Filmmaker Spotlight: Heather Millard

Filmmaker Spotlight: Heather Millard

By Bodeene Berrevoets

How did this project come about? Had you worked with young adults before?

When we embarked on this long journey we had never visited Iceland before, we did not know what it was like neither before the banking boom, nor during the boom but what we could investigate was Iceland after the banking boom. To us, Iceland was a country up North somewhere that was cold, expensive and had lots of fish, we barely knew anything else…
When we began reading in the British press about the financial collapse and ICESAVE, we thought long and hard about the information that we were being exposed to as British individuals and that most press had taken just one angle on the subject matter.

We decided to explore Iceland further, so we began to research, phone people in Iceland and embark on Future of Hope. We quickly arranged a 5 day research trip to Reykjavik in March 2009 and arranged as many meetings and interviews as possible with a wide selection of individuals, with ex-bankers, activists through to businessmen and women and potential characters to gauge an array of view points. We filmed scenery and interviews over the 5 days and shortly after cut together the very first trailer for Future of Hope.

After returning to the UK we discussed at length our visit to Iceland and we researched other films made about the financial collapse and about Iceland as a travel destination – what we found, we could not quite believe…. Foreign countries were producing documentaries about Iceland in such a stereotypical way portraying it as a country of fishermen turned bankers, a nation that believes strongly in the hidden people and a fantastic tourist destination to see Geyser, Gullfoss and the Blue Lagoon.  Despite only staying in Reykjavik for 5 days and after speaking with the individuals that we did, we instantly knew that there was more to this country than perhaps first meets the eye.

After 8 months in Iceland we filmed 70 hours of footage, met over 300 people and had driven around the country at least 8 times and could see for ourselves a future of hope for Iceland.

What kind of research did you do in preparation for production?

We began to research Iceland from January 2009 when we first read the newspaper article in the UK that inspired us to consider producing a documentary on the country post-economic crash. We began to read more and more articles; we met with the Embassy of Iceland in London, including the Ambassador at that time.  We made phone calls, sent emails and messages to Icelandic Societies living in the UK and then we began to phone potential contacts and collaborators in Iceland.  This all happened prior to ever visiting Iceland and the next phase was for us to book a week long research trip to Iceland to meet with potential characters for the film.  Before leaving for Iceland in March 2009 we remotely organised a small focus group of individuals, to discuss the film with, to hear a wide range of views on the economic crash and the progress made since the crash to further establish whether or not we had a strong enough story to follow.  During our research trip we were awake at 5am to film the sunrise at the harbour, meetings and filming interviews and landscapes all day before filming sunset before bed in the evenings. Although we never managed to visit anywhere beyond and hour and half reach from the capitol of Reykjavik we soon realised that we had a strong sense for the film and indeed a need to return.

Between March 2009 and June 2009 the preparations really began, we researched flights, accommodation, car hire, hotels, campsites across Iceland and soon realised that despite the economic crash and the de-valuation of the Icelandic Krona (Icelandic Currency), prices still remained relatively high (at least for filmmakers on a budget)…  Therefore, it didn’t take us long to decide that we should buy an old van and convert it into a campervan and that we would just drive and take the ferry to Iceland instead, providing us with both transport and accommodation with the mobility to stay anywhere and travel easily from place to place.  We took the ferry from the UK to France, drove through France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany to Denmark where we took another ferry but this time to the Faroe Islands.  We were then left on the Faroe Islands for 2 days whilst we waited for another ferry for the final journey to Iceland, where we disembarked on the East side of the country (Seydisfjordur), a part that we had never visited before and from that moment on the phone calls continued, the filming really began and we travelled the country at least 8 times to film spectacular landscapes and to meet incredible people filming along the way until it proved obvious which characters we should be following more thoroughly.

What kind of view of Iceland and the Icelandic people did you set out to portray?

When we began producing the documentary ‘Future of Hope’ we didn’t have a view of the Icelandic people that we were trying to portray it was more a case of lets see what we find when we meet the individuals from a cross section of the country and portray our findings in the film. It just so happens that what we found was largely a positive/optimistic approach.  Even though we have 70hours+ of footage, there wasn’t a single negative interview from those that were included in the film or in those interviews that did not make the cut.

How did the Icelandic people react to your presence as a filmmaker?

At first the reactions were a mixture of welcoming and those that approached us with caution.  Iceland at this time was feeling a little betrayed and also the individuals had experienced a great deal of dishonesty. At times they found it difficult to believe that we were not there making a film with an entirely different agenda to that of a documentary post-economic crisis but without focussing on ‘what went wrong’. However, after many conversations, dinners and re-visits we gained the trust of those that were at first reluctant. Others had welcomed us with open arms from day one, so we were incredibly lucky really. Also, all of our crew apart from the Director and myself were Icelandic and I believe this really made a difference also in gaining the trust of the individuals that we met.

