Colm Forde co-founded the Doc'n Roll Film Festival with his partner, Vanessa Lobon Garcia, and has helped develop it from a 12-film event at Hackney Picturehouse in 2014 into a wider music documentary platform.

We spoke with him about its unlikely beginnings, the economics of independent festivals and plans spanning London, Amsterdam, New York and potentially Los Angeles.

Where are you from then Colm?

I’m from Dublin. I grew up on the outskirts of the city, in the suburbs. My dad was a carpenter, and my mum ran a guest house in our place in the 1980s.

We were on the edge of the suburbs with a lot of green around us — not so much any more, 40 years later. It was a great place to grow up because we had the best of both worlds: the city was about 35 minutes away by bus, and we also had a lot of green space.

There was a very small aerodrome right beside us, which was exciting as a kid. I wanted to become a pilot, but I developed type 1 diabetes when I was 19, so that knocked that on the head for insurance reasons.

I had a pretty good childhood, but it was a very hectic family. My dad was a subcontractor carpenter, and my mum was running a guest house.

Do you remember much about the guests who came in and out?

That was intense. We had a big bungalow, and during the summer we were shipped out to a caravan at the back so my mum could rent all the rooms. Sometimes she had about 17 people in the house, including parents and children.

We were quite near the ferry. People would arrive in Dublin late in the evening or at night and drive out to the suburbs before taking the roads west. They would stop around our village or town.

It was really busy for four or five months of the year. It was crazy — like I said, it was hectic.

What’s your connection to London?

I arrived in 2013. My aunt was the first in the family to come in the 1950s, and she allowed her younger brothers to sleep on her floor and settle here. She lived in Pimlico and saw it change over 55 or 60 years.

My dad also had an older brother, a carpenter, who stayed, married an Irish woman and raised a family in Harrow. My parents met in London in 1962 and spent six years here. My mum was a waitress and my dad worked in carpentry.

In 1968, they went to the Bronx in New York, where my mum had a brother running a bar. My brother was born there, but my parents decided to return home and raise a family in Ireland rather than the Bronx.

And what brought you here?

Mates, really. I had been coming back and forth for more than 10 years. Two close friends met their partners, now their wives, while we were travelling after university, and those partners were from London.

When I returned to Dublin after that year-and-a-half adventure, they moved to London straight away. Other friends followed them, so I was always tempted to settle here.

I had a very secure, almost too-perfect job at Ireland’s national broadcaster, RTÉ, which kept me in Dublin longer than was probably good for me. I worked in the archive department, in film restoration, and worked my way up over about 10 years.

I’m big into history, patient and nerdy about restoring material, so I really liked the job. But it had a bit of a glass ceiling.

Where did the idea for Doc'n Roll come from?

The idea was Vanessa’s. I met her in Dublin in 2007, and she probably wanted to do it in 2008 or 2009.

She is a textile engineer by trade and had left a great job in Barcelona that was burning her out. She wanted to get into the arts but found it difficult to break into that world in Spain without connections.

She had grown up with a similar festival in Barcelona and thought that, given the history of Irish music, somebody should be doing something like it in Dublin. I was too happy in my job and enjoying the Dublin music scene in my late 20s. I thought it was a nice idea, but I didn’t have it in me at the time.

When we settled in London, I tried to move into managing archive collections, galleries or libraries. But in 2013, public-service cuts and austerity meant nobody was hiring. Vanessa said it was time to try what she had wanted to do in Dublin.

We had to start from scratch. It was a totally hare-brained idea.

Do you think your inexperience shaped the decision to start the festival?

I always thought naivety was a negative way to approach anything. Four or five years into this, I realised that if we hadn’t been so naive, we never would have started.

Being naive can be an asset for entrepreneurs. If we had known how difficult it would be to push through and survive, I wouldn’t have started in the first place.

When was the first festival?

It was at Hackney Picturehouse in September 2014. We had 12 films and launched it with our own savings, which is almost unheard of in the festival world. We came in as total outsiders.

We got some good press because people understood what we were trying to do. This country and this city are renowned for the history of rock and roll and other forms of music, but this niche in documentary was not being represented.

Apart from films about major artists and A-list celebrities, many documentaries might get one or two London screenings and then be pushed to DVD, back in the day.

