Four filmmakers previously funded by ITVS received a $5,000 award at this year’s San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival (SFIAAFF) for a work-in-progress about international LGBT politicians.

From L to R: Johnny Symons, Brittney Shepherd, Eva Moss, and S. Leo Chiang

Filmmakers S. Leo Chiang (A Village Called Versailles) and Johnny Symons (Daddy & Papa, Ask Not), along with co-producers Eva Moss and Brittney Shepherd, were awarded a $5,000 research and development award at the Ready, Set, Pitch! panel held on Sunday, March 11 at the 30th San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival for their project Out Run (working title) – a feature length documentary project that follows openly-LGBT political candidates in parts of the world that are most hostile to their cause.

Chiang, who will co-direct and co-produce with Symons, delivered a dynamic pitch to the judges that included a clip featuring one of the film’s subjects, David Kuria, a gay activist running for the Kenyan Senate, who faces ongoing persecution during his campaign in the hope that one day those in the LGBT community will find acceptance, or at least tolerance, in his country.

What made Chiang’s pitch even more compelling was his description of the transmedia component of the project: an online, interactive hub for LGBT activists seeking office, which he described as a global political convention, where candidates could share stories and media about themselves and their campaigns.

Four other filmmakers also pitched varied and unique projects: Ellie Lee, Kimberlee Bassford, Lisa Katayama, and Suha Araj (learn more about them at the CAAM festival blog). The judges for this panel included ITVS Vice President of Programming Claire Aguilar, independent film producer Gina Kwon (The Future, Me You and Everyone We Know), and blogger Phil Yu (angryasianman.com) and was moderated by Senior Strategist of Tomorrow Partners Wendy Levy. Before the award announcement was made, Levy announced that the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM) would also award $1,000 to each of the remaining panelists.

“It is wonderful and refreshing to see prizes given to all of the pitches,” commented Aguilar. “After the incredible hard work from the producers these prizes will leverage their crowd funding.” She also noted that ITVS is associated with Out Run, which is supported through the Diversity Development Fund.

Also announced during the panel was a new funding opportunity from CAAM: the Innovation Fund, a new initiative recently approved by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) to fund and license short, online content to be streamed on the CAAMedia.org website and PBS affiliate sites. This year the CAAM Innovation Fund will offer funding to license short web series (3-5 pieces each) by independent producers that address arts, music, culture, and politics in unique and creative ways. For more information, visit the CAAM website.

The festival is also screening director S. Leo Chiang’s new documentary Mr. Cao Goes to Washington as well as another ITVS-funded documentary, Give Up Tomorrow. SFIAAFF30 runs through March 18 in San Francisco, Berkeley, and San Jose.

I started writing this amidst the din of the one week orientation for filmmakers funded through ITVS’ most recent Open Call. I’m finishing it from the relative “quiet” of my Upper West Side apartment, save for the garbage trucks way below on 84^th - otherwise known as Edgar Allan Poe Street, the two-year-old running on the bare wood floor above me in 11B, and the hammering from somewhere in my pre- WW1 building.

The “din”: the walla walla of 20 independent producers, each in a different state of disbelief, gratitude, relief, giddy nervousness, tenacious “I can handle anything that comes my way” and “thank you but don’t touch my digital rights”.  It has since turned into a low comforting roar/buzz/oral memory playing in the background as I write up these reflections.

Our mission was to embrace the steps necessary to turn our 12 films-in-progress into PBS “90’s” and “60’s” and navigate our way towards a public television broadcast.

Being a “veteran” I was immediately asked – “What was it like the last time you were here for an Open Call orientation?”

Well, the last time I was “here” for an Open Call orientation was August 1995, when ITVS was still in Minneapolis, MN, the youngest of my current cohort of filmmakers was just 10 years old (and watching Full House not PBS), and the best I can recall, it was just a few days not a week.  There was no live tweeting, face-booking or You-Tube-ing and “digital” was an exploratory sort of key-note about the “future” humbly offered to us by the very brilliant Jim Yee (may he rest in peace).

My most cogent memory from back then (17 years ago) was my pride… as if I had done a public TV coming-of-age walk about and found my way home ONLY after getting to the Open Call panel four times in three years. I was “very, very close” three times, until the fourth time proved to be “the charm.”

I recall being grateful for learning how to use those “no’s” wisely, to fold all of that insightful, painful, and crazy-making “how dare you say that” feedback from the panel, back into my next Open Call proposal. So… by the time I received the electrically happy for me call from Emily Stephens about completion funding for A Healthy Baby Girl on June 28^, 1995 (my 30^th birthday and the weekend that my first film, The Uprising of ‘34, co-directed with George Stoney, was broadcast on POV), I had turned my 2.5 year “video diary” into a five-year longitudinal story with a “unique voice” and a very unexpected metaphor via my parents red wooden starter ranch turned blue vinyl-sided house, about what is private and what is public, what is forever, what is “toxic” and what it means to really ruin continuity with a BIG C. 