Other documentaries criticizing the economic collapse of Iceland focus on the greed of the banks and the tourist driven industry. How did you and the director determine to focus instead on the strengths of Iceland, and the hope for a sustainable future?

The decision to focus on the future of Iceland and the strengths came to me from a very simple psychological approach used with children.  If you repeatedly tell your child that they are behaving badly, then they will seek to behave badly for the attention that this gains. If you praise your child for the good things that they do, they will relish this praise and try to do more good things to seek this praise.  Combined with the thought that many documentary films approach the negative side of their subjects and portray the ‘bad aspects of society’, without attempting to be patronising I felt it was important to look at the positive things that were happening in Iceland. To produce a film that would lift people’s spirits and to inspire rather than to distress was the aim from the outset.

The film covers a variety of innovative sustainable projects currently taking place in Iceland. How did you decide which projects to include in the film?

After travelling the country many times and meeting many individuals from all walks of life the subjects that struck us the most were those that were perhaps pioneering in their approach or were actively working to reach their goals. They were individuals with projects that had vision and were already working to bring their ideas to fruition rather than those that perhaps today remain still as ideas.

Have you received any feedback from any Icelandic political bodies?

Unfortunately, we’ve received very little feedback from political figures in Iceland, even the Minister of Education, Science and Culture that features in the film did not attend the premiere in Iceland nor any further screenings to our knowledge. Members of the ‘New Movement’ (3 are now MPs) have seen the film and have voiced their appreciation but other than this we are still hoping for more feedback.

The film featured a wide breadth of interviewees, such as former president, Vigdis Finnbogadottir. Why did you anchor the film around “normal” Icelanders' narratives and personal tales as opposed to approaching the story of Iceland's economy collapse and recovery from the point of view of the political figures interviewed in the film?

From the out-set we had hoped to avoid making a film about ‘what went wrong’ about ‘who was to blame’ and the economic crash directly, for several reasons.  One of the reasons being that there was already 3-4 films being made about the crash itself and pointing the finger of blame.  Our ethos from the beginning was to look at the country that was perhaps hit the hardest by the economic crash and to find out how individuals were reacting to this and as you can see from the film the reactions were very positive indeed.  It was important to focus on individuals that we thought were involved in interesting, exciting and new projects post-economic crash as well as those individuals that were less effected by the crash and their sustainable methods seem to prove that they remained unaffected.

It was a nice touch to use Biggi Hilmarsson (of Blindfold and Ampop) for the score. Could you talk about the selection of music for the film?

We met with Biggi Hilmars in the UK shortly after our first visit to Iceland in March 2009 and he was extremely interested in being involved in the project from the very beginning. We held a small fundraising event in Brighton, UK where Biggi and one of his band’s ‘Blindfold’ performed to help raise money for the film.  We worked with Biggi to formulate the score, giving each character their own special style of music and consulted Biggi on the other musicians to include.  We were extremely lucky to have Damien Rice compose our end credit song for the film, the very powerful ‘The Connoisseur of Great Excuse’, Damien has visited Iceland on numerous occasions and is himself very environmentally aware and thus seemed like a great fit. 

The Icelandic people are notorious for being creative and talented. Tell us about the production crew. Did you employ many Icelanders?

Every crewmember with the exception of the director and myself are Icelandic.  This was a very deliberate decision to ensure that we had a strong Icelandic influence and to ensure that we would not be another ‘foreign production company’ portraying stereotypes of the country and its people.  We also felt that we needed to be loyal to Iceland in producing ‘Future of Hope’, to include Icelandic crew, especially given their creativity and willingness to work on the film given the importance that they placed on the message that was being uncovered. Iceland is in my opinion a country of extremes, in climate, day light hours, enthusiasm and creativity. I found that Reykjavik was brimming with artists and creatives that even to this day I feel inspired by working here and I’ve even re-located permanently to work from Iceland instead of the UK.

Icelandic filmmakers are industrious and creative, and have made Icelandic cinema an important part of both Icelandic culture and the Icelandic economy. From your perspective, how has the filmmaking industry changed since the economic collapse of the major banking entities? (For instance, is there government funding available to Icelandic filmmakers at this time?)