Can you tell us about the films in that first programme?

There were twelve, and three were premieres. The other nine were good films that had already been shown in London, but perhaps only once.

To get press, you have to focus on premieres because they are the news items. We knew that in years two, three and four we would have to secure more premieres to build awareness and attract coverage.

In year two, we had about 16 films, including premieres of a Sleaford Mods film and a Daft Punk film. The Daft Punk film was made by the BBC’s French operation but had no planned UK release.

It took about 10 weeks to secure an educational licence, which meant the screenings had to be free. We showed it twice at The Oval and had about 300 people across the two screenings.

What’s the hardest part of running a festival like this with a team of two?

The hardest part is keeping your head above water with the overheads of living in London. The next hardest part is finding the cash to pay for a PR agent so you can make some noise above theatre, comedy, films, other film festivals and everything else on the London nightlife scene.

The great thing about London is that we can show international films that might not otherwise get a look-in. But we have to compete with people who have bigger budgets, bigger PR agencies, better press contacts and more established marketing. Our biggest spend from day one has always been on a PR agent.

What share of the box office do cinemas keep?

About 50% for an event, but if it is not an event they can keep 65%. Another thing we didn’t realise when we launched is that the UK is one of the most expensive places to release a film, mainly because of marketing costs and the cut cinemas take.

How do you source the documentaries?

I started by spending most of my time researching Facebook groups, forums and other festival programmes. The films we work with are primarily made by first-time filmmakers who have access to their subjects but no idea how to navigate international cinema or festivals. They also often lack the money to clear all the music and archive rights.

Many begin with a festival licence, which restricts screenings to festivals. They try to build a profile so that somebody might pay to clear the film for online, DVD or wider distribution.

I would contact filmmakers directly and say, “We’re a new startup trying to shine a light on this culture.” At first, a lot of people asked who we were and why they should bother.

Are there enough filmmakers producing documentaries, or do you struggle to find content?

There is plenty. Some people predicted we would run out of content quickly, but they didn't know what they were talking about.

We would not exist without the crowdfunding revolution of the early 2010s (e.g. Indiegogo and Kickstarter) or cheaper cameras, editing equipment and mobile phones.

That combination gave us access to far more work than other people realised was out there. I spent the first four or five years following snippets of information through jazz, folk, funk, hip-hop and other niche communities.

It was a manual slog, but research is my thing. My archive experience taught me to keep digging and find the needle in the haystack.

What was an early breakthrough for Doc'n Roll?

In our third edition, we secured the world premiere of a film about the jazz artist Gregory Porter after it had been rejected by the London Film Festival. I contacted the BFI programmers and got a reply within 35 minutes.

We sold out one screening in two days and added another in the 450-seat NFT1 at BFI Southbank. The second screening sold out within 10 days, so we opened our third edition with 900 people at the BFI. That film paid for the other, much smaller films in the programme. It was a big break for us.

Do you now receive more films than you can programme?

Yes. In the first four or five years, I spent most of my time researching and chasing films, hoping people would answer my emails. By years four, five or six, that became about 40% of the work because people started sending films to us.

We also created a page on FilmFreeway, the submissions platform. In the past three or four years, we have received feature submissions from more than 40 countries, with most coming from the United States, Canada and the UK. We average about 110 feature submissions and now show 20, so we select roughly 20%.

Do you have sponsors?

Not at the moment. The BFI gave us project funding to extend films to regional audiences because it would not fund our London activity.

Over six years, we grew into a UK-wide festival, taking a smaller programme to cities including Brighton, Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow and Bristol, eventually reaching 14 cities. That funding ended three years ago.

What excites you about the upcoming 13th edition?

We will show films across music genres, but they are all subculture-oriented with a focus on non-mainstream artists. Many are artists’ artists — people who did not make a huge economic impact from their work but inspired others who did. These are films about life’s struggles through the lens of music.

Music is the entry point, but they are human stories about outsiders trying to survive through their art. I’m excited about the Amadou and Mariam film, with Mariam joining us by video from Paris for a Q&A at the Barbican.

There is also The Best Summer, built around footage from the 1995 Australian festival Somersault, featuring the Beastie Boys, Bikini Kill, Pavement, Beck, Sonic Youth and Rancid. We are screening it at the Rio and the ICA, with filmmaker Tamra Davis joining by video from Los Angeles.

