DFP Partners with BritDoc on The Good Pitch
The Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation and the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program (DFP) are today announcing a new partnership to take the innovative documentary pitching forum, the Good Pitch, on the road to the Hot Docs and SILVERDOCS festivals in Toronto and Washington D.C.
The Good Pitch is borne out of the conviction that documentary is a powerful tool for creating social change. It is a unique opportunity for a selected group of filmmakers to pitch social-issue documentary projects with associated campaign strategies to invited organizations including NGOs, charities, foundations, campaigners, advertising agencies, brands and media.
The inaugural Good Pitch was held at the BRITDOC Film Festival in 2008. Eight projects were pitched, including the Resist project, authored by film star Gael Garcia Bernal, who took part in the live pitching process. Over 50 organizations took part including Amnesty International, Greenpeace, The Times, MySpace, (RED) and Oxfam. Watch the trailer.
The Good Pitch (NA) will make its first stop at the Toronto Documentary Forum (TDF), May 6-7, part of the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival in Toronto, April 30-May 10, 2009. North America’s premier market event for the international documentary industry, the TDF is a two-day, limited-seating pitch forum. A slate of pre-selected international projects is showcased in brief presentations to a roundtable of commissioning editors, programming executives and observers from around the globe. Over the past nine years, the TDF’s intimate and intense format has successfully built international partnerships and raised millions of dollars in additional financing for both presenting producers and those attending as observers.
The next stop is SILVERDOCS, an eight-day internationally recognized documentary film festival created through a unique alliance between the American Film Institute and the Discovery Channel and held every year near Washington, D.C. Started in 2003, SILVERDOCS celebrates independent thinking, supports the diverse voices and free expression of independent storytellers and fosters the power of documentary to enhance our understanding of the world. Anchored in the National Capital Region, where important global and national issues are the daily business, SILVERDOCS is marked by its relevance, broad intellectual range, and wide public appeal.
“The Good Pitch is a new evolution in the ‘pitch forum’ format,” says Cara Mertes, Director of the Sundance Institute Documentary Program. “It absolutely fits our focus on supporting human rights and social-issue documentary films with broad impact. The Channel Four Foundation has been a great innovator in the social-issue documentary sector and we are enthusiastic partners in bringing the Good Pitch to North America.”