The Good Pitch is a unique opportunity for a selected group of filmmakers to pitch both their film and its associated outreach campaign to an invited audience of foundations, NGOs, campaigners, advertising agencies, brands and media in order to maximize its impact.

In 2009, the Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation has partnered with the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program to take the Good Pitch on its first North American tour. The Sundance Documentary Film Program assists nonfiction filmmakers from around the world with workshops in editing, storytelling and scoring for documentary films as well as providing grants to nonfiction film projects through the Sundance Documentary Fund.

So far, the Good Pitch has taken place as part of the TDF at Hot Docs in Toronto and the SILVERDOCS AFI/Discovery Documentary Festival. Still to come: the Good Pitch at Independent Film Week on September 24.

SILVERDOCS Projects

“The Good Pitch, brainchild of the prolific and creative folks over at Britdoc (and with an invite list curated by host extraordinaire Sandi Dubowski), came roaring into Silver Spring with a vengeance, bringing eight documentary filmmakers face-to-face with representatives from a number of nonprofits and other nontraditional film funders (along with some familiar faces like Cara Mertes from the Sundance Documentary Fund). While much of the discussion spun on how filmmakers could take advantage of an organizations email list, etc. there were also some wonderful surprises of synergy, and moments that crystallized partnerships and opened eyes to the new memes of strategic partnership for documentaries.”–David Wilson, indieWIRE

Budrus has a Hammer Dir. Julia Bacha
A Palestinian community organizer unites Fatah, Hamas and Israelis in a Gandhian struggle to save his village, unleashing a non-violent movement – with women on the front lines – that is still gaining ground today. In an action-filled documentary by the makers of Encounter Point and Control Room, featuring exclusive footage of this movement from its infancy, Budrus has a Hammer will inspire, charm and challenge audiences worldwide.

Cape Wind: The Fight for the Future of Power in America Dir. Robbie Gemmel
Cape Wind illuminates the divisive controversy surrounding the Cape Wind Project – a proposal to build 130 wind turbines off the coast of Cape Cod – translating the furor which exploded on the Cape Cod community into a story of transcendent national importance for the future of sustainability in America.

Ethiopia’s Exchange Dir. Hugo Berkeley
Ethiopia’s Exchange tells the story of a woman on a mission – and a world of trouble standing in her way. Eleni Gabre-Madhin, a charismatic Ethiopian economist, wants to end hunger in her famine-plagued country. She designed the nation’s first commodities exchange, which she hopes will revolutionize an age-old market system.

Green Shall Overcome Dir. Megan Gelstein
Green Shall Overcome takes an in-depth look at the green-collar job movement through the lens of Van Jones, an African-American civil-rights lawyer. Jones envisions the new green economy as a pathway out of poverty for low-income Americans while simultaneously solving challenges of environmental destruction. After years of advocating for change, Jones is recruited by the Obama Administration and appointed Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation by the White House Council on Environment Quality.

High Tech, Low Life Dir. Stephen T. Maing
High Tech, Low Life is about one of China’s first citizen reporters and the achievements of a fearless new digital youth generation. The film follows the evolution of a young vegetable seller from blogger to internet celebrity as he reports on sensitive news stories in China.

Hungry In America Dirs. Kristi Jacobson and Lori Silverbush
Hungry in America will investigate why nearly 38 million Americans – including 14 million children – go hungry here, in one of the richest nations on earth. The film will explore the causes of this crisis and reveal that hunger in the U.S. is not only man-made, but solvable.

Out in the Silence Dir. Joe Wilson & Dean Hamer
Out in the Silence uses the story of a small American town confronting the firestorm of controversy ignited by a same-sex wedding announcement to illustrate the challenge of being an outsider in a conservative environment and catalyze new ways of making resources and support available for those working for change.

Split Estate Dir. Debra Anderson
Split Estate follows an unfolding conflict in the Rocky Mountains. With cries from Washington for more domestic gas and oil production, the citizens of Colorado and New Mexico find themselves in the path of an unstoppable rush to drill that is destroying their health, their homes, and their communities.

PROJECTS OF NOTE

In addition to the eight projects pitching at The Good Pitch, there are three additional projects that we want to bring to your attention. The teams behind these projects are at SILVERDOCS so if you would like to meet them, please enlist one of the pitching forum team members.

Cooked Dir. Judith Helfand
In July 1995 a heat wave hit Chicago; 739 people died that week. Survival was determined by the neighborhoods where people lived: air-conditioned supermarkets or boarded-up stores? Cooked, a feature documentary and engagement campaign asks questions and explores solutions every U.S. city is grappling with. Global warming? Green-jobs? Both together?

