“The Square,” “Call Me Kuchu” nab funding at Good Pitch

July 4, 2012 by Kevin Ritchie

Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields, The Square, Call Me Kuchu (pictured) and In Your Voice, In Your Heart were among the documentaries to receive financial backing at the Channel 4 Britdoc Foundation and the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program’s Good Pitch Europe 2012.

The one-day pitching event, held at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in London on June 25, brought together documentary filmmakers with NGOs, foundations, and people and organizations interested in helping films make a social and political impact.

After a two-day campaign development workshop, eight filmmaking teams pitched their projects and an associated outreach campaign ideas to the audience with the aim of creating a coalition of stakeholders to accelerate the influence of their work.

UK pubcaster Channel 4 committed £50,000 (US$78,000) and the Pulitzer Centre on Crisis Reporting promised $20,000 to Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields, Callum Macrae’s doc about the Sri Lankan government’s offensive against the Tamil Tigers; while the European Partnership for Democracy pledged €20,000 ($25,000) to The Square, director Jehane Noujaim’s doc about the ongoing struggle in Egypt.

Meanwhile, Call Me Kuchu, Malika Zouhali-Worrall and Katherine Fairfax Wright’s film about gay rights in Uganda, received $10,000 for outreach; while Britdoc offered a £30,000 ($38,000) production grant to In Your Voice, In Your Heart, James Hall and Ed Lovelace’s doc about musician Edwyn Collins’ journey of rehabilitation after a stroke.

Others projects were offered post-production deals or invitations to screen at international events, and all received offers for help with distribution and outreach, according to Britdoc. Jason Spingarn-Koff of The New York Times invited several pitchers to submit short versions of their docs to be shown on the paper’s Op-Docs site.

Around 180 organizations participated in the Good Pitch, including the WWF, Oxfam, Human Rights Watch, the Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Fund, the Wellcome Trust, Amnesty, the BBC, Greenpeace, Kickstarter, the BFI and The Rory Peck Trust.

Read a full recap of Good Pitch Europe 2012 on Britdoc’s website.

Tags: Call Me Kuchu, Good Pitch Europe 2012, In Your Heart, In Your Voice, Sri Lanka's Killing Fields, The Channel 4 Britdoc Foundation, The Square