ITVS Unveils Global Doc Initiative

SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON, October 1: The Independent Television Service (ITVS), which funds, presents and
promotes documentaries on American public television and cable-TV outlets, has
announced the Global Perspectives Project, which aims to bring factual films
from independent producers from around the world to the U.S. market.

The Project’s International
Media Development Fund (IMDF) provides production funding for non-U.S.
independent filmmakers. The IMDF also works to distribute completed programs
through public television and cable broadcast partners. To date, the IMDF has
funded more than 50 documentaries representing over 40 countries. Beginning in
October and continuing throughout 2008, 36 of these programs will have been
broadcast, with more commitments coming on-line regularly. ITVS International
has established a network of relationships with both public and private
broadcast outlets including PBS and the PBS WORLD digital channel and commercial
channels such as Sundance Channel, IFC, National Geographic Channel, The
Documentary Channel and LINK TV. In addition, ITVS International has developed
distribution deals with digital and mobile outlets such as JAMAN, AOL, Current
and iThentic.

Titles currently featured as
part of the Global Perspectives Project include Iranian Kidney Bargain Sale, set to air on The Documentary Channel, and Please
Vote for Me, from China, slated to air
as part of PBS’s Independent Lens
strand.

Funded by private foundations,
the project aims to support and broadcast an additional 50 programs by
international producers through 2010.

ITVS International has also
launched True Stories: Life in the USA,
a series of independent documentaries by U.S. filmmakers. The first season of True
Stories was hosted by actor Benicio Del
Toro and included 16 U.S. documentaries, which aired to public television
audiences in Malawi and Peru in 2006-2007. Broadcast partners in Bahrain,
Colombia, Hong Kong and Indonesia have joined for 2007-2008. If ITVS
International is successful in securing continued public funding for the
series, broadcasts are planned in a total of 35 to 40 countries by 2010.

"Americans and people in
other countries need new ways to see each other," said ITVS’s president
and CEO, Sally Fifer. "They need a chance to hear each other's voices and
see the world through someone else's eyes. The work of independent documentary
filmmakers is authentic, in depth, and personal, but it rarely travels across
borders. We've put together the partners to open the doors and bring people
here and around the world new points-of-view they seldom see on
television."

"The Global Perspectives
Project spearheads a fresh approach to building better understanding of America
abroad,” added U.S. Ambassador James F. Collins, the advisory board chair at
ITVS International. “The program is successfully using quality television
documentary film to introduce new foreign audiences to America and to build
international social networks that will yield lasting results for years to
come. Its arrival comes at a vital juncture for the United States and our place
in the world."

The Global Perspective Project
is a private-public partnership. On the private side, the William and Flora
Hewlett Foundation, Ford Foundation and John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation have committed five years of funding to the incoming IMDF project
component. On the public side, the U.S. Congress has supported the True
Stories project on a yearly basis
through the U.S. Department of State, with the support of U.S. Senator Diane
Feinstein.