Jack Toye: I’m here in the recently refurbished headquarters of the BFI in Stephen Street, London. There’s some nice parquet flooring going on. I’m joined by Mary Davies, the Buyers and Sellers Facilitator at the BFI London Film Festival. I was wondering if you could explain what it is your job entails?

Mary Davies: OK, I can describe something that’s already happened in the festival that involves Buyers and Sellers. I have a modest budget in the festival to invite some sales agents, the people who act on behalf of producers, who are the rights holders in films, and who are trying to sell their films for distribution in various territories, to come to London whilst their films are being screened in the festival, to meet representatives from UK distribution companies.

On Tuesday we had an all-day “speed dating” session called “Meet The Buyer”. So the sales agents are the sellers, and the UK distribution agents are the buyers, and we had just under 300 pre-arranged meetings between about 20 sales agents and just under 25 UK distributors. So that’s buyers meeting sellers.

J: And at that point has a deal already been struck and it’s just a case of putting names to faces of people you’ve only corresponded with via email?

M: Not at all. Most of these people do actually know each other from travelling through festivals and markets around the world. London isn’t, and hasn’t ever been a festival with a market. London is a really comprehensive audience film festival, but what it’s always tried to do is to provide some services to the people who are looking to buy films, and the people who are trying to sell their films. In a festival with a market, you’ll generally see a building with stands and booths and many, many more distributors and sales agents having meetings all the time – rather than our concentrated one-day that’s been arranged.

This event [is] sort of a travelling circus of distributors and sales agents from different countries…

There are other sales agents [who] will be meeting outside of the event that we arranged. Our event was a way between markets that do exist, like Toronto – and again, it isn’t really a market, but there’s a sort of marketplace there in September. A lot of the sales agents have met distributors there. The sales agents will have had new films that were premiered in Toronto. They may have started doing deals there. They may be here catching up with each other, or talking about the new films that the distributors haven’t already seen. Or they may be looking ahead to films that they have that are already in production, that aren’t finished yet, but that the distributors will be able to see –

J: 5 minutes of footage and such?

M: Exactly. Producers will be using iPads and things to show them that. This event that we put on is […] sort of a travelling circus of distributors and sales agents from different countries [who] do business with each other all the time. Within the festival here, and what we’re doing here in Stephen Street, as well as the normal programme that all festivals have of press and industry screenings, we’ve created a showcase of films that don’t have distribution in the UK – which is many of the smaller, more interesting films that you would definitely see at film festivals, but might not otherwise have a chance of seeing in the UK.

J: It’s one of the best reasons for going to film festivals if you’re a film fan, isn’t it? You watch them and you think, will it be a year till I see this at my local cinema?

M: Or will I ever see it? So the buyers and sellers showcase, that we’re screening here at Stephen Street, that’s 50 films from the festival programme that currently don’t have UK distribution, and there’s more than 50 in the festival programme that don’t have UK distribution, but we took a slice across the top of films that had not been to a lot of other festivals in the year. So generally the newest 50. And really it’s giving delegates a chance at the festival to see these films. As well as all the other ways they can see them, because some are also in the press and industry screenings. Some are also available on the video library.

J: That’s Cinando, right?

M: Yes. We want to make it as easy as possible for people who want to see films. Whether they’re a festival programmer, or a journalist, or they’re buying films for their job, to see films in as many different ways as possible. This buyers and sellers’ showcase is attracting people’s attention specifically to films which haven’t been picked up for the UK.

A very large number of extremely good films just will not be picked up for distribution…

J: Would you say LFF has a good ratio of films without distributors that it screens, in comparison to Toronto, Edinburgh, and Cannes?

M: I would certainly say that Edinburgh shows a lot of films that don’t have UK distribution. Toronto shows such an enormous array of films that it’s tough. The number of films that are made and shown at festivals, and the number that are actually released in cinemas is like a funnel or a triangle or a pyramid. Whichever way you look at it it’s much fatter on one side than the other, so in Toronto or in LFF, a very large number of extremely good films, that audiences would be interested in and enjoy, just will not be picked up for distribution. There are not enough cinemas, for a start. It’s pretty difficult to secure exhibition space for the films that are out there that do get picked up anyway. The economic model for showing small films, with the money that you have to spend publicising them, doesn’t really work for just showing them in the cinemas. So some of the other films may find their way to the public on other kinds of viewing platforms, and some of them may not. Some of them may just go around festival circuits and then quietly fade away.

J: Which is really sad when you think about the creative energy involved in producing these films.

M: Absolutely! Yes, but that’s why film archives in various countries, retrospectives that festivals do. They’re all really important because sometimes you find, where festivals have shown first or second time films by new directors, and they haven’t been picked up by distributors in a particular country, and maybe the third of fourth films have, then you find the earlier films are not available for distribution, but people start to become interested in that filmmaker, so then maybe somebody goes back and thinks about issuing those films on DVD.

J: It happened with the STRANGER BY THE LAKE director last year I believe.

M: Yes.

J: So I’ve just seen MARGARITA, WITH A STRAW today. I loved it! And I’d seen the trailer in the run up to the festival, and thought “oh this looks interesting”. It matched my expectations, and as I look in your programme guide I see it’s one of these films without a distributor.

M: Yes, we have it in the buyers and sellers’ programme. Before the festival we comb the programme and our database, and we check with the rights holder with all of the films, to check whether they are currently represented by a sales agent, whether they’re looking for a sales agent. And just to make sure if they’re looking for distribution in the UK. Then we put together a list of both categories and send them to sales agents distributors in the UK, to make it easy for them. They’re doing research all the time. But if a festival can say, “here are the films in the festival programme that don’t have distribution!” it makes it much easier for them. So that’s the kind of buyers and sellers’ service that we have.

