U.S INPUT 2011 Pre-Selection Finalists Announced

INPUT (International Public Television) is an organization that brings together producers, media professionals, and broadcasters from around the world for a week-long showcase of content and discussion each year, creating a forum “where the rules of broadcasting are challenged and redefined.” This year the INPUT conference will be held in Seoul, Korea on May 9 – 12.

The U.S. INPUT  national pre-selection panel has chosen 17 U.S. television programs and transmedia projects to compete at INPUT international selection and nine of the finalists are ITVS projects.

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Tags: film festival, INPUT, international, public television

Last Train Home Picks Up Speed in December

The ITVS-funded Last Train home has been earning plenty of recognition this past month. The film earned top prize in the documentary category at the LA Film Critics Association and was selected in a cultural film exchange effort by the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities and the Sundance Institute in New York. Read more about the program here.

Set against the backdrop of the world’s largest annual human migration, filmmaker Lixin Fan’s documentary follows the Zhang family who travel home on Chinese New Year to reunite with their teenage daughter.

Tags: international, ITVS, last train home, president, Washington DC, white house

International Call Profile: Simon Chambers

Filmmaker Simon Chambers

As the new International Call deadline quickly approaches (December 10, 2010!), BTB is highlighting past recipients. This week, we turn to filmmaker Simon Chambers and his film Cowboys in India which will air on Global Voices next year. The film follows one tribe’s fight to rescue a sacred mountain from a multinational mining company. For those interested in applying for International call, take a look at the application and join the Facebook group to keep up with developments.

Beyond the Box: How did you get involved with this film?

Simon Chambers: I’ve been going to India for a long time and had a great curiosity about the country and I just wanted to spend more time there. India is one of those places I had an immediate affinity for.

Cowboys in India will air next year on Global Voices

There were a bunch of tribal people in a remote part of India and they were fighting with bows and arrows to stop a British mining company from chopping the top off their sacred mountain. An anthropologist who knew the area well asked if I would accompany him. He said he had been getting various threats from the company.

So I originally thought I would go there and make a film with him and use him as a main character. While on the trip, I met the two main characters of my film, Satya and Daya. They were my driver and my guide.
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Tags: cowboys in india, Global Voices, international, ITVS International, simon chambers

Emmy Winner Geoffrey Smith on The English Surgeon

Filmmaker Geoffrey Smith won an Emmy Monday night for The English Surgeon

Filmmaker Geoffrey Smith has made more than 22 films throughout his career and has collected numerous awards for his work. On Monday night, he picked up an Emmy for The English Surgeon, his film about a British neurosurgeon who confronts the dilemmas of the doctor-patient relationship on his latest mission to Ukraine. The documentary was supported by ITVS International (speaking of, the deadline for our 2011 International Call has been changed to December 10, 2010). Smith spoke to BTB about the Emmy, the film, and the ITVS funding that helped from the start.

First off, congratulations on the Emmy! What can you tell us about Monday night’s event in NYC?

Thanks! It was very wet in New York City. Central Park looked very British and so I felt right at home. It was great to see all of my colleagues.
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Tags: docs, Emmy, film funding, funding, Independent Lens, indie, international, ITVS, New York, PBS, the english surgeon

And the Emmy Goes to…

The English Surgeon picked up an Emmy Monday night for Outstanding Science and Technology Programming

The English Surgeon! Congratulations to director/producer Geoffrey Smith and co-producer Rachel Wexler on picking up an Emmy for Outstanding Science and Technology Programming. The film aired last year on P.O.V. and received funding from ITVS International.

The documentary follows a British neurosurgeon as he confronts the dilemmas of the doctor-patient relationship on his latest mission to Ukraine. Check out this clip below from the Emmy Award-winning film, The English Surgeon.

Check back in with BTB tomorrow for a conversation with filmmaker Geoffrey Smith. Click here for a complete list of Emmy winners from last night’s awards.

Tags: Awards, Emmy, geoffrey smith, international, ITVS, P.O.V., PBS, the english surgeon

On the Scene at a War Criminal’s Conviction

Filmmaker Adrian Maben

The ITVS-funded film-in-progress Comrade Duch tells the story of the gifted Cambodian mathematician turned mass killer Kaing Guek Eav and the trial to bring him to justice. Filmmaker Adrian Maben was outside the courtroom last month when Duch was convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to 35 years in prison.