The small group and one-on-one meetings we had back then focused on: accounting and reporting, balancing expectations with deliverables, forging a working relationship between the filmmaker and the ITVS production manager/handler/therapist (thank you Emily Stephens), and learning about the byzantine process of getting a film, not just funded and completed, but into the PBS system and broadcast.  Back then the Internet — for average people like me — was relatively new, perhaps about five years old, and websites were more for “about the film/filmmakers”, timelines, campaign strategies and a few photos, than they were for rigorous campaigns with multiple platforms, streaming video easily or endless ways to connect in and out and back and forth.

Independent Producers at ITVS's latest round of Open Call Orientation

Back then the platform was your show on PBS, a basic website, and your “viewer guides” – which we were designing to be handed out, mailed by snail mail and printed. “Engagement” was not the norm, and really, in a lot of ways, it was in its infancy. It was much more face-to-face and on the ground than Facebook or online. ITVS was just starting to have regional, city-based coordinators in a handful of key cities, who were committed to organizing face-to-face community screenings around a broadcast, very much like the Community Cinema approach ITVS is taking now, but smaller, leaner, and in some ways “experimental”.  In fact I think the first group of “community engagement coordinators” were “sworn in” for a training by Suzanne Stenson O’Brien the same week I was there for orientation in 1995.

I must admit that these 2012 meetings were different than I expected, all due to a very diverse staff of story-loving, filmmaking savvy, committed individuals who are dedicated to putting the public back in public television  — many of whom are filmmakers themselves. The vibe was warm and generous and ready for the dynamic can-change-on-a-dime- nature of real-life and non-fiction.  It’s safe to say “ I don’t know,” “I am not sure about this,” “I am worried about giving up these rights.”

They are even open and know how to roll with unanticipated changes to a film’s story, agreed upon shooting days, or even a budget, in the face of the narrative demands of everyday life, politics, democracy and tyranny changing the story. Richard O’Connel explained this via two immediate up-to-the-minute examples:

“In the wake of the violent and life threatening coup in the Maldives, ITVS and Independent Lens are in conversation with the filmmakers of award-winning Island President (scheduled to have a theatrical release in a few weeks and on IL in the future), and we are willing to support the filmmakers in any way they need to use the film to rally support and safe-guard the ousted democratically elected President Nasheed and if need be, and it will, open up the film to add this context and recent turn of events. And on the other extreme, Kristy Herring, Director/Producer of The Campaign, is missing on this first morning of Orientation because she was out shooting the press conference where the State of California announced their decision on the passage of Prop 8 (which had been a vote to overturn the legalization of same sex marriage in CA) and they ruled it unconstitutional and a violation of federal equal protection law.” 

Honestly, my Co-Producer Fenell Doremus and I had come with the fear of g-d in us, as we had not finished dotting the i’s, crossing all the t’s, and completing certain spread sheets. We’d come with things we did not know yet and hadn’t figured out — like narrative strands that were key to our story and needed more attention, more research, more shooting and more time in the editing room. I was relieved to not only find a “have no fear, we are here for you” atmosphere that turned that 5 LB book of deliverables, criteria, rules, lexicons, templates, tech specs, MOU’s and PBS standards into stark, vivid, not so scary relief – but a group of colleagues that were willing to negotiate, listen, justly spar and compromise on the issues and concerns I was passionate about.

The give and take, exchanging of skills, stories, and digital technical know-how between peers, regardless of age, was a constant throughout the week. Imagine a twenty-something digital natives showing us elterin (older ones in Yiddish), during the meeting with the accounting maven in charge of teaching us how to report all costs/budgets, how to use [The Neat Receipt] receipt scanners that go directly to your iPhone – instead of into a “baggy”, a shoe-box or a folder and left to FADE.

As for getting back here… well, with four films under my belt and the last two broadcast on HBO and Sundance, it still took me the same amount of try’s through the ITVS Open Call process to secure funding for Cooked. Four Open Calls, getting into the finalist round [AND CLOSE] each time, with the last one, the fourth, being the charm. All the same principals applied as well. There were some “wise no’s” that I was determined to listen to and did. And when I was so pissed off by the whole process, I forced myself to listen louder to the critiques and feedback. Finally we determined that getting to the finals and showing 10-minutes would never cut it. We would always be CUT. The only way to ever get this through was to submit a rough-cut.

