THE GRIERSON HEIST
I think I mentioned in one of my last emails that Bank Job was nominated (ie in the last 4 films) for the Grierson Award under the bracket for most entertaining documentary..
Well on Weds 10 Nov – yes – almost 2 weeks ago now as you read this, we went to the Royal Festival hall, hoping very much to scoop what is one of the most coveted awards in British documentary filmmaking.
Grierson was a pioneering champion of the documentary. He was born in Scotland in 1898 and is seen as the “father” of the documentary – and is famous for the phrase “the creative treatment of actuality”.
Many novice documentary filmmakers – and indeed storytellers, believe that documentaries are just a series of events, but what they don’t necessarily understand is that no story, be it fictional or real – if it’s to grasp the attention and the heart of its audience, consists of one event following the next.
So we’re cramped into our seats, high above the stage of the Royal Festival Hall. There’s a little gaggle of us, Christopher Hird our producer and long-time collaborator since the old days at Channel 4. There’s Christophe Tweedie, my old friend from university and cinematographer who accompanied me to New York in the early days of Bank Job (not to mention up to Cop 26 earlier this month)– back from his trip sailing right the way around the world.
Then there’s Alice our amazing and patient editor who when we eventually finished cutting the film gave us an amazing duo of knitted characters who now sit proudly on the over-cramped bookshelf above our bed! Like a talisman and taliswoman of Bank Job and Power.. (see below, they were on an outing to my desk)
Anyway, back to the awards... After what seems like four hours of other peoples' awards, the presenter announces that it’s time for our category and he welcomes onstage someone or other from Youtube to present the award. Our stomachs lurch – as they press the button to launch the clips from the four nominated documentaries..
Watch the moment unfold in this video!
So if you watched the short clip, you’ll see and hear that although Bank Job clearly reached the audience, we didn’t end up with the trophy.
Although this is disappointing to us, and our hearts sink temporarily, we’re moved a little later when one of the commissioning editors we worked with on our first film Vodka Empire is being honoured with an award from the Grierson Trustees – and being given the award by none other than Jess Search, Chief Exec of Doc Society, one of the most amazing and dedicated documentary film organisations in the world, and a real positive force in British documentary.
I just want to quote some of the things which Jess and Tabitha share, as they struck both me and Hilary as incredibly prescient and in the spirit of Grierson.
Jess takes the mic – and she paints a picture of Tabitha before bestowing the award.
“People realise they need Tabitha, and they need her because she is a believer;
She believes that artists are leaders;
She believes that creativity liberates!
When Tabitha speaks, she’s on a video link. And despite the pixels being a little stretched on such a big screen, the message she has to share really important.
Through all the years of making films and art, through the highs and lows, there’s something that guides us and that we all have in common with each other.
Tabitha says: “So in these times when nothing can be taken for granted, our health, our democracy, our justice systems, our capacity not to make ourselves extinct, I want to continue to encourage us all to continue to fight for what we believe in.
I believe this form, the documentary, contains a moral imagination, and a tender gaze that has the capacity for societal transformation.
It is a meaning-making machine, powered by curiosity, empathy and subjective expression.
It’s a trouble-making machine, powered by rightful indignation, a nose for injustice, and what Martha Graham called “The blessed unrest of its creators”
And it is a time machine, capable of retelling a story from the past to inform the present and illuminate an imagined future.
But it can only do these things if we take care of it. So let’s resist having our heads completely turned by the fickle mistress of the marketplace and let’s commit to expanding the language of the documentary to meet this moment with honesty, boldness and imagination”
