Latest / Live Free Ride Free with Rupert Isaacson / EP 11: Diana Ellbaum - Beluga Tree Production

Transcript

EP 11: Diana Ellbaum - Beluga Tree Production · Live Free Ride Free with Rupert Isaacson

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  Rupert Isaacson: Welcome to Live Free Ride Free, where we talk to people who
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  have lived self-actualized lives on their own terms, and find out how they
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  got there, what they do, how we can get there, what we can learn from them.
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  How to live our best lives, find our own definition of success,
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  and most importantly, find joy.
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  I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson.
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  New York Times bestselling author of the Horse Boy.
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  Founder of New Trails Learning Systems and long ride home.com.
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  You can find details of all our programs and shows on Rupert isaacson.com.
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  Welcome back to Live Free, Ride Free, where we talk to people who are living
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  and have lived and still are living and will keep living self actualized lives.
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  What does that mean?
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  Lives where they are living.
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  on their own terms, through their own interests, through their
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  imaginations what we would really call the definition of success.
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  It has nothing to do with money.
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  It has nothing to do with fame.
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  Some of the people that we are interviewing are public figures.
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  Some of them are people you've never heard of.
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  Some of them are people who are at home looking after elderly parents.
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  Some of them are people who are changing the world very publicly in different ways.
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  It doesn't matter how you do it.
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  What matters is, are you living on your own terms, or do you want to?
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  And of course, would you like to be mentored because This is always helpful.
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  So I've got a great mentor on this week.
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  This is Diana Elbaum.
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  She's amazing.
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  She's an independent film producer.
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  She's based in Belgium, but she works all over the world.
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  She's done all sorts of things.
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  And those of you who've always thought, Oh yeah, I'd quite like to make a
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  movie, you know, I'd quite like to be a independent, you know, film.
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  person.
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  I can make a documentary.
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  Well, she's the person who has sort of done that and has done that in a
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  very quiet but very effective way.
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  She wouldn't be, most producers are people you haven't heard of.
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  You hear about directors, you hear about actors, but you don't
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  hear about producers, and you don't hear about screenwriters.
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  But they are the people who actually get films done and made.
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  And the reason why you don't hear about them is because that's how they like it.
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  They want to be the people behind the scenes.
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  They want to be what you call in French, the Eminence Grise, which was the, the
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  name for the Cardinal Richelieu, who was the power behind the throne of Louis XIII.
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  They want the director and the actors to be out front.
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  Meanwhile, they, they are always not only.
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  Brewing up the witch's potion of the film that you're seeing now, but they're
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  usually working on about 10 different ones and They often are working on things
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  that you don't even know that they were working on Music producers are like this
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  too So if you really read the sleeve notes of an album, you might say oh my gosh
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  This person pops up here and here and here and here and here across all these
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  different genres It's a little bit the same and Diana is one of these people.
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  So We're going to ask her how it's done.
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  We're going to ask her how she got there, but more than that, we're going
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  to ask her why this work is, is so fulfilling and what can we learn from it?
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  So Diana, thank you so much for coming on.
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  Who are you?
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  Diana Elbaum: Oh, thanks Rupert.
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  I don't know if I can live up to what you just said.
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  So yeah, I'm Diana.
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  I'm based in Belgium, born in Belgium, lived
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  in the U.
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  S.
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  for a long time, lived in the Middle East for a long time.
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  I think from the get go I'm a person who's always been really
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  fascinated by storytelling.
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  And I can remember for a long, long time when I was a teenage and I was totally
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  a bookworm and by the chance, by the chance of meeting a great teacher in
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  high school, she opened up the door to an amazing, um, storytelling world.
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  Starting with, believe it or not, Dutch literature, and then moving on
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  to American literature with the like of Faulkner, who then led me on to the magic
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  realism of South American literature.
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  And I think it opened in me as a teenager, a vision of a world so
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  much bigger than I thought it was.
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  And also it also open capacity of touch me emotionally, I was quite lonely.
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  I was a very not reserved because I'm not, but I was a loner and
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  I'm still am, but those spaces.
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  That a book allows you and then after that, of course, that films allows you for
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  me, I think it was always a trigger into what's so amazing about the connection
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  we have with stories and how much it's needed for connecting for a stranger
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  in an airport, in a train a friend.
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  Or and I think that was my connection.
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  And the first start and who I am really started, I mean, there is a lot of other
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  things about me, but I think in regarding what I am today, I think as far as I
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  can remember where those this curiosity, it triggered in me into the others.
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  So literature was really my the door that opened my life.
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  And and then I went on to study literature, South American
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  literature, more precisely.
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  And then of course, when I came out of school was the
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  question, so what do I do now?
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  And then that's yet another story, but which I will tell, but I think
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  it also triggers something even deeper than just reach out to emotion
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  and the capacity to travel within.
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  Somebody's writing.
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  It was also a huge curiosity.
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  I didn't have.
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  I didn't know I have.
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  I had.
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  I still have.
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  So that's the second element about me.
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  I'm extremely curious and very versatile.
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  I'm absolutely not one street of I like only this or that.
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  Every, everything that I read or see or people that I meet immediately
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  trigger in me zillion of questions.
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  It's quite unbearable, actually, but that's the way it is.
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  So, and then, uh, when I was thinking about what I was going to do to to make
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  money after university, It just so happened that the advantage of going
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  into South American literature is that I came out at 24 from university
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  with a, a baggage in languages.
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  You know, Spanish, and of course my native language is French.
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  I studied in the U.
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  S., so English was an asset.
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  And I also speak from home.
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  I speak Hebrew and there were other languages spoken around me.
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  And I think the capacity of speaking those languages is also something
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  that really very, very early on told me that there was no border.
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  So I could go wherever I wanted.
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  So after leaving New York, I went to Israel and of course, there's very little
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  work in South American literature in Israel, but then by the chance encounter
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  of some friends in the bar, somebody told me, Oh, you speak all those languages.
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  You know, there's this film that's coming and, you know, they need
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  kind of people who speak languages, French production, and they are
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  looking for a production assistant.
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  I had no idea what film was.
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  I had no idea what it was all about, but I knew there was a
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  check at the end of the day.
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  So, you know, it's better than a lot of other jobs.
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  So I went and I discovered a world that I literally fell in love with, which is
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  the set and the set had this energy of a whole unit working towards a vision.
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  I don't have exactly the same feeling about it today, but at the time was
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  this collective effort to create something and something that is not
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  what I read because it became a film.
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  And I found that energy totally incredible.
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  And from there on, I was hooked.
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  So I've been hooked now for more years than I can count.
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  And I slowly started to move into, bigger production because that was an
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  era in Israel between around the end of the Lebanese war in the eighties,
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  where the weirdly the Lloyd insurance was insurance production coming to
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  Israel, which is stopped afterwards.
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  But I mean, all the American production came.
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  So back to back, I did like 10 production and of course there were crews coming
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  from all over the world coming to shoot, whether they were the stuntmen, horse
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  stuntmen from Spain or the American actors or French crews or whatever.
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  Name it.
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  And the languages was always what allowed me to keep on working in the job.
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  I don't think I was really good, but at least I spoke languages
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  that a lot of people didn't.
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  So it really triggered more work for me and more curiosity about what is it to.
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  Put a film together, but of course at that time was only I was, you
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  know, a little mouse on the set.
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  So, you know, I started from being the the person that was distributing water
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  because that was something that we needed to do for the insurance and make sure
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  that people wouldn't go dehydrated.
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  But that allowed me to go from department to department and actually speak with the
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  people and learn what they were doing.
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  I was never interested in anything else in production.
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  I have to say though.
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  You know, the art was interesting.
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  Wardrobe was interesting.
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  The DP camera, all the camera was interesting.
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  It feels like so much out of my reach.
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  And and then arrived 88.
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  And 88 was the first Intifada in Israel.
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  There was no more work.
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  The situation politically was unbearable for me.
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  And I had just
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  Rupert Isaacson: What arrived in Israel in 88?
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  Because a lot of listeners will not know.
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  Tell us about it.
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  In
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  Diana Elbaum: Israel in 88.
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  It started the first uprising of the Palestinian against the
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  Israeli authorities and the occupation and everything shut down.
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  It was almost war zone, though it wasn't really, but for the insurance, it was
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  enough not to insure any more films, hence the it was December, I think November
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  or December 88, everything shut down.
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  And so I had no more work.
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  But besides having no more work, I think I've always been linked politically
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  and on a very wide, um, when I say politically on a very wide sense of it.
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  One of the reasons why I left the U.
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  S.
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  I could have stayed after my study was because it was Grenada stories, it was
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  Regan, there was Regan then president, and those, and, and you know, they were...
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  so many social injustices that I can't stand.
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  And I think that's probably another factor of the films that I've
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  done afterwards as a producer.
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  The notion of the I know it sounds maybe a little tacky, the notion of injustice.
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  Maybe there's a way to repair it if I can.
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  Which, you know, on a very small scale, but those, those, you know, when you're
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  in those formative years of your 20 and you try to define who you are, I know
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  that those were the triggers also for me to move from one place to the other.
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  So I moved from the US, yes, because I could, again, as I
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  said, I could have stayed, but the political situation was so awful.
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  And also living in New York at the time where the homeless were just increasingly
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  how shall I say that?
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  I mean, if we really were to go back, I'm sorry, I'm going to
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  backtrack a little bit on that.
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  When I lived in the US, I lived in New York, the time Reagan
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  arrived, he closed all the asylums.
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  And so a lot of, a lot of people found themselves in the streets.
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  And it was at the same time, the crazy years of the Wolf of Wall
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  Street and the start of Wall Street, but at the same time, really on
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  the street, it was, it was awful.
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  It was a total despair.
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  It was unbearable because also I felt a lack of.
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  knowing what to do about it.
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  So for those years I left.
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  I didn't want, I wasn't American.
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  I couldn't do anything more than that.
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  So I left and then I arrived in Israel and then in 88 started in Tefada,
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  there's nothing I could do about it.
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  And I decided to leave.
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  So it wasn't only because I had no more work.
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  Because at the end of the day, you can always find work.
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  But it was some, this, this situation was just, I couldn't figure out
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  what to do within that realm.
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  I couldn't, I just couldn't, I didn't know.
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  So I, and I wasn't active.
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  I wasn't an active.
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  Member of any kind of party.
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  I'm still not.
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  But the right and wrong I had decided I couldn't live by is
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  really what dictated my leaving.
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  And my idea was then to go back, then it was not Reagan
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  anymore, to go back to the U.
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  S., but then I stopped in Belgium to say hi to my friends.
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  I had left since high school and I got stuck here.
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  And actually it's an okay place because, yeah, you don't have to
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  take any political stand here.
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  It's a weird place, Belgium.
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  It's an amazing place for those who don't know, but I was I was immediately
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  hired because then at that time, just pure sheer luck in 88, 89 started
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  advertising on television here.
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  There wasn't that before there was massive work and then
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  nobody had work in the industry.
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  It was very tiny, tiny industry or a few films a year and that's it.
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  And here I arrive and I have all those connection and I'm
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  like, yeah, I've done this.
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  And I've, you know, kind of also being very not humble about what I had done,
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  but also then everybody considered me as like, oh, she knows how to do it.
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  And it was really a weird time because I was.
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  Doing all those huge advertising.
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  I was there were no woman around me.
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  I had no role figure in that business.
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  And I did an incredible advertising all over the world from Japan
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  to Australia back to the U.
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  S.
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  to South Africa.
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  And it was the time of like.
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  Endless bounty in the industry in the advertising world till a few years
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  later, where my kind of sense of, I don't know if you call it sense of
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  justice, but at least sense of, of, reality or whatever hits me again,
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  where I was, it's kind of a funny story.
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  I was in a pre production meeting for Frozen Peas.
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  That was a local shoot.
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  Frozen Peas.
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  And, and I remember the, the client, you know, those pre production is
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  when we decide how it's going to be.
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  The look, there is a director and the client and the agencies and
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  the producers around the table to just really go down in detail how.
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  The commercial is going to look like and, you know, the music
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  that's going to be with it.
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  And I remember spending four hours in that meeting where half of the time to decide
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  the exact color of the actress or the model they needed to compare to the piece.
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  And I totally broke down and I left at that point, I had
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  done a lot of commercial.
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  I was really high end commercial producer, or I wasn't a producer,
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  but I was production manager.
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  And I knew they had really little other choice on the market, but me,
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  and I just looked at all of them.
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  I said, do you know how many children die from hunger while
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  we're deciding the call to dress?
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  Because I had it, I had it.
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  And I really hope at that time they would throw me out and
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  say, never come back again.
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  And, you know, here, but they kept on hiring me and I had to decide in the early
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  nineties that if I didn't make a change in my life, then I would never get out of it.
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  So then I started the other part of the story, but I have to say that to
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  go back to a point you made earlier about how do you take those decisions
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  of being able to throw tons of money away because it doesn't feel right.
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  It takes guts, but I never, I think it doesn't, it, it takes a
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  specific kind of people that are not afraid of what tomorrow will bring.
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  And I've never been afraid of that.
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  I think it's partly educational and I think it's partly being completely newly
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  and crazy because I was never afraid not to know if I could pay my rent.
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  I was never afraid not to know.
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  And I had those really hard moment.
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  I'm not to think that I didn't have them.
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  But it wasn't That was not going to be ever that I remember some kind of break
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  to what I wanted to do and I yet didn't know what I wanted to do, but I know and I
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  remember and I think it's still today and I think it's not only it's still today.
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  I think it also cost me money to have this kind of attitude of saying nobody's going
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  to tell me what I'm going to do tomorrow.
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  And so there is a toll for the people living around you
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  around, but at the same time.
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  I can today, 30 years later, or a little more than 30 years later,
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  I can say, you know, every day I wake up, every day I, I'm saying
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  to myself, I'm going to change job.
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  I can't, uh, and every day I'm happy.
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  So, you know, the counterbalance of that is that and so when I threw out
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  the frozen peas and I had to decide what to do, they kept on calling me.
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  So I did a few more commercial, but then I went back to literature.
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  Literally, that's what I did.
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  My first refused when I was a teenager came back.
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  Another refused when I was now.
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  Hold was it?
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  I was like late twenties.
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  Early 30s.
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  And I say, well, I don't really know what I want to do.
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  I want to stay in the environment of making storytelling, which,
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  of course, even advertising is sometimes storytelling.
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  And but I want to do bigger.
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  I want to change the world.
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  I want to save the world.
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  I had all those like really beautiful dreams and I went back to literature and I
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  optioned a book, which was a Swedish book by a Swedish author called Tony Lindgren.
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  And I said, this is for me.
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  This is a book that I need, get the rights, find a director.
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  And then I was stuck and I was like, how do I do now?
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  Because I don't really know how to do a feature.
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  Right.
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  I just know how to do commercials.
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  And so I got training and I went to a training program that still exists today
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  in the film world for professional called European audio visual entrepreneur.
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  I'm training there now for the past 15 years, but it really opened my
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  eyes to the fact that I knew nothing.
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  So the next skill you need to learn is to make it till you believe it.
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  And some other would say fake it till it's happening, but I really.
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  Made it and I start to believe in it that film was never made, but it was a
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  great learning curve because then you realize that the other things you need to
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  do is get out of your shell and getting out of your shell is actually starting
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  to go on market and starting to meet people and starting to talk people and
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  not only thinking that you're going to do a story, but maybe somebody else has
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  a great story that they want to tell.
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  And and get to know people and then see how it works.
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  So those years were difficult one because I wasn't making any money.
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  But I was free as a bird and I traveled sense and sleep,
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  but I met a lot of people.
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  And of course, 30 years later.
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  Those same people are the people that I'm still working with.
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  A lot of them are still people that I'm working with because the revolution
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  then wasn't so fast in terms of turnover of, you know, the people in
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  the position of financing and all that.
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  It was just lower, slower mode that today.
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  Today you speak to one person, you're not sure they're going
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  to be around for six months.
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  So, but then we were all starting.
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  I'm speaking mainly European now.
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  I'm not, I totally abandoned the idea of, there was a half a second where
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  I thought, well, maybe I'll go to Los Angeles and it's going to be easier.
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  I abandoned that very, very fast.
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  I really liked European freedom actually.
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  And the fact that it wasn't entirely driven by a market.
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  So it's and that, that allowed me to really dream, actually.
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  And then came 1994, and was my first Cannes, and it was a film festival.
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  Can film festival.
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  Yeah,
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  Rupert Isaacson: I knew what you had.
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  You had a film.
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  You had made
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  Diana Elbaum: nothing.
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  I came there.
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  Yeah.
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  No, I didn't have a film.
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  I still was trying to figure out how to make it.
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  But I had a dear friend in Israel was a distributor and she called me and she
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  say, you know, you should come to can.
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  I'll introduce you to all those people.
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  You can sleep in my room as maybe your listener don't know.
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  Cannes is the most expensive place to go during the film festival.
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  I would not advise because it's extremely expensive.
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  So, you know, having the invitation, I say, okay, I
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  need only to pay for my train.
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  That's going to be fine.
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  You know?
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  And, and so I did.
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  Full of hopes.
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  And I think after maybe six hours there, I was like trying in the
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  bathroom of the most prestigious, you know, hotel in the world, like
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  the Majestic, because I couldn't figure out what people were doing.
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  And unfortunately, this friend...
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  Was a trigger for something else because she saw me like, literally,
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  I was drinking and crying.
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  That's basically because of, you know, I went to all those
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  parties, all the drinks were free.
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  I didn't know that many people, though I had met people, but not yet to the massive
• 22:31
  amount of people that are in Cannes.
• 22:34
  And I was like, well, we're all trying to do the same thing, sell
• 22:37
  our little stories and all that.
• 22:38
  I'm never going to make it.
• 22:40
  That was really a done moment for me, but I was happily drinking for
• 22:44
  free and I was happily, you know, crying in really beautiful bathrooms.
• 22:49
  But anyway, and she took me and then she saw me really desperate on day
• 22:53
  two and she took me by the hand.
• 22:55
  And the advantage of speaking Hebrew is that a lot of people do speak Hebrew.
• 22:59
  So she literally in the majestic took me from table to table where
• 23:02
  all the executive Americans and Europeans were like doing deals.
• 23:06
  You know, this like, like really, it's, it's almost a cliche, right?
• 23:11
  Mainly men, of course.
• 23:13
  And she was, so she took me from table to table and she told me, you know, the only
• 23:17
  thing everybody does here is sell dreams.
• 23:22
  You can sell dreams as well.
• 23:24
  And what she meant by that is two way things.
• 23:28
  Two way, two way to look at it.
• 23:31
  We do sell dream because what we do is we have a written document
• 23:34
  and we're making into films.
• 23:35
  It's prototype So prototype is deals.
• 23:38
  It's a dream in itself.