We have You Fuckers Figure It Out: A Jason Molina Story is at the Rio and the ICA. It’s niche, but EartH recently held a Jason Molina tribute night that sold out with 700 people.

We’re also showing TAKKUUK, about Indigenous artists in Greenland, with a soundtrack by the Belfast electronic duo Bicep. It highlights environmental degradation and is timely given the geopolitics around Greenland.

It is not a classic music documentary. I hope it broadens people’s minds and helps them connect with the country and its people beyond the headlines.

Who’s been helping to make the festival happen?

The London network of artists, photographers, music promoters and film programmers who gave us a break in the early days. Photographer Dean Chalkley was one of the first professionals to answer our email after we sent about 50 messages in summer 2014.

He loved our enthusiasm and introduced us to musicians, managers, venues, clubs and bars. Those networks are priceless.

Craig McNeil was another key person who opened doors. He worked with the Beggars Banquet group of independent labels and was one of our first jury members. Last.fm suggested we contact him, and he has supported us through the years by bringing projects from labels and artists.

Is it just London you host the festival in?

We started a festival in New York City four years ago, and that has taken some of the focus off London in a healthy way. We ran festivals in Brooklyn and Manhattan successfully this May and will return next year. We also started screening in Amsterdam two years ago, and that takes place each March.

We now have three festivals running, and we’re going to Los Angeles for the first time to test the water and meet distributors, sales teams and cinemas. We see a gap in the market there as well. We’re doing a house swap to make it possible and plan to spend five weeks there in January.

Are you reaching an inflection point after more than a decade?

It took a decade of preparation, but COVID nearly destroyed us. I think we would have reached this point much sooner if the pandemic had not happened.

By November and December 2019, we were receiving emails about possible income streams outside the festival, including from hotels with screening rooms. That momentum was destroyed by lockdown and the cost-of-living crisis.

We survived 14 months without income. To keep going without sponsors, we developed smaller income streams, including distributing one or two films a year outside the festival structure and screening in London throughout the year.

Do you have your own distribution operation?

Yes, under the umbrella of Doc'n Roll Films. Our first UK and Ireland all-rights distribution deal was for Don't Go Gentle: A Film About IDLES (trailer), the Bristol post-punk band.

We released it in July 2021 across about 120 screens at 40 cinemas in the UK and Ireland, then made it available through pay-per-view services and released DVD and Blu-ray editions.

We have subsequently worked with several other films, including one about the French techno DJ Laurent Garnier and another about the drum-and-bass and jungle scene. We also have Doc'n Roll TV, where viewers can rent about 50 films from the past 10 years.

What’s your view of AI, and is it appearing in submissions?

Annoyingly, yes, but I have two different views. For a business with no staff overheads and no money to hire good staff, AI can save our bacon.

We are beginning to set up tools to do some of the donkey work that takes a lot of our time and energy. We have never been able to afford regular staff, so it could be transformational for a very small business.

We are dipping our toes into AI for tasks including presentations, document and contract reviews, and creating contracts from templates where we could not afford a legal team.

In a year or two, I can imagine refined AI agents handling administration, payments and bookkeeping. That could free us to pursue sponsorship and bigger opportunities instead of constantly chasing our tails.

In terms of content, I have seen some horrible, cringe-inducing material, and I am not a fan of it. I hope it does not take off in filmmaking.

Technology is always a double-edged sword. There may be visual shortcuts where it is useful if applied delicately, but I can see it being abused by untrained eyes. It depends on people’s perception and what they are willing to accept.

What do you want people to take away from the Doc'n Roll Film Festival?

We set it up to bring people away from their big television screens and the comfort of home, and back into a communal environment. We wanted to re-establish the kind of community once found in record stores, where like-minded people met while browsing records and vinyl.

I would like people to come to a screening on their own and discover something they were only vaguely aware of. Perhaps they know the artist’s label, producer or a former band member.

It is a discovery platform, but one where you meet like-minded people and might talk in the bar or foyer afterwards, make friends and become part of a small community.

This story was drafted by Suru with AI assistance from the reporter's audio and notes, and was passed through Suru's journalism check (sourcing, neutrality, verifiability) before publication. Editorial responsibility: James Sandoval.