When did your audience stop being people and become a number?

Most independent films and podcasts do not fail because the work is bad. They fail because no one ever felt like they belonged to them. This Deep Dive is about how to build an audience for your documentary before it is ever released, and the one ingredient that decides whether people stay with what you make.

In this Deep Dive on Documentary First Episode 284 with Dutch filmmaker Jonathan de Jong, host Christian Taylor takes the idea at the heart of his film “Human Forever,” the most-watched human interest documentary in Dutch cinema history, and follows it somewhere unexpected: the same thing that makes dementia care humane is the thing that built his audience.

The spine of the episode is a single word, belonging. Jonathan says the most dangerous part of dementia is not the diagnosis, it is the feeling of not belonging. Christian tests that idea against her own father’s move into memory care this month, then turns it on filmmakers through Martin Buber’s 1923 book “I and Thou” and the difference between treating a person as an “It” and meeting them as a “Thou.” The through line: build belonging before you build buzz.

In this episode, Christian explores:

• Why the feeling of not belonging is the most dangerous part of dementia, in Jonathan de Jong’s own words
• The one ingredient that decides whether people stay with what you make
• How Jonathan built an audience for “Human Forever” before a single frame was shot
• Why building a movement beat marketing a film
• What belonging looks like in one real room, on her father’s move day
• Martin Buber’s “I and Thou” and the difference between an It and a Thou
• How filmmaking goes wrong the moment your audience becomes a number
• Why you invite people to belong instead of reaching for them
• The question to ask about anyone you put in front of your camera
• What a documentary about dementia can teach any filmmaker about reach

CHAPTERS

0:00 The Secret That Keeps an Audience

2:04 The Most Dangerous Feeling

5:16 The People and the Plan

7:53 Build Belonging Before Buzz

11:26 Meet Them, Don’t Aim

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

How do you build an audience for a documentary before it is released? You build belonging first. Jonathan de Jong built a movement around “Human Forever” before the film existed, a real person at the center and bestselling books out in the world, so audiences already felt part of something by release. The lesson for any filmmaker: make people feel they belong to what you are doing long before you ask them to watch, buy, or share it.

What is the best way to market a documentary with no budget? Stop marketing and start including. Invite people into the mission instead of aiming promotion at them. When an audience feels seen and part of the story, they carry it for you. Belonging spreads a film further than any ad spend, which is why Jonathan filled theaters for a film about dementia without a marketing war chest.

What is Martin Buber’s “I and Thou” about? “I and Thou,” published in 1923, describes two ways of relating to another person. You can treat someone as an “It,” a thing to manage, a number, a problem to handle. Or you can meet them as a “Thou,” a whole person, encountered directly. Buber argued that real life is found in the “Thou,” in genuine meeting rather than use.

Why do people stop watching independent films and podcasts? Because they can feel when a creator is aiming something at them instead of making something for them. The moment an audience becomes a view count or a click to convert, the work loses the sense that it was made for real people. People stay when they feel met and included, and they drift when they feel handled.

ABOUT THE FILMS AND TOPIC

“Human Forever” is a documentary directed by Dutch filmmaker Jonathan de Jong through SUPER7EVEN Productions. It follows the young dementia-care nurse Teun Toebes as he lives among and travels the world alongside people with dementia, and it became the most-watched human interest documentary in Dutch cinema history. The film is one piece of a larger movement that also includes Teun’s bestselling books and the Article 25 Foundation he co-founded.

Jonathan de Jong is a Dutch filmmaker and author who builds socially focused stories, and the guest on Documentary First Episode 284. SUPER7EVEN Productions: https://supersevenproductions.com. Film: https://human-forever.com.

Teun Toebes is a nurse, humanitarian activist, and bestselling author who has spent years living inside dementia wards around the world. https://www.teuntoebes.com.

ABOUT DOCUMENTARY FIRST: THE DEEP DIVE

Each week, host Christian Taylor takes an insight from a recent Documentary First filmmaker interview and follows it through literature, philosophy, faith, and her own life. Christian is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, actor, and voice actor, and the director of “The Girl Who Wore Freedom.” The Deep Dive is built for documentary filmmakers, lovers of story, and anyone who wants to think more deeply about the work of making things.