• 23:41
  And What's not a prototype is a remake Every film is a prototype because it
• 23:48
  starts on paper if it's got the chance to find the financing it needs Then
• 23:53
  it becomes a film so, you know And
• 23:57
  Rupert Isaacson: at this first can were you did you have a story
• 24:00
  you were trying to get made or you were still I was the same Story
• 24:03
  Diana Elbaum: where am I?
• 24:05
  Yeah.
• 24:05
  It was the same story.
• 24:06
  And I would receive answers from sales agents.
• 24:09
  It was the Swedish story.
• 24:11
  Yeah.
• 24:12
  The Swedish story.
• 24:12
  And it was like, you know, yeah.
• 24:15
  How many films have you made?
• 24:16
  Well, I've made only advertising.
• 24:17
  Who's your director?
• 24:18
  Oh, he's a first time director.
• 24:20
  He did a really successful short, which wasn't true.
• 24:23
  And who are your actors?
• 24:24
  Well, we casting.
• 24:25
  And of course I was like name dropping like crazy.
• 24:28
  And people would look at me and say, first film director,
• 24:31
  first film for the producer.
• 24:33
  No way.
• 24:33
  How are we going to finance that?
• 24:35
  What
• 24:35
  Rupert Isaacson: was the book, by the way, that you were trying to get
• 24:37
  Diana Elbaum: made?
• 24:37
  It's called, oh, good question, Twenty Lindgren.
• 24:40
  I have to go on Google.
• 24:42
  It's oh my god, Robert, I just forgot.
• 24:45
  And I love the book.
• 24:47
  But...
• 24:48
  What was it about the book that grabbed you?
• 24:50
  It was something about a fake...
• 24:52
  It was something about a fake painter and a young singer and how her family, he
• 24:59
  was totally in love, like teens, he was totally in love with her and always wanted
• 25:05
  to impress, but her family decided she was going to be the next big thing in music.
• 25:10
  And so he was never considered as a, the real pretender for her, for her love.
• 25:18
  Rupert Isaacson: Tell me, tell me the name of the author again.
• 25:20
  I'm going to.
• 25:22
  Diana Elbaum: Lin Tony, N-G-R-E-N,
• 25:26
  Rupert Isaacson: Tony Lin
• 25:28
  Diana Elbaum: Gren, I think it was called in French.
• 25:38
  I can't, I can Google it, but
• 25:40
  Rupert Isaacson: I can't.
• 25:45
  Okay.
• 25:45
  I'm just gonna
• 25:49
  it looks like there aren't many great matches for your search . Oh my God.
• 25:53
  Tony.
• 25:53
  Tony.
• 25:54
  That's the story of my life.
• 25:55
  Did you say Tony
• 25:56
  Diana Elbaum: Ren?
• 25:57
  Thorny.
• 25:57
  It's T-O-R-J-N-Y.
• 26:00
  Rupert Isaacson: Oh oh.
• 26:00
  That would be YT Sorry.
• 26:02
  Let, let
• 26:03
  Diana Elbaum: T-O-R-T-O.
• 26:10
  J N Y.
• 26:11
  Rupert Isaacson: J N Y.
• 26:13
  Tony.
• 26:13
  Yeah, that's not a name that an English speaker
• 26:16
  Diana Elbaum: would...
• 26:16
  Lindgren.
• 26:17
  L I N D J R E N.
• 26:20
  Lindgren.
• 26:22
  He passed a few years ago.
• 26:24
  J
• 26:24
  Rupert Isaacson: R E N.
• 26:25
  Not G R E N.
• 26:26
  Diana Elbaum: Oh, J R E N.
• 26:28
  J R
• 26:28
  Rupert Isaacson: E N.
• 26:29
  Well, I've got him.
• 26:32
  Tony Lindgren.
• 26:34
  And you say
• 26:37
  Diana Elbaum: that his, I can't remember the title in English.
• 26:42
  Rupert Isaacson: Ah, okay.
• 26:43
  I'm seeing the way of the serpent pulse and sweetness.
• 26:48
  But I thought it was polar, but Shaba Shaba is a great writer, by the way.
• 26:58
  Well, thanks for turning me on to him.
• 27:00
  How did you, how did you discover him out of interest?
• 27:05
  Diana Elbaum: No, you can kill me.
• 27:06
  I will never remember.
• 27:07
  I can't remember.
• 27:09
  Okay.
• 27:09
  It's one of those things.
• 27:10
  I love secondhand bookstores, so I think I just picked it up.
• 27:13
  Maybe I love the cover.
• 27:15
  I don't know.
• 27:15
  You know?
• 27:16
  Why did you pick another, another one?
• 27:20
  Maybe it's Paula.
• 27:22
  Anything on Paula?
• 27:24
  Rupert Isaacson: Paula?
• 27:25
  Okay.
• 27:25
  I think I did see that.
• 27:26
  Hold on.
• 27:29
  Hold on.
• 27:34
  Diana Elbaum: I don't know, but I can find it.
• 27:36
  Hold on.
• 27:42
  It was about, it's funny.
• 27:47
  It was about the truth and the fake.
• 27:50
  So I guess I'm a precursor of what we live today.
• 27:55
  So it's Paula, that's the name in French.
• 28:00
  Yeah, I guess it's a cover.
• 28:01
  Not that I see the cover, but how can I find in English?
• 28:04
  Because my Google is in French, maybe in English, let's do English.
• 28:11
  See what it brings.
• 28:22
  There's a cover with a woman in dark glasses.
• 28:26
  That's the French cover.
• 28:30
  Rupert Isaacson: Was it set in modern
• 28:31
  Diana Elbaum: times?
• 28:32
  Well, it was set then, yeah.
• 28:34
  It's a book written in 1993, actually.
• 28:41
  Oh, yeah, I know.
• 28:42
  I know how I get on that.
• 28:43
  There was this then upcoming, uh, editor called Actorsuit who was really
• 28:49
  going into a different literature than usual, and I really loved that one,
• 28:53
  so I think I read, uh, what is the I, I don't even know the, I don't know
• 28:59
  how I can find the original title.
• 29:02
  And he's a wonderful writer.
• 29:07
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, I shall, I shall look up.
• 29:09
  Okay, so you, you were trying, you were still trying to get this book made.
• 29:15
  Diana Elbaum: Yeah, I was and I was getting all those.
• 29:17
  Yeah.
• 29:17
  And I was getting all those like either macho backlash or whatever.
• 29:21
  I was getting those kind of signals.
• 29:24
  And so after crying my heart out that I will never make it
• 29:28
  for like two or three days.
• 29:30
  I got a lucky break when I came back home, whereby the producer of Chantal
• 29:36
  Ackerman, who's an amazing Belgian food.
• 29:42
  director who did Jeanne Dilman, who's been voted as one of the best
• 29:49
  film in the last, I don't know, 50 years or something like that.
• 29:56
  Like a few months ago.
• 29:58
  Called me and she said, well, Chantal is doing this film who's the most
• 30:03
  commercial film she's going to do with Juliette Binoche and William Hurt.
• 30:06
  And it's between Paris and New York.
• 30:09
  And we've heard about you and we are looking for somebody to produce
• 30:13
  a film because we will not do it.
• 30:16
  And it was then a co production with France, with Balenciaga.
• 30:20
  And that was my break.
• 30:22
  And
• 30:22
  Rupert Isaacson: what was the
• 30:22
  Diana Elbaum: name of the film?
• 30:24
  It was called A Couch in New York.
• 30:26
  Rupert Isaacson: A Couch in New York.
• 30:28
  Okay.
• 30:29
  And that was your first, the first film that you produced.
• 30:32
  That
• 30:32
  Diana Elbaum: was your break.
• 30:33
  Yes.
• 30:33
  That was my really
• 30:34
  Rupert Isaacson: lucky break.
• 30:35
  William Hurt and Juliette Bouchard.
• 30:38
  Diana Elbaum: Sounds great.
• 30:39
  Yeah.
• 30:39
  And it was a, it was a huge, huge lesson of understanding the craziness of the job.
• 30:48
  As a producer, um, because it was really, you know, already Juliette
• 30:56
  Binoche was very known, of course, William Hurt was very known.
• 31:00
  Chantal is a very specific, deep art house, a world of her own, but the film
• 31:07
  was financed by very commercial companies.
• 31:11
  And that already, I understood there was red flag all over the project
• 31:17
  because on one hand, it was a rom com between Paris and New York.
• 31:22
  You can't go better than that with those actors.
• 31:25
  And on the other hand, it was a very author film.
• 31:29
  And but regardless of, I love the film and also it, it, it, it allowed me to,
• 31:34
  what to witness something else I had never witnessed is when the film came out, it
• 31:40
  didn't really do well except in Belgium.
• 31:45
  And It was my first film.
• 31:47
  So I was literally buying tickets for every screening, you know, in Brussels
• 31:52
  just to see how the audience would react.
• 31:55
  And then when I saw the audience coming out with kind of a smile on their
• 31:58
  face, I was like, how magical is that?
• 32:02
  Actually delivering to the world, something that people will take
• 32:06
  time to come and see, sit down two hours in a black, you know, in a
• 32:12
  theater, black place and pay for it.
• 32:15
  And come out with a smile or a tear afterwards, or an emotion.
• 32:20
  And that totally made sense all of a sudden about what my job could be.
• 32:27
  And it allowed me really to understand, thanks to that film, not only the, what
• 32:33
  was happening inside a film production, or rather inside of, yeah, trying to put
• 32:38
  together a film, and then working this kind of really crazy, High end Parisians,
• 32:45
  German, at the same time, preserving Chantal, whom I became very, I knew her
• 32:50
  before, but I became much closer to her, a real author and a voice of another
• 32:56
  against this pressure of the market.
• 32:58
  And on the other hand, seeing an audience, seeing people deliberately
• 33:03
  choosing to go and buy a ticket and then being really happy about it.
• 33:08
  Rupert Isaacson: I'm just gonna tell the listeners too.
• 33:11
  I'm just looking.
• 33:12
  I just, I just wikied both Paula, which is the name of the movie that
• 33:18
  didn't get made by Tony Lundgren.
• 33:20
  Yes, indeed.
• 33:21
  An aging painter versus a up and coming young diva, which sounds brilliant.
• 33:26
  And then this one that you made your first big break, a couch in New York.
• 33:31
  Where there's anonymous, an anonymous apartment swap and Juliette Binoche
• 33:36
  who's a dancer swaps with William Hurt, who's a psychoanalyst, and she
• 33:41
  starts rather illegally seeing his patients who show up, and a succession
• 33:46
  of her lovers start showing up in, in her apartment, and in the course
• 33:52
  of this, Of course, they fall out of love and then in love it looks great.
• 33:58
  Interestingly though as mainstream movies go, it's on the arthouse side.
• 34:03
  It's...
• 34:04
  So now here you are, you've sort of got a foot in Hollywood with a movie like this.
• 34:09
  Well, not really.
• 34:10
  Well, exactly.
• 34:11
  You would think you have because it's, it's, it's an American, these
• 34:14
  are, this is a big American actor.
• 34:16
  There would have been presumably some American financing.
• 34:20
  Diana Elbaum: No, on this one, there was French, mainly financing.
• 34:23
  Okay.
• 34:23
  And yeah, it's I think Chantal really...
• 34:30
  People were drawn, people are drawn to big name directors
• 34:33
  or very interesting directors.
• 34:34
  And of course, both of them had done amazing work before with great directors.
• 34:40
  And having a European director, having this kind of like, take on RomCom and
• 34:47
  New York and Paris was very infatuating.
• 34:51
  We actually shot in Germany in Babelsberg studio, so that was another thing of
• 34:55
  being in a mythic studio like Babelsberg.
• 34:58
  For those who don't know, we have a few mythic studios in the world,
• 35:02
  Cinecitta in Rome, Babelsberg, And Barandov in Babelsberg in Berlin
• 35:08
  and Barandov in Hungary, where like the history of cinema was made.
• 35:12
  So it was also for me being still the younger kid on the block around
• 35:16
  was like, Ooh, all those actors.
• 35:18
  Yeah.
• 35:18
  So I thought I was like, you know.
• 35:21
  I sort of, I thought I had made it then, but the road was still
• 35:25
  long to go after that one.
• 35:28
  Rupert Isaacson: Before we embark on that road, why is Babelsberg,
• 35:31
  um, such a legendary place for those of us not in the movie industry?
• 35:35
  A lot of us be the first time we've heard that name.
• 35:38
  Why was film history made there?
• 35:41
  Diana Elbaum: Because all those studios were built really
• 35:43
  at the golden age of cinema.
• 35:46
  I don't exactly know if Babelsberg was, I think Babelsberg was
• 35:49
  even built before the war.
• 35:51
  So we're talking about studios that are today almost a hundred years old, where
• 35:56
  At the time, I don't think there were so many films made on location on relocation.
• 36:00
  A lot of stuff was done in studios.
• 36:02
  So they've seen the like of the Fellini's and, and, and at least I can't really
• 36:08
  name, I don't know if I I'm not a big historian in film, but the thing is
• 36:14
  that there is something in those walls.
• 36:16
  that ooze
• 36:18
  Rupert Isaacson: greatness.
• 36:19
  Like Pinewood in the UK, for example.
• 36:21
  Diana Elbaum: Pinewood in the UK.
• 36:22
  Yeah.
• 36:23
  So there's, there is not that many, I'm not even talking about the American lots
• 36:27
  but I'm talking about European studios and they, and you see the people work
• 36:32
  there and you see the art department, you have all the profession, a film
• 36:37
  business there and a filmmaking there.
• 36:40
  Which is still very, I mean, up until the digital era was extremely
• 36:45
  traditional and extremely artisanal.
• 36:48
  And you have those people who have those amazing qualities of building and creating
• 36:53
  spaces in the clutch in New York, the whole Paris apartment was made there.
• 37:01
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay, so was it not shot in New York at all?
• 37:03
  Was
• 37:03
  Diana Elbaum: it only?
• 37:03
  We did, we shot the apartment, the New York apartment in New
• 37:07
  York, but the Paris one was shot in, because it was a small space.
• 37:10
  The thing also, you just have to imagine, she was a dancer, had no
• 37:15
  money, it was a small apartment.
• 37:16
  So.
• 37:17
  To be able to fit a crew and move the cameras, you have to be able
• 37:20
  to move the wall, which is in real life really complex to do.
• 37:23
  So you do it in studios.
• 37:25
  You can do top shots, you can do the lighting you want.
• 37:28
  So we had a beautiful, beautiful backdrop of Paris behind it
• 37:33
  and it's all hand painted.
• 37:34
  And you had all those craft people around the studios who were just amazing.
• 37:41
  It's amazing to see it's kind of, being inside of yeah, inside
• 37:45
  of Inside of inside the art.
• 37:47
  I don't know how to better say it.
• 37:49
  And yeah, so those studios are really, if anybody goes to Berlin
• 37:55
  or to Rome, um, are visitable.
• 37:59
  So it's really great stuff to visit.
• 38:02
  Cause it's
• 38:03
  Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
• 38:04
  Okay, so there you are, you're at this Babersberg golden age
• 38:08
  of movie place in, in Berlin.
• 38:11
  You're making an international film.
• 38:13
  You've, you've, you've kind of made it.
• 38:15
  Well,
• 38:17
  Diana Elbaum: yeah, in my head, I made it.
• 38:18
  And I didn't know it was such a long road afterwards.
• 38:20
  But yeah, then I get an offer to go to Paris by the Balenciaga production house.
• 38:26
  And I was I decided not to do it.
• 38:28
  There was there was something in me who said, I'm not a big city girl.
• 38:32
  And and I was starting to get my environment clearer in Belgium.
• 38:38
  Then came after that so, you know, and also it, it's, it, it kind of
• 38:44
  need to remember that in, in the, in the nineties, again, I was though
• 38:50
  the Balenciaga producer was a woman.
• 38:52
  But there was still an era of very complex for a younger
• 38:56
  woman to try to be entrepreneur.
• 38:59
  And also, that's part of the job.
• 39:03
  I think what I was mentioning before, my fear, I have no fear of tomorrow, has
• 39:07
  to, is a kind of entrepreneurial thought.
• 39:11
  And I'm going to build my own business.
• 39:16
  And so I felt Paris was too big, um, and, and not the place I wanted to be
• 39:22
  anyway, because I'm, I like Paris, but I don't like Paris at the same time.
• 39:27
  And already then and still now.
• 39:29
  And what happened is that God, this is so long ago.
• 39:35
  What happened is that those young kids came to my office.
• 39:39
  One day my office, big name my one room in my one apartment, one
• 39:44
  room apartment and said, Oh, we heard you are producing films.
• 39:49
  You know, we know you've done the Chantal Ackerman and we have this
• 39:53
  script and we also know, because one of the things I said to myself, if
• 39:57
  I need to make it, I need the tools.
• 39:59
  So the came out, Sony came out with those mini.
• 40:02
  Cassette kind of camcorder.
• 40:05
  And I bought one.
• 40:05
  It was quite expensive at the time.
• 40:07
  And I was like, well, I have the tool now.
• 40:09
  I need the stories.
• 40:10
  Right.
• 40:10
  But they came for the tool.
• 40:12
  And I was like, yeah, I'll give you my camera if you want for your film,
• 40:15
  but I'd love to read the script.
• 40:16
  And I fell in love with the script.
• 40:18
  And I say, not only I'm going to give you the camera, but I'm
• 40:20
  going to find money for the film.
• 40:22
  And that's really my first, that's yet another thing being a producer because
• 40:28
  it's a generic term for a lot of.
• 40:30
  Different kind of way of working as a producer as more moving into
• 40:34
  the creative producing space.
• 40:37
  Okay,
• 40:38
  Rupert Isaacson: I was just, by the way again, wiki ing madly
• 40:41
  while you were talking there.
• 40:43
  Babelsberg Studios.
• 40:44
  For those who I wondered about this, if it was where Metropolis
• 40:47
  was made, you know, the great...
• 40:48
  I think so.
• 40:49
  It was.
• 40:50
  It was.
• 40:51
  Diana Elbaum: It's really even more than a century old.
• 40:53
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, it goes back to 1912, apparently.
• 40:56
  But if you, if people, if listeners might think it's consigned to history,
• 41:01
  Uh, V for Vendetta, Captain America, Civil War, Inglourious Basterds, The
• 41:06
  Bourne Ultimatum, Cloud Atlas, The Grand Budapest Hotel, One of the Hunger
• 41:10
  Games, et cetera, et cetera, and The Matrix Resurrections, all filmed there.
• 41:14
  So, interesting.
• 41:16
  For those of us who, you know, see movies...
• 41:20
  Now mostly on Netflix, honestly we all kind of think Hollywood and even if
• 41:24
  they're sort of apparently Hollywood movies And I know this from my time Riding
• 41:29
  on movie sets to finance my way through college That I would be at Pinewood or
• 41:35
  Shepperton or somewhere on location and sitting around on horses for you know
• 41:38
  hours and hours and hours waiting to be told to do something for five minutes and
• 41:41
  then go home after sitting on the horse for 10 hours, you know, and that's, as
• 41:46
  you know, what life on movie sets is.