J: It seems to me that it’s like a shadow of a marketplace, or a social network model of a marketplace. Where you’re steering people in the right direction, but it’s not quite called that.

M: Yes, as I said festivals that have markets, or events that are markets in themselves, are much more points in the calendar where a lot more people from the industry are assembling in one place to do business. There are a lot of them in the calendar that are really well established already. The sales agents have to go these markets. They are on the road nearly all the time. Some of the sales agents who came to our event on Tuesday, I was emailing them about their arrangements on the weekend, emailing them on Sunday and they were in Korea on Sunday, at the Busan Film Festival, where there’s a market.

We’ve gotta love those Eastern buyers, as they’ve helped prop up the US film industry this summer…

J: So they’re nomadic? Constantly travelling around the world?

M: Exactly. So for example, the one’s who were in Busan, the market there is an important entry point into what we call the Far East. There they can meet Korean buyers, Japanes buyers, Chinese buyers, that they wouldn’t necessarily meet somewhere else. But London as a festival I don’t think could ever become a market like that as there’s just too many in the calendar already.

J: We’ve gotta love those Eastern buyers, as they’ve helped prop up the US film industry this summer, with the admits for blockbusters and the like.

M: Yes, so we are completely aware that the festival and market calendar is very crowded. So what we’re trying to do here, given that it’s a festival with a feast of riches for the public, we’re trying to alongside that, provide a service for the people who are presenting the films, to help bring information about those films to people who might be able to show them in the future, through dis-tribution in the UK or even just making them more easily available to the festival programmers who are here.

J: In comparison with MARGARITA, WITH A STRAW you’ve got a film like SNOWPIERCER which seems to have been stuck in a weird limbo in terms of UK distribution and has been touring film festivals for ages.

M: That one I haven’t heard of. You’ll have to fill me in.

J: I believe it’s been released in America on the VOD and arthouse cinema circuit, but it’s really that kind of film, it’s a big blockbuster film, and there seems to be a bit of a clash with the Weinstein Company and the director as to which cut of the film they want to release. But it hasn’t properly arrived here in the UK. Edinburgh had it, but I really thought we’d have seen it somewhere on the UK release schedule by now.

M: There could be something that we’re not aware of with that. Some jostling with the producers or something like that. Sometimes that can really hold up the release of a film. Sometimes there’s really quite a long delay as well with a film appearing in the US, or even having a premiere in Toronto, or a North American premiere at Sundance, and it can sometimes be up to a year before it shows up here.

J: Which seem peculiar considering how interlinked we our culturally with our entertainment industries? I guess that’s just business.

M: It is, yes. Some of it is still quite mysterious.

J: Where do you feel the London Film Festival fits on the festival circuit? Is it like working the home crowd for you? Do you feel more pressure?

M: In terms of the audience, I think what the festival does is bring an amazing array of different types of films to the audience. It has an uphill job every year, as London is just heaving with things for people to do, to make it possible for the festival to stand out, apart from getting pictures in the Evening Standard of stars on the red carpet, there’s actually a lot else going on. I think the hope would be that people who are interested in film might notice that and then realise that there’s a whole host of other things they can see. From a business point of view, for some of the UK distributors who have already acquired films that are being shown in London, the London screening and a gala premiere in Leicester Square are part of the festival programme’s offering, and are a launch-pad for their film’s release. So there are different strategies that distribution companies have. Lots of different things happening on different levels at once.

J: If you can get your film screened in Odeon Leicester Square, it’s as close to a screen like the Lumiere at Cannes, in terms of screen size and prestige.

M: I guess so, but the difference with Cannes is that those are not public screenings. They’re all very large industry screenings. Obviously with tickets given away to the glitterati of the town.

J: And Justin Bieber on his yacht.

M: Yes, whereas in London, it’s a public-facing festival. With Cannes, it’s the publicity around those films that the public doesn’t see. The public are lined up on the streets and see those images on television, but they’re not seeing those actual films. It’s that publicity that carries over into what the sales agents and distributors are able to do with the films afterwards. Here, in London, I think that those outside the industry, the public, know the festival is open to them. If you are a member of the public who likes films, you can go to any festival, other than Cannes, and perhaps Sundance as it’s too far away, too expensive, and to complicated. Whereas if it’s a public festival with tickets, you can buy tickets for almost anything.

There’s a lot of really amazing filmmaking going on that you only have the chance to see through festivals like this.

So at a festival like this if you find that bigger films in Leicester Square appear to be very full, there’s usually a standby situation, and a lot of those films will be about to open within the next month in London anyway. But there are whole areas of the programme that include the titles we show at the buyers and sellers screenings here, that are not going to be shown in cinemas unless something good happens as a result of what we’re doing here. Those are the areas for people to explore because they may not have a chance to see those films again, and there’s a lot of really amazing filmmaking going on in all parts of the world that you only have the chance to see through festivals like this.

J: And where better to see it than Odeon Leicester Square, than on your smartphone?

M: Yes, not even Odeon Leicester Square, BFI Southbank, 3 screens there and a studio. Year round programming. Yes Odeon Leicester Square represents a certain kind of film, and a certain scale, but I’m saying that can be an entry point for people, but around that, there’s all kinds of things to learn about.

J: I should give a nod to my employer and ask, are you looking forward to Picturehouse Central opening, and offering a swanky 7-screen arthouse venue right in the centre of London?

M: I think it’s going to be amazing, yes!

J: My bosses will be very pleased to know. Thank you so much Mary. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me.

M: You’re welcome, Jack.