Category Archives: ITVS Funding

Newly Funded: ITVS is Pleased to Announce Funding for Deej

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ITVS recently approved funding for Deej, a documentary by Robert Rooy (Director/Producer) and David James Savarese (Producer).

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Deej is the story of DJ Savarese (“Deej”), a gifted, young writer and an advocate for nonspeaking autistics. Once a “profoundly disabled” foster kid seemingly on the fast track to nowhere, DJ is now a first year college student with a burning desire to stand up for those whose neurological differences cause others to summarily dismiss them as incompetent, often “housing them in classrooms of easy lessons.” As writer and co-producer of Deej, he seeks to quell deep-seated fears and heal old wounds while giving others like him a voice:

“This movie reassesses hope. Yes, yes, hope is not easy or free. Yes, hope is hard…. Not a sweet, dear, hopeful collection, our film asks hope to survive challenges and to hear our dear selves freed.”— DJ Savarese

Join ITVS in congratulating the filmmakers!

Newly Funded: ITVS is Pleased to Announce Funding for Almost There

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ITVS recently approved funding for Almost There, a documentary by filmmakers Dan Rybicky   (Director/Producer) and Aaron Wickenden (Director/Producer).

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Outsider artist Peter Anton, 82, has spent decades obsessively chronicling his rollercoaster of a life into a massive, illustrated autobiography, and nothing — not poverty, isolation, or crippling disabilities — will stop him from seeing it published. Almost There documents the curatorial complexities surrounding the discovery and stewardship of Anton’s work, addressing issues of identity and legacy that arise from the collision of biography and autobiography.

Join ITVS in congratulating the filmmakers!

AIR and ITVS Partner Up for Next Step in Pubmedia Innovation

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Last week, ITVS and AIR, Inc. announced a partnership that will boost support for transformative public media work through Locolore, a multi-million dollar initiative designed to help spark a new vision of 21st century public media.

Localore provides more than a million dollars in CPB funding to 10 lead producers who work with local public stations to increase their organizational capacity for innovation. From coast to coast, Localore producers, technologists, and their stations are inventing new ways to blend craft, forging “full spectrum” productions that reach and involve citizens on air, screen, and streets. 

ITVS has invited Localore producer-station teams to apply for a second year of funding through the LINCS initiative, where selected productions will have the opportunity to continue their groundbreaking projects, with AIR serving in an advisory role.

The production has already yielded an array of fresh public media models, designed to reach and involve community members — from a rich multimedia music map in Austin, to a new style of short form video documentary chronicling the oil boom of North Dakota, to a digitally reversed version of the farmer’s almanac that tells the story of climate change in Paonia, CO. 

The partnership builds on previous AIR-ITVS collaborations to support transformative public media. To learn more, please click here.

What Makes a Good Work-in-Progress? Part 3: Late Production

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By N’Jeri Eaton
Programming Manager, ITVS

The third and final installment of our Open Call “Work-in-Progress” series focuses on the determined filmmaking duo behind Give Up Tomorrow, whose dogged persistence in refining their work-in-progress finally resulted in their film being greenlit. Having successfully submitted to ITVS Open Call, they reveal the thought process behind their editing decisions and advice for potential applicants.

NOTE: Due to rights clearance issues, we are unable to share the work-in-progress samples for these films. Continue reading →

What Makes a Good Work-in-Progress? Part 2: The Veteran Filmmaker

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By N’Jeri Eaton
Programming Manager, ITVS

The ITVS Open Call deadline is only five days away, making it the perfect time to read the next installment of our ‘work –in-progress’ series.

Submitting an enticing ‘work-in-progress’ can be difficult, even for the veteran filmmaker. Today, we bring you As Goes Janesville’s  Brad Lichtenstein, who despite having vast filmmaking experience, had to learn how to wrangle five main characters in his sample before being successfully funded.  Continue reading →

What Makes a Good Work-in-Progress? Part 1: Early Production

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By N’Jeri Eaton
Programming Manager, ITVS

With the ITVS Open Call deadline right around the corner (next week in fact!), BTB brings you the first in a three part series breaking down the elusive ‘work-in-progress’.

Here at ITVS, one of the most asked questions is “What Makes a Good Work in Progress?”.  Unfortunately, there isn’t a simple answer.  The answer can vary depending on what material you have, the style of your film, what stage of production you’re in, etc.