• 41:47
  It's waiting around.
• 41:49
  But often these movies would be shot partly there, but of course, part
• 41:55
  shot, part shot, partly elsewhere, but they might be American movies,
• 41:59
  but they'd be shot in England for tax reasons or this or that.
• 42:02
  And it was this kind of, I remember at the time realizing, oh my gosh, this is
• 42:05
  this complex, complex, complex world.
• 42:07
  So just before you go on there, thank you for illuminating for those of us
• 42:12
  in You know, don't know Babelsberg and there are studio tours there.
• 42:16
  If you're next in Berlin and Potsdam, the Weimar film thing, go check it out.
• 42:21
  So, okay.
• 42:22
  So now you're at the point Diana, where having had this conversation in
• 42:27
  a bar in in Israel and by hook and by crook, you have now found yourself.
• 42:33
  Going out to get your first money for a movie and it's now, now the
• 42:39
  movie life has shifted to Paris.
• 42:41
  How do you, how do you find money to make a film?
• 42:45
  And what is this film again, by the way?
• 42:46
  Diana Elbaum: Give us the time.
• 42:47
  That film, that film is a great film.
• 42:50
  That film is called Thomas in love, Thomas
• 42:52
  Rupert Isaacson: in
• 42:53
  Diana Elbaum: love.
• 42:54
  So yeah, we can do a whole podcast on that one another time.
• 42:59
  But yeah, how did
• 43:00
  Rupert Isaacson: you, how did you.
• 43:02
  How did you find the money for Thomas in love?
• 43:03
  Diana Elbaum: Well, we in Europe, so we have a lot of we are,
• 43:08
  there's a lot of investment from the government into the culture.
• 43:14
  So we are calling it in the jargon of filmmaking self funding.
• 43:20
  So it's all the subsidies.
• 43:22
  So you go subsidy, then you go market, meaning broadcaster, distributors,
• 43:28
  and then you go to international sales, which are the people will
• 43:31
  sell the film around the world.
• 43:34
  Those were the scheme at the time that I started there are many more
• 43:38
  today as the one you mentioned tax credit and regional fund today.
• 43:43
  And then, of course, there's private equity, but at a time in Europe, it was
• 43:47
  only subsidy and a little bit of a little bit of market money, like a broadcaster,
• 43:52
  or, of course, there were no streamers at the time and then distribution,
• 43:57
  the exhibition, the theaters.
• 44:00
  The the those were the way of financing.
• 44:03
  There were, you know, so that's how I got the first one made.
• 44:07
  It was very low budget, ended up in Venice, film festival and competition.
• 44:13
  And yeah, and then, and it actually sold all over the world.
• 44:18
  It was quite a big success.
• 44:20
  Rupert Isaacson: Just, just to pause you there.
• 44:22
  Thomas is an agoraphobe who hasn't left his apartment in eight years.
• 44:27
  His psychoanalyst consults him to meet a woman through some online services.
• 44:33
  And of course, this is a 2000 movie when this was something quite new.
• 44:37
  Will he find love online?
• 44:39
  Will he ever leave his apartment?
• 44:41
  So, okay, so you're making this movie in 2000 when the whole online.
• 44:47
  com thing is still somewhat new.
• 44:49
  Yeah, especially in Europe.
• 44:50
  Right, and online dating then, you know, people would have died rather than admit
• 44:57
  that they were looking for love online, let alone Tinder and Grindr, and now
• 45:01
  it's like, what, you're not on Tinder?
• 45:03
  You know, do you remember, it's so interesting how
• 45:06
  social norms move on so fast.
• 45:09
  But of course,
• 45:09
  Diana Elbaum: and also that was part of, I mean, to, to just add to that, I think
• 45:15
  that was part of the, of the success because everybody was like the way we are
• 45:19
  with artificial intelligence, not knowing what was that revolution was starting.
• 45:24
  Everybody was freaked out and say, why are you going to make love on online?
• 45:27
  And you know, your life will be dictated, so of course, but so we.
• 45:31
  We, we unknowingly, because we're Belgian, so we have no afterthought.
• 45:36
  We just like what we do.
• 45:37
  And like, there's no like a long term thought about it, but that
• 45:41
  those kids or those directors that came to me and writers that came
• 45:45
  to me and said they, that's the way they were looking at the future.
• 45:49
  And I, and what I love, I still love the film because I sold
• 45:52
  it like a lot during COVID.
• 45:54
  Funnily enough, I resold the rights to a lot of broadcaster and local streamers
• 46:00
  during COVID because it's exactly that.
• 46:03
  And the funny thing also is that my director who's a very Christian man, I
• 46:08
  have to say, uh, probably the only one that I know who's devoted Christian,
• 46:13
  was, uh, everybody had tattoos.
• 46:18
  In the a lot of people had tattoo in the in the film and it was
• 46:23
  a time there were no tattoos.
• 46:24
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, before there was a tattoo.
• 46:26
  And it was always a
• 46:27
  Diana Elbaum: big discussion.
• 46:27
  I say, why is everybody having tattoos?
• 46:29
  They say one day people will lose God.
• 46:32
  They will need to connect to something else.
• 46:33
  Tattoo will be the way.
• 46:35
  Now that I look around me, I have to say, he's still a good friend
• 46:38
  and was like, how visionary was he?
• 46:40
  Whether on his belief, but at least the way he saw the world becoming.
• 46:44
  And, and so Thomas in Love was...
• 46:46
  Was playing on the fears of what internet would be without us knowing,
• 46:50
  we're just playing with the idea.
• 46:52
  And so, and there, that's really when things start to take off.
• 46:56
  Because of the success of that film, because it was at the Venice
• 46:59
  Film Festival in competition.
• 47:01
  And because, you know, it was sold all over.
• 47:04
  So my name started to go around the circles of, well, she
• 47:08
  actually, you know, know how to
• 47:09
  Rupert Isaacson: do stuff.
• 47:10
  Now I just want to pause you again there to ask you a couple of questions.
• 47:13
  So these are the kinds of things one hears when one is listening
• 47:16
  to movie people being interviewed.
• 47:18
  Oh, you know, well, I, I've got the money that sort of a bit this
• 47:21
  way, and then I sold it here.
• 47:23
  Having made and sold an independent movie myself, I know that it's
• 47:27
  not quite such a smooth process.
• 47:29
  When you say that and I think for listeners, this is quite fascinating how
• 47:33
  movies get financed and how they get sold.
• 47:36
  And of course, this is part of living free and writing free that one would like to
• 47:41
  maybe do this sort of thing for a living.
• 47:44
  I know you said that you found the money to make the film through EU subsidies
• 47:49
  for the arts, but I'm sure there's millions of people constantly trying
• 47:55
  to dip into those, um, piles of money.
• 47:58
  What?
• 48:00
  What made you successful there and then I'm going to ask you
• 48:04
  as a subsequent question, how do you sell a film at a festival.
• 48:07
  So let's start with the first one, how do you get this EU money that's
• 48:13
  floating around, but there's a bazillion people out there trying to get it.
• 48:18
  Diana Elbaum: Yeah, it's, it's a good question because I think
• 48:20
  it's quite beautiful definition of Europe, actually in which I
• 48:24
  believe really dearly and fiercely.
• 48:27
  Firstly, there is the national funding.
• 48:32
  So, you, you have to understand something about the film industry.
• 48:36
  We are as much a creative industry as we are an industry.
• 48:41
  So those two poles are really interesting.
• 48:43
  And continue to be throughout my career.
• 48:46
  Interesting because we provide a lot of work for a lot of people.
• 48:50
  It's a huge provider of work.
• 48:53
  And at the same time, we are a voice of.
• 48:56
  a country.
• 48:58
  So the same way Belgian chocolate is known around the world, I wish Belgian
• 49:02
  film were known around the world, but it has actually a similar value in
• 49:06
  terms of employment and in, in terms of, of getting people to know us.
• 49:14
  I'll give you an example that I think is going to highlight much more is
• 49:17
  that, for example, when there was Green Card, this film with I'm not even
• 49:21
  going to name the name of the actor.
• 49:23
  Unnameable French actor today.
• 49:26
  The film was such a big success.
• 49:29
  It was shot in New York.
• 49:30
  The New York then film commission was starting, decided to put a
• 49:33
  tax break because they realized that films bring tourism.
• 49:39
  People go to Southern France to look at the chocolate where chocolate,
• 49:42
  the chocolate film was shot.
• 49:45
  It brings people when I go to New Zealand because my son wants to go and
• 49:50
  see where Lord of the Rings was shot.
• 49:52
  Then it brings stories.
• 49:54
  There's an after effect to the industry was extremely important for the people,
• 49:58
  for the places where it was shot.
• 50:01
  So you have to consider that.
• 50:03
  Films in itself is a creative, creative act, but at the same time,
• 50:08
  it's also a return on economy for the places where films are shot.
• 50:11
  And that's why today wasn't happening.
• 50:13
  Then you see all, every single region, I won't say in the world,
• 50:19
  but at least in Europe, in the U.
• 50:21
  S.
• 50:22
  And now it's going, it's, it's opening up to the rest of the world.
• 50:25
  The Middle East per se have what we call regional funding, which means that
• 50:32
  come to us, we'll give you money, part of the money you need for your shoot,
• 50:36
  because if the film is successful, they know it will trigger tourism.
• 50:41
  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
• 50:41
  Interesting.
• 50:42
  I didn't know that.
• 50:43
  I thought the tax breaks were, were from a different thing.
• 50:47
  I didn't realize they were connected to tourism.
• 50:49
  That's really interesting.
• 50:50
  So that's, so they're thinking if this movie gets made and is
• 50:53
  successful, people are going to want to come and check out the locations.
• 50:57
  Diana Elbaum: Yeah, not only that, it also provides a lot of work.
• 51:00
  I mean, I can give you an example, for example, of the southern region
• 51:03
  of Sweden, which is the region of Malmö and Gothenburg, uh, that
• 51:09
  region was entirely I mean, the main business was Saab, those cars.
• 51:14
  If you remember, everybody wanted to have a sub when we're at least.
• 51:18
  Yeah.
• 51:18
  Yeah.
• 51:18
  Subs.
• 51:19
  Yeah.
• 51:19
  Yeah.
• 51:20
  And there was this one
• 51:22
  Rupert Isaacson: get a moose and survive.
• 51:23
  That's right.
• 51:23
  No, that was Volvo.
• 51:24
  Sorry.
• 51:24
  Yeah.
• 51:24
  Yeah.
• 51:25
  Diana Elbaum: So the thing is that the entire, this entire
• 51:29
  region mainly lived off.
• 51:32
  Of that one industry.
• 51:33
  And this one politician way back then, like 25 years ago, asked the question,
• 51:38
  what if the car industry crashes?
• 51:40
  What's going to happen to the people who live there?
• 51:43
  And so he managed, it was really, I mean, and this is really how the
• 51:48
  regional fund started to be created.
• 51:50
  He managed to convince the politician to invest in filmmaking.
• 51:54
  They build a studio where Las Ventrilles is mainly shooting.
• 51:57
  I don't know.
• 51:58
  I don't remember the name of the studio.
• 52:00
  They create a special branch at the university for our directing and other
• 52:06
  profession in the in the film business and they start to give subsidies
• 52:10
  out a lot of subsidies and then.
• 52:14
  It boomed because we are very cheap people.
• 52:17
  We go where the money is, huh?
• 52:19
  So a lot of people, Lars von Trier went to shoot there, open a production
• 52:22
  company there, but a lot of other, a lot of other films were made there.
• 52:26
  And when Saab actually crashed, they of course failed it, but not as much
• 52:33
  as if there was no alternative to it.
• 52:37
  So that's what the industry part of our job it's so that's why we also very we can
• 52:44
  make policy change either because of the content and I'll give you another example
• 52:48
  if you'd want about that, or because of the sheer manpower we use on making films.
• 52:57
  We do make a difference.
• 52:59
  And, and it's culture.
• 53:01
  Also to one of the thing I want to mention regarding Europe.
• 53:06
  You're right.
• 53:06
  There is European money.
• 53:07
  The European money is basically linked to the creation of the European Union,
• 53:13
  which was set up after World War Two to make sure that we will never
• 53:17
  fight each other again and oblige us somehow to collaborate with each other.
• 53:22
  So besides the national funding, you have the European funding.
• 53:26
  European funding is only.
• 53:28
  given if you are co producing, that's a term, with other European countries.
• 53:34
  So like, for example, if I have a film where the basement is in Belgium, but
• 53:38
  I'm going to go to shoot in Slovenia because I need mountains and then going
• 53:42
  to go to Spain because I need beach and it can be anywhere in Europe, the
• 53:46
  fact that I'm working with another two European countries, or even in Europe, so.
• 53:49
  Only one allows me to go to super funding, European funding.
• 53:55
  And this is really stems from that time after World War II, when, you know, they
• 54:00
  needed to find Schumann and the rest of them needed to find a solution for
• 54:03
  the European not to fight each other.
• 54:06
  So, so far it's still holding a little bit, but that allowed us, that's how
• 54:10
  we start then to co produce with other country, discover other way of telling
• 54:14
  stories, discovering new talent, discovering other way of functioning
• 54:19
  and getting to know each other better.
• 54:21
  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
• 54:22
  So, I mean, something I was going to ask you was, you know, you said you're
• 54:25
  looking back on your younger self saying, well, I wanted to change the world.
• 54:28
  And I, you know, I was.
• 54:30
  Worried about social injustice, and I was going to say, okay, well, how did films
• 54:34
  like Thomas in Love and Couch in New York and so on look at that, but it's quite
• 54:39
  interesting to look at it through this lens now later to say, and I do know that
• 54:43
  you have, obviously, and still do make films that do address social injustice,
• 54:47
  and we'll talk about that in a minute, but it's something which might, would not
• 54:51
  have occurred to me until you made this point just now, for example, this story
• 54:55
  in South Sweden where someone says, look, what happens if This industry crashes.
• 55:00
  This is the only thing we've got some farsighted person persuades government
• 55:05
  to invest down there in an industry that hasn't really yet happened.
• 55:08
  They invest the car industry does indeed crash and they've got something and where
• 55:13
  the note I made here was policy change.
• 55:15
  I think you're right that the, the influence that movies have, the only
• 55:21
  thing I think that's, that's ever exceeded it, which is now beginning
• 55:24
  to exceed it is, of course, computer gaming and that, of course, is now
• 55:28
  marrying perhaps an unholy alliance, but nonetheless, marrying the movie industry.
• 55:34
  Yeah,
• 55:36
  Diana Elbaum: I'm going to have to tell you, it's not only the
• 55:39
  impact of the industry as an industry, it's also the impact of.
• 55:44
  When you have films like Rosetta, who was a Pandora, the Belgian Pandora, in,
• 55:49
  I can't remember when, 90s something, the film was about a young woman not
• 55:55
  being able to find, who dropped out of the society, of, it was on the
• 55:59
  margin of society, and had to endure...
• 56:02
  Labor almost forced labor, no pay harassment and so forth.
• 56:07
  And it was a trend.
• 56:08
  It started a trend.
• 56:10
  It was a trend where the young people coming on the market
• 56:13
  without any skills socially.
• 56:15
  I mean, literally here were overlooked.
• 56:18
  There was no protection for them.
• 56:19
  And after the film came out, became the Rosetta law to protect.
• 56:24
  the kids.
• 56:25
  So this is the social impact.
• 56:26
  You have that.
• 56:27
  Absolutely.
• 56:29
  And you have the beautiful example of in Kenya of Rafiki was the first film
• 56:35
  recently who spoke about homosexuality was banned, but because he was taken in
• 56:40
  the festival, because it was a revelation of a voice from coming from Kenya on
• 56:45
  LGBTQ issues of the sudden it opened.
• 56:48
  Then it allowed the discussion on LGBTQ rights in Kenya and in Africa as a whole,
• 56:57
  but it starts, it's a trigger for more.
• 57:00
  So you have the entertainment world, like I did, Thomas in Love for me was
• 57:04
  a social, totally political and social film, because it had to do with somebody
• 57:08
  who was neurodivergent, actually.
• 57:12
  Yeah, yeah.
• 57:13
  And nobody was like, everybody was laughing, but literally.
• 57:17
  When you have that, I mean, it is about then what do we do with the
• 57:22
  people in our society and he so the world is invented around that.
• 57:26
  But I think you have the entertainment world.
• 57:29
  And yes, I saw Barbie and I love it.
• 57:31
  And I think it's still quite political, actually.
• 57:34
  But I think everything you see, you can actually look at the political.
• 57:37
  angle of it.
• 57:38
  Some you might like and some you might hate and that's totally okay.
• 57:42
  And I think that's actually what makes the world better.
• 57:45
  But the fact is to go and see it and decide which film you're going to
• 57:49
  go and see and not being, not being dictates by the algorithm and still
• 57:54
  keep the curiosity about the film.
• 57:56
  Yeah.
• 57:56
  Let's go and see a Chinese film and let's go and see you know, South African film
• 58:00
  and let's go and see a Chilean film.
• 58:02
  It's amazing how it connects.
• 58:05
  Because we all live differently the same
• 58:07
  Rupert Isaacson: things.
• 58:08
  It's true.
• 58:08
  And I think that's something that's become more mainstream now.
• 58:11
  I mean, for example, you know, if you take a long haul airline flight some
• 58:15
  years ago, the movies that would have been offered would have just been
• 58:18
  all new releases and some classics.
• 58:21
  Now.
• 58:22
  You know, even on something like American Airlines, which is a
• 58:25
  relatively conservative, uh, would make relatively conservative offerings.
• 58:30
  I fly back and forth to Texas on American all the time.
• 58:33
  And I, I noticed that just sometime before COVID, they started doing
• 58:37
  all this international cinema.
• 58:39
  And I don't think they were doing it.
• 58:42
  Particularly through a social message motivation.
• 58:47
  I think they were realizing that they just had a lot of international passengers
• 58:50
  who kind of wanted to see these films.
• 58:52
  And suddenly you had all these movies about issues in the Arabic world and
• 58:57
  issues in India and issues in Thailand.
• 58:59
  That you just, and even if only a certain fraction of the, of
• 59:04
  the passengers are watching them.
• 59:06
  It's still a much greater group.
• 59:09
  Than would have been in traditional quote unquote, art house cinema.
• 59:15
  Diana Elbaum: But it's whether the cinema will take it.
• 59:16
  That's another another door to open or not.
• 59:20
  I'd rather not because it's very complex, but you're right.
• 59:23
  Then I would, I did.
• 59:24
  I know when I fly to Ethiopian airline, wherever I go, I fly to Qatar airways.
• 59:29
  Oh, I flew right now, a lot to Canada.
• 59:34
  I've been enjoying seeing films that I would never see anywhere else.
• 59:38
  So it's not the best condition, of course, because the headphones are awful.
