My message to Nigerian film makers — Mannheim film festival Director
By Fred Iwenjora
Published: December 9, 2006
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Dr Michael Koetz is the very highly film wise and knowledgeable festival Director of the Mannheim-Heidelberg film festival whose 55th edition was concluded recently. Dr Koetz here speaks on the activities of the nine days fiesta which attracted several film makers and of course movie lovers to the serene cities of Mannheim and Heidelberg in the state of Baden Wurttemberg.Aside from these, Koetz explains the reason the festival is called, the festival of new comers aside from wishing that he sees more of the true but quality African films in subsequent festivals.

Your festival prides itself as the festival of new comers, how do you define newcomers?
A new comer is not neccessarily some one who is presenting their first films but someone who has not yet made a name for themselves internationally. They may already be known in their own country but not abroad. Some one who has not yet appeared at any big festival, Cannes, Venice or at the Berlinale for instance. Some one who is waiting to be discovered

Assess Mannheim Heidelberg with other festivals across the world?
There are at least over 1000 festivals across the world by my own assessment if not more. But there are hardly any festivals which specialise in new comers like we do. We also specialise in discovering young directors and new up and coming stars and talents. Other film festivals mix new comers with already known. We have a long tradition here at Mannheim of being a forum for the discovering of new comers.

So how has it been for the past nine days?
Well, I think it has been a very good festival. We had lots of spectators into the cinemas because they are films of unknown directors. As you know, it is a new comer festival so normal spectators come watching these films. It is an unusual audience. It took us several years to build it up. We have found out that the audience have grown with the festival and become older. We have a lot of the typical theatre goers, well educated people, teachers, dentists, business people, specialists, students and all other professionals. All these people appreciate these films. It is a kind of adventure thing they do.

It is very wonderful, we love to call it a professional festival depending on the over thousands of guests, the buyers, the press people, the artistes, all make the professional meaning to us. That is why we have these premieres where German, European and other international productions are seen by film lovers. But we play a different beam for new comers. That is why we are different from other festivals in Germany and Italy for example who try to show films that have either been shown at Cannes or Venice and other big places and so use their platforms as PR launching pad. We don’t do this. Not at all. We don’t make any compromises at all.

Now Mannheim festival seems to have come of age, could you trace its origins?
Ooh, 55 years is such a long time. It was only seven years after the world war that the festival started. It became a festival to rekindle people’s interest in living again after the devastation of Mannheim by US and allied forces. They wanted to get rid of Nazi Germany. Mannheim went under but Heidelberg was lucky may be because of the fact that the US wanted to set up a base there. Now Heidelberg is about 1000 years while Mannheim is about 400 years. Anyway they decided to organise a film festival. In those good old days, there were basically two kinds of films shown, the propaganda films and films about the animals that had intelligence. I mean documentaries, on wild life. These changed during the 60s to festival for other adult movies. It was discovered world wide that films was business and an instrument of cultural re- orientation. So the festival became a very big and bold forum for these new art house films.

At what point did you take charge because about 55 years ago you must have been a kid?
It was about fifteen years ago that we decided to take charge of the festival. I took it over when it was a bit run down. In the early 80s and 90s, several other festival sprang up in Germany and the Mannheim Heidelberg seemed challenged. If you do a festival, you have to change every two or three years and try to inject new ideas other wise others will get better than you are. So I had to build it up to the way it is now.

It was thirteen years ago that we involved the city of Heidelberg into the activities and it became a two city festival. Of course the budget increased. Again the Mannheim Meetings began about ten years ago so that producers and international co- productions will be discussed. This has become one of the very important segments of the festival attracting several visitors from across the world who want to discuss distributorship deals, production and co- production deals and funding etc.

Funding, challenges, obstacles et al?
Funding is the main but we get funding from tax payers money. Actually we get 80% tax money and 20% from tickets into the cinemas. I appreciate this a lot because it is not like this in the United States and other places where you have to depend on private sponsors. Our funds for the festival comes from the city of Mannheim and the city of Heidelberg and more funds come from the cultural area of Germany called Baden Wurttemberg. If you must know, Germany is divided into thirteen cultural areas which you could call states or countries. For instance, the Bavarians will not accept that Berlin is their capital. That may have been why Hitler was very successful because he promised them unification. But that is another story. However we still get funds from the European Union in Bruxelles, Belgium. This helps the European producers to get good projects from other parts of the world. It is hard to convince them for the funds but it is my work to do this convincing for the donors to give us more funds. I do this every year or two years interval. It is a regular job.

The festival Team
We have about seven people working permanently at the festival. Then a lot others come to work for some months before the festival starts while others work for weeks. Several of those who work for the festival are not from this city. Some come from Munich, Cologne, Berlin etc but that is not a problem at all because we all work well and hard to give the world one of its very great film festivals.

Screening system
Most of the films we screen are on celluloid but we show them on either DVD or VCD and I am sure this method will continue and I don’t care about this. I believe that the quality of a good movie is not in the technical material used in its production. A good film is a good film. We accept films made digitally. May be the producers then transfer to celluloid. But this is a bit expensive. But if one wants to show these movies in cinema or go to several festivals, then it makes sense to transfer them into celluloid. As you know, 99% of cinemas in Germany employ the celluloid system.

Now have you heard of Nollywood, that is the Nigeria’s movies industry?
Yes I have heard but I do not really know much about that industry. It is difficult. I have heard about the fact that movies are made into videos. I am really interested in this, really. We would be interested in showing these movies especially those that of good quality. I am sorry to say Africa is a place where getting correct information is hard. Come to think of it, it is not far from Europe, yet information is hard to get from there. South Africa is easy even though most people do not consider it as Africa. I have been there and see it as different.

If you get to Cape Town, you have a feeling you are in the South of London. I have been to Ouagadogo for the FESPACO film festival some years ago. I also note this rivalry between the English and the French African countries. Africans have to get rid of this issue. It is too much old system of giving money for the promotion of culture and subtly having a strong hold on the countries. I don’t like this. Let me say I am looking for very good independent films from Africa and from Nigeria as a matter of fact. It would be great to have them screened at Mannheim.

Any message for Nigerian Film makers?
My message is that if you have any personal film which is different and you don’t copy any one from the west, Mannheim Heidelberg international film festival is waiting for you. We have appointed scouts to help us out. Western cinema is just a very stupid form of cinema. People are much more intelligent. Film makers should begin to take the people serious. You have to take the audience serious while taking your self serious so you could have a very happy story with a happy ending. But it must have the African feel which is unique in itself. I studied African cinema before but now I miss the old African way of story telling and want to see them again but this time in a new and creative way. It was different but later seemed to have disappeared . I don’t know why. You , I mean Africans have to develop it. Consider Mannheim Heidelberg as your partners in progress.

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