was someone who thought he
would be a good “expert evaluator” for Creative Europe (or MEDIA as it was
called). And if nothing else, I thought I would learn something for our own
future applications ... and even earn a buck while doing that. So, I applied on
the call and signed up to be part of the “expert evaluator” team in the field
of international applications for European support for documentaries, both
single projects and slate funding.
Me then (Photo: J.E.Stolt, ca. 1968) |
I filled out the forms with my education, film
production experience and knowledge of the international documentary field –
and forgot all about it. A few years later, I was suddenly approached by mail
and first it looked like a scam or a phony mail. But no, they really wanted me
to assess incoming applications and had accepted me as an “expert”.
They probably also should introduce a psychological
test before they enroll people because as it turned out … no, I’m getting ahead
of myself. Anyway, the first time I was asked to assess a bunch of applications
from all over Europe I had to follow the rules and decline because I had turned
in an application myself. The year after, however, I got six different
production companies’ applications for slate funding. Reading about the
projects themselves was interesting enough – but getting to the strategic plans
and distribution and marketing feasibility, I got more and more weary from
reading how the producers would do this and that, approach him and her at this
and that festival and how different sales agents and commissioning editors had
already expressed their interest.
Well, I thought, I have written something like this
myself in our own applications but the experience of reading so much of it in
various (and limited) variations was just a bit tiresome. Of course, I knew why
they did it: The need the goddamn money to make their films and keep their
companies alive. So, I kept reading of course.
I can’t really disclose how the exact evaluation
procedure is (I think I signed something electronically to that effect at some
point) but let me tell you: the reading was the easy part because the way I
should evaluate and assess the application by pointing out strengths and
weaknesses and allot points and percentages to each field really had the sweat
dripping from my forehead. My opinions and reports were also evaluated by an
entity somewhere in Strasbourg or wherever and it was weighed against another
expert’s evaluation and later a final decision was made and send to the
applicants. (Of course, we experts are completely anonymous and must come
forward to our “employers” if we encountered any conflicts of interests.)
At the next call the year after, I again had to
decline because of an application of my own, but in 2017 I found myself sitting
with a bunch of applications from anywhere from Greece to Ireland. Again, I
found it hilarious to read about the projects themselves - the problem arose
when I had to evaluate the more practical “producer” issues.
Suddenly, I began to feel something which I could recognize
from the previous year: a feeling I can only describe as a form of
claustrophobia. I suddenly couldn’t be in that “room” and felt cramped and constrained in my way of thinking. I admit that I over the
last years have seen myself more and more as an artist and less and less of a film producer and the whole set of regulations provided
by the institution of Creative Europe made me literally feel physically bad. I
simply couldn’t wrap my head around that part and I got sort of scared. My
heart was pounding and my stomach was upset and I just couldn’t understand it. In fact, a regular phobic feeling.
I said to myself: “Mikkel, of course you can do this;
you are a scholar after all and you’ve run a production company for more than
twenty years. Pull yourself together … and besides: you need the money”.
But in the end, I simply had to throw in the towel and
tell the office in Strasbourg or wherever that:
“I can surely assess a film project’s
artistic value but I kept staring at all the criteria regarding strategy,
distribution and marketing and I felt that I just didn’t know what to do with
them. Many of the terms have become totally alien to me.”
I also wrote other things and how sorry I was and so
on and they did seem a bit annoyed but were otherwise cool about it. Of course,
I felt terribly bad for not being able to fulfill such a relatively simple task
but I have seldom been more comforted in my professional life than when they
relieved me of my duties.
If nothing else, this whole endeavor showed me who I once
was – and who I am now.
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