• 59:41
  But it's still it's still some way to discover, instead of looking
• 59:45
  again at an American film, or, you know, something that you've heard of.
• 59:49
  And just take the time, because you're stuck in the airplane anyway.
• 59:52
  But I would still.
• 59:54
  Tell you try to, you know, the big screen is a unique experience, but I just want
• 59:59
  to address the second question you asked me regarding how do you sell a film.
• 1:00:03
  So basically the way it's structured is that not everybody can do the good job.
• 1:00:08
  Right.
• 1:00:09
  So, The world of selling is a world apart.
• 1:00:12
  So you basically there are a lot of companies that are selling films.
• 1:00:15
  And those, those, and they're actually interesting enough have dedicated
• 1:00:21
  person per region of the world.
• 1:00:24
  So if somebody sells a film in Europe, if you have a sales agent that they call
• 1:00:27
  that sells film in Europe will not be able to sell a film in Asia, because it's all
• 1:00:31
  through connection and who do you know and what kind of film work, what kind of
• 1:00:34
  film didn't work in a specific region.
• 1:00:37
  So when you go and shop, quote, unquote, for a sales agent for your film, it
• 1:00:43
  depends on the genre, whether it's kids film, horror, romance you know, art house
• 1:00:49
  and, you know, name, you know, action, or you name all the genre of the films.
• 1:00:54
  Do you would have dedicated sales agent for either the genre?
• 1:00:59
  And if it's more of a kind of social drama, then.
• 1:01:04
  They will tell you this, you know, we can see it work here and there.
• 1:01:10
  They will actually, they know so well the market.
• 1:01:12
  They have the pearls, they have, you know, they have the pearls of the market.
• 1:01:16
  They know exactly what sells where, how, how much, and everything.
• 1:01:21
  Those guys are, those guys, sorry.
• 1:01:24
  those people, a master of the world in knowing what's
• 1:01:28
  happening and how does it work.
• 1:01:30
  Of course for Art House Film, the first step necessary to make it
• 1:01:34
  happen is a A list, what we call in our language, a A list festival.
• 1:01:40
  So A list festival is, it's, there are very few of them.
• 1:01:43
  So you can, it's Busan in Korea, it's Cannes Film Festival.
• 1:01:49
  It's Venice Film Festival, San Sebastian in Spain, Film Festival,
• 1:01:54
  and there's probably a few others.
• 1:01:57
  Interesting enough, none of them in North America.
• 1:02:00
  Not Sundance?
• 1:02:02
  Sundance.
• 1:02:02
  I'm not sure it's a list.
• 1:02:04
  I'm not sure.
• 1:02:05
  It's very specific.
• 1:02:06
  It's a world classification.
• 1:02:09
  But once you have your film in competition or a sidebar competition
• 1:02:15
  in those festival, the eyes of the world are on those films.
• 1:02:19
  So just to give you an appreciation of how complex it is.
• 1:02:25
  We have a film this year in competition in Venice.
• 1:02:28
  So it's upcoming in a month.
• 1:02:29
  The film is called Green Border.
• 1:02:31
  It's a Polish Belgian French Czech co production.
• 1:02:36
  It's based, it's a beautiful film by veteran filmmaker Agnieszka Holland.
• 1:02:42
  And when Alberto Barbera, the head of the Venice Film Festival, announced the
• 1:02:47
  lineup of this year, he actually mentioned that he watched more than 5, 000 films.
• 1:02:53
  And they are make, maybe taking for the entire not only the competition, but
• 1:02:58
  the sidebar, the special screenings, and all that, they maybe take 80 films.
• 1:03:05
  So, The level does, that's why then all the eyes for the good or
• 1:03:10
  the worse, because I had filming the film festival in Cannes or in
• 1:03:14
  competition, they should have never get there because they get destroyed.
• 1:03:18
  But all the eyes are focused on those films and you know that
• 1:03:21
  those films will have more sales.
• 1:03:24
  Especially for the arthouse, again, I'm not talking about Netflix films, and I'm
• 1:03:27
  not talking about the Amazon films, and I'm also little, not that much talking
• 1:03:32
  about the American films, but for the European and non European, because we're
• 1:03:36
  not the only one in the world, there are African, Asian, South American films.
• 1:03:42
  Those, being able to be selected in one of those festivals is essential for the film.
• 1:03:49
  Rupert Isaacson: So, presumably, it must be rather difficult to get your
• 1:03:52
  film into one of these festivals.
• 1:03:54
  How do you do that?
• 1:03:55
  Diana Elbaum: Well, just make good films.
• 1:03:58
  Yeah.
• 1:03:59
  Rupert Isaacson: How do you submit?
• 1:04:00
  What's the submission process?
• 1:04:03
  Gatekeepers.
• 1:04:03
  How do you get past the
• 1:04:04
  Diana Elbaum: gatekeepers?
• 1:04:05
  Well, sales agent is a gate, a sales agent.
• 1:04:07
  At that gate.
• 1:04:08
  Gatekeeper is the, the artistic director of the festivals that are gatekeepers.
• 1:04:12
  Mm-Hmm.
• 1:04:12
  . It's really, I mean, I have country example of amazing film
• 1:04:16
  that were never in festivals.
• 1:04:18
  Sometime they also miss.
• 1:04:20
  I can think about a Belgian film was called in English broke man, my,
• 1:04:25
  my brain is, is is on the verge of collapsing in French, it was called
• 1:04:29
  Alabama Monroe, but it's not in French.
• 1:04:32
  The original title is Broken Circle Breakdown, a beautiful, beautiful film
• 1:04:39
  that film went through the cracks.
• 1:04:41
  Of every festival, but it was an amazing sales agent, a German
• 1:04:46
  sales agent called Match Factory.
• 1:04:48
  And they managed to turn it around in Berlin where they did,
• 1:04:52
  it's a based on country music.
• 1:04:55
  So they had the country music band coming and then get people interested in it.
• 1:04:59
  And of course, the director had made a huge bus and can with
• 1:05:03
  this previous film whose poster was a lot of men naked on bikes.
• 1:05:08
  And so they had the men, naked men on bikes.
• 1:05:10
  They're actually the actors riding their bikes on the croisette.
• 1:05:14
  So he was known for the first film.
• 1:05:16
  So it was not like a new upcomer, but that film wasn't selected in
• 1:05:21
  any festival, not at least it became afterwards, it became like a huge event.
• 1:05:26
  So it's marketing slash.
• 1:05:28
  Great concept.
• 1:05:30
  Where should the film go?
• 1:05:31
  That's what the sales agent do.
• 1:05:32
  This film is good for this festival.
• 1:05:34
  It's not good.
• 1:05:35
  It's going to get killed in this festival or it's too small for this festival.
• 1:05:39
  So it's a whole continuous conversation we have with this so important part
• 1:05:44
  of getting a film to the market.
• 1:05:46
  And it starts at script.
• 1:05:48
  Usually you get your sales agent at the script level and they will say yes or no,
• 1:05:53
  but those that say yes, then they will see the, the, the cut, the editing cut.
• 1:05:58
  And then they will work with us, with production director on the, on the
• 1:06:04
  communication, the marketing, the poster and where it's best placed.
• 1:06:08
  Sales agent will
• 1:06:09
  Rupert Isaacson: come in before you've actually shot the movie
• 1:06:12
  on the basis of the script.
• 1:06:14
  Diana Elbaum: Well, yeah, there are two reasons for that.
• 1:06:16
  Once they used to be able, and they still bring a lot of money,
• 1:06:19
  they can bring private equity, they can pre sell to territories.
• 1:06:23
  Let's say I have a film my sales agent loves, it's a great subject and then
• 1:06:28
  we're going to go and pre sale to the UK, and we're going to, we could pre
• 1:06:32
  sale to the US, and that money will
• 1:06:34
  Rupert Isaacson: When you say pre sale, you're talking to distribution.
• 1:06:36
  Diana Elbaum: Yeah, sorry, to distributor.
• 1:06:38
  And the pre sale notion is that they buy on script.
• 1:06:43
  Okay.
• 1:06:43
  Rupert Isaacson: They don't buy It's like a bit like a
• 1:06:45
  publisher buying on a proposal.
• 1:06:48
  Yes.
• 1:06:49
  Okay.
• 1:06:49
  Okay.
• 1:06:50
  That I understand.
• 1:06:51
  But then you'd
• 1:06:51
  Diana Elbaum: have to package.
• 1:06:52
  I mean, they just don't read the script and say we want it.
• 1:06:55
  They want to know who are the actors, who's the, the cameraman.
• 1:06:58
  You have to have
• 1:06:59
  Rupert Isaacson: good actors and a director attached.
• 1:07:01
  Yeah, of
• 1:07:02
  Diana Elbaum: course.
• 1:07:03
  It's the packaging, what we call the packaging of the film.
• 1:07:06
  So this is an extremely important part of the way the film circulates, and the
• 1:07:13
  fact that you either see them on Netflix when it's not an original, or Amazon or
• 1:07:18
  Apple, and or you see it in the theater.
• 1:07:21
  That's because behind that, before the theater, there's a local distributor, but
• 1:07:28
  the local distributor then gets in touch with the sales agent to be able to get
• 1:07:33
  the film and then this, hopefully, what you hope for, is a bid war on the film.
• 1:07:37
  How much are you going to, how much are you going to pay?
• 1:07:40
  That the money then goes back to the investors originally and then to me.
• 1:07:46
  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
• 1:07:47
  So, in terms of Getting all of these people attached.
• 1:07:54
  You've got, you've got to have your director, you've got to have some actors
• 1:07:58
  attached before we can go to the film.
• 1:08:00
  It's interesting.
• 1:08:01
  It comes back down.
• 1:08:03
  Look at my notes.
• 1:08:03
  It you said script where you began at the beginning of this interview,
• 1:08:08
  which is storytelling, right?
• 1:08:10
  If the story is not sound.
• 1:08:12
  If the script is not amazingly compelling, then presumably these people
• 1:08:20
  will not attach themselves, right?
• 1:08:21
  So the script must be, at the end of the day, the most important thing.
• 1:08:25
  Diana Elbaum: Yeah, it's script and it's a vision.
• 1:08:29
  How it will be made, and it's an interesting question.
• 1:08:39
  Yeah, it's a combination of, it's an alignment of it's an alignment.
• 1:08:43
  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
• 1:08:45
  It's the right script.
• 1:08:48
  With the right director and the right actors,
• 1:08:54
  Rupert Isaacson: but without the script, those, that director
• 1:08:56
  and those actors, there's
• 1:08:57
  Diana Elbaum: nothing.
• 1:08:58
  Yeah.
• 1:08:58
  The story does nothing.
• 1:09:00
  So the,
• 1:09:00
  Rupert Isaacson: so the, the, the raw material is always, always the
• 1:09:03
  Diana Elbaum: story.
• 1:09:03
  Yeah.
• 1:09:04
  And the raw material.
• 1:09:05
  What's funny.
• 1:09:06
  Maybe you're listening.
• 1:09:07
  Listener will not know, but I'm just going to tell the truth.
• 1:09:10
  That is so weird for.
• 1:09:13
  The entire world and you know it better than I do referred is the fact that
• 1:09:18
  the we always think about filming and filming and the production of a film,
• 1:09:24
  but the writing of a script takes years.
• 1:09:26
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:09:28
  And actually the shorter periods in the whole process of
• 1:09:31
  making a film is the shooting.
• 1:09:34
  Yeah, because shooting is usually in Europe is around 35 to 40 days for a film
• 1:09:39
  could go to 60 of course it can go to much, much higher number of days depending
• 1:09:44
  on the film, but the post production meaning the editing and the VFX and
• 1:09:49
  the music and the sound and the putting the film together, which is a lot of.
• 1:09:54
  Technical steps after that can take, you know, almost a year for more complex film
• 1:09:59
  usually takes nine months, but the writing of the script is something that can take
• 1:10:05
  a long time and, and on average, when you have an idea or you have, because I'm
• 1:10:12
  not always starting on script, I'm also either on a book, as you heard, and I'm
• 1:10:16
  still doing that and and Or just an idea, an article, a podcast now it, it, it can
• 1:10:24
  take, you know, the average for a film to be made in the right circumstances
• 1:10:30
  is around four to five years.
• 1:10:32
  So that's why when you're saying, you know, making a few films at the same time
• 1:10:36
  is because you have to make a living also.
• 1:10:38
  And and so there's no other option for producer and which also shows the
• 1:10:44
  extremely complex work of directors.
• 1:10:48
  Because they're only attached to maybe one or two films or one TV series and a film.
• 1:10:53
  So, it, the process is extremely long to get from start
• 1:10:58
  Rupert Isaacson: to finish.
• 1:10:58
  So how do you get paid as a producer?
• 1:11:00
  If, if everything is speculative and it's going to take four to five years from
• 1:11:06
  conception to execution, and that's before you've even sold the thing, how on earth
• 1:11:12
  can you pay the rent in the meantime?
• 1:11:15
  So,
• 1:11:15
  Diana Elbaum: there's, there's a few, there's, I mean, depending
• 1:11:18
  on where you are in your career.
• 1:11:19
  So, there's a few a few things.
• 1:11:21
  As I mentioned, they were, we are in Europe.
• 1:11:23
  So there's the subsidy that allows you to get some money for the development.
• 1:11:27
  What we call the development is actually the process of writing.
• 1:11:31
  Usually that money goes to the director actually, and never to the producer,
• 1:11:35
  which is historically like that.
• 1:11:38
  And that's the way it is.
• 1:11:39
  Then you can find partners.
• 1:11:41
  To partner with and, and you can get private equity for the development.
• 1:11:47
  It's rare, but you can still get it if somebody really believes into the story.
• 1:11:51
  But basically the way producers make a living mainly is actually by filming.
• 1:11:58
  So you put together a budget.
• 1:11:59
  Once you have a script, you have to budget it.
• 1:12:03
  So you put together a budget.
• 1:12:05
  How many days of shooting, how many extras, how many location, where
• 1:12:09
  is it going to be shot, et cetera.
• 1:12:10
  Once you have the budget, usually producer keep, you know, are
• 1:12:16
  budgeting themselves at around 17 percent of the cost of the film.
• 1:12:20
  The 17 percent are divided and it's very regulated, so we can't
• 1:12:24
  really, Germany will be much less.
• 1:12:26
  Germany would be 10%, France is, if I'm, 12%.
• 1:12:30
  It's for a country, it's a very regulated because we're working with public funding.
• 1:12:35
  So it's very regulated.
• 1:12:38
  So the 17 percent is 10 percent for producer, which means production
• 1:12:41
  company is 7 percent for overheads.
• 1:12:43
  Like, you know, the back office, my accountant, my financial
• 1:12:46
  director, you know, my assistant are all paid out of that.
• 1:12:51
  More often than not, you will hear a lot of European producers
• 1:12:54
  say, well, I'll never get that.
• 1:12:56
  Of course you never, because you're never sure you're going to get the amount,
• 1:12:58
  total amount of the budget you need.
• 1:13:01
  So more often than not, they reinvest virtually that went
• 1:13:05
  into the finance of the film.
• 1:13:08
  So once you finance the film, so you have a lot of partners, so it's
• 1:13:12
  like a cake and you divide your cake and everybody get a share according
• 1:13:16
  to what they put except exception.
• 1:13:18
  The exception is private equity, which kind of serve itself before and
• 1:13:22
  a little more than everybody else.
• 1:13:23
  You have to make sure you still have some crumbs left at the end of the day.
• 1:13:28
  And then and then the film goes out.
• 1:13:31
  And the film is sold.
• 1:13:33
  So the money comes back to you on that level.
• 1:13:37
  Now, the fact that I'm making, I've made a lot of films, there's still
• 1:13:42
  money on, on, on coming, incoming money from all the films, not all of them,
• 1:13:47
  but a lot of films that I've made.
• 1:13:49
  So after a few years and starting to have what we call a slate of films
• 1:13:54
  you start to generate your film, start to generate money that come back to
• 1:13:58
  you and then you reinvest those film, you reinvest that money in further
• 1:14:03
  project in buying IP and all that.
• 1:14:05
  So the equilibrium
• 1:14:07
  Rupert Isaacson: intellectual property.
• 1:14:09
  I don't
• 1:14:10
  Diana Elbaum: know.
• 1:14:11
  Right.
• 1:14:11
  Yeah.
• 1:14:12
  So the, the equilibrium is really to make sure that you pay your rent.
• 1:14:16
  And also when the company grows, make sure that you pay your staff.
• 1:14:21
  Yeah.
• 1:14:21
  So your business model is changing, obviously, because it's not anymore.
• 1:14:27
  One person is maybe two, three at times, much more than that.
• 1:14:31
  My latest company, we were 12.
• 1:14:33
  So the pressure it puts on you to bring bigger project, to make more
• 1:14:38
  margin, to make sure that they're more in tune with what the market
• 1:14:42
  wants, shifts your way of looking at the stories you're going to develop.
• 1:14:47
  You cannot go to the first.
• 1:14:50
  Like I've done so many times and there are still, you know, my,
• 1:14:57
  unfortunately for a lot of people, but fortunately for me and unfortunately
• 1:15:01
  for whatever reason, but you can understand what I'm getting at.
• 1:15:04
  I'm still going to go after the first thing from Peru.
• 1:15:07
  Where I'm still going to go because those are the stories that I love, but
• 1:15:11
  I have to compensate it with comedies.
• 1:15:13
  I really love comedies.
• 1:15:14
  So I'm doing, and comedies, I'm not even looking at telling them around the world.
• 1:15:18
  Comedies don't sell well, but they do bring audience in my home, in my country.
• 1:15:24
  So I've done a lot of comedies, which are not artists, but I
• 1:15:27
  think comedy is another, another way of being, of telling stories.
• 1:15:31
  And I really love that.
• 1:15:32
  But I, so I, I really juggle.
• 1:15:35
  Between what's, where is my heart?
• 1:15:37
  Where is my pocket?
• 1:15:39
  And that's how you build basically the film you're going to go after.
• 1:15:44
  It's a business sense.
• 1:15:46
  It's just business modeling.
• 1:15:48
  It's right.
• 1:15:48
  And when
• 1:15:49
  Rupert Isaacson: you say that the films generate income after they be
• 1:15:51
  made, presumably that's because rights in different areas of the world get
• 1:15:55
  sold rights to new online streaming things, rights to television rights.
• 1:16:04
  Okay.
• 1:16:04
  Airlines.
• 1:16:05
  Right.
• 1:16:05
  Right.
• 1:16:05
  So, and that these things get sold gradually over some years after the
• 1:16:10
  initial film distribution in, for say, cinema or whatever has been sold, right?
• 1:16:15
  So that you can, you can keep selling that film to different
• 1:16:19
  areas for a decade or more.
• 1:16:22
  Yeah, well,
• 1:16:23
  Diana Elbaum: the lifespan of a film, unless it's a super master film or a
• 1:16:29
  cult film, becomes a cult film, or is a winner of those A list festivals,
• 1:16:35
  Golden Bear, Pandora you know, or A Lion in Venice the lifespan on the
• 1:16:41
  market is maybe two to three years.