From my perspective the Icelandic Film Industry has had to make some changes, it has been forced to take a turn after the economic crisis.  The government has cut down the funding for the Icelandic Film Centre and the National Broadcaster is unable to pay license fees for films that are in any way comparable to other Western European Broadcasters. The chances of financing your film in Iceland from the film fund and National Broadcaster alone is extremely unlikely, you would have to look to other sources of funding if you want to be a filmmaker in Iceland.  Before the economic crisis it seemed that filmmakers would turn to private investors, corporation sponsorship etc… people and brands that wanted to show an interest in the arts, but for the most part after the crash these resources dried up.  Of course there are still a few film investors in Iceland and if you are lucky enough to know these individuals then the chances are that you will continue to make films and be able to have a salary, if you don’t know these individuals then the chances are you will need to explore new options for fundraising and film financing.  These new options of fundraising for the most part have been around for several years or more, but they have not been utilised to their full extent by Icelandic filmmakers.  Iceland can access wider European funds, American funds and funds relating to the subject matter of their films, if only they were to explore these possibilities further, but there is a slight problem in accessing some of these and that lies with the lack of small funds in Iceland willing to sponsor filmmakers to attend film festivals, markets (other than Sundance, Berlin, Cannes) and pitching forums around the world to learn of these resources and to meet with other broadcasters and distributors where they may also be able to access funds.

As someone who has significant cultural insight into the Icelandic way of life, do you feel that the vote passed this year not to repay the debt to Britain complicates the country’s recovery from the economic meltdown? Do you think this financial decision affects a hopeful future for Iceland?

There have been 2 referendums in Iceland regarding the repayment of the IceSave debt and to my knowledge Iceland has not exactly refused to pay the debts. Instead they have disputed the terms on which to repay, regarding high interest rates and time frame etc… Landsbankinn have enough value in assets to repay the IceSave debt and I believe they are now in a position where these assets are being sold off to repay the debt and thus if the media represent the correct facts to both the UK and the Netherlands as well as further afield I don’t feel that it will complicate the country’s path to recovery in a significant way (in terms of the view of the country by other countries).  The long delay in coming to an agreement regarding IceSave may have caused numerous problems initially but I doubt that this will hinder Iceland’s chances of recovery in the sustainable future that they are currently building.

What was the most difficult part of your journey in filming Future of Hope?

The most difficult part of the journey in producing ‘Future of Hope’ was quite honestly the finance issues, raising finance for a film that funding bodies were sceptical about and that investors were worried about and thus it was a lot of dedication in time and money from ourselves that enabled it to happen because we believe in the subject and the message of the film.  I’m sure that the film will continue to inspire individuals and organisations across the globe and over time we may be able to recoup the costs of making the film and be able to pay crew members for their time and effort, but for now we have a film that we are proud of and that has certainly made the financial worries worthwhile.

What were the primary means of financing the film? Can you talk specifically a bit about your experience with crowd source funding?

The financing of the film was extremely difficult and still today proves difficult.  Perhaps the most likely reason for this was because we were British filmmakers filming the entire film in Iceland.  Therefore, we were not eligible for substantial support from funds in Iceland and nor were we eligible for support from the UK.  However, we put forward our own investment to fund the majority of the film (which we are still hoping to recoup, slowly but surely), we held a small fundraising event in Brighton, UK to both raise awareness and cover some initial costs before leaving for Iceland.  Once in Iceland we secured an Icelandic co-producer (Herbert Sveinbjornsson of Edisons Lifandi Ljosmyndir ehf) and we sought a small amount of funding from the Icelandic Film Fund, although as you can appreciate finding financial support after the economic crash in Iceland was and still is extremely tough.  Furthering this, we applied for other funds but were unsuccessful one reason was due to the director, Henry Bateman being a first time director and thus we could not show at the beginning of production the quality of the film that we envisaged nor any previous feature-length works.  Therefore, we relied on our own investment, supportive crewmembers that all worked on a deferred basis, a couple of small private anonymous donations and then we sought crowd funding support.  After completing the filming for ‘Future of Hope’ almost all of our funds had dried up, yet we were not prepared to leave Iceland with an unfinished film, so we decided to try to crowd fund for the film and complete the post-production in Iceland also.  We launched the film on kickstarter.com and spent about 45 days approaching organisations, individuals, sharing the news wherever we could to drum up enough financial support to raise $10,000 for the post-production of the film.  The post-production of  ‘Future of Hope’ should have been closer to $60,000 but we had to pull on more favours and support from individuals and post-production facilities (Kukl ehf.) to be able to finish the film on minimal costs.  This was a film that we felt extremely passionate about and with so many Icelanders looking forward to the Premiere and having supported us from day one; we simply could not let them down.  We managed to premiere the film on 1st September 2010 before the film even began the film festival circuit, of which it is still travelling today.

What are you working on next?

Now I am working on another Icelandic documentary film called ‘ASH’, directed by Herbert Sveinbjornsson (Edisons Lifandi Ljosmyndir) following the farmers living beneath the volcano Eyjafjallajokull that erupted in 2010, we follow the farmers for over a year to see how they are recovering from the ash coverage on their land.  Furthering this, I am working with another 2 Icelandic Directors on their new feature-documentary film ‘Trend Beacons’, the directors of ‘Feathered Cocaine’.  I am also involved in a number of factual series and social and political documentaries with Spier Films including films about Mugabe and films about the situation in the Middle East.

BUY NOW | VIEW TRAILER