MELISSA
HARRIS' CHICAGO CONFIDENTIAL
Good
Pitch Chicago forum will connect documentary filmmakers with supporters
Chicago civic and
business leaders come together to highlight the city's best unfinished
documentaries
|
Justine Nagan, executive director of Kartemquin Films, and
lawyer Steve Cohen are involved in starting Good Pitch Chicago, a forum to
connect filmmakers and financial backers. (Abel Uribe, Chicago Tribune / March 20,
2013
|
Melissa Harris'
Chicago Confidential
March 21, 2013
Chicago's
documentary film industry is getting its own high-profile Demo Day.
Running
concurrently with the Chicago International Film Festival, a group of corporate
and nonprofit executives will showcase up to eight unfinished documentary films
at a new event called Good Pitch Chicago.
Each
director will have seven minutes to pitch their film to eight to 10 influencers
who organizers know are already interested in the film's premise — and may want
to help finance or otherwise support it. Watching the daylong event will be an
invite-only audience of 300 to 400 guests.
The idea
is that after hearing the pitch those influencers — who will be seated around a
table onstage — will announce some sort of commitment to support the film.
Money to finish the film would be helpful. A distribution deal with, say, PBS
or CNN might be even better. But organizers say money isn't all they're
seeking.
There are
other ways to support a documentary. For example, someone at the table could
offer to get a film about sexual assault in the military into the hands of the
U.S. defense secretary. Or the executive director of a large social services
organization could agree to show a film about violence prevention at its clubs
nationwide.
Adding to the drama will be the fact that once
people on stage have a chance to offer help, audience members can spontaneously
step up to a microphone and make a commitment to the film as well.
"The group around the table has never been
around the same table before, and as an audience member, you witness literally
this groundswell around the film," said Paula Froehle, executive vice president of academic affairs at the
Tribeca Flashpoint Media Arts Academy, which will host the Oct. 22 event.
"It's as if you're witnessing the behind-the-scenes networking that is
necessary, if the film is going to make an impact on society. Even for the sort
of non-philanthropic, non-connected audience member, and I was in that position
twice, it was thrilling to see. I could visualize the impact any one of these
projects was going to have on communities across the country."
Leading the local effort to bring Good Pitch to
Chicago is lawyer Steve Cohen,
who also finances documentaries; Justine
Nagan, executive director of Kartemquin Films, which released its first
documentary in 1966; Froehle and John Murray from
Tribeca; Daniel Alpert, a documentary-maker
and executive director of The Kindling Group; and Erin Sorenson of Third Stage Consulting, who previously was
the first executive director of the Chicago Children's Advocacy Center.
Tribeca will be the lead sponsor. The MacArthur
Foundation also has awarded a $50,000 grant toward start-up costs. And Cohen is
supplying a $20,000 matching grant for new sponsors who sign on after April 1,
which is when the event begins accepting submissions.
Good Pitch
events take place annually in New York, San Francisco and London, where the
event was founded. Washington has hosted one as well. The brand is a joint
project of the U.K.-based BRITDOC Foundation, which supports international
filmmakers, and the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program.
"Chicago
has been untapped in terms of foundation money, organizational collaboration
and advertising industry engagement," Cohen said, later adding, "We
hope and expect there will be a Good Pitch in Chicago every year like there is
in New York and San Francisco."
The
selection committee is looking for a very specific kind of film to showcase at
this event. The films must be in production and of high-quality. Of the five
documentary features nominated for an Oscar this year, two — "How to
Survive a Plague" and "The Invisible War" — had been featured at
a Good Pitch, Cohen said.
The
subject matter must be about social change, but the event isn't set up like a
reality TV competition.
"We
fully expect every film in the pitch will walk away with some kind of help, whether
it be financial or a partnership with another organization," Cohen said.
"Every film gets something by being in the pitch."
"The
Interrupters," which shows how former gang members on Chicago's South Side
are being tapped to quell violence, would be ideal for a Good Pitch. And the
film, from Chicagoan and veteran filmmaker Steve James, was
presented at a Good Pitch in Washington. James said the selection process was
"very competitive."
"Good
Pitch connected us directly to a foundation, The Fledgling Fund, and they gave
us some initial money to help develop an outreach plan for 'The Interrupters'
and then came back and gave us more money down the road to support the outreach
effort," James said. "The first money is often the most important money,
even if it's not big bucks."
Many
social-impact documentaries are shot on a budget of less than $1 million.
Pulling more funders and partners into the documentary industry is perhaps the
last piece of a growing renaissance.
An art
film house is no longer a necessary middleman. Technology, such as Netflix and
iTunes, is delivering them to people's living rooms. And crowd-funding sites,
such as Kickstarter, are making it easier for directors to finance their
projects.
"(Director) Errol
Morris, (Steve James') 'Hoop Dreams,' Michael Moore, 'An
Inconvenient Truth,' there's been this momentum building around the power of
documentaries," Nagan said. "Driving that is what's happening with
journalism. Long-term journalism and investigative reporting are getting cut.
And the audience for news is very siloed. ... The news they get is tailored to
them. Documentaries, I think people are feeling right now, really do have the
ability to bring people together and think about an issue in a broader
way."
For more
information, e-mail info.goodpitchchicago@gmail.com or go to britdoc.org/goodpitchchicago.
Melissa Harris can be
reached at mmharris@tribune.com or
312-222-4582. Twitter @chiconfidential
Copyright © 2013 Chicago Tribune Company, LLC