• 1:16:44
  Yeah.
• 1:16:44
  So I have a few that I've outlived that because they became cults without, you
• 1:16:48
  know, you're not making a cult film.
• 1:16:50
  It's the audience who decide it's cult.
• 1:16:52
  But yeah, otherwise, so it's, it's really the balancing act that it's so complex
• 1:16:58
  in this world that for any entrepreneur, but especially in our world, balancing
• 1:17:04
  act between Keep on being keep on doing the things that you're good at and
• 1:17:09
  defending voices that might not have an outlet and keep on making films
• 1:17:14
  that allow you to keep on doing that.
• 1:17:16
  So it's always been oscillating between the two as far as I'm concerned
• 1:17:20
  and the films I've made always.
• 1:17:23
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay, so, we left you last in the year 2000 with
• 1:17:27
  this film, A Couch in New York, which was a commercial break.
• 1:17:31
  But as you said, also, oddly enough, a film about neurodivergence.
• 1:17:35
  No, that was Thomas in Love.
• 1:17:36
  That was Thomas in Love, yes.
• 1:17:38
  Well, right, although I imagine that the Couch in New York character too, you're
• 1:17:42
  dealing with this idea of the, you know, the crusty, fusty person who's, you know,
• 1:17:47
  not, lucky in love, da da da da da, which these days we probably call that person
• 1:17:51
  perhaps Asperger's or, you know, somewhere on the autism spectrum, because back then
• 1:17:55
  we weren't using that sort of language.
• 1:17:58
  You, you said yes, you know, every, every film becomes a political act
• 1:18:05
  to some degree because of the way it affects how people look at social things
• 1:18:10
  that can affect policy, for example, like the story you told in South
• 1:18:13
  Sweden when Saab collapsed and so on.
• 1:18:16
  Yeah, I do know that activism is dear to your heart.
• 1:18:19
  And you mentioned a little bit earlier that you've been back and forthing to
• 1:18:23
  Canada, and you've also been making other films in other parts of the world
• 1:18:27
  that have to do with social issues.
• 1:18:29
  So, where does it go for you after Thomas in Love?
• 1:18:33
  And,
• 1:18:34
  Diana Elbaum: so I'm making a lot of film and I'm, I'm giving a try documentaries.
• 1:18:38
  I'm not very good at it.
• 1:18:39
  I think I have too much perversion for I know really wrong term.
• 1:18:45
  I think I, I think I have a hard time.
• 1:18:47
  I just want to change the world.
• 1:18:48
  So documentary is too much in my face, but I love them.
• 1:18:51
  Absolutely.
• 1:18:52
  And I'm like, You know, we had those discussion before that just amazing
• 1:18:56
  and I just don't get to feel for it.
• 1:18:58
  I don't think I'm the right person for documentaries and
• 1:19:02
  believe you me every two minutes.
• 1:19:03
  I have an idea for documentary.
• 1:19:05
  So anyway, so I'm trying that.
• 1:19:08
  I'm doing a lot of co production with France and those are the reverse where
• 1:19:13
  French people won the Belgian money.
• 1:19:14
  So I'm like working like a mad person.
• 1:19:18
  I have,
• 1:19:19
  At the end of the 90s, I have
• 1:19:21
  a personal issue, health issue, that I have to stop for two years, not
• 1:19:26
  sure I'm going to be able to get back.
• 1:19:29
  And that was quite a traumatic time personally, so I had to take
• 1:19:32
  like a year break around 96, 97.
• 1:19:36
  It lasted actually more than that.
• 1:19:38
  Sorry.
• 1:19:38
  It's around 97 to 99 of not being able to work.
• 1:19:43
  My parents dying one after 10 months apart.
• 1:19:48
  And also my decision that I was still quite young, I have to
• 1:19:52
  say, and the decision that maybe the party was a little over.
• 1:19:55
  of like going right and left, taking a plane here, going there, doing
• 1:19:59
  this, going to festival, you know.
• 1:20:01
  And but it wasn't true.
• 1:20:02
  That's what I thought at the time.
• 1:20:04
  And so I decided that maybe I had another I had to consider my life.
• 1:20:12
  So it was a really two year, I had to break down.
• 1:20:15
  It wasn't a breakdown.
• 1:20:16
  That was a physical stop.
• 1:20:18
  I couldn't work, but it wasn't, you know, it was physical.
• 1:20:21
  It wasn't anything mental or, you know, kind of a burnout or whatever.
• 1:20:25
  Not that.
• 1:20:26
  Then I had another break 10 years after we might get into it.
• 1:20:30
  But and then I've decided my life was maybe not.
• 1:20:35
  I was only centered about those things that I was making all
• 1:20:38
  those films that I was making.
• 1:20:40
  And I decided then that I would go and adopt my first child.
• 1:20:45
  So that was a big, big, big, and I was still working.
• 1:20:48
  I went back to work and, but it gives you another kind for anybody, anybody who's
• 1:20:52
  a parent knows when a child comes, how much energy gives you to do even more
• 1:20:58
  Rupert Isaacson: wonderful.
• 1:20:59
  I have no idea what you mean, Diana.
• 1:21:01
  Yeah.
• 1:21:01
  Yeah.
• 1:21:01
  Diana Elbaum: Yeah.
• 1:21:02
  It's just like, you know, this energy.
• 1:21:04
  And then I, I got another amazing, um, I'm not really sure I'm on timeline, but
• 1:21:11
  I think it was around those same time that I was waiting at the taxi station
• 1:21:18
  in Brussels, at the train station, and it was pouring rain, as it usually is.
• 1:21:24
  And there was this tour that was putting people in taxis, you know,
• 1:21:27
  because otherwise people would go crazy and start to fight each other.
• 1:21:32
  And that person was so amazingly funny.
• 1:21:37
  It was just, it was just sunshine and I just couldn't figure out
• 1:21:42
  how somebody could be doing that job and be really funny.
• 1:21:45
  So we engaged in the discussion and I kept on saying to people, no, take that taxi.
• 1:21:49
  It's fine.
• 1:21:49
  And I was talking to him and he was like, yeah, I do that, you know,
• 1:21:53
  but I really want to get into films.
• 1:21:55
  And it just started like that.
• 1:21:57
  And he became my biggest hit ever.
• 1:21:59
  It was a young who he also became a big director.
• 1:22:05
  Afterwards, we did one film, two films together.
• 1:22:09
  And he was the, a Belgian Moroccan young kid.
• 1:22:16
  And...
• 1:22:18
  So I, I said to him, well, listen, you know, maybe it's our lucky break
• 1:22:22
  for you and I, if you want, we can keep on having this discussion.
• 1:22:26
  He took me, he took him a few months to call me back and he came with
• 1:22:30
  a comedy called the Barons and the Barons, like Kingdom Belgium, then
• 1:22:37
  the Barons, you know, you have Duke.
• 1:22:39
  I don't
• 1:22:39
  Rupert Isaacson: know how it's called.
• 1:22:39
  Yeah.
• 1:22:40
  Barons.
• 1:22:40
  Diana Elbaum: Yeah.
• 1:22:40
  Yeah.
• 1:22:41
  Yeah.
• 1:22:42
  And it was and it was the first time I also had this weirdly enough with
• 1:22:50
  all my travel and all my storytelling from everybody around the world, they
• 1:22:54
  went to China, South Africa, whatever.
• 1:22:57
  All of a sudden I realized that there is a whole community in Belgium, at
• 1:23:02
  least in Brussels, of Belgian, from Moroccan descent, that had no voice.
• 1:23:10
  And that was a beautiful moment because we laughed a lot and we cried a lot and it
• 1:23:19
  was a massive hit, massive, massive hit.
• 1:23:23
  Everybody went around and I loved it because, you know, when you
• 1:23:26
  say, how do you sell the film?
• 1:23:28
  How do you finance the film?
• 1:23:30
  That was my best.
• 1:23:32
  ever financing scheme, not because people wanted it because nobody wanted it.
• 1:23:38
  So I had to find the resources to play against the machine somehow.
• 1:23:42
  And to have all those executive again, the same one with suits.
• 1:23:47
  And I come with this project about the Moroccan community in Brussels.
• 1:23:51
  And they were like, yeah, Well, no, no thanks.
• 1:23:57
  And I was, so I had to switch.
• 1:23:59
  I had to understand that I had to outsmart them.
• 1:24:01
  And I really did it.
• 1:24:03
  And we did it together.
• 1:24:04
  And it was just amazing how it went.
• 1:24:06
  Because that film, being a comedy, went from the cultural pages of the newspaper
• 1:24:13
  into the society page of the newspaper.
• 1:24:15
  And that's exactly what you want.
• 1:24:17
  That's why we call it the crossover.
• 1:24:19
  Okay.
• 1:24:21
  Rupert Isaacson: By the way, I've just, I've just, I've just wikied
• 1:24:23
  it for the listeners, the Barons.
• 1:24:26
  This sounds great.
• 1:24:27
  But it does sound like it must've been a hard sell commercially.
• 1:24:31
  In Brussels three friends lead a life of pleasant apathy.
• 1:24:35
  They spend their days loafing around in unhurried torpor, bantering with each
• 1:24:39
  other and adhering to the theory that the fewer steps one takes, the richer
• 1:24:44
  one's interior, one's interior life.
• 1:24:48
  But, as is so often the case, when real life crashes unpleasantly into their dream
• 1:24:53
  world, Hassan, Aziz, and Munir are forced to deal with life, love, and the future.
• 1:24:58
  This must have been...
• 1:24:59
  I
• 1:25:00
  Diana Elbaum: fired the person who wrote that, but no, basically...
• 1:25:04
  And that wasn't you?
• 1:25:05
  But you know, basically what it was, it's like the cliché assumption when you see
• 1:25:11
  three Moroccan kids standing on the wall, they are thieves, except they're not.
• 1:25:18
  Just society hasn't opened the door to them.
• 1:25:21
  So the only job they can get is bus driver in the neighborhood.
• 1:25:24
  And those guys have other, other, other dreams.
• 1:25:27
  So that's exactly how the pitch went for the, for the financing.
• 1:25:31
  Because the pitch was, yeah, it's a first film about, you know, the
• 1:25:34
  young Moroccans that are done.
• 1:25:36
  The people were like, not even listening to me.
• 1:25:38
  And you don't even need to, they don't need to say anything.
• 1:25:41
  I saw the language.
• 1:25:43
  But when I came with a pitch and say, so what do you say when you see
• 1:25:47
  five Moroccans in a brand new BMW?
• 1:25:51
  100 percent of the answers were it's stolen.
• 1:25:55
  And I was, then my pitch was like anybody, any five people can buy any car.
• 1:26:02
  The problem with our film is that there are six and there's only five seats.
• 1:26:07
  It had nothing to do with the story, but then I triggered their attention and
• 1:26:11
  that's how we started financing the film.
• 1:26:14
  And it's a really, really funny film.
• 1:26:16
  It's extremely funny, but it made a whole change.
• 1:26:20
  And what was delighted, delighting is that, All of a sudden, that
• 1:26:25
  neighborhood who unfortunately got a worse reputation during the attack,
• 1:26:29
  which is Molenbeek, it's right next to me where I'm sitting right now, who was
• 1:26:34
  always where the Moroccan families, is being gentrified now, unfortunately,
• 1:26:39
  also for that city, but where the Moroccan families were, was unknown.
• 1:26:45
  It was like, don't go there, you're going to get killed.
• 1:26:48
  You know, and we change, we put a spotlight on it and say, no, the normal
• 1:26:54
  people having normal family life and they just, and they just, you know,
• 1:27:00
  they, they not giving the opportunity.
• 1:27:02
  There was no representation in the newspaper, in politics, in nowhere.
• 1:27:07
  of the Maroccan community then.
• 1:27:09
  And it did make the change.
• 1:27:11
  So I'm very proud of that one.
• 1:27:13
  And you see, you make change with comedies.
• 1:27:14
  I'm a really firm believer in that.
• 1:27:16
  Absolutely.
• 1:27:17
  Because it's drama and you don't
• 1:27:18
  Rupert Isaacson: need tears.
• 1:27:19
  Yeah, no, absolutely.
• 1:27:21
  Because what, what is humor, but perspective humor allows you to see
• 1:27:24
  a situation from the outside and to to put your prejudices aside.
• 1:27:31
  And it bonds people for sure.
• 1:27:33
  You know, the, the right joke cracked at the right moment.
• 1:27:37
  wE'll always relieve tension.
• 1:27:38
  You know, it's, it's, I agree with you a
• 1:27:41
  Diana Elbaum: whole heartedly to make people cry.
• 1:27:43
  It's much harder to make them love, but I saw beautiful view as, you know, as I
• 1:27:49
  was saying with the couch in New York, I was going to every, every screening,
• 1:27:52
  which I do actually for all my films.
• 1:27:55
  And I saw.
• 1:27:56
  Beautiful scene in theater and that's why I, you know, I'm a firm believer that the
• 1:28:01
  collective experience of seeing films with other people is essential, is essential.
• 1:28:07
  Seeing your film on your phone is fine, seeing the film in a plane is fine,
• 1:28:11
  seeing a film on Netflix is fine, but you will never replace that experience.
• 1:28:14
  Never.
• 1:28:15
  And if you were to go only twice a year to the cinema, it's worth it.
• 1:28:20
  And I saw an amazing scene during those screenings where like older.
• 1:28:25
  White people would come and were like, the theater was full of like Moroccan kids
• 1:28:30
  because that was the film for them also.
• 1:28:32
  The crossover was that at the end of the screening, I saw this old woman, like
• 1:28:36
  just embracing the young guy next to him, next to her and saying, you know,
• 1:28:42
  I'm so sorry, we don't know who you are.
• 1:28:45
  So this is unbeatable.
• 1:28:47
  This is worth like all the hardship and the hurt and the
• 1:28:51
  craziness of the business.
• 1:28:53
  It is worth that.
• 1:28:54
  Really, frankly, I'm a firm believer in that.
• 1:28:57
  So, yeah, and so that even, like, then launched even more the company.
• 1:29:01
  I mean, that we became the company was just, like, booming.
• 1:29:05
  There was, like, everyday calls to make more films, co production, whatever.
• 1:29:09
  And so I enjoyed that, that moment till till 2000.
• 1:29:14
  I think it was...
• 1:29:16
  My son was then nine, so it must have been 2007, eight, where my best
• 1:29:21
  friend lost her daughter to leukemia.
• 1:29:25
  And I remember the eulogy at the church.
• 1:29:28
  Well, she was in the film business, my friend, or she
• 1:29:31
  still is in the film business.
• 1:29:33
  And a very famous director was the godfather of her daughter, Jacob
• 1:29:37
  Vandermal, who's an amazing person.
• 1:29:40
  And he gave a eulogy and I came out of there completely shaken.
• 1:29:46
  The eulogy was basically of all the things we could have done with you.
• 1:29:49
  All the, all the dreams we could have dreamt.
• 1:29:52
  And I knew I was really tired by then because we had so much work and the kids
• 1:29:57
  that I had, I adopted my daughter also.
• 1:30:00
  And I realized I just didn't have the time.
• 1:30:02
  And I think to recognize those moments where it's not working for you, where
• 1:30:07
  everything becomes a burden, where you're not happy with what you do.
• 1:30:10
  And you probably do a little trap because you're Machine, endless
• 1:30:15
  machine of producing and producing.
• 1:30:17
  I had a partner then partner at work and I called him from the car and
• 1:30:22
  I say, I'm going to take a break and he's going to last a year.
• 1:30:28
  And and that was June.
• 1:30:33
  And I left, I left for another year.
• 1:30:36
  I should have maybe, but I left for nine months and I went
• 1:30:38
  around the world with my kids.
• 1:30:39
  Just forgot everything.
• 1:30:41
  And I say to everybody.
• 1:30:44
  I am not reachable.
• 1:30:46
  So I took my two kids and we went.
• 1:30:49
  Yeah, beautiful trip.
• 1:30:50
  We went from Europe to Los Angeles to Tahiti to Cook Island, New
• 1:30:58
  Zealand, Australia, and we finished in South Africa and we toured.
• 1:31:02
  We just went into the nature barefoot no, like almost no luggage.
• 1:31:08
  And just, and just took the time to hug trees and be together.
• 1:31:13
  The kids were small.
• 1:31:14
  It was really crazy.
• 1:31:15
  But but I just did it.
• 1:31:17
  I knew I needed to refill myself.
• 1:31:20
  Emotionally, I needed to connect with my kids.
• 1:31:24
  And I needed to not go crazy because I really felt the rabbit
• 1:31:28
  hole coming really, really fast.
• 1:31:30
  And I couldn't do it anymore.
• 1:31:32
  And then when I came back, my partner during that time actually produced a film
• 1:31:37
  that I was involved with and he took over and I immediately, it's kind of funny.
• 1:31:44
  I mean, it's funny for me, might not be funny for anyone, but I went
• 1:31:47
  from barefoot to high heel to go the red carpet in Berlin because we're
• 1:31:51
  in competition and unannounced.
• 1:31:55
  And I plunge right back into it, but those he had to serve eight months
• 1:32:00
  of not working, not thinking I didn't read any book, didn't enter any mail.
• 1:32:05
  It was early anyway, it was complicated with the mails, like across the world.
• 1:32:09
  And the phone was barely whatever, you know, it was pre everything's
• 1:32:14
  fast was just, I think the best thing I did for myself and we need.
• 1:32:19
  And I, I.
• 1:32:21
  I'm advising that because I'm teaching now a lot and I'm advising not to take
• 1:32:25
  a break, but really the mental health issues into the work environment,
• 1:32:30
  at least in the industry has been overlooked for so many, many years.
• 1:32:34
  And now it's becoming, of course, front page of, you know, everyone,
• 1:32:39
  we do need to take care of ourselves.
• 1:32:41
  And this work can just absorb you a hundred percent.
• 1:32:45
  Forget who you are.
• 1:32:46
  It's not, it's worth it.
• 1:32:48
  Obviously not worth it.
• 1:32:50
  Rupert Isaacson: But I think it's cyclical, yeah.
• 1:32:51
  I mean, I think one is required to sometimes be an absolute
• 1:32:57
  slave and servant of one's work.
• 1:32:59
  And then one is required sometimes to break from it.
• 1:33:03
  Diana Elbaum: Yeah, but the world doesn't allow you to do that, you know,
• 1:33:06
  so you have to do it for yourself.
• 1:33:07
  Exactly.
• 1:33:08
  You're gonna say, oh, no, you know what, you are, you know, I mean, some
• 1:33:12
  countries do that and in the teaching profession, especially go and take
• 1:33:16
  a sabbatical and we'll pay for it.
• 1:33:18
  Yeah.
• 1:33:19
  But otherwise, no, I mean.
• 1:33:21
  Sure.
