Interested filmmakers from Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda who have urgent social issues affecting African citizens, which could be addressed or changed through film have been called on to submit their application for the 2020 edition of the Good Pitch running from 13th of January 2020 to 29th of February 2020.
The event hosted by Docubox in partnership with Doc Society, and with the support of Kenya Film Commission, aims to form coalitions and bring together unlikely allies and supporters around a cluster of carefully selected social change films from the East African Region.
It further aims to bring the most compelling social change documentary films in front of changemakers – government agencies and corporations, multinationals, corporates, NGO’s, activists and philanthropists. Conceived by the British non-profit organisation Doc Society, various Good Pitch events are held on every continent on earth all year round.
According to the organizer, the application is now open to any filmmakers who are free to apply through their website
“If you have (or know of) a world-class documentary film addressing a big and urgent social issue affecting African citizens, which could be addressed or changed through film, get in touch. We are looking for documentary films in the advanced stages of production that need to be widely supported, to present to a room full of change-makers and mobilize resources and partnerships in the room”.
The first Sub Saharan Good Pitch event took place in October 2016, with 267 individuals from 13 countries and 161 organizations coming together to lend their support to powerful films tackling some of the most important and urgent social and environmental issues of our time.
The impact of the Good Pitch KE has been enormous since inception. The film Thank You for the Rain, a Good Pitch KE 2016 beneficiary co-directed by Julia Dahr and Kisilu Musya has since seen the building of an earth dam in Mutomo, Kitui Kenya which has also been used as a tool for climate change awareness at global conferences all over the world.
Similarly, The Letter, by Kenyan filmmaker Maia Lekow and her husband Chris King recently had its world premiere at IDFA 2019 (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam), the largest documentary film festival in the world while Strike a Rock by Aliki Saragas, a University of Cape Town student at the time went on to win Backsberg-Encounters Audience Award for Best South African Documentary at the 19th Encounters International Documentary Film Festival the following year (2017).
Finally, Survivors by Arthur Pratt a film director from Sierra Leone which, with unflinching intimacy places us in the midst of the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone was just recently nominated for Best Outstanding Social Issue Documentary at the Emmy Awards in 2019.
All is now set for next much-awaited East African Good Pitch live event which will take place on 16th October as Good Pitch KE 2020!