We’ve recently interviewed Joan Salvat, commissioning editor for TVC’s documentary slot Sense Ficció. He told us what have been the keys to the program’s success, the challenges they had to overcome and what led him to choose and invest in our documentary “Falciani’s Tax Bomb”.

Don’t miss anything, he’s one of the most experienced persons in Catalan documentary today!

1. What brought you to the documentary world?

I am a journalist and for 24 years I was running 30 minuts, a current affairs programme. Then they offered me a new experience, Sense Ficció. It meant bringing documentary over to TV3, the main channel, something that until then had been assigned to the second channel, Canal 33. And personally, it also meant starting a new stage, as documentary is a richer and more ambitious world that allows you to do things that you aren’t able to do with current affairs.

So your involvement with 30 minuts is what has allowed Sense Ficció to become what it is now…

Yes, a little bit, because I had many years of experience of what was being done internationally. When we started with the program 60 minuts, we knew what we were buying and what was being made in the documentary world. We realized that sometimes there were great things that other televisions could broadcast. But TV3 had no slot in which to broadcast them.

2. Therefore it has been your participation and involvement at an international level that have created the slot?

Yes, because international cooperation is very important for many things. Firstly, it allows you to know what is being done worldwide, and secondly because some productions that are to have certain ambition wouldn’t be possible without international cooperation.

3. What takes a small idea and turns it into a documentary?

It may be the people behind the idea or the characters that make you realize it can become a great documentary with interest to a large audience. It may also be the level of confidence you can have in a production company, which you know will make work that is at the level of what you’re looking for; or a director who has a sensitivity that somehow is linked with what you also want. There isn’t something unique; there can be several things.

4. What made you go for our documentary “Falciani’s Tax Bomb”?

Well there is the undeniable fact that it’s about a current issue: tax evasion. It is such a pertinant issue, and it has been so in the past few years. “Falciani’s Tax Bomb” demonstrates, in my opinion, how systematic tax evasion is starting to crack. Systems that have been running for years and years and that increasingly gained importance for economies. The documentary shows how large fortunes always find a way to escape from paying taxes. In this sense, I think the film deals with a highly current affair through one character’s personal struggle, and it makes it become a great-unsolved European problem that is still to be dealt with.

Our job as journalists is to go beyond the facts. We must not only see what happened yesterday, but also where the future is going. And in this case there are 10 European broadcasters that agreed to back an issue precisely because of the importance that it has, regardless of who Falciani is or isn’t. It is an issue of crucial consequence.

You play an important role in the co-production of international documentaries, but you work with budgets that are well below the big players in the sector, such as ARTE or the BBC…

Often it is not about the money you can invest. The first thing that a producer needs to have on his side is his local public television broadcaster. This is what allows you to go to other broadcasters and find other sources of funding. If the producer doesn’t have his country’s channels involved, it is very difficult for an international project to succeed. And this, sometimes, is not about the money, but the willingness to support a documentary project so it can find the remaining financing.

5. Sense Ficció has become a reference point, similar to Nordic channels for example, that also work with lower budgets. We know that these channels give a project much more cache than the money itself. How has this come about?

We have always been open to the exterior and have always been interested in what was being done at an international level, even when we were in 30 minuts. For many years we had an agreement with the BBC, from whom we bought a set number of hours per year, and that also helped 30 minuts, at a particular time, to be able to go for more investigative projects. When we started Sense Ficció, the program was broadcast at 12 pm or 12.30. Gradually, we’ve been able to move to prime time after the main news and the reaction from the public is what has allowed us to do this, because it’s been so positive.

6. What are the main obstacles that you’ve had to face in recent years?

The main obstacle, as it has been for everyone, has been the cuts. We have had to adapt the initial idea to the economic situation, which has been very difficult. We have lost three in-house production lines; we have also considerably reduced the amount we spend on acquisitions and co-productions and, obviously, independent companies have really born the brunt of the difficult economic situation that we are still going through.

7. In terms of content, what is TVC’s policy? And in the same vein, do you think documentary should be partisan?

One thing is Televisió de Catalunya in the widest sense. In this sense, what we take into account when producing or co-producing documentaries is to have a line of work that enriches the channel’s archives and that can be used at different times, because they reflect the lives of pertinent figures in Catalonia, historical moments, social moments we experience, etc. For Sense Ficció it is different. As we are broadcast in prime time many weeks of the year, we are looking for contemporary documentary pieces that speak to us or make us aware of the world in which we live or where the future lies… This doesn’t necessarily exclude historical issues that also make us think about a new world from the perspective of experience. The range of possibilities for Sense Ficció is very wide and that’s what we want to keep: both social issues and more personal, historical stories. One example is “Injusticia exprés, el caso Óscar Sánchez”, which just won the Golden Nymph at Montecarlo Festival, about somebody who was misidentified. He worked at a gas station in Montgat (Barcelona), and ended up being wanted by Interpol and imprisoned. It was a case that demonstrated the deficiency of information circulating at a European level in terms of policing. Such things focus on what is happening in our society and, if you don’t focus on them, they end up going unnoticed.

You manage this flexibility in scheduling very well…

I am very happy with this, because I have been in prime time for 24 years and prime time is always a bit tough and very competitive. Instead, we can allow for broadcast after 11 pm during the Champions League, or later. That’s why we can broadcast pieces that are not as competitive. You can choose documentaries just for what they explain. An example would be “Confessions of a Banker”, a documentary that won the award for Best European Documentary last year. As you know it’s basically an interview of a former banker, it’s difficult for the documentary to have a large audience. But, instead, for a program like Sense Ficció, being able to broadcast these programmes, I think gives you that extra interest that is very important to maintain.

8. And if we take a look at what we do, how would you describe Polar Star Films’ productions?

Over the years that we have been collaborating, what comes through is the quality of the proposals made by Polar Star Films. This quality is motivated by a great ambition to make real documentary co-productions. You aim to involve the most European public broadcasters as possible, as in the case of “Falciani’s Tax Bomb”. This ambition leads you to look for the appropriate director, a director who has a certain experience at an international level, who is already recognized and known; and this helps open doors. Being able to get a project of this nature off the ground with 8, 9 or 10 televisions involved is complicated. It is difficult because you have to reconcile the interests of all members of the group who support this documentary. In this sense, Sense Ficció is very pleased with the work we have been able to do with Polar Star Films.

9. New digital formats are on the rise… What would you like to see in the future?

I would like all documentaries to be able to be complemented by digital formats and interactivity. And it is true that the public are getting more and more involved. When you broadcast a controversial documentary, people give their opinions on Twitter, destroying the film and saying, “Why would you listen to this man? We think he’s unstable…”. And I think this is a good thing. Before the audience was much more passive. They watched what was being broadcast and their opinion had no importance. Now they get involved. This has been a major change in the last few years: the passive viewer is disappearing.

10. What can we expect from Sense Ficció? What’s on the list?

We have several productions of national interest in the pipeline. We are doing a portrait of Plaza Catalunya with Lluís Permanyer, who’s almost a veteran of the programme. We are also doing a piece on the Hospital del Mar; and we plan to broadcast a film about Messi… Or aim is to bring documentary to different audiences and the widest audiences possible.

Interview by Rose Kowalski and Joanaina Font