• 1:33:22
  Again, I find myself so privileged every level of my life.
• 1:33:27
  Not only on the decision, I mean, on the decision taking on the freedom
• 1:33:32
  I have to do and not to do to, of course, it comes with a lot of
• 1:33:36
  other things, but on these, those essentials, I feel myself so privileged
• 1:33:42
  Rupert Isaacson: the self determination.
• 1:33:44
  Diana Elbaum: Yeah, and I think, I don't think, I think, yeah, I, it's,
• 1:33:52
  I wish I could it's really what I'm trying to stress out to the younger
• 1:33:58
  professional coming to the market.
• 1:34:00
  Is recognized when it doesn't work.
• 1:34:04
  It recognized when you're hurting and it's not a given it's definitely, and
• 1:34:09
  depends who you are in which part of the world, which color of skin you have.
• 1:34:14
  Which believe you have, it's much harder for a lot of people.
• 1:34:20
  So, yeah, that's, that's that's the, the, the, the, like, and so that's what
• 1:34:25
  I've been doing from that time I started to teach a lot, because I think it's...
• 1:34:29
  How did the teaching
• 1:34:30
  Rupert Isaacson: begin for you?
• 1:34:31
  Well,
• 1:34:31
  Diana Elbaum: it became back then, they just called me and
• 1:34:33
  say, oh, would you like to train?
• 1:34:35
  And I was like, yeah, I can try, see how it works.
• 1:34:37
  And I called you.
• 1:34:39
  So this same workshop I did remember in the 93 or something like that,
• 1:34:44
  your European entrepreneur of Europe.
• 1:34:46
  I've heard.
• 1:34:47
  So they called me and say, well, we're looking for a new, what they call
• 1:34:50
  group leader or expert or whatever.
• 1:34:52
  And it's basically taking a group selected.
• 1:34:56
  They select a group of 15 producer.
• 1:34:58
  It's actually 50.
• 1:34:59
  It's divided in four groups and you trade them through a one year.
• 1:35:04
  And you meet three times during that one year, and they have a lot of
• 1:35:07
  work to do in between on the project on the companies and everything.
• 1:35:11
  So I really started in 2007 or 8 or 9 around that period when I
• 1:35:17
  came back, I think, and I just.
• 1:35:20
  Like, as much as I love making films, I love that equally, and I'm so,
• 1:35:25
  again, privileged to be able to do it.
• 1:35:27
  And still today, so I've been doing training in Europe, and I've been doing
• 1:35:32
  training in the Caribbean, and I've trained And some universities like
• 1:35:36
  Sorbonne master and stuff like that.
• 1:35:39
  But those, but the one I'm training are professional, they're not
• 1:35:42
  university level, they already professional in the business.
• 1:35:45
  And and lately I started during COVID, I started, a great program called
• 1:35:51
  Daba, which is, is is from South Africa and is training African producer.
• 1:35:57
  And, and, and then lately for the past, also during COVID, I
• 1:36:01
  started the Canadian program.
• 1:36:03
  So there and the main program called access for BIPOC producer,
• 1:36:08
  black indigenous people of color.
• 1:36:10
  And, and this is like a new revelation for me of being less Eurocentric.
• 1:36:17
  And being non American and just, um, see how, um, those either the BIPOC
• 1:36:28
  producer in Canada or the African producer, we can build with them.
• 1:36:33
  They are the new generation, new business models that they don't
• 1:36:36
  depend either on what a lot of them call the colony, the colony money.
• 1:36:42
  Or like the guilt money from the European countries towards, you
• 1:36:45
  know, African or Canadian films.
• 1:36:48
  And on the other hand, how the Canadian producer who are from the
• 1:36:53
  Black, Indigenous and people of color communities can get their voices heard
• 1:36:58
  when it's so complex to live anyway, as.
• 1:37:02
  Those communities.
• 1:37:03
  And so
• 1:37:04
  Rupert Isaacson: what are they getting their financing from then, if not from
• 1:37:06
  the old colonial funding mechanisms.
• 1:37:10
  Diana Elbaum: Yeah, well, I'm, I'm a big fighter to help them raise
• 1:37:19
  within themselves and within their own community political awareness
• 1:37:23
  that will allow that policy changes.
• 1:37:26
  And that allows them country to recognize what I was saying earlier, what we were
• 1:37:31
  talking earlier regarding Europe and how much does it, how much work does it
• 1:37:35
  bring, how much recognition does it bring the, the side effects of the industry
• 1:37:40
  and to really see themselves as part of an industry and not just one film at a
• 1:37:45
  time, see themselves as as entrepreneur.
• 1:37:48
  And so there are a lot of other ways.
• 1:37:50
  There is a lot of charities.
• 1:37:53
  Of course, and foundation, sorry, the charity term strike
• 1:37:56
  it foundation in Africa.
• 1:37:58
  I mean, for sure in Africa, a lot of foundation are around to actually
• 1:38:04
  Rupert Isaacson: those foundations not effectively colonial,
• 1:38:07
  Diana Elbaum: not especially, but there's a Very big industry happening.
• 1:38:11
  One of the thing we need to recognize of this Eurocentric.
• 1:38:15
  Sometimes people forget is that the African average population and
• 1:38:20
  Indian, for example, also, but also the South American one, at least
• 1:38:24
  Africa and India is 70 percent of the population is below 30 years old.
• 1:38:29
  So it's huge markets.
• 1:38:31
  It's a huge market and still for independent films, they're looking
• 1:38:35
  at co production with Europe.
• 1:38:36
  So yes, do take the money, but also try build another system because
• 1:38:42
  you are sitting on the biggest growing market in the world.
• 1:38:46
  And it's not, and it's culture.
• 1:38:50
  It's not uranium and it's not cobalt.
• 1:38:55
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:38:55
  You don't have to chop down a forest or dig it out of the ground
• 1:38:58
  or exactly children to go into a hole in the ground to make it.
• 1:39:01
  Yeah.
• 1:39:02
  Diana Elbaum: And those, so this is really essential for me to, with the knowledge
• 1:39:07
  I have, with all the mistakes and the failures I've had, because we're speaking
• 1:39:11
  about, you know, I won't take about all those, but those are learning curves, of
• 1:39:15
  course, is fail, fail again, fail better.
• 1:39:18
  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
• 1:39:18
  Well, the first film you tried to make didn't get made
• 1:39:21
  Diana Elbaum: with all my All my experience and my easier connection.
• 1:39:27
  I'm just telling them that the only difference between them and me is
• 1:39:30
  I get a no faster on the film, you know, at my age and the experience,
• 1:39:36
  the no, a fast no is like a savior of the day because then, you know, you're
• 1:39:41
  not like, like I did with my first.
• 1:39:44
  Book that I've never made being a nail you know, a nail that doesn't enter the wall.
• 1:39:50
  I know how the wall is made now.
• 1:39:52
  And so it's just much easier.
• 1:39:55
  And when the no final no comes, I also recognize it.
• 1:39:59
  I'm not, you know, suicidal to that part.
• 1:40:01
  But in terms of that.
• 1:40:02
  So this, this part of the this.
• 1:40:06
  The thing that I'm doing on training is essential for my health.
• 1:40:10
  I think mental health is also essential for, to just keep the, keep, keep the
• 1:40:16
  understanding what the new generation, how do they look at what we do?
• 1:40:21
  Where do you know, how do they express those stories?
• 1:40:24
  How do they try to bend to the conventional or to the data today
• 1:40:31
  and tell them there's another way?
• 1:40:33
  Or at least I'm not telling them and there's another way I make them.
• 1:40:37
  I just open a little bit another door to make the thing and have experience
• 1:40:43
  with them another way because of the problem is, you know, is the data we
• 1:40:48
  are all, you know, know the product of.
• 1:40:52
  And, and it's really easily you can fall into the trap of saying, Oh,
• 1:40:56
  well, you know, we've been told by this streamer that that we need to
• 1:41:01
  go on murder mysteries, but yeah, maybe, but, you know, maybe not.
• 1:41:06
  maybe another voice will do another circuit.
• 1:41:09
  So it's, it's, it's the pressure on the younger producers and not
• 1:41:13
  only producers because of the sales agent and distribution and the whole
• 1:41:18
  spectrum of the profession within the film industry is extremely,
• 1:41:23
  extremely complex to navigate today.
• 1:41:26
  It's really complex because you get information was not an information data.
• 1:41:31
  It's just in the eye of someone and you actually don't know
• 1:41:35
  because it's not shared.
• 1:41:37
  So you, you could be told that's what the audience wants.
• 1:41:41
  No, I kind of disagree with that.
• 1:41:44
  And but you know, I'm a free spirit.
• 1:41:45
  So what are you working on now?
• 1:41:49
  So I'm working on can I mention it?
• 1:41:54
  I'm working on your film on your book, and we know how long that's
• 1:42:00
  been when we say five years, we actually can celebrate a 10 year.
• 1:42:05
  So, yeah, I'm trying to adapt rapper's book, the horse bug,
• 1:42:08
  which I fell in love with.
• 1:42:10
  Because I was horseback riding then and totally fell in love with
• 1:42:14
  and it's been a long journey and I'm not giving up on this one.
• 1:42:18
  This is one even with, because we never get a no, we just get bad luck.
• 1:42:23
  And so we're working actually actively on that hoping to, hoping to make it one day.
• 1:42:29
  I'm not going to give a date, but this is.
• 1:42:32
  If there is less than to do, I will do that one.
• 1:42:35
  I'm working, I just finished a shoot of young adult film.
• 1:42:40
  It's the first one I do.
• 1:42:42
  It's not even young adult.
• 1:42:43
  It's a teen film about bullying.
• 1:42:46
  And it's fantastic.
• 1:42:47
  It's, it's a fantastic story.
• 1:42:50
  About how ghost, who's the girl who's just committed suicide, we look at how
• 1:42:55
  she, how she ended up there and we're tackling the notion of we're tackling
• 1:43:01
  the notion of this anonymous bullying that goes on with a social network.
• 1:43:05
  It's a very beautiful, very strong.
• 1:43:08
  It's based.
• 1:43:09
  What's the name of the film?
• 1:43:10
  It's called.
• 1:43:11
  Okay.
• 1:43:11
  We, that's a working title is Tecate, which in French is the short.
• 1:43:17
  For tanquette and tanquette is don't worry.
• 1:43:20
  So when a teenager starts to tell you, don't worry, you actually
• 1:43:23
  have to start to really worry because the disconnect between
• 1:43:27
  parents and teenager is so immense.
• 1:43:30
  They will never let you in their world and their world is really brutal and violent.
• 1:43:36
  And so we wanted to tackle that because it's an epidemic.
• 1:43:40
  And
• 1:43:41
  Rupert Isaacson: is that based on a, on a book or is that just based
• 1:43:43
  Diana Elbaum: on a book that's very you know, it's based, it's
• 1:43:47
  based on the research of a teacher.
• 1:43:49
  She wrote a book, but it's loosely based on that.
• 1:43:53
  And it's mainly based on, I think, more than 300 interviews we had with teenagers.
• 1:44:01
  And the reality, uh, and it stems from the fact that the director whose director
• 1:44:07
  I've done, now it's the third film we do together you know, had, she's well off
• 1:44:15
  and she's quite bourgeois environment with really good, a kind of a great
• 1:44:21
  students, pretty, healthy, white.
• 1:44:25
  Whatever, all the cliche of the bourgeoisie her daughter was being bullied
• 1:44:32
  and she almost realized it too late.
• 1:44:35
  And so, you know, the, we convey the idea of bullying is only the others.
• 1:44:40
  We convey the idea of bullying is like the fatter or the one
• 1:44:43
  that has glasses or the whatever.
• 1:44:46
  It's everywhere.
• 1:44:47
  It's in every school.
• 1:44:48
  It's on.
• 1:44:49
  Every walk of life and and so she decided those we've done only
• 1:44:56
  comedies, the two previous film we've decided to do this one.
• 1:44:59
  It's been a hard sell.
• 1:45:01
  I have to say very hard sell on the market.
• 1:45:04
  Nobody wants to touch it, but we've decided we managed to get
• 1:45:07
  enough money to be able to do it.
• 1:45:08
  Not exactly the way we wanted, but enough to do a good film.
• 1:45:12
  When do you think it'll be out?
• 1:45:14
  wEll, we just finished shooting last week, so, you know, it was
• 1:45:18
  supposed to, we're going to finish it around May or June next year.
• 1:45:21
  And it's French language?
• 1:45:22
  Yeah.
• 1:45:23
  Okay.
• 1:45:23
  It's French language.
• 1:45:24
  I have to find an English title, so if your listeners have an idea, welcome.
• 1:45:29
  Rupert Isaacson: Don't worry, mom.
• 1:45:30
  Yeah.
• 1:45:30
  Diana Elbaum: Yeah.
• 1:45:31
  So I'm doing that.
• 1:45:32
  We're starting to shoot a TV show, Ha Ha Ha, Murder Mystery TV show in two weeks.
• 1:45:39
  So that's a big project because it's actually my first TV show.
• 1:45:43
  It's it's set in the nineties, so it's complex.
• 1:45:47
  Of course, there's not enough money because we also facing the hike
• 1:45:51
  of the increase, the increase, sorry, of the cost of living.
• 1:45:55
  But the budget are from two years ago.
• 1:45:57
  So they don't really care about that.
• 1:45:59
  And and so we have to deal with that.
• 1:46:02
  And it's it's a cross of for those who saw it Little Fire
• 1:46:05
  Everywhere meets Mare of Easttown.
• 1:46:08
  It's it's woman based, it's woman centered, it's a
• 1:46:10
  woman director, a woman DOP.
• 1:46:13
  It's based on the, on true, it stems from true events that
• 1:46:16
  happened in Belgium in the 90s.
• 1:46:18
  Which at the same time, so the end of the industrial era of the steel
• 1:46:22
  industry and then the serial killer and child molester and horror person.
• 1:46:29
  And there was a war of police here, so I'm not going to get into it.
• 1:46:32
  It's quite complex, but it's extremely fascinating around
• 1:46:35
  the classes, the working class, the bourgeois, ruling families.
• 1:46:41
  About the Italian immigration and that's another yet subject about,
• 1:46:46
  you know, the makeup of Belgium and war of police that then doesn't
• 1:46:51
  get any results and awful series of killers are being let loose because.
• 1:46:59
  just ego, political, police ego.
• 1:47:02
  Anyway, so we're shooting that one till the end of the year.
• 1:47:06
  That's going to be for a delivery also in June.
• 1:47:10
  And then I have a few other projects in the, in development right now.
• 1:47:16
  My first genre film was a survival film, um, which also woman, kind of
• 1:47:25
  a woman's story around motherhood.
• 1:47:27
  But it's totally genre is misery meets into the wild.
• 1:47:31
  So that's another one that I'm financing right now and we are
• 1:47:34
  casting and we are wrecking.
• 1:47:36
  So it's set in the mountains.
• 1:47:38
  So we've been to beautiful place like that's the other front part of my job.
• 1:47:42
  We've been wrecking in Alto Adige in so Northern Italy to Slovenia.
• 1:47:46
  It's really fun.
• 1:47:47
  And yeah.
• 1:47:49
  Then quite a few others that are baby level.
• 1:47:52
  So just a few ideas, another TV series, and then another book that I've just
• 1:47:58
  option and from a Belgian writer and yeah, and then a lot of him coming
• 1:48:04
  from, I have project from Canada.
• 1:48:05
  We have project from Italy.
• 1:48:08
  We have project from Germany coming.
• 1:48:09
  So there's a lot on the slate, but they're all different stages of development or.
• 1:48:17
  Rupert Isaacson: Just quickly how does a book option work?
• 1:48:21
  People talk about optioning.
• 1:48:23
  This is one of these, these, these terms you hear.
• 1:48:26
  As a layman, if you're listening how does, what does, what does a
• 1:48:29
  book option mean in the film world?
• 1:48:32
  So
• 1:48:33
  Diana Elbaum: the way it works with editor, book editors in the film world.
• 1:48:37
  Is that before pre pre publishing of a book, the editors, all of
• 1:48:43
  them have what they call the right audio visual department.
• 1:48:48
  So when you get to know to be known in the realm of book publishing or management you
• 1:48:53
  do get a preview of the upcoming books.
• 1:48:56
  So of course, the a lot of them are snatched up by the American studios.
• 1:49:03
  And you never get access to them, but I'm working mainly with European publishers
• 1:49:08
  or non American because I can't even get to Penguin Random and the rest of them.
• 1:49:13
  I mean, it's just like, it's like so many readers in the studios.
• 1:49:17
  There's no way you can get to a book fast.
• 1:49:21
  On that level and also on the money level.
• 1:49:23
  So what happens is that if a book is of interest, then I make an offer.
• 1:49:28
  And because we never know how difficult or not difficult a book is, and I
• 1:49:34
  can give you a few examples you take an option to produce a film based on
• 1:49:40
  the book for a year, two years, three years, five years, and it has a price.
• 1:49:47
  Rupert Isaacson: And the option means that you, your production company
• 1:49:51
  has the right to go out and try to raise the funds to get the film made.
• 1:49:55
  And if, if the publisher.
• 1:49:57
  And the author say, okay, and they signed that option with you.
• 1:50:01
  They can't go out to another film producer over there and say, Ooh, well, wait, let's
• 1:50:07
  play one's off against each other or so.
• 1:50:09
  Diana Elbaum: Yeah, they can't and they can't go to another language.
• 1:50:13
  Okay.
• 1:50:14
  If I read a book in French, if it's translated after and so on, the
• 1:50:18
  American market and somebody wants it, I have a hold back period.
• 1:50:22
  They cannot, no film can be, if the film is made at the end of the day, no film
• 1:50:26
  can be made after two, three, four years of the, the release of the first film.
• 1:50:32
  Okay.
• 1:50:32
  So there's a hold back period for further release in different languages.
• 1:50:37
  So it's quite complex, the book the, it's, very highly competitive market because
• 1:50:42
  everybody's looking at what you mentioned earlier on intellectual property is really
• 1:50:47
  the worth also of a production company.
• 1:50:50
  I option in my life.
• 1:50:54
  Not only your book, but also amazing, uh, content like Anne
• 1:50:58
  Frank diary, diaries, or I also
• 1:51:03
  Rupert Isaacson: optioned the diaries of Anne Frank.
• 1:51:06
  Yeah.
• 1:51:07
  But how did you, have those not been made and taken up by American companies?
• 1:51:12
  Diana Elbaum: No, it was actually in Israel.
• 1:51:13
  It was actually European.
• 1:51:15
  That would, yeah, that was European.
• 1:51:17
  So you also have to understand that all the publishers or the audiovisual
• 1:51:21
  rights representative of the product publisher every single market,
• 1:51:26
  those people are really accessible.
• 1:51:28
  So, you know, you go, you, you usually receive pre market, you receive like a
• 1:51:33
  whole, all those books are coming out.
