Filmmakers in 'Dragon's Den' pitching event

Project lineup for Good Pitch UK announced The lineup for the first ever London Good Pitch, which takes place on 7–8th September 2009, is announced. The Good Pitch is a ‘Dragon’s Den’ pitching event, which brokers new partnerships between eight inspiring, social-justice film projects and the people and organisations who can work with them to effect change (see www.britdoc.org/goodpitch for more information). Organisations already confirmed to attend include: Amnesty International UK, The Co-operative, UNICEF, Wellcome Trust, Channel 4, Sundance Institute, Freuds, Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, CND, ACEVO, ActionAid, Barnardos, Cafod, Camfed, FilmAid International, NCVO, One.org, Sport England, TRAID, War on Want, Institute of Development Studies and Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust. “The Good Pitch is a brand new model, helping filmmakers to create partnerships with the Third and commercial sectors” says Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation Chief Executive Jess Search. “In this new world, charities, foundations, brands and companies with CSR agendas partner with passionate directors and producers to forge new models for funding, distribution, outreach and participation.” The Good Pitch is a partnership between the Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation and the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program, in collaboration with Working Films UK. The event will be hosted by Amnesty International at the Human Rights Action Centre in Shoreditch and is held in association with One World Media. “Engaging audiences with the power of a good story well-told is at the heart of Good Pitch,” says Cara Mertes, Director of the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program. “It extends Sundance Institute’s core commitment to supporting storytellers who capture complex truth and address the most compelling issues of our time. For social change organizations and brands committed to social responsibility, partnering with filmmakers to engage broader audiences improves the potential to create positive impact.” From over 100 applications, eight filmmaking teams have been selected to pitch their films and outreach campaigns to an invited audience, in order to amplify the impact of their social-issue documentary projects. The selected filmmakers are: Antony Butts (After the Apocalypse), Lesley Katon (A Very Dangerous Man), Dan Edelstyn (How to Re-Establish a Vodka Empire), Hannan Majid & Richard York (Mass e Bhat), Rosa Rogers (Casablanca Calling), Mat Whitecross (Moving to Mars), Morgan Matthews (Seventeen) and Jerry Rothwell (Town of Runners). “This extraordinary event creates new strategies of collaboration between excellent documentary filmmakers and on-the-ground advocates and activists and the funders who support both,” says Robert West, Co-founder and Executive Director of Working Films. “We are delighted to be able to provide the Good Pitch workshop and pitch training for the selected filmmakers and to be core supporters of the Good Pitch both in North American and here in the UK.” More on the eight projects: A Very Dangerous Man Dir. Lesley Katon Are 'psychopaths' beyond rehabilitation? One man's work with Britain's most dangerous prisoners suggests violence is 'learned' and can be stopped, or even prevented. So why have successive governments tried to silence him? A Very Dangerous Man challenges us to think again about human nature and shows there is a cure for violence. After the Apocalypse Dir. Antony Butts Exposing the legacy of the largest, most secretive and most sustained nuclear experiment in history and the thousands of Kazakh families living in the shadow of an unacknowledged atomic war... Casablanca Calling Dir. Rosa Rogers In Morocco, the world's first female Muslim leaders are setting out to change their country: empowering women through the teachings of Islam and challenging the attitudes which breed extremism. Casablanca Calling takes us into the lives of the women at the heart of this quiet social revolution through the women at its forefront. How to Re-Establish a Vodka Empire Dir. Dan Edelstyn A manuscript in a suitcase lead me to my great-grandfather's vodka factory in deepest Ukraine. The village in which it stands is in post-perestroika desperation, industry has been dismantled, unemployment rife. The vision is to connect the village to a global vodka market, thereby restoring prosperity and re-establishing relations. Mass e Bhat Dirs. Hannan Majid & Richard York A portrait of a developing nation through the eyes of its working children. The nature of development, poverty, childhood and sustainability is examined through the stories of the children of Bangladesh as well as their parents, teachers, employers, carers and exploiters. Moving to Mars Dir. Mat Whitecross Moving to Mars tells the story of two families: exiles from Burma, now headed for a new life in the UK. After fifteen years in a rural refugee camp, their new home will be Sheffield, a bustling British city. The film follows them on this life-changing journey. Seventeen Dir. Morgan Matthews