I've nicked the title of this post from ABBA, as I'm in Sweden on my way to the Gothenburg Film Festival. In May, I'm one of the mentors at the RIFF Pitch Lab in Sestri Levante, on the Ligurian coast of Italy. As with the Riviera International Film Festival as a whole, the lab is specifically for documentary directors under 35. I was happy to have been invited to the event, run by an energetic team, and with a great mission statement - No Risks No Stories.

The deadline for submitting projects in either the Open Stories or the Environment Stories categories is March 22nd. Find out more here

Getting into the business and sustaining a career seems a big risk these days. A recent report from the Council of Europe's Audiovisual Observatory in Strasbourg came up with the startling statistic that 40% of the filmmakers making narrative films in 2015 then didn't make another one. The figure is very different for scripted TV - perhaps because of the streamer-inspired boom in that genre around that time

Concentrating on a film you're passionate about is what the film business is built on. But it can come at great personal risk, putting all of your effort into one project. The Cost of Docs survey from The Whickers, being published this week, is unlikely to give independent doc makers any comfort.

Worth remembering that in this transformational time for film and media, you've got advantages if you're 35. Being a digital native, connected to the audience (not just through social media), with diversity and internationalism inbuilt, comfortable with marketing. If you can't yet do it all, that's what you might need us 'veterans' for - to fill in the gaps and plunder our connections. And there's a lot we can learn from you too).

In October, Christian Popp and I did an online seminar for the Documentary Campus Masterschool to try and prepare the participants for the upcoming Leipzig Networking Days. Some of the bits of common sense advice we gave (it's not rocket science)

  • Get decision makers on the circuit to collaborate on your project - it's better for them to talk to each other than you doing it all separately. You need DMs to become ambassadors for you.
  • Be the person they want to work with - you're trying to be remembered. If the current project isn't the right one, maybe the next one will be
  • Follow up - and ask them at the meeting how they want that to happen
  • Talk about their work or platform - not just yours.

In these difficult/impossible times for doc makers, you're always taking risks, and I salute you for it.

Check out some of what I've done on my events page - I'm always keen to do more mentoring, panels and teaching.