• 1:51:35
  And then you also receive all those books have not been optioned.
• 1:51:39
  And it goes from, you know, real life, you know, like your book, like, a biography
• 1:51:46
  or real life event, it goes to children literature, you know, to, and then all
• 1:51:51
  the rest of the genre we know and it's extremely you know, if you see like The
• 1:51:57
  Lost Daughter, for example, it was a huge, huge IP because the author was, Huge.
• 1:52:04
  And it was, there was a lot of pressure on that one.
• 1:52:07
  So the fact that the the producer managed to get that as independent
• 1:52:11
  producer in another studio.
• 1:52:13
  So there's a lot of pressure when books come out of there
• 1:52:17
  are, you know, are announced.
• 1:52:20
  I Also go back to old.
• 1:52:22
  I have a lot of friends that are I don't know how to say that in English.
• 1:52:25
  I have a lot of friends that are librarians.
• 1:52:28
  So I also have dinner with them like once every two, twice a year and
• 1:52:33
  say, I want only literature from, you know, American literature for
• 1:52:37
  the seventies has not been option.
• 1:52:39
  So, you know, then the rights and the price is really low because if it hasn't
• 1:52:43
  been option, probably has returned back.
• 1:52:45
  I mean, that they have no value, almost less value, a very, you
• 1:52:49
  know, books that are coming out are super sellers are unbuyable.
• 1:52:55
  Cause it's so much money to, to option and they won't give it unless you have
• 1:53:00
  the whole package already figure out.
• 1:53:02
  So it's mainly goes to the American in the studios or big French companies.
• 1:53:07
  The so the, another example of a book was extremely hard to get.
• 1:53:15
  And we managed to get, and we did a film about it was a coming book.
• 1:53:19
  It was a tiny Gucci, um, Again, I have to remember the English title.
• 1:53:26
  Stanley Goucher is the father of the manga.
• 1:53:29
  He passed, unfortunately.
• 1:53:30
  The father of manga, okay.
• 1:53:32
  Yeah, he's the father of the manga.
• 1:53:34
  He's like above and beyond every manga writers.
• 1:53:39
  Give us his name again.
• 1:53:40
  Tani Gushi.
• 1:53:42
  Tani Gushi.
• 1:53:43
  Beautiful writer, beautiful stories.
• 1:53:49
  Rupert Isaacson: Down my wiki rabbit hole as you speak, keep going.
• 1:53:52
  Diana Elbaum: And so that was a lot of pressure because the book
• 1:53:55
  was very successful in France.
• 1:53:58
  And not only in France, around the world, but also the name as a writer was massive
• 1:54:03
  and we really had to get or act together to be able to get the the, the only
• 1:54:08
  chance I had on that one was the fact that the publisher was in non Japanese.
• 1:54:13
  So the official publisher outside of Japan was the Belgian publishing company.
• 1:54:18
  And I knew very well the director of the audiovisual rights.
• 1:54:21
  And I went to eat with her and I said, we have, I have to do this book.
• 1:54:26
  I have to do this.
• 1:54:27
  And so she gave it to me.
• 1:54:29
  Well, not only because I'm nice and a beautiful and friendly and I know good
• 1:54:32
  restaurants, but I mean, it was not an easy transaction, but we got it.
• 1:54:38
  And yeah, so there is a lot of pressure on that, but it's obvious,
• 1:54:42
  you know, if, and, and funnily enough, it's not because a good is a book
• 1:54:47
  is good to film is going to be good.
• 1:54:49
  Absolutely.
• 1:54:50
  Usually what there is this one spark in a book that you say, yeah, we need
• 1:54:55
  to do this, but it's not always a book.
• 1:54:56
  It's just a one spark.
• 1:54:58
  Mm hmm.
• 1:54:59
  Especially with adaptation of comic book.
• 1:55:02
  Which,
• 1:55:02
  Rupert Isaacson: which is the comic book that you, you're, you've adapted by?
• 1:55:05
  It's
• 1:55:07
  Diana Elbaum: Cartier Lointain in French.
• 1:55:09
  And again, for the life of me, I will not remember.
• 1:55:14
  Rupert Isaacson: His bibliography here.
• 1:55:16
  Well, Cartier obviously means like a quarter of a, of a
• 1:55:19
  town, faraway neighborhood.
• 1:55:22
  Okay.
• 1:55:23
  Diana Elbaum: Gosh.
• 1:55:23
  In Japanese it's Aruka Namashi.
• 1:55:27
  Rupert Isaacson: Do you happen to know when it came out because he's, he's,
• 1:55:30
  Diana Elbaum: I think it's okay.
• 1:55:32
  The story is set in 1998.
• 1:55:35
  And let me go, I'll also go to wiki because hold on, it was published in
• 1:55:41
  1998 in Japan and then was translated in 2002 and three came back out in France.
• 1:55:50
  Rupert Isaacson: I see it here.
• 1:55:51
  A distant neighborhood, a distant
• 1:55:53
  Diana Elbaum: neighborhood.
• 1:55:54
  Yeah.
• 1:55:54
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:55:54
  Haruka, Haruka Namachi, a distant neighborhood.
• 1:55:59
  We
• 1:56:01
  Diana Elbaum: had the huge pleasure, immense pleasure of Mr.
• 1:56:05
  Taniguchi coming to the set.
• 1:56:06
  We were shooting in the Alps, the border of Switzerland, and he came to the set and
• 1:56:13
  that was just amazing with his wife and it was just beautiful, beautiful, middle aged
• 1:56:20
  Rupert Isaacson: salaryman.
• 1:56:22
  Hiroshi Nakahara accidentally takes a train ride back to his old hometown
• 1:56:27
  to visit his mother's grave, then for reasons he cannot explain...
• 1:56:31
  Hiroshi is transported over 30 years into the past, reacquainting himself with
• 1:56:35
  the family he's lost and the individual memories he has since forgotten.
• 1:56:40
  Good sounds, good esoteric Japanese stuff.
• 1:56:45
  Diana Elbaum: Yeah, I mean it's, I think it's everybody's wild dream
• 1:56:48
  to sometime revisit unfinished story, unfinished business.
• 1:56:52
  Absolutely,
• 1:56:53
  Rupert Isaacson: right, right the wrongs and heal.
• 1:56:56
  Must be a story of healing.
• 1:56:59
  sO, there's a couple of moral takeaways I'm taking from this as
• 1:57:03
  we head towards the end of this really fascinating conversation.
• 1:57:07
  One is, always talk to strangers.
• 1:57:11
  Always.
• 1:57:12
  You
• 1:57:12
  Diana Elbaum: wouldn't, you know why Rupert, you know why
• 1:57:16
  I always talk to strangers.
• 1:57:17
  Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
• 1:57:18
  Absolutely.
• 1:57:18
  Because we're always told not to.
• 1:57:20
  And it's really interesting.
• 1:57:21
  Diana Elbaum: I wasn't going that way.
• 1:57:23
  But
• 1:57:25
  Rupert Isaacson: we are, we are told not to, we are told to be reserved.
• 1:57:27
  We are told not to put ourselves forward.
• 1:57:29
  We're told not to be mouthy.
• 1:57:31
  We're told not to be curious.
• 1:57:33
  And you're, you're saying this high school teacher.
• 1:57:38
  The conversations with that person, then, you know, a bar in, in Israel at
• 1:57:44
  a certain period of your life, and then this conversation with the, this amazing
• 1:57:49
  young man who is somehow managing to bring grace into the stressful situation
• 1:57:53
  in a taxi rank, who then turns out to be.
• 1:57:56
  With you a very successful young,
• 1:58:00
  Diana Elbaum: Director.
• 1:58:00
  Yeah.
• 1:58:01
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:58:01
  So talk to strangers.
• 1:58:03
  There's something else, which I wanted to ask you really from the beginning of this.
• 1:58:11
  You had a high school teacher who turned you on to Dutch literature.
• 1:58:15
  And this is where these stories began.
• 1:58:17
  Have you made one of these stories?
• 1:58:18
  And also, what is the Dutch literature book that we should
• 1:58:24
  all read that we don't know?
• 1:58:25
  Diana Elbaum: Yeah.
• 1:58:25
  Oh my God, this is like down memory lane.
• 1:58:30
  So no, I've never made any anything.
• 1:58:32
  I still want to make one, but I'm not going to be able because the family's
• 1:58:36
  holding tight on the rights, but
• 1:58:39
  Rupert Isaacson: What's the book that you feel we should read?
• 1:58:42
  Diana Elbaum: So the book, and I can't even remember the book,
• 1:58:45
  that's just to tell you that much.
• 1:58:46
  I know it triggers something in me.
• 1:58:48
  I think it's called The Wall.
• 1:58:50
  I can't even figure out.
• 1:58:51
  I don't remember the name of the writer.
• 1:58:54
  But you know, and but then many, many, many books later.
• 1:59:02
  When I made this connection with Faulkner because literally she told
• 1:59:04
  me, if you like him, you're going to love Faulkner and that's how I started.
• 1:59:09
  And then I went Faulkner and I read all Faulkner in French because
• 1:59:13
  Shakespeare and Faulkner are the two writers I cannot read in English.
• 1:59:16
  Okay.
• 1:59:16
  Interesting.
• 1:59:18
  I don't get it.
• 1:59:19
  And that sounds so kind of, oh, I can't read Faulkner and
• 1:59:24
  Shakespeare in English, but it
• 1:59:26
  Rupert Isaacson: makes sense because you're dealing with a
• 1:59:27
  very particular kind of English.
• 1:59:29
  And I think I think that those two, I think that all the classic writers,
• 1:59:33
  it truly actually doesn't matter what language you read them in, because the
• 1:59:36
  power of the story is so is so powerful that it transcends the language.
• 1:59:44
  And I think I think any author.
• 1:59:46
  And I know I would say that, you know, if you can translate my book.
• 1:59:50
  really well into your language, please have at it, because there'll be aspects
• 1:59:55
  of it that I couldn't do in my own language that come out of that story,
• 1:59:59
  that you might do better in translation.
• 2:00:02
  Yeah.
• 2:00:02
  Because stories, stories have, are their own ecosystems for sure.
• 2:00:05
  Yeah,
• 2:00:05
  Diana Elbaum: absolutely.
• 2:00:06
  I totally agree with you, and language have like, mmm.
• 2:00:10
  It's language are beautiful.
• 2:00:12
  And yeah.
• 2:00:14
  So yeah, and then Faulkner.
• 2:00:15
  And then I love Faulkner.
• 2:00:16
  I came back and I said, oh, you know, I love Faulkner.
• 2:00:19
  And she was really in her own way of being a Flemish teacher.
• 2:00:22
  Everybody hated Flemish, by the way, at school.
• 2:00:24
  But in her own way, she kind of like guided me and she said,
• 2:00:27
  oh, maybe you should leave.
• 2:00:28
  You should read Cortez no, sorry.
• 2:00:31
  Marquez then came, of course, The Hundred Years of Solitude, where
• 2:00:35
  then my world completely kind of like, you know, what is that?
• 2:00:39
  And and then after that came all the others, Fuentes and Borges
• 2:00:44
  and Cortázar and like the very classical South American writer.
• 2:00:50
  And I just couldn't get enough of it.
• 2:00:51
  And it's funny because at that time, also, I never read one female writer, right?
• 2:00:56
  And still, I could totally, engage in those crazy, crazy.
• 2:01:02
  Time lapses that magic realism brings you of of and kind of a little bit of
• 2:01:09
  schizophrenia because especially Fuentes, but also Cortázar with the division
• 2:01:14
  of the self with the point of view of the he and the point of view of the I.
• 2:01:19
  Is it was mesmerizing for me to be able to look at anyway, it was
• 2:01:25
  mesmerizing and never, and you know, I was training traditional French school.
• 2:01:30
  So we had, you know, we had Victoria go and we have.
• 2:01:34
  We had like Giono and we had all the French classic, but it was also
• 2:01:37
  at the time we were reading a lot.
• 2:01:40
  And and just this encounter with the American writers and the
• 2:01:44
  South American, um, I, I, I've seen her many, many years later.
• 2:01:49
  And and then we went to eat and I had to thank her.
• 2:01:54
  I mean, really, I had to thank her and say, you know, you changed my world.
• 2:02:01
  You actually changed my world.
• 2:02:03
  And I wish we would recognize more the capacity of what teacher can
• 2:02:06
  do to a young child, a teenage and how important that is.
• 2:02:11
  But she literally, she didn't change my world because I didn't know I had
• 2:02:14
  to choose a world to change, but she opened a door that I didn't know existed.
• 2:02:19
  Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
• 2:02:19
  I had a teacher like this at school who had been a the student of Tolkien's.
• 2:02:26
  And he read a couple of things that I had written, um, and
• 2:02:30
  said, Rupert, you can do this.
• 2:02:32
  You should, you should do this.
• 2:02:34
  I've just I've just been looking up now, Dutch literature, because
• 2:02:39
  now I'm like, oh my gosh, well, clearly there's a whole world here.
• 2:02:42
  And of course, who pops up but Anne Frank.
• 2:02:44
  Yeah.
• 2:02:44
  And it's true.
• 2:02:45
  We don't think of her as a Dutch writer.
• 2:02:47
  You know, we think of her as, except Dutch of her,
• 2:02:50
  Diana Elbaum: except they think about her as a Dutch writer.
• 2:02:52
  Rupert Isaacson: Got.
• 2:02:53
  But there are some really interesting people coming up here,
• 2:02:55
  like Gerard Re Reeve, and Oh yeah.
• 2:02:59
  Writing about homosexuality and the, when it was still illegal villain,
• 2:03:02
  Frederick Hammond's talking about the war.
• 2:03:05
  So, thank you for telling me.
• 2:03:06
  I've got a whole, I've got, I've got, I'm going to dive down a Dutch rabbit hole.
• 2:03:11
  It's
• 2:03:11
  Diana Elbaum: kind of funny that we, you know, you're speaking to a film producer.
• 2:03:14
  You're going to end up reading 20, 20 times more books and
• 2:03:17
  going and actually seeing films.
• 2:03:18
  I'm not sure I'm doing my job right.
• 2:03:20
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, the other thing that you're doing, which is
• 2:03:22
  the other moral of this, which I want, I want listeners to take away.
• 2:03:27
  Is obviously I'm a predominantly English speaking person.
• 2:03:33
  So although I've stuff I've written has gone into translation I write
• 2:03:39
  in English and I live in Germany.
• 2:03:41
  My German is poor, but it's functional.
• 2:03:43
  I can speak French.
• 2:03:44
  But I didn't write in it and I wouldn't presume to be able to for
• 2:03:49
  those of us listening to this cause I'm, I will go back and listen to
• 2:03:53
  this as well, we tend to assume.
• 2:03:56
  In the movie industry in the industry of stories, TV, et cetera,
• 2:04:00
  that it's all English speaking.
• 2:04:01
  So I know that a lot of you will have a lot of you listeners will have
• 2:04:05
  tuned into this episode thinking, ah, well, this must be about Hollywood.
• 2:04:09
  And this must be about.
• 2:04:12
  The offshoots of that which of course are the streaming services and that
• 2:04:16
  sort of thing what I think is really fascinating is people outside of the
• 2:04:23
  English speaking world discount because they're just not exposed to it until
• 2:04:29
  it gets remade in English because a lot of a lot of great films in English were
• 2:04:33
  actually made in other languages first people forget that A lot of the classic
• 2:04:36
  movies that we know and love were often French movies or German movies or Italian
• 2:04:40
  movies before they were English movies.
• 2:04:43
  But there's this whole industry and that you can even take a country as small
• 2:04:48
  as Belgium, which, you know, when you look from the American, Americocentric
• 2:04:52
  point of view, people are like, ah, Belgium is just a tiny little country.
• 2:04:54
  What does that mean?
• 2:04:55
  But of course, where do we get Tintin?
• 2:04:56
  Where do we get Asterix?
• 2:04:57
  Where do we get the cultural output?
• 2:05:02
  anD that when you do now sit on the aeroplane and you see all these films
• 2:05:06
  from all over the world, as you said, Diana, there's an industry there.
• 2:05:10
  So I think a real takeaway is that don't think if you want to go into
• 2:05:15
  the movie industry, if you want to publish a book, if you want to make
• 2:05:17
  a film, that it has to be Hollywood, that there has to be this break through
• 2:05:22
  those gatekeepers into that world.
• 2:05:25
  No, no, you can make it where you are.
• 2:05:28
  There is a whole industry that will sustain you.
• 2:05:33
  Okay, it's connected to an international industry, but it
• 2:05:36
  will sustain you where you are.
• 2:05:39
  So if you're sitting in you might be sitting in the USA or you're sitting
• 2:05:45
  in the UK, but you might be sitting listening to this in Benin or Mongolia.
• 2:05:53
  Diana Elbaum: Yeah, Avangardia actually gets a huge,
• 2:05:56
  Rupert Isaacson: huge...
• 2:05:56
  Absolutely.
• 2:05:57
  Oh, God.
• 2:05:58
  You can stake your film and your TV stuff there, and you should.
• 2:06:02
  You don't have to think Hollywood.
• 2:06:04
  And I think this is really important for people, because I think a lot of
• 2:06:07
  people don't start, because they think, Oh, well, I could never make it there.
• 2:06:12
  I don't have the rights.
• 2:06:12
  I don't have the connections.
• 2:06:14
  How would I make it in film?
• 2:06:16
  Because Phil equals Los Angeles, or it equals, yeah?
• 2:06:20
  Diana Elbaum: Yeah, it's...
• 2:06:20
  But it doesn't.
• 2:06:22
  Yeah, it's, it's a lot of overlook.
• 2:06:24
  And it's good that you're mentioning that we making films.
• 2:06:27
  Oh, I mean, we, when I see the film community is making films everywhere.
• 2:06:31
  And actually the market is, of course, the market is craving for the American
• 2:06:36
  films because it's an entertainment.
• 2:06:39
  It's, it's got a production value.
• 2:06:41
  Only in America, you can make, but you know, Nigeria makes as many films
• 2:06:45
  as the U S or India makes as any film in the U S to just name a few.
• 2:06:49
  The thing is that also one of the things that we should be craving for
• 2:06:53
  in the market is actually the market of the independent film world is
• 2:06:58
  craving for is all those new voices.
• 2:07:00
  As soon as I look at last year, look at the foreign Oscars.
• 2:07:05
  For example, our international, I think it's called, they rename
• 2:07:08
  it International Oscar list.
• 2:07:10
  Last year, there was a film of Bhutan, and then you have a film from, you
• 2:07:15
  know, Joy, Joyful from Iraq was there.
• 2:07:18
  You know, look at those films.
• 2:07:20
  They get there for a reason because it's another way to look at our world.
• 2:07:25
  And if you like to, I mean, it sounds tacky to the max,
• 2:07:28
  but I'm going to go for it.
• 2:07:30
  I feel if you are a little bit curious about how your neighbor lives.