Seventeen is the definitive documentary on teenage murder in Britain today. Intimate filming with families and friends of victims and major UK police forces will take us behind the headlines. Every teenager to fall victim to homicide in 2009 will be remembered in this feature-length film, making it the biggest advert to date against violence. Town of Runners Dir. Jerry Rothwell Town of Runners follows young athletes from the Ethiopian rural town of Bekoji as they move from school track to national competition and from childhood to adulthood. The story unfolds against the background of sharply rising food and fuel prices which have a critical impact on this farming region. For press information contact Sophie Toumazis or Suzie Schilling at tpr media consultants: sophie@tpr-media.com/ suzie@tpr-media.com/ +44 (0) 20 8347 7020 EDITORS’ NOTES Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation is a UK-based not-for-profit organisation backed by Channel 4 TV. It is dedicated to reinventing funding and distribution models for British documentary filmmakers, and brokers relationships between filmmakers and the NGO and brand sectors in the UK to create better, more effective films. The Good Pitch is a key part of the Foundation’s important work in this area. In 2009, the Good Pitch has also travelled to Hot Docs in Toronto, Canada, SILVERDOCS, in Washington DC before calling at its final destination at IFP’s Independent Film Week in New York City in September 2009 where the pitches will be framed around the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. www.britdoc.org Working Films advances social, economic, environmental and racial justice by linking independent non-fiction media to activism. Working Films has current projects ranging from high profile efforts – including HBO and PBS broadcasts – to regional and local grassroots initiatives. Now in its ninth year, Working Films has partnered or collaborated on the audience and community engagement and non-traditional distribution efforts of over 400 films. www.workingfilms.org Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program (DFP) supports contemporary nonfiction filmmakers globally with year-round activities, including the Sundance Documentary Fund, Creative Labs focusing on the art of documentary, the DocSource website and the Stories of Change partnership with the Skoll Foundation. The DFP has supported over 400 films since 1996, including Nerakoon: Betrayal, Trouble the Water, Iraq in Fragments, My Country, My Country, Why We Fight, and Long Night’s Journey Into Day. The DFP is a core program of the Los Angeles-based non-profit Sundance Institute. Founded by Robert Redford, Sundance Institute is dedicated to the discovery and development of independent artists and audiences. www.sundance.org/docsource Amnesty International Amnesty International is a movement of ordinary people from across the world standing up for humanity and human rights. The organisation’s purpose is to protect individuals wherever justice, fairness, truth and freedom are denied. Amnesty International's vision is of a world in which every person enjoys all of the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights instruments. In pursuit of this vision, Amnesty International's mission is to undertake research and action focused on preventing and ending grave abuses of these rights. www.amnesty.org.uk One World Media One World Media is a UK-based organisation which aims to increase global understanding through effective use of the media. OWM believes the media offers a unique means of highlighting human rights issues, and of promoting democracy and fair government worldwide. Its annual Awards recognize the best media coverage of the developing world; its Fund exists to support media professionals to report on development issues, and its Fellowships bring together broadcasters form the developing world. HISTORY OF THE GOOD PITCH: The first Good Pitch was held in July 2008 at the BRITDOC Film Festival in Oxford. 8 projects were pitched, including the Resist project authored by actor Gael Garcia Bernal. Since then, the Good Pitch North America Tour has visited Hot Docs International Documentary Film Festival in Toronto and the AFI-Discovery Channel SILVERDOCS Documentary Festival, where over 95 major organisations and foundations were welcomed to a one-day event in Washington DC. In Washington, 8 projects were selected from 300 applications and covered a range of social issues - global development in Africa, environmental sustainability, marriage equality, citizen journalism in China, the green job economy, social entrepreneurship, Middle East peacebuilding. Attending foundations and non-profits included: Al Jazeera, American Bar Association, Amnesty International, Ashoka, Ben & Jerry's Foundation, The Center for American Progress, Open Society Institute, The Global Fund for Women, Greenpeace, HRC International Human Rights Funding Group, Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund and WITNESS. The final stop in the Good Pitch North America tour will be at IFP’s Independent Film Week in New York in September.

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