Whew, just back from Washington DC and the Good Pitch @ Silverdocs, where it was hot hot hot – both inside the Performing Arts Center with an amazing lineup of films and responses from funders, NGOs, and strategists, and outside, where the temp hovered around 99. Jess Search, of C4 BRITDOC, set up a time lapse camera to capture the day:
Reel Engagement participants and facilitators, from left to right: Robbie Gemmel, Josh Levin, Rennifer Redfearn, Lora Smith, Kristin Henry, Taira Akbar, Deb Anderson, Josh Fox, Emily Verellen, Judith Helfand, Jen Gilomen, Amanda Berger, Natalie Difford, Peter Bull. Photo courtesy of Peter Bull.
During Reel Engagement for the Energy and Natural Resource Revolution, we spent a week drilling down deep (excuse the pun) into audience engagement plans with filmmakers, coordinators, and non-profit organizations on energy and natural resource extraction issues. We’ll be updating you shortly on our website with exciting collaboration plans.
This edition of the Good Pitch takes place at Silverdocs, near Washington DC. It brings together inspiring social-purpose film projects and a group of expert participants from charities, foundations, brands and media to form powerful alliances around groundbreaking films.
THE LINEUP
We are delighted to announce that we have selected the lineup for the Good Pitch @ Silverdocs. The 8 filmmakers are Victor Buhler (A Whole Lott More), Macky Alston (The Truth Will Set You Free), Jon Shenk (Higher Ground), Angad Bhalla (The House That Herman Built), Dara Kell & Christopher Nizza (Dear Mandela), Steve James & Alex Kotlowitz (The Interrupters), Danfung Dennis (To Hell and Back Again), and Annika Gustafson & Phil Jandaly ($H*T).
Selected from 150 excellent submissions, the eight projects cover an exciting range of subjects including war & conflict, disability employment, LGBT equality, incarceration and solitary confinement, violence prevention and mediation, climate change and green energy. These issues are explored through stories that play out the world over – in the USA, Afghanistan, the Maldives, South Africa and Kenya.
More on the projects: A Whole Lott More
Dir. Victor Buhler
Lott Industries in Ohio, USA employs 1200 workers with developmental disabilities. For decades, the company has built car parts. However, with the decline of the auto industry, Lott Industries finds itself in trouble. The company has twelve months to reinvent itself. A Whole Lott More details the most crucial year in Lott Industries’ history and follows three inspiring workers with disabilities as they join the struggle to hold onto the best job they have ever had.
The Truth Will Set You Free
Dir. Macky Alston
The story of a man whose two defining passions are in great conflict: his love for God and his love for his partner Mark. This film follows Bishop Gene Robinson, the first openly gay partnered bishop in the high church traditions of Christendom, and a host of others who are making history and whose lives hang in the balance of the current church/state battles for LGBT equality.
Higher Ground
Dir. Jon Shenk
His nation of 1,200 low-lying islands is sinking as sea levels rise. Higher Ground is a film about Mohammed Nasheed, President of The Maldives, and his extraordinary role in the global climate war. During his first year in office, we follow as Nasheed breathlessly carries the fight to chambers of power in London, the United Nations, India, and finally to Copenhagen for ten intense days in December, 2009. This drama pits a die-hard activist for human rights – Nasheed himself was imprisoned and tortured as he fought for democracy in the Maldives – against the nasty geopolitical realities of the growing climate debate.
The House That Herman Built
Dir. Angad Bhalla
“What kind of house does a man who has been imprisoned in a six-foot-by-nine-foot cell for over 30 years dream of?” This film captures the remarkable creative journey and friendship of Herman Wallace, one of the Angola 3, and artist Jackie Sumell while examining the injustice of prolonged solitary confinement.
Join us for an inspiring weekend workshop designed to jump start campaigns for a limited number of excellent social issue documentaries on the 23rd-25th, July 2010. Outcomes include the identification of a range of potential outreach partners – including leading non-profits and social entrepreneurs as well as corporate and branding agencies.
The Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation and Working Films designed this workshop to create effective and strategic outreach campaigns and non-traditional distribution plans – reaching the audiences who need these films. Working Films’ co-founders Robert West and Judith Helfand and their team have masterminded campaigns behind feature docs such as Rory Kennedy’s Emmy Award-winning The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib and Helfland’s Everything’s Cool, resulting in significant shifts in the marketplace, public and political opinion in the US. Working Films’ new full-time partnership with Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation brings this high-level expertise to the UK filmmaking community.
The aim of the workshop is to help you:
• Develop audience and community engagement strategies
• Identify potential strategic partners (i.e. charities, NGOs and brands)
• Form an outreach strategy specific to your film
• Leverage and extend the life of your film
• Make social networking work for you
INSURE IMPACT!
Each project will leave the Workshop with an outline of activities and proposed partners appropriate for pre-release, release and post-release to give your film a long and effective life.
Join us for an inspiring weekend workshop designed to jump start campaigns for a limited number of excellent social issue documentaries on the 23rd-25th, July 2010. Outcomes include the identification of a range of potential outreach partners – including leading non-profits and social entrepreneurs as well as corporate and branding agencies.
