GOOD PITCH NY 2011 PROJECT LINEUP ANNOUNCED
Good Pitch NY 2011 will take place at the
Ford Foundation on Friday, May 20th, 2011
London, UK, April 4, 2010 - The lineup for the Good Pitch NY 2011, taking place at the Ford Foundation’s Manhattan headquarters on Friday 20 May, is announced today.
The Good Pitch is an invitation-only event, starting with an intensive two-day campaign development workshop for the filmmakers, followed by a day-long live event which brings together documentary films and organizations with social change and innovation at their heart.
Eight filmmaking teams will pitch their projects and associated outreach campaigns to an invited group of foundations, NGOs, brands, advertising and digital agencies, social entrepreneurs and media organizations with the aim of creating a unique coalition around each film to accelerate its impact and influence.
A project of the Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation in partnership with the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program, the team worked with staff and advisors to choose eight documentary projects for this edition of the Good Pitch out of several hundred applications. The selected filmmakers are Dawn Porter (Gideon's Army), Soniya Kirpalani (We The People), Marc Silver (Who Is Dayani Cristal?), Alison Klayman (Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry), Kief Davidson (Untitled Partners In Health Documentary), Katie Dellamaggiore (Brooklyn Castle), Patrice O'Neill (Not In Our Town III: Light in the Darkness), and Yoav Potash (Crime After Crime).
Brooklyn Castle
Dir. Katie Dellamaggiore
Amidst financial crisis and unprecedented public school budget cuts, Intermediate School 318 in Brooklyn, New York, has assembled the best junior high chess team in the nation. Brooklyn Castle follows five young teens for one school year as they struggle, grow and challenge themselves both on and off the chessboard.
We are delighted to see Katie Dellamaggiore included in the Good Pitch Line up with Brooklyn Castle. The film follows the students from I.S. 318, whose chess program is just one example of an innovative and accessible public education program that works. And yet while most educators, parents and politicians agree that programs like art, music and chess play a vital role in public education, in times of financial crisis they are the first programs to be cut. Through the telling of five personal stories, Brooklyn Castle makes an argument for afterschool programs and the critical role they play in addressing the needs of kids, especially disadvantaged kids that might otherwise be marginalized by the current public education system. We're excited to see her form partnerships and be able to make a difference in important New York after school programming.
Find out more here: http://britdoc.org/real_good/gpny2011
“This is the first of two Good Pitches to be held in North America in 2011,” said Cara Mertes, Sundance Documentary Film Program Director, “and the range of topics and geographies represents a full spectrum of documentary storytelling.”
The projects focus on issues of immigration, human rights, global health, racism, migrant labor, hate crimes, poverty, domestic violence, and criminal justice and tell stories from The Emirates, China, USA, South Asia, Haiti, and US/Mexico/Central American borders.
In 2011, the Ford Foundation has joined the Good Pitch team as a major funder and host venue of the New York City event. The Ford Foundation joins the Tides Foundation, the Fledgling Fund, Chicken & Egg Pictures, Impact Partners, CrossCurrents Foundation and anonymous donors as supporters of the Good Pitch. Working Films will continue to provide campaign development for the invited filmmakers.
“The ability to take complex, urgent issues and translate them into compelling stories is the remarkable skill of documentary filmmakers,” said Orlando Bagwell, Director of the Ford Foundation’s JustFilms Initiative. “As great cinema, documentaries can not only inform and inspire their audiences, but also catalyze viewers to become active participants in social change. Good Pitch makes that opportunity for action possible by connecting master storytellers to organizations on the ground working to improve people’s lives. The Ford Foundation is excited to be a new supporter and host of this year’s Good Pitch in New York City.”
The Good Pitch NY 2011 is the first event of 2011 on an annual, international tour, with further pitches planned for San Francisco in September and Europe in October. For more information on Good Pitch events in 2011, see www.britdoc.org/goodpitch.
For more information about the Good Pitch, contact Elise McCave at the Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation: elise@britdoc.org or on +44 7980 986 862
Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation is a UK-based not-for-profit organization backed by Channel 4 TV. It is dedicated to reinventing funding and distribution models for British documentary filmmakers. As well as funding ground breaking social-issue films (such as double Sundance winner Afghan Star, Berlin winner The Yes Men Fix the World, Sundance 09 feature doc The End of the Line and Tribeca winner We Are Together), the Foundation 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.
Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program (DFP) supports contemporary nonfiction filmmakers globally with year-round activities, including the Sundance Documentary Fund, Creative Labs and workshops focusing on the art of documentary, and collaborative partnerships including the Stories of Change initiative with the Skoll Foundation, and major social justice and human rights initiatives with Open Society Foundations and Ford Foundation among others. The DFP has supported over 400 films since 1996, including The Oath, Nerakoon: Betrayal, Trouble the Water, Iraq in Fragments, 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.
The Ford Foundation is an independent, nonprofit grant-making organization. For more than half a century it has worked with courageous people on the frontlines of social change worldwide, guided by its mission to strengthen democratic values, reduce poverty and injustice, promote international cooperation, and advance human achievement. With headquarters in New York, the foundation has offices in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.
