Date and time:
Friday Mar 30, 2012 at 12:00 PM
to Friday Mar 30 at 4:00 PM
Where:
Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival
TBD
Sebastopol, CA
Docs In Progress will be taking its popular Peer Pitch program on the road…to the Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival in Sonoma County, California. This program will give up to seven documentary filmmakers the opportunity to present new projects to fellow filmmakers for feedback and for all attending to gain valuable insights and new connections which can guide their own filmmaking.
Constructive feedback from peers in a nurturing environment will help to identify strengths and areas for improvement in projects. Participants will also develop skills and comfort in verbally describing their projects among peers before trying their pitches out on industry.
Docs In Progress is a nonprofit documentary film organization which has been presenting Peer Pitch program for a number of years in the Washington DC area, including for the last three years as a sidebar program to the Silverdocs Documentary Film Festival. This will be the first time that the program will be presented on the West Coast, in collaboration with the Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival (named one of the 25 Coolest Film Festivals by MovieMaker Magazine). Participation is open to both filmmakers with films in the festival and other documentary filmmakers from the region. Peer Pitch will take place on the second day of the festival, Friday, March 30 from 12:00 noon until 4:00 pm.
Films which have been presented at past Peer Pitch workshops when they were in their early stages have gone on to be funded by major supporters such as Sundance Documentary Fund and ITVS, been accepted into industry pitching opportunities such as IFP’s Independent Film Week and DocsBarcelona, and be completed to play festivals, television, and community screenings. Participants have also made connections with other filmmakers which have led to later collaborations.
Advance registration is required. The modest registration fees cover the costs of organizing the program. The fee is $50 for those who have a project they would like to pitch or $35 for those who would like to participate by giving feedback. Following the program, we’ll also head out to a no-host dinner before the evening’s festival screenings.
TESTIMONIALS FROM PAST PEER PITCH PARTICIPANTS
Seeing other project ideas, and the feedback from multiple, qualified people stimulated my thinking.
It was valuable to meet fellow filmmakers, have the “deadline” of preparing a presentation, engage in critical thinking, and to consider my project in terms of an audience.
The experience helped me overcome a block on an old project I’m ready to revisit.
Even though I didn’t have a current project to pitch, I enjoyed hearing what other filmmakers were working on and loved the chance to meet people I could later hang out with during [the film festival], especially since I was attending the festival alone.
This program is presented in partnership with