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• “Human Forever” (film), Jonathan de Jong, SUPER7EVEN Productions: https://human-forever.com
• SUPER7EVEN Productions: https://supersevenproductions.com
• Teun Toebes: https://www.teuntoebes.com
• Martin Buber, “I and Thou” (Ich und Du), 1923

Documentary First Episode 284 with Jonathan de Jong: https://pod.fo/e/50bde1

LISTEN AND FOLLOW

Listen and subscribe wherever you get podcasts: https://podfollow.com/documentary-first Watch on YouTube: @DocumentaryFirst

SUPPORT THE SHOW

Join our community on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/documentaryfirst

CONNECT WITH DOCUMENTARY FIRST

All platforms: https://linktr.ee/doc1st Christian Taylor on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meetchristiantaylor

1

[Christian Taylor]

But here is the part that is so awful,

2

[Christian Taylor (cont.)]

it's almost funny. My father had

hitchhiked to church,

3

[Christian Taylor (cont.)]

as he told me.

4

[Christian Taylor (cont.)]

In actuality, he had caught a ride with

an elderly woman living in

5

[Christian Taylor (cont.)]

the same building who has dementia,

6

[Christian Taylor (cont.)]

badly as he does, maybe worse,

7

[Christian Taylor (cont.)]

who somehow still has a driver's license

and still out there driving.

8

[Documentary First title card]

9

If you make things and send them out into

the world,

10

films, podcasts,

11

you have a small business that you're

trying to keep alive,

12

then this podcast is for you. Because

there is one ingredient that

13

I believe decides whether people stay with

what you've made.

14

And it's not some sort of trick and it's

not a bigger budget.

15

I ran into it twice this month.

16

Once in a conversation with a Dutch

filmmaker who made the most watched human

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interest documentary in his country's

history.

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And once very close to home, in my own

father's new apartment.

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By the end of this podcast, I think you'll

see that they are the same thing.

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And I think it might change how you build

an audience for whatever it

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is that you're trying to build.

22

Now a few weeks ago, I sat down with

Jonathan de Jong Jonathan is a filmmaker

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out of the Netherlands, and his

documentary,

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Human Forever, is a wonder. It's about

dementia.

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And as I said, it became the most watched

human interest documentary

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in Dutch cinema history.

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I'm Christian Taylor, and today I want to

talk about one of the things that Jonathan

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says matters most.

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And why I've become convinced it is also

the quietest secret in filmmaking.

30

But first let's take a listen to Jonathan.

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[Jonathan de Jong]

That really makes us feel that we don't

belong to anything or anybody anymore.

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[Jonathan de Jong (cont.)]

And to have a sense of not belonging,

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[Jonathan de Jong (cont.)]

I think this is the most dangerous thing

when it comes to life.

34

Jonathan spent several years filming

inside nursing homes all over the world.

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So when he talks about dementia,

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he is not talking about what he's learned

from a book.

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He is talking about what he's learned from

being up close and personal with people

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living with dementia.

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And here's the thing that surprised me.

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If you asked me what the worst part of

dementia was before

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my conversation with Jonathan,

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I would have said that it's the memory

loss,

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the forgetting, losing the people that you

love while they're still standing right

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in front of you.

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But Jonathan taught me that the diagnosis

is not the worst part.

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What he said, the people living with

dementia told him was the worst part.

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Is how they feel they were treated once

they have been diagnosed.

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You see, we get afraid.

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We don't know what to say. So we start

disconnecting from our loved ones.

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We talk about them instead of with them.

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And slowly our loved ones, I guess,

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stop feeling like they belong anywhere or

to anyone at all.

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This is how he put it.

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A sense of not belonging, he told me,

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is the most dangerous thing there is,

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because that is a moment a person starts

to feel like there is no point

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to their life anymore.

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I have been turning that over in my mind

ever since our interview.

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The most important ingredient in caring

for a human being is not medication.

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It's not a nicer building.

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It's not a bigger TV.