Over the next three days, we will share the experiences of three ITVS-funded producers who successfully submitted their work-in-progress samples to our Open Call initiative.

Today we bring you More Than a Month’s Shukree Tilghman, the first time filmmaker who, despite being early on in production, received funding the first time he applied. Read on as Tilghman reveals the thought process behind his editing decisions and advice for potential applicants. Continue reading →

A Very Merry DDF Announcement

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ITVS has announced the eleven documentary projects selected as part of the 2012 Diversity Development Fund. This year’s selections provide extraordinary access and insight into the daily lives and struggles of people around the world, from female parliament members in Afghanistan to the bicycle brigade formed by feminist women of color in East Los Angeles.

The productions were selected through a competitive application process, which resulted in 120 submissions.

Check out the complete list of funded projects after the jump. Continue reading →

Establishing a Content Strategy for the Future

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By Jim Sommers
Senior Vice President of Content, ITVS

ITVS teams adapt and work together to better serve producers in a dynamic, chaotic media environment.

Five years ago, as the opportunities for creating and distributing content in a multi-platform, cross-media environment were compounding, the funding and rights management environment intensifying, we strategized internally on how to best support independents to thrive in this ever-changing media environment. What it took to fund, distribute, and promote independent film through a simple broadcast model required a shift to connect many more dots to reach audiences digitally. In short, success demanded a multi-pronged approach with more collaboration, flexibility, and partnership across everything we do. We also wanted to provide many points of access to producers seeking funding from ITVS.

Today, we have a service model and culture guided by a Content Strategy Team and several other cross-functional teams to support producers as they absorb new forms of content creation and distribution into their creative processes. The “CST,” also known as the “greenlight” team, finalizes all the programming slates and ensures that ITVS’s content portfolio achieves its mission of diversity and innovation and tracks how our content reaches and engages diverse audiences.

In addition to me, the CST members include: Claire Aguilar, Executive Content Advisor (formerly Vice President of Programming); Lois Vossen, Senior Series Producer of Independent Lens; Matthew Meschery, Director of Digital Content and Innovation; Sreedevi Sripathy, Managing Director of Distribution and Content Management; and Tamara Gould, Vice President of International, who heads up strategic partnerships. Continue reading →

Newly Funded: ITVS is Pleased to Announce Funding for Jed Rothstein’s Heavy Metal Islam

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ITVS recently approved funding for the documentary Heavy Metal Islam by filmmaker Jed Rothstein (Director/Producer).

In 2008, a film crew began documenting a group of young heavy-metal musicians in Egypt. Oppressed by massive social forces beyond their control, the kids — sons of a jailed political dissident and the leader of the only female metal band in the Middle East — saw music as their outlet, their hopes trapped in the traffic-clogged streets of Cairo like a bull in a pen. Then one day, everything burst wide open.

Filmed before, during, and after the beginning of the Egyptian revolution, Heavy Metal Islam tells the stories of a few remarkable young people as they seek the freedom to define themselves and shape their world. Influenced by their participation in major historic events, the young Egyptian musicians experience the political upheaval as personally transformative. With their music as a soundtrack, they share their stories, from their early struggles in Mubarak’s police state, through the fever dream of a revolution, and beyond, into a strange new world where uncertainty is the only constant.

Join ITVS in congratulating the filmmaker!

Big Changes to ITVS International!

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ITVS International Call promotes the exchange of compelling documentary films between the United States and other nations, going beyond stereotypes and headline news.

We no longer have a once a year submission deadline but consider projects on a rolling basis. This is a big change!

ITVS International enables independent producers from outside the United States to create documentaries for U.S. television. Through our International Initiative global storytellers introduce U.S. audiences to their world, their neighbors, opening a window into unfamiliar lives, experiences and perspectives.

The International Initiative provides production and/or post-production funds for single non-fiction television documentaries that bring international perspectives, ideas, stories and people to a U.S. audience. This initiative is for non-U.S. producers and filmmakers who live outside the U.S.

Please note: ITVS International Initiative is an all digital submissions process.

Please read our new guidelines; there are important changes that you should note before applying.

For those guidelines, eligibility and how to submit, please visit www.itvs.org/funding/international

PLUS we invite you to join the [ITVS] International Documentary Group on Facebook: share your news, read global doc news, see great clips, get updates on funding, and more, more, more! The best thing is, you set the agenda. We’re listening, and we want to hear about your projects, what you’re excited about, what trends you’re seeing in the global doc community.

Join the group here.