Episode 30 - Ina Fichman - “Hallelujah”

Canadian Filmmakerswomen filmmakersCo-productions

Sep 24

September 24, 2021

In this episode, I speak with Canadian producer extraordinaire, Ina Fichman. During our conversation, we chat the nuts, bolts, and knowledge needed to be a great international co-production partner, her work with the Documentary Organization of Canada, and the specific steps the organization took to ease some of the stress of pandemic for Canadian filmmakers. We also discuss some of her most recent work on films such as Laila at the Bridge, Stray, and The Gig Is Up, and her ongoing support of Palestinian filmmakers. For this episode, Ina chose a masterpiece written by her fellow Canadian Leonard Cohen, “Hallelujah.” Regarding the meaning of the song, Leonard Cohen said:

“This world is full of conflicts and full of things that cannot be reconciled. But there are moments when we can… reconcile and embrace the whole mess, and that’s what I mean by ‘Hallelujah’.

The song explains that many kinds of hallelujahs do exist, and all the perfect and broken hallelujahs have equal value. It’s a desire to affirm my faith in life, not in some formal religious way but with enthusiasm, with emotion.”

When one looks at Ina’s body of work, it is clear that documentary is the medium she has chosen to find meaning and reconcile the many contradictions that we face in life.

Photo Credit: Ina Finchman

[Image Description: Ina is pictured from the neck up. She has shoulder-length dirty blond hair and wears a white v-neck top with a black jacket. She wears gold and diamond earrings and a gold necklace with black and gold accents.]

Film Still: The Gig is Up

[Image Description: A woman with her dark hair pulled back into a bun and wearing a white sweater and black pants, rides a white bike with black handlebars and a basket Behind her is a black insulated food container that has “Uber Eats” printed on the side. In the background are several houses are blurred as she speeds by.}

About Ina & Intuitive Pictures

For more than twenty-five years, Ina has been producing award-winning documentary and fiction films for television and theatrical release, as well as digital projects. She has worked with first-time and established directors in Canada and around the world. In the early years of her career, Ina collaborated with new directors Albert Nerenberg and Catherine Bainbridge (OKANADA), Maureen Marovitch and David Finch (LONGSHOTS) Bobbi Jo Hart (), Howard Goldberg (BEING DOROTHY), Sylvie Van Brabant (THE LAST TRIP) and many others. She even directed two of her own films: MOVING MOUNTAINS (MoMA) and TOWARDS A PROMISED LAND which screened at the National Assembly in Quebec City.

Ina’s love of non-fiction filmmaking was also evident in her groundbreaking youth series MY BRAND NEW LIFE/JE VIS TA VIE, and LA QUETE. She also produced narrative features and series including VAMPIRE HIGH, THE FLOOD (MABUL) which screened at the Berlinale and won the audience award at the Thessoloniki Film Festival, and the alternative drama FAMILY MOTEL directed by Helene Klodawsky.

In the past fifteen years, Ina’s focus has become the creative documentary in all of its forms.. Her credits include BLACK COFFEE, UNDYING LOVE, SIX DAYS IN JUNE, S&M: Short and Male and MALLS R US. She also produced the documentary DEAD SEA LIVING, the film BOREDOM as well as the interactive website and feature film 100% T-SHIRT. In 2014, Ina completed production on the animated documentary feature THE WANTED 18 directed by newcomer Amer Shomali and Paul Cowan and Sturla Gunnarsson’s MONSOON, both of which had their world premieres at TIFF and are still doing the festival and theatrical circuit. THE WANTED 18 was released in theatres in the US in Summer of 2015 and won the Best Documentary Award at the Traverse City Film Festival. THE WANTED 18:an interactive graphic novel is available on iTunes and Google Play.

In 2015, Intuitive completed the feature documentary VITA ACTIVA: The Spirit of Hannah Arendt directed by Ada Ushpiz which had its international premiere at IDFA, won the Best Documentary prize at Santa Barbara, was broadcast all over the world and was released in theatres in the US, Canada, Australia, and Europe. Intuitive Pictures then produced the feature documentary GAME FEVER (dir. Herve Martin-Delpierre, co-production with Zed, France) and the interactive website Space Advisor: A Guide To Space Tourism. In 2017-2018 Ina produced The Patriot (dir. Daniel Sivan, co-production TTV Films), Emmy-nominated THE OSLO Diaries (dir. Mor Loushy, Daniel Sivan, co-production with Medalia Films, Israel) which had its world premiere at Sundance 2018 and sold to HBO, director Robin McKenna’s GIFT and the mobile app Gift-it-Forward, SHEKINAH 2 (dir. Abbey Neidik) and award-winning LAILA AT THE BRIDGE (dir. Elizabeth Mirzaei and Gulistan Mirzaie) which premiered at CPH: Dox and screened at numerous festivals including Locarno, Hot Docs, Sheffield Doc Fest and DOC NYC. In 2019/2020 DON’T WORRY, THE DOORS WILL OPEN, a feature doc directed by newcomer Oksana Karpovych and supported by SODEC’s jeunes createurs programme premiered at the RIDM where it won Best Feature by a new director and Hot Docs where it was awarded a special jury mention. And, STRAY directed by Elizabeth Lo had its world premiere at Tribeca 2020 and won Best International Feature at Hot Docs 2020. The film is being distributed by Magnolia in the US.

The VR installation ONCE UPON A SEA, directed by Adi Lavy will have its world premiere at the Venice Biennale 2020.

Intuitive Pictures is currently in production of the feature BLUE BOX (dir. Michal Weits), Shannon Walsh’s feature THE GIG IS UP, and the television documentary The Science Of Success.

Ina is one of the founders of Montreal Women in Film (FCTNM) and Women in Film and Television International (WIFTI). She has sat on numerous industry boards, including DOC and Hot Docs. Ina is currently Chair of the Documentary Association of Canada, a chair of the Documentary Producers Alliance (DPA) and sits on the boards of DOC Quebec and the Canadian Film and Media Production Association, a national organization that represents over 600 Canadian producers. Ina is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.

About The Gig is Up

From delivering food and driving ride shares to tagging images for AI, millions of people around the world are finding work task by task online. The gig economy is worth over 5 trillion USD globally and growing. And yet the stories of the workers behind this tech revolution have gone largely neglected.

Who are the people in this shadow workforce? THE GIG IS UP brings their stories into the light.

Lured by the promise of flexible work hours, independence, and control over time and money, workers from around the world have found a very different reality. Work conditions are often dangerous, pay often changes without notice, and workers can effectively be fired through deactivation or a bad rating.

Through an engaging global cast of characters, THE GIG IS UP reveals how the magic of technology we are being sold might not be magic at all.

About Stray

Stray explores what it means to live as a being without status or security, following three strays as they embark on inconspicuous journeys through Turkish society. Zeytin, fiercely independent, embarks on adventures through the city at night; Nazar, nurturing and protective, easily befriends the humans around her; while Kartal, a shy puppy living on the outskirts of a construction site, finds companions in the security guards who care for her. The strays' disparate lives intersect when they each form intimate bonds with a group of young Syrians with whom they share the streets.

About Laila at the Bridge

In a country offering almost no treatment services despite a crisis of addiction, Laila Haidari took the highly unusual decision to found her own pioneering addiction treatment center and a restaurant where all of the waiters are recovering heroin addicts. A deeply personal perspective on the global addiction epidemic, the film follows the labor of love of one woman fighting to keep her center alive in the face of physical threats, governmental opposition and the departure of the international community from Afghanistan.