• 2:07:35
  Go see films from your own country as well, depending on where you are.
• 2:07:39
  And it could be the American indie films also, which is totally different
• 2:07:42
  industry than the Hollywood, because there's also that whole other industry.
• 2:07:47
  We did a film last year, one, we had a film in Cannes, one, the Camaradeau,
• 2:07:51
  which is the best first film of all the all the films shown in Cannes called
• 2:07:56
  War Pony about the Dakota First Nation.
• 2:07:59
  You know, it's, and it's an American film.
• 2:08:02
  War Pony.
• 2:08:03
  You
• 2:08:03
  Rupert Isaacson: produced
• 2:08:04
  Diana Elbaum: that?
• 2:08:04
  It's, it's, my comp, I mean, it's a group, I'm part of a group called
• 2:08:08
  Caviar, so it's Caviar Group.
• 2:08:10
  And it's a first film, First Nation Dakota.
• 2:08:14
  I had no idea what it was and I saw the film because I wasn't involved
• 2:08:18
  in the production of that one.
• 2:08:19
  But you know, I saw the film in Cannes and I was, you know, my
• 2:08:22
  heart went out and I was like, damn, so much work to do in the world.
• 2:08:27
  It's beautiful.
• 2:08:29
  And
• 2:08:33
  Rupert Isaacson: yeah, thank you for telling me.
• 2:08:35
  I'm just wicking War Pony right now.
• 2:08:38
  Looks absolutely fascinating because, yeah, I know a little bit about the
• 2:08:43
  Lakota, um, situation and the Rosebud and Pine Ridge Reservations in.
• 2:08:50
  In America, which of course are the two poorest parts of America,
• 2:08:54
  Diana Elbaum: but yet I think, I think, I think film.
• 2:08:58
  That's actually a reduction of literature.
• 2:09:02
  Yes, it takes an effort.
• 2:09:03
  Yes, it demands an effort.
• 2:09:04
  Yes, you might not want to go and see it because it's raining because it's a little
• 2:09:09
  bit too expensive for my taste as well.
• 2:09:13
  But you would be amazed the conversation you can engage, and
• 2:09:16
  you would be amazed about it.
• 2:09:20
  How he makes you, I know I'm going to go all the way, how he could
• 2:09:26
  make you challenge your everyday life and how beautiful it can be.
• 2:09:31
  I've seen film this year in Cannes.
• 2:09:33
  I've seen one.
• 2:09:34
  It's this year in the last time in May, who's called Zone of Interest by
• 2:09:40
  Jonathan Glaser, which is a UK director.
• 2:09:42
  He's done only three films.
• 2:09:45
  And I can tell you that I came out of the film so shaken, so destroyed emotionally.
• 2:09:54
  And so it was a weird can, because at the same time I had also a film
• 2:09:58
  screening at Cannes, but I was crying the whole, the whole Cannes, not because
• 2:10:03
  I couldn't make it, but because of the
• 2:10:05
  because of the emotion I felt.
• 2:10:08
  And each time everybody of my friends say, Oh, did you see the Jonathan Glaser?
• 2:10:11
  It was a buzz on the Croisette.
• 2:10:13
  And I was like starting to cry.
• 2:10:15
  And I just came back from Locarno, another film festival in Europe, just yesterday.
• 2:10:21
  And I, when I landed, the producer of that film was landing
• 2:10:25
  at the same time from Poland.
• 2:10:27
  And so we shared the drive from Zurich to Locarno was around four and a half hours.
• 2:10:33
  And I told, I mean, I was crying again.
• 2:10:37
  And so I was asking questions about the film, how they made
• 2:10:41
  it, you know, how does it work?
• 2:10:43
  And of course the film has been sold everywhere.
• 2:10:45
  So it's going to come out probably in the full time in most of the
• 2:10:49
  places and probably will have a nomination for an international Oscar.
• 2:10:54
  But, and how much I cried again in that car drive, I was just like,
• 2:10:59
  look at what you're doing to me.
• 2:11:00
  Look at how I can't get away from the emotion I felt.
• 2:11:05
  And months after seeing the film, and I'm not especially no romantic,
• 2:11:11
  nor kind of, emotional person.
• 2:11:14
  But that one just.
• 2:11:17
  Triggered and if you can have that.
• 2:11:20
  Once in a while in your life and be able for two hours to forget about
• 2:11:25
  the fact that you have to go home and, you know, you have to pay bills
• 2:11:28
  and, you know, that sometime life is crap or just beautiful and just
• 2:11:32
  have this bubble of time and fine.
• 2:11:35
  And sometimes it's going to be awful family.
• 2:11:37
  You're going to hate it.
• 2:11:37
  But the one you find the great film, it's just.
• 2:11:42
  Such an experience.
• 2:11:43
  Rupert Isaacson: Tell us the name of this film
• 2:11:44
  Diana Elbaum: by Jonathan Glazier.
• 2:11:45
  It's called Zone of Interest.
• 2:11:46
  It's based on a book.
• 2:11:47
  The author died the day of the screening.
• 2:11:50
  Wow.
• 2:11:51
  I can't remember the author's name, of course, like the rest of the authors, but
• 2:11:54
  you're going to find it on the internet.
• 2:11:57
  Okay.
• 2:11:58
  Rupert Isaacson: Thank you for the tip, War Pony.
• 2:12:01
  And so I just see that War, War Pony was produced by Riley Cuff, it
• 2:12:07
  Diana Elbaum: was directed by her,
• 2:12:08
  Rupert Isaacson: who of course is Elvis Presley's granddaughter.
• 2:12:10
  Yeah,
• 2:12:10
  Diana Elbaum: it was directed by her, directed by her.
• 2:12:14
  And there were two directors who met in another beautiful film shot by
• 2:12:19
  Andrea Arnold called American Honey.
• 2:12:21
  Those two actresses met and then they shot there in South Dakota
• 2:12:26
  for American Honey and that's how they got in touch with the Lakotas.
• 2:12:31
  So it's you know, one film brings another film.
• 2:12:34
  Rupert Isaacson: Gosh zone of interest.
• 2:12:36
  A Nazi officer falls in love with the woman of the commander of
• 2:12:40
  the Auschwitz concentration camp.
• 2:12:43
  That's,
• 2:12:43
  Diana Elbaum: that's worse.
• 2:12:45
  Worst speech ever.
• 2:12:46
  It's really not about
• 2:12:47
  Rupert Isaacson: that.
• 2:12:49
  Based on the Martin Amis.
• 2:12:51
  Diana Elbaum: Yeah.
• 2:12:51
  Martin Amis.
• 2:12:52
  Okay.
• 2:12:52
  It's really not the pitch of the film.
• 2:12:55
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 2:12:55
  Well, you know, they always, they always have to But it's not,
• 2:13:00
  Diana Elbaum: it's it's much more, it's, it's a radical film.
• 2:13:03
  It's also, okay, I'm going to get into it just a little bit, Robert, and then
• 2:13:07
  you it's also the fact that it's not, the story is told by what's on the screen.
• 2:13:12
  Okay.
• 2:13:13
  I'm going to start again.
• 2:13:14
  Take two.
• 2:13:15
  The story is told.
• 2:13:18
  The way we tell a story is not always telling a story from, it's
• 2:13:22
  always, it's also the combination of the visual grammar of a film.
• 2:13:28
  And, and the bounce back, the echo between the narration and the visual grammar
• 2:13:33
  makes a film amazing, could also make a film really bad, sometimes it's overdone.
• 2:13:39
  That one is just a perfect equilibrium, extremely hard.
• 2:13:47
  But, and radical, I have to say, so, but go and see it,
• 2:13:53
  because there is there is...
• 2:13:56
  Rupert Isaacson: The commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, Rudolf Hus,
• 2:14:00
  and his wife Hedwig, strive to build a dream life for their family in a house
• 2:14:04
  and garden next to the camp of Auschwitz.
• 2:14:06
  It's
• 2:14:07
  Diana Elbaum: the wall of the camp is the wall of the garden.
• 2:14:11
  Wow.
• 2:14:12
  Yeah.
• 2:14:13
  Yeah.
• 2:14:14
  Gosh.
• 2:14:15
  And it's amazing actors and the ways, I mean, also read about the film.
• 2:14:19
  Don't read too much about it.
• 2:14:20
  Don't see too much online about it, but go and see it.
• 2:14:23
  But the way he shot it was also very radical.
• 2:14:26
  And, and the more you get into those details, the more
• 2:14:29
  it's not about appreciation.
• 2:14:31
  Oh, sorry for my English, but it's not about the appreciation of the craft.
• 2:14:36
  It's not how complex it was.
• 2:14:38
  It's not how expensive it was is the fact that the results.
• 2:14:42
  Has an emotional, emotional, brings you into an emotional journey.
• 2:14:47
  Absolutely.
• 2:14:48
  Rupert Isaacson: The power of story, the power of stories, the power of change.
• 2:14:51
  We have the storytelling ape.
• 2:14:53
  We're not, you know, they call us sapiens sapiens.
• 2:14:56
  Yeah, I had this thing about saying that, but really all anything with
• 2:14:59
  the brain thinks there's nothing special to our species about
• 2:15:02
  thinking, but we have this larynx.
• 2:15:05
  And we tell stories other animals vocalize, and they can do that in a
• 2:15:09
  very complex way, but they don't make films, write poetry, create literature.
• 2:15:13
  That's us.
• 2:15:14
  That's our species.
• 2:15:15
  And it seems to be connected to healing at its very core.
• 2:15:20
  The, you know, the, the, the shamanistic experiences, you, you, you, you want to
• 2:15:27
  hunt, you must contact the, the spirits of the animals, you want healing, you
• 2:15:32
  must contact the spirits of the ancestors through a shaman, bring your story, why,
• 2:15:37
  why you need healing, the shaman goes into an older state of consciousness.
• 2:15:41
  MaKes contact, gets a story from the spirit world, brings it back, tells
• 2:15:46
  you that story, and then you and the sham go on to create a new story.
• 2:15:49
  That's the heal.
• 2:15:50
  But even that's going to the doctor, isn't it?
• 2:15:52
  You go to the doctor saying, Oh, my leg.
• 2:15:54
  And the doctor consults their literature, which is a story
• 2:15:58
  and tells you another story.
• 2:16:00
  And then you and that doctor create a new story of your
• 2:16:03
  leg, hopefully getting better.
• 2:16:04
  But I think that that, yeah, really, that's at the core of this.
• 2:16:09
  The story is healing.
• 2:16:11
  Story is change.
• 2:16:12
  As you said, it creates policy change.
• 2:16:13
  It creates ripple effects down the decades
• 2:16:18
  Diana Elbaum: further.
• 2:16:19
  Yeah.
• 2:16:20
  And you know, when you're speaking about healing, my, when I'm feeling
• 2:16:22
  really low, my favorite film, and it's not European, it's not art house.
• 2:16:26
  It's not anything to make, make me feel up again.
• 2:16:30
  It's like Kung Fu Panda, for example, you know, just love it.
• 2:16:34
  And it's like, don't explain.
• 2:16:36
  And it doesn't matter.
• 2:16:37
  And everybody has its own last place, you know, and just, I feel so good.
• 2:16:42
  And I was like, yeah, life is good.
• 2:16:44
  I have a tendency of liking the underdogs anyway, but, um, it's
• 2:16:49
  just one of those yeah, it's a place of refuge of the storytelling.
• 2:16:53
  It's a place of feeling.
• 2:16:55
  Yeah, it's exactly what you were saying.
• 2:16:57
  And it's also a place of community.
• 2:16:59
  And that's why the community.
• 2:17:01
  And also, you know what, I'm just going to give another example of
• 2:17:05
  me going to a lot of festivals.
• 2:17:06
  So now I was in Locarno and I was, you know, in Brussels, I
• 2:17:09
  had a festival and everything.
• 2:17:11
  Those are the places where you see the most amazing film.
• 2:17:13
  And it's actually the lowest way.
• 2:17:16
  It's a low cost way to see film, not because the film is not good, but
• 2:17:20
  because You get a package deal and you can see 25 films and they are
• 2:17:24
  happening everywhere in the world and every city almost there's at one point
• 2:17:28
  in another film festival documentary film festival short film festival
• 2:17:33
  and automatic film festival do it.
• 2:17:36
  You would be so amazed if you take like, I mean, not a week off, of course, because,
• 2:17:42
  but if you're like for a week, you go and see a film every day or every morning,
• 2:17:46
  or it's, it's just amazing experience,
• 2:17:50
  Rupert Isaacson: really.
• 2:17:51
  That's really interesting.
• 2:17:52
  And thank you for that.
• 2:17:54
  That that's the other thing I've only shameful.
• 2:17:57
  I've only ever been to film festivals and I've been trying
• 2:17:59
  to sell a movie of my own.
• 2:18:01
  It's never occurred to me much as I love movie and story, um, I guess because
• 2:18:07
  I'm often so busy making stories that yes, you're absolutely right to go
• 2:18:12
  and use film festival like going to a music festival to suddenly go and
• 2:18:19
  expose yourself to a whole smorgasbord of storytelling and to dive into that.
• 2:18:27
  For a week of your life.
• 2:18:28
  Yeah.
• 2:18:29
  Diana Elbaum: Yeah.
• 2:18:29
  And just be surprised and no reading.
• 2:18:33
  Just go in.
• 2:18:34
  That's the best way to go and see a film.
• 2:18:35
  Not knowing anything about the film.
• 2:18:37
  So that's,
• 2:18:38
  Rupert Isaacson: that's the last moral of the, of, of the
• 2:18:40
  interviews is go to film fest.
• 2:18:41
  Go to your, go to your city's film festival.
• 2:18:44
  Diana Elbaum: Absolutely.
• 2:18:44
  And for the younger audience.
• 2:18:46
  If you have a young audience listening, go and volunteer.
• 2:18:49
  It's even more fun.
• 2:18:51
  Yeah.
• 2:18:52
  They're always looking for volunteers and anybody actually go back to the
• 2:18:56
  advice of if you want to get into the film business, one of the way to start.
• 2:19:00
  A lot of people that I know have started in film business start to
• 2:19:04
  volunteer in their local film festival because they always want benevolence.
• 2:19:08
  So you, of course, don't make any money, but you make a lot of friends
• 2:19:11
  and usually you end up drinking a lot at the parties and whatever.
• 2:19:14
  But the thing is that you get to know people.
• 2:19:17
  You get to see directors, you get to see the guests that are coming.
• 2:19:20
  Every festival has usually guests or, you know, the films are coming
• 2:19:23
  with a crew or an actor and etc.
• 2:19:26
  And that's how you start.
• 2:19:27
  If you, you know, have no other way and, or if you're really interested,
• 2:19:32
  you start like that and it's amazing how it's a welcoming community.
• 2:19:36
  And also because there's another thing that I have to tell you,
• 2:19:39
  which is a little more practical, is the fact that I've hired a lot of
• 2:19:43
  people in my life I've never asked.
• 2:19:47
  Never ever ask what kind of diploma they had and it's still happening.
• 2:19:55
  It's a little more complex today, but the experience outweighs the diploma.
• 2:19:59
  So it's not saying that you don't need to study.
• 2:20:02
  Yes, you do need to study.
• 2:20:04
  Maybe not cinema, maybe you're in legal or your business and you love
• 2:20:09
  cinema, you know, it's just an amazing environment in which to work because
• 2:20:17
  it's just, it's just a great environment.
• 2:20:20
  I can't put more words, you find like everywhere also crap
• 2:20:25
  people, but mainly over my years.
• 2:20:29
  amazing, amazing people.
• 2:20:30
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, you heard it from Diana, people.
• 2:20:32
  If you're looking, you young people, if you're looking and middle aged, if you're
• 2:20:37
  looking to get into the film biz, go volunteer at your local film festival.
• 2:20:43
  What perfect advice.
• 2:20:45
  Join the community.
• 2:20:46
  Diana.
• 2:20:48
  How do people contact you?
• 2:20:50
  Is, is that where, how do they find you?
• 2:20:52
  Let's name of your company website.
• 2:20:55
  Can people write questions to you?
• 2:20:58
  How
• 2:20:58
  Diana Elbaum: do they do that?
• 2:20:59
  Oh my God.
• 2:21:01
  That's like the hardest thing.
• 2:21:02
  If you, if you type in my name, you're going to.
• 2:21:05
  pretty much fine about everything about me and, and, and my information.
• 2:21:10
  I'm if you want to write me I will not take scripts.
• 2:21:14
  Unfortunately you have to be very, very concise about an idea you might have.
• 2:21:19
  It might take a lot of time for me to answer.
• 2:21:21
  And yeah, I mean, my, I have that many, as many hours as everybody else in the day.
• 2:21:27
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, here's my, here's what I would suggest for people.
• 2:21:29
  If you've got it, if you've got a question for Diana, because I know, cause
• 2:21:33
  I worked with Diana a bit and it can sometimes take quite a long time to reply
• 2:21:38
  to an email and I am guilty as charged the same thing because we're all busy.
• 2:21:42
  But right to me.
• 2:21:44
  With a question for Diana and I will put it to her.
• 2:21:48
  And what I might do is I'm, I think I will collect those questions
• 2:21:51
  like I'm doing for everybody.
• 2:21:53
  And Diana, would you consent to come back on and answer those questions
• 2:21:57
  in a, in a second, second podcast?
• 2:21:59
  It's pleasure
• 2:22:00
  Diana Elbaum: with you and with your listener, with pleasure.
• 2:22:03
  And probably we can open other doors.
• 2:22:05
  Yeah, it was great pleasure.
• 2:22:07
  Wonderful.
• 2:22:08
  Rupert Isaacson: All right.
• 2:22:09
  Well, thank you.
• 2:22:10
  Thank you so much.
• 2:22:11
  I look forward to that, that follow up.
• 2:22:13
  There's a bunch more questions I want to ask.
• 2:22:16
  So till next time.
• 2:22:19
  Absolutely.
• 2:22:20
  I'll be here.
• 2:22:21
  And thank you so much for sharing all of this with us.
• 2:22:24
  I'm extremely grateful.
• 2:22:26
  Ah, it
• 2:22:27
  Diana Elbaum: was a pleasure.
• 2:22:28
  Rupert Isaacson: Thank you.
• 2:22:29
  Okay, till next time.
• 2:22:31
  Bye bye.
• 2:22:32
  Thank you for joining us.
• 2:22:33
  We hope you enjoyed today's podcast.
• 2:22:35
  Join our website, new trails learning.com, to check out our online
• 2:22:40
  courses and live workshops in Horse Boy Method, movement Method, and Athena.
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  These evidence-based programs have helped children, veterans, and people
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  dealing with trauma around the world.
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  We also offer a horse training program and self-care program
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  for riders on long ride home.com.
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  These include easy to do online courses and tutorials that
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  bring you and your horse joy.
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  For an overview of all shows and programs, go to rupert isaacson.com.
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  See you on the next show.
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  And please remember to press, subscribe and share.