And…. it worked. And along the way… I found the film’s “voice”—which conveniently is mine.

When I told my mom (who was the one to accept the Peabody Award for A Healthy Baby Girl, broadcast on POV in ’97, and which I only bring up because I had to walk by it to enter and exit the ITVS office each day of orientation) that Cooked would be on public television, she gasped, “REALLY… on PBS? So everyone can see it! That’s the perfect place for you to be trying to get extreme poverty redefined as an official disaster. That’s WONDERFUL honey.” I agree.

The DDF provides up to $15,000 in research and development funding to independent producers of color to develop single documentary programs for public television. Projects should speak to the ITVS mission to serve underserved audiences with programs that take creative risks, explore complex issues, inspire dialogue and express points of view seldom seen on commercial or public television.

Funded activities may include travel, research, script development, preliminary production for
fundraising/work-in-progress reels, or other early phase activities.

DDF accepts:

• Projects that have not yet begun production
• Programs that can become eligible for ITVS production funding initiatives as single programs of standard broadcast length (half-hour or one-hour). In rare cases ITVS will consider feature-length programs.

DDF does not accept:

• Proposals for completed projects seeking distribution
• Series proposals or fictional dramas
• Projects intended solely for theatrical release

Find more information about guidelines and how to apply on our website.

Calling all independent media makers (yes, we’re talking to you filmmakers!). Do you want to explore new ways of telling your story? Do you have an idea that takes advantage of both traditional and digital media? Then take a look at Localore, a new initiative from our friends at The Association of Independents in Radio (AIR), that’s designed to fuel public media’s capacity for innovative storytelling and journalism.

Through Localore, AIR will recruit talented radio, TV, film, and online producers to lead 10 public station-based projects, blending approaches to broadcast and digital platforms. This means mixing traditional media with mobile applications, online video, digital games, data visualization and maps — anything that will help to bring stories to the public in new ways beyond broadcast.

Interested producers are invited to submit proposals until November 10th at Localore.net.A second round of vetting in December will call on producers, matched with incubator stations, to submit final proposals.

Watch the station runway video (above) to see which public stations are interested in partnering with Independents. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to get your innovative project considered for this game-changing initiative.

Growing up, filmmaker Theresa Loong knew that her father, Paul Loong, was older than most of her friends’ parents. Father and daughter are almost 50 years apart in age.  Throughout her youth and young adulthood, Theresa recalls a cheerful father who loved to laugh and play pranks on his kids. But underneath all that laughter, he would show occasional flashes of anger and sadness.

One day, young Theresa asked him innocently about a curious scar on his back. “Everyone has secrets,” he would say.

She knew this much: His road to becoming an American citizen was anything but direct. As a Chinese Malaysian teenager serving in the British Royal Air Force, he spent three years at hard labor as a prisoner of war in Japan. But it wasn’t until Theresa uncovered a hidden diary her father kept while imprisoned, that she uncovered other family secrets.

At 88 years old, Paul is commemorating his 66th year of freedom.  The film draws upon his experiences to explore contemporary issues of war, immigration, and national identity.  It celebrates the freedom that comes with confronting the past and facing the future with resilience, forgiveness, and love.

Watch filmmaker Theresa Loong discuss Every Day is a Holiday and her experience as an independent filmmaker.

Learn more about ITVS funding opportunities here.

ITVS announced that it has contracted with eight international documentary projects from its 2011 International Call as part of the Global Perspective Project. This year’s selections provide extraordinary access and insight into the daily lives and struggles of people who live in Uruguay, Iran, China, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Myanmar, and India.

The productions were selected through a competitive application process, which resulted in 476 submissions from 118 countries representing 72 languages.

All eight documentary projects are slated for eventual broadcast, including primetime slots on the Emmy® Award-winning PBS series Independent Lens, P.O.V., and the international series, Global Voices.

Check out the complete list of funded projects after the jump >>

Avant
Producers: Virginia Bogliolo, Pablo Ratto Director: Juan Andres Alvarez
After retiring as a professional dancer, Julio Bocca, one of the most famous ballet dancers on the international scene, accepts the challenge to direct a forgotten national ballet in an unfinished theatre in Uruguay. Avant explores the contrast between Bocca´s quest for excellence and the daily life of this company, set in changing scenery that frames the lives of dancers, workers, cleaners, and technicians.

Before The Revolution
Producer: Barak Heymann  Director: Dan Shadur
Before the Revolution, the untold tale of the Israeli community in Iran prior to the Islamic Revolution in 1979, is a suspense story about courage and hastiness, about greed and blindness, and about great dreams versus an impossible reality. And for one young Israeli family — the director of the film’s family — the last days in Tehran are also a private and hurtful story of a long-gone paradise, never to return.

