Working Films is excited to announce the opening of Working Films UK, a London office in partnership with the Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation – extending the services of Working Films to filmmakers in the United Kingdom and Europe. Since 2007, the Working Films team has collaborated with BRITDOC on filmmaker trainings, strategy summits for feature documentaries, festival workshops and, most recently, the foundation’s very first North American Good Pitch at Hot Docs.

Held at Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival on May 7, 2009, in Toronto, the Good Pitch is a partnership between BRITDOC, Hot Docs and the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program, generously supported by the Fledgling Fund. Working Films is acting as an outreach consultant on the Good Pitch through NGO partner cultivation and “good pitch” training for the filmmakers accepted into the program.

Beyond the collaboration on the Good Pitch at Hot Docs, there are additional opportunities for filmmakers in the U.K. to participate in this new partnership. Together, Working Films and BRITDOC are hosting the 2nd annual Films for Good workshop in London, June 5-7, 2009. This pioneering weekend is designed to assist filmmaking teams in creating effective, strategic outreach campaigns that extend and strengthen the social impact of their documentaries. Of the films submitted, BRITDOC and Working Films will shortlist a maximum of 10 teams for places in this year’s course. (In 2008, 70 projects from both award winning filmmakers and new talent were received; eight projects were accepted in the workshop.)

“Like our own organization, the Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation is committed to creating models for strong, savvy and strategic audience engagement, interactive distribution and campaigns that are tied to measurable change and impact at all levels of society,” says co-founder and Executive Director Robert West.  “We are excited to be taking our nearly 10 years of experience strategically linking social-issue documentary filmmaking with cutting-edge activism in the United States, and partnering with BRITDOC to reach filmmakers in the U.K. and Europe.”

Says Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation Director Maxyne Franklin, “We’ve been following Working Films’ great work for some years and are incredibly happy to be working with them as part of their expansion into the U.K.  Our philosophies around creating real films that can make real change in the world have wonderful synergy and this bonding of organizations is the next natural step for us.”

Read more about this expansion in the full release.