News & Events
July 2007
DI Students Hit Perfect Pitch at Silverdocs
Nothing sells like a good story, but a solid preview tape, a pithy one-sheet and a well-delivered sales pitch also come in handy when you are trying to get an esteemed panel of industry professionals interested in broadcasting your documentary. Sarah Zaman and Tre Whitlow had all of those elements going for them at the recent student pitch session held as part of the Silverdocs Film Festival.
Sarah Zaman went to Silverdocs to pitch Bismillah: In the Name of Allah, a documentary she co-produced with Jolene Pinder. The documentary follows Muslim Girl Scout leader Farheen Hakim as she runs for political office in Minneapolis, Minnesota. POV series producer Yance Ford was impressed with both the pitch and the story, so much so that she asked Sarah for a copy of the film to reveiw for potential broadcast.
While Sarah talked to POV, Tre fielded equally interested inquires from a PBS representative following his pitch for Black to Our Roots, a film that focuses on an inner city girl’s journey to Africa to discover her roots. The panelists were particularly impressed with the story trajectory of the central character and the strong visual elements evident in the trailer.
Students from NYU and American University also pitched their projects to the panelists. In turn, the panelists, including Ford of POV; MaryAnn Culpepper of National Geographic; Andrea Meditch of Discovery Films and Sumner Menchore of PBS offered valuable insight in to what programmers are looking for when they screen documentaries for distribution. The panelists stressed the importance of complex characters and of strong visual components, but noted that it is the promise of a compelling story that is the true selling point of any documentary.
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