When I started to work on Comrade Duch, it was clear in my mind that this film should not be a courtroom film with heaps of legal wrangling and judicial squabbles. The central idea was to find an answer to the question of how one man could possibly inflict so much pain on his fellow citizens and justify his acts.
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Tags: Cambodia, comrade duch, indie films, international, ITVS, kaing guek eav, khmer rouge, PBS, Thailand

On the Road: ITVS Represented at DocMontevideo

ITVS' Claire Aguilar, with, Luis González Zaffaroni and Patricia Boero

Last month, ITVS’s Vice President of Programming Claire Aguilar attended DocMontevideo in Montevideo, Uruguay and filed this report.

Montevideo, Uruguay, — a European-style city between Argentina and Brazil — is a unique and surprising place for a television documentary conference.  Since Uruguay has been in the news recently — they took a triumphant fourth place at this year’s World Cup and elected a new president in the spring, the former leftist-guerilla Jose Mujica — I was delighted to get a chance to come to a documentary event and also discover this fascinating and beautiful country.

In just its second year, DocMontevideo has established itself as a meeting ground for documentary filmmakers and broadcasters on the South American continent. It comprises a series of workshops, informational seminars, broadcaster meetings, and a pitching forum for 15 projects in development and production. This year, the meeting convened 300 television producers and documentary filmmakers and 30 broadcasters from South and North America.
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Tags: documentary, film festivals, funding, international, ITVS, latin america, PBS, uruguay

Live Webcast: Media As Global Diplomat

It’s here! Welcome to the live stream of Seizing the Moment: Media and Peacebuilding, a summit we’re hosting at the Newseum in cooperation with the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) and the Sesame Workshop. (For more about this event, check out our previous post)

Please join in via chat or by using the Twitter hashtag #magd. How do you think the media is doing in helping divergent cultures understand and empathize with one another? Is technology delivering on its promise to democratize media in a true sense? What could we be doing better?

Dive in and be heard:

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Tags: international, leadership, media, peace, public policy

Building Peace through Media – Join Us Tomorrow, May 12th!

We’re thrilled to once again be partnering with the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) to host the third in a series of media and leadership summits, tomorrow May 12^th at the Newseum in Washington D.C.  So you’re not in D.C.? No worries – we’ll have a live webcast and discussion here on the blog beginning at 9:00 AM EST.

You’ll able to engage panelists through a live chat and Twitter (#magd). We encourage you to take part! Sign up and find full details of the event at www.usip.org.

The summit, Seizing the Moment: Media and Peacebuilding, will be moderated by NPR’s Michel Martin, host of the acclaimed program Tell Me More, and will bring together more than 20 thought leaders, CEOs, media makers, and policy gurus to tackle the tough questions around leveraging today’s global media to facilitate conflict resolution and contribute to the expansion of peace.

The summit will present a series of three discussions (The New News:  Media at the Crossroads, Storytelling 2.0: Keeping it Real,Opening Minds, and Changing Hearts, and Next Generation Peacebuilders) alongside select content from new documentaries coming to PBS and other outlets, including the Academy® Award-nominated The Most Dangerous Man in America and Project Kashmir airing on Independent Lens on May 18th.

The day’s panelists include:

• Jared Cohen—Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff, U.S. Department of State
• Patricia Harrison—President and CEO, Corporation for Public Broadcasting
• Marvin Kalb—Veteran Broadcaster and Visiting Expert, USIP
• Riz Khan—Senior  News Anchor, Al Jazeera English
• Gary Knell—President and CEO, Sesame Workshop
• Mir Ibrahim Rahman—CEO, Geo TV Pakistan

Please tune in and add your voice to this important conversation.

Tags: international, leadership, media, peace, public policy

A Filmmaker Transformed by Her Subject

"Teacher" premieres Sunday, May 9 on Global Voices

Filmmaker Leslie Wiener-Legrand (Teacher, premiering May 9 on Global Voices on PBS WORLD, check local listings) went to Ho Chi Minh City fully intending to make a travel documentary about Vietnam for the Lonely Planet franchise. But as she spent time in the city scouting out locales to highlight for prospective tourists, she found it ever more difficult to ignore the poverty all around her — particularly the plight of the city’s thousands of street children, many of whom have AIDS.

As she found her lens drawn more and more to them and their stories, she met their guardian angel, Nguyen Van Hung, a former drug addict who came of age just as Saigon fell and who spent decades as an aimless street thug and heroin addict.

How did such an unlikely character end up dedicating his life to the stricken children of Vietnam’s capital? wondered Wiener-Legrand. She was captivated, and shifted her focus — literally — from travel guide to social documentary. But it wasn’t just her work that was transformed: it was herself, as well.

Watch this behind-the-scenes footage from the filmmaker as she explains how Nguyen taught her profound lessons in life, courage, death, generosity, and love as she made her film about him, Teacher.

Tags: Aids, education, HIV, international, Vietnam