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It's a person still feeling like they

belong,

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still feeling like they're one of us.

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Hold on to that word belonging because I'm

going to come back to it

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in just a minute.

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Now I'm going to get personal for just a

second.

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Because this month, this stopped being

merely a podcast conversation for me.

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I've shared this before, my father has

dementia.

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And a few weeks ago,

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I went to visit him in Mississippi.

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Now I was supposed to pick him up for

church at 8 a.m.

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on a Sunday morning. The staff had gotten

him dressed and fed him breakfast

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at seven o'clock, just like usual.

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And at 7 30, shortly before I got there,

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he walked right out the front door.

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And then I got there at eight,

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and he was nowhere to be found.

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And for two hours, we couldn't find him

anywhere.

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Two hours. I cannot tell you what that

felt like.

80

But here is the part that is so awful,

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it's almost funny. My father had

hitchhiked to church,

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as he told me.

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In actuality, he had caught a ride with an

elderly woman living in

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the same building who has dementia,

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badly as he does, maybe worse,

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who somehow still has a driver's license

and still out there driving.

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The two of them just drove off to church

together.

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He didn't even know what church they were

going to.

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That morning made a decision for me that I

had been dreading for a really long time.

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He wasn't safe. In regular assisted

living,

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they couldn't stop him from walking out

the door.

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So I didn't have a choice but to move him

to a locked memory care unit.

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And I gotta tell you.

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I live far away from my dad, and making

that call from a distance about your

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own father was one of the hardest things I

have ever had to do.

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And having good reasons to do it did not

make it hurt any less.

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But this is what I actually want to share

because it's actually the whole point

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of this episode. Yesterday was move day,

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and it could not have gone any better.

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He ended the day with a huge grin on his

face.

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And it worked because of the people that

made it happen and the plan.

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Ashley, a social worker I bring in from

time to time to help my dad,

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took him out for the whole morning to get

him a haircut and a shave

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at his favorite barber shop

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and enjoy the massage chairs at the mall

that he loves so much,

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Just so he would be happy and busy during

the initial chaos of the move.

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While he was gone,

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John from the facility where my dad lives,

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moved all of his furniture. Karen,

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my dad's brain therapist, packed up his

clothes and all of his personal things.

111

And James, who I call my brother from

another mother,

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and who treats my father like his own dad,

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hung all the pictures, and he set up the

ring camera I place in his room,

114

which gives me a window into his world and

keeps me close to my dad,

115

even though we're states away.

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When Ashley had to leave at noon,

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James took over keeping my dad busy.

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And Karen took over the setup and

beautification of his room.

119

They decorated his room in his favorite

Ole Miss colors - that was Karen's idea.

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They traded his little twin bed for a

king.

121

And when my father finally walked into

what Karen had dubbed his "penthouse",

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he looked around and he said everything

was amazing and perfectly in its own

place.

123

Later, when I called to check in,

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he told me he had moved into a penthouse

with a big security door to keep

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the bad guys out and to keep him safe.

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Because that is just what Karen and James

had told him.

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He was happy as a pig in mud,

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as they say in my home state of

Mississippi.

129

And I watched the whole thing from far

away on my phone,

130

thanks to the ring camera in his room.

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I couldn't be there in person,

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but I was participating all day from the

phone and on the ring camera.

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I could see it all happening. And I gotta

tell you,

134

he felt loved all day long.

135

None of that worked because of the new red

blanket or the Ole Miss pillows

136

or the bigger bed.

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It worked because of a group of people

still saw my father as a whole human

being.

138

And they made a plan that made him feel

loved and like he belonged.

139

It was the people and the plan.

140

And that's Jonathan's ingredient playing

out in my father's brand new apartment.

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Now, here's where this becomes about

making things and not just about

142

caregiving.

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Because when I went back and really looked

at my conversation with Jonathan,

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I realized something. He does not just

believe in belonging as a way

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to care for people.

146

He used belonging as the way he built his

entire film.

147

Think about how most of us do it.

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We make the thing first, we finish the

film or the first episode or the product,

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and then we go out looking for an

audience,

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hat in hand.

