The TV Foundation\u2014the umbrella charity of the Edinburgh TV Festival, brought to you by YouTube and Screen Scotland\u2014is teaming up with Louis Theroux to launch a new documentary talent search.<\/p>\n
The aim of the talent initiative, dubbed Looking For Louis, is to discover the next generation of on-screen documentary makers who want to follow in Theroux’s investigative footsteps. Looking For Louis will culminate in a session at this year\u2019s festival, where Theroux and his production company partners Nancy Strang and Arron Fellows will reveal the winner.<\/p>\n
The search has been launched through Theroux\u2019s production company, Mindhouse Productions, in partnership with The TV Foundation and Amazon Prime Video with support from The TriForce Creative Network.<\/p>\n
Entrants can submit a one-page pitch for a two-minute micro-documentary. The submissions will be narrowed down to a shortlist of ten, selected by