Granito Dir. Pamela Yates
A documentary film intertwined with a nation’s turbulent history emerges as a crucial player in a present-day case against genocide. Our characters sift for clues buried deep in film archives and forgotten documents, uncovering historical memory that unlocks the past and settles matters of life and death in the present.

New Muslim Cool Dir. Jennifer Maytorena Taylor
Puerto Rican American hip-hop star Hamza Pérez quit dealing drugs for Islam twelve years ago. Now he’s moved to Pittsburgh’s tough North Side to start a Muslim community and rebuild his shattered family. But when the FBI raids his mosque, Hamza must confront life in post-9/11 America – and himself.

HotDocs Projects

Resilient Dirs. Sean & Andrea Fine
Executive produced by Academy Award winner Angelina Jolie, Resilient is a quest to answer Mariane Pearl’s question: “Can we spread hope as others spread fear?” It is a search for signs of hope in personal stories of individual women that, despite extraordinary odds, are finding ways to make a real difference.

The Promise of Freedom Dir. Beth Murphy
The Promise of Freedom is a modern-day Oskar Schindler story that focuses on Kirk Johnson, a 27-year-old American aid worker fighting to save tens of thousands of Iraqis whose lives are in danger because they worked for the U.S. to help rebuild Iraq.

Our School Dir. Mona Nicoara
A vérité documentary following three Roma children struggling to break the barriers of discrimination and segregation in a small Transylvanian town. Rejected by teachers, they find strength in the friendship of Romanian classmates. Our School documents one of Romania’s first school integration efforts, the result of a European Court of Human Rights judgment similar to Brown v. Board of Education in 1950s America.

Burma Soldier Dir. Nic Dunlop
The powerful story of a former junta member and Burmese soldier who risks everything to become a pro-democracy activist. Told by photojournalist Nic Dunlop, this film offers a rare understanding of a brutal regime and the political and psychological power of the junta over this country.

Untitled Immigration Project Dir. Marco Williams
In a nation of immigrants, the debate about ‘illegal immigrants,’ has become a barometer of American morality, the civil rights struggle of the twenty-first century. Focusing on the impact of one law, this project documents the trauma that the immigration causes, neighbor against neighbor, tearing a peaceful community apart.

Independent Film Week

25 To Life  Dir.  Michael L. Brow      William Brawner was infected with HIV before he turned two and kept it a secret for over twenty years. Now he seeks redemption from the women of his promiscuous past and embarks on a new phase of life with his pregnant wife, who is HIV-negative.

Easy Like Water  Dir. Glenn Baker   In Bangladesh, solar-powered floating schools are turning the front lines of climate change into a community of learning. As the water steals the land, one man’s vision is re-casting the rising rivers as channels of communication, and transforming people’s lives.

Garbage Dreams Dir. Mai Iskander    Garbage Dreams follows three teenage boys born into the trash trade and growing up in the world’s largest garbage village, on the outskirts of Cairo. When their community is suddenly faced with the globalization of their trade, each boy is forced to make choices that will impact the survival of his community.

Rose & Nangabire Dirs. Beth Davenport and Elizabeth Mandel (Election Day) In the late 1990s, Rose Mapendo lost her family and home to the ethnic violence that engulfed the Democratic Republic of Congo, yet she emerged from the suffering advocating peace and reconciliation. But after helping numerous victims to recover and rebuild their lives, there is one person Rose must still teach to forgive – her daughter Nangabire.

To Catch A Dollar  Dir. Gayle Ferraro   To Catch a Dollar weaves two stories as they intersect in a common goal: Muhammad Yunus as he builds upon the millennium development goals through micro credit and while opening the Grameen Bank in Queens, NY giving 500 immigrant women unsecured loans of up to $3000 to invest in money-making projects.

What Tomorrow Brings  Dir. Beth Murphy   The film follows a year at the Zabuli Afghan girls’ school, where the battle to educate girls mirrors the battle to save Afghanistan from again becoming a failed state. Intertwining the stories of students and teachers, it is a portrait of innocence and idealism in the midst of war.

Youthbuild Dirs. Annie Sundberg & Ricki Stern (The Devil Came on Horseback, the Trials of Darryl Hunt). This film follows a year in the life of young people selected for a high stakes community rebuilding project in Newark, one of the toughest cities in America. The film interweaves dramatic stories of poverty and opportunity, exploring the personal struggles to reclaim cities and to reinvent fragile lives.

Zinan: Architects of a New Iraq Dir. Mary Ann Smothers Bruni (Quest for Honor) Americans are poised to leave Iraq, and the national election that may change the status of Iraqi Kurdistan looms. Three Kurdish women activists – an architect, a surgeon, and a refugee turned entrepreneur – must use the talents they honed rebuilding their Kurdish homeland to bring it effectively into the new Iraq.