Democrats
Producer: Henrik Veileborg  Director: Camilla Nielsson
Democrats is a film about the creation of a new constitution in Zimbabwe. The film follows two top politicians who have been appointed to lead the country through the reform process. The two men are political opponents, but united in the ambition to make history by giving the nation a new founding document that could give birth to a future Zimbabwe.

Fallen City
Producer: Lixin Fan Director: Qi Zhao
Fallen City follows the survivors of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake as they embark on a journey in search of hope, meaning, and identity. Zeroing in on three broken families, the film explores the hearts and minds of ordinary rural Chinese forced to restore their lives and the meaning of life in a world without their home and loved ones. A devoted father, a divorced older woman, and a runaway teenage boy — each on their own journey — become a collective image, struggling to find a new position in a new China torn between tradition and modernity.

In The Shadow Of The Sun
Producer: Brian Hill Director: Harry Freeland
Told over the course of four years, In The Shadow Of The Sun tells the intimate story of two very different members of a remote island’s albino community in Tanzania as a wave of brutal ritual killings targeting people with albinism sweeps their country. First there is Vedastus, a warmhearted teenage boy who cares for his terminally ill mother while struggling to find his own place in the world and a way back to school. Then there is Josephat, a strong willed advocate for people with albinism, who fights to unite his country and dreams of scaling the heights of Mount Kilimanjaro. As the killings escalate, Vedastus flees the island in search of safety while Josephat stands and faces the killings head on.

I Want To Cheer Up, Ltd.
Producer: Mette Heide Director: Kaspar Astrup Schröder
The complexity of happiness is at the center of this story about Ryuichi, the owner of a professional stand-in company that rents out fake family members and friends. At work he can finally be the perfect husband and father that he doesn’t know how to be at home.

Miss Nikki & The Tiger Girls
Producer: Jessica Douglas-Henry Director:  Juliet Lamont
The poorest nation in South East Asia, Myanmar has been ruled by a series of military dictatorships for many years. This documentary provides a rare opportunity to go behind the bamboo curtain and explore the lives of ordinary people living in this country through an intimate portrait of Myanmar’s first all-girl band The Tiger Girls.

When Hari Got Married
Producers/Directors: Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam
Hari, a young, but traditional taxi driver in Dharamsala, India, is getting married to a girl he has never met, but with whom he has fallen in love after many mobile phone conversations. Now, frantic preparations are afoot to make sure the wedding goes off without a hitch. Outspoken, opinionated, and funny, Hari grapples with nerves, heartburn, and mounting tension as the day of reckoning draws close.

The 2012 ITVS International Call Deadline is December 9, 2011.  For more information, click here >>

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

International Call 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 Call 2012 will be an all digital submissions process.

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

Welcome to the first in a series of updates on the production side of the public media world at large — in particular at ITVS, where our production team is working with filmmakers on more than 150 programs scheduled for public television. Topics will range from technology advances to marketing strategies and trends, and to ITVS policies.

Our goal has always been to listen and serve producers in a spirit of collaboration, and so I hope you will share your ideas for continuing the partnership. Throughout the past few years, ITVS has been hearing from more and more of you about the enormous fiscal challenges of producing longitudinal projects. We have been studying the marketplace, reaching out to past and current ITVS-funded producers, conducting interviews, and looking for ways to help. Effective October 1, ITVS will allow recoupment of verifiable, approved, producer paid out-of-pocket expenses from first ancillary incomes. The change applies to open programs and newly funded programs in the future.

Orientation

This summer we brought 22 producers of 11 programs to San Francisco for a four-day intensive orientation workshop about working in public media and with ITVS.  The producer orientations are scheduled several times during the year as decisions are made about production funding/licensing.  Here are some highlights from our orientations in 2011:

Please look out for future blog posts on crowdfunding and its implications for producers working in Public Media, a webinar on rights clearances with archivist and filmmaker Kenn Rabin, and a closer look into our P360 Basic and Enhanced initiatives for funded filmmakers.

As part of BTB’s ongoing mission to curate news and opinions on public media, we have called upon key players to share their take on the evolving environment. Over the next several weeks, BTB will be rolling out their thoughts and ideas, adding to the conversation on public media’s role now and in the years to come.

First up is Ken Ikeda, Co-managing director of Public Media Company (PMC) in San Franicsco.

Celebrate 20 years of Independent filmmakers on ITVS’s Indies Showcase, streaming award-winning documentaries now until September 23.