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Madeline Robert • Producer

"I succeed when I love the film I produce"

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- Madeline Robert, Emerging Producer 2016 from France, works for Les Films de la caravane. We have met up with her to discuss the profession

Madeline Robert • Producer

Madeline Robert, Emerging Producer 2016 from France, works for Les Films de la caravane. We have met up with her to discuss the profession:

Cineuropa: What qualities should a documentary producer have these days?
Madeline Robert: For the Emerging Producers catalogue we had to tell what the word that best characterized our work as a producer was. I said: "Being there". Being there for the directors I am working with (and also for the rest of the crew). This means to be available and to give them time as necessary for the films. Being there, at the right place – to know my current condition and my role at each stage of the production. Being there, in the right network – to always be proactive in terms of adequate networking, regarding the films you are producing. Being there, in the world – to be curious and aware of what is around us.

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To what extent do you, as a producer, get involved in the creative process?
I am here to take care of the creative process. At each stage, from the very first idea to the promotion of the film, I try to create the best possible working process to preserve the artistic point of view of the author. I am not the director; I don’t want to be in charge of the creative ideas. But I am never too far, only a step away, involved as needed. I am a creative documentary producer, so I naturally get involved in the creative process. It is the soul of my work; but I think that I succeed when I love the film I produce just as I love the first idea of the project when the director comes to me.

What projects do you have under way?
I am only producing documentaries. I have several projects under way, among them: an essay, artistic and philosophic, shot in 16 mm, As Long as We Are Alive by Juliette Achard (in editing); an anthropological film, about a free beach in the south of France, A Place Under the Sun by Julia Pinget (in production); and a feature length film about the adventure of a new documentary television channel starting in a small village in France, Tout, tout de suite by Claire Simon (in development and in coproduction with Petit à Petit Production).

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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 2017 edition is 31 March, 2016. Click here.

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