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Jonathan did it the other way around.

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He built the belonging first. He built a

whole movement.

153

And honestly, the film was almost the

smallest part of it.

154

He put a real human being at the center of

it,

155

a 21-year-old nurse, Teun Tobes.

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Then there were best-selling books out in

the world before there was even

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a single frame of the movie shot.

158

He and Teun created a play and discussions

afterwards.

159

So by the time the film actually came out,

160

people already felt like they were part of

something.

161

They already belonged to it.

162

And listen to how he talks about the work

itself.

163

[Jonathan de Jong]

My work is all about connecting people,

showing the beauty of humanity,

164

[Jonathan de Jong (cont.)]

making people aware of the importance of

connecting,

165

[Jonathan de Jong (cont.)]

of the power of social connection.

166

He even said this to me and it made me

laugh.

167

[Jonathan de Jong]

We made dementia sexy.

168

He got young people to buy tickets and sit

in a theater for

169

a documentary about dementia. Not by

tricking them into it.

170

He did it by making them feel like they

belonged to something that actually

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mattered.

172

That exact same ingredient that makes a

care room work is the one that built

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his audience. He did not go out and reach

people.

174

He invited them to belong.

175

There's an old idea that helps me

understand why any of this works.

176

A philosopher named Martin Buber wrote a

little book back

177

in 1923 called "I and Thou".

178

And his whole idea is that there are two

ways to be with another person.

179

You can treat someone as an "it" an "it"

is a thing you manage.

180

A problem you handle, a body in a bed,

181

a number on a list. Or you can treat

someone as a "Thou".

182

And a "Thou" is a whole person,

183

someone you actually meet eye to eye.

184

Dementia care goes wrong the very moment a

person turns into an "it",

185

a patient to be processed, instead of a

father to be known.

186

Jonathan's word for the answer is

belonging.

187

Buber's word is "Thou". but they are

pointing at the very same thing.

188

See the person. And here is the part that

is for us,

189

the ones who make things.

190

Filmmaking goes wrong the exact same way.

191

The moment your audience becomes an "It",

192

a view count, a click, a number to

convert,

193

you have stopped making something for

people and started aiming something at

them.

194

And people can feel the difference.

195

They can always feel it.

196

We do it to people in our films too.

197

We can point a camera at a person and

quietly turn them into a prop

198

for our argument. Or we can meet them.

199

We can treat them like a "Thou".

200

Jonathan and Teun met them. That is why it

worked.

201

So here is something to think about.

202

It's simple, but I promise you,

203

it is not easy. If you are trying to get

something you made in front of the world,

204

stop thinking about your audience as an

audience.

205

Build belonging before you build buzz.

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Invite people to feel like they are part

of what you are doing,

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long before you ever ask them to watch it

or buy it or share it.

208

Treat the person in front of your camera

and the person on the other side

209

of the screen like a "Thou", like a whole

human being,

210

like someone who belongs. That is what

Jonathan did with a film about dementia.

211

And in a much smaller way.

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And much more personal way. That is what a

room full of people did

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for my dad yesterday. It was the people

and the plan.

214

So the question I want to leave you with

is this.

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And the thing you're making right now,

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who have you been treating as an it?

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And what would change for them and for

your work if you started treating them

like

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a "Thou?"

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If something in this helped you today,

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do one thing for me. Send it to just one

person.

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Maybe someone who is building something

and can't quite figure out

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why it isn't working.

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Or maybe someone who is caring for a

person they love and needs to hear that

they

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are doing it right. Just one person.

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And if you're new here, follow or

subscribe wherever you're listening or

watching.

226

It costs you nothing and it means the

world to us.

227

It would also be great if you would leave

us a review on Spotify or Apple.

228

If you would like to support the show,

229

the link to our Patreon is in the show

notes below.

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Belonging is the method. It is how you

care for a person.

231

It is how you build an audience.

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And near as I could tell, it is how you

make anything that lasts.

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I'm Christian Taylor and you've been

listening to Documentary First,

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The Deep Dive. And I'll see you next time.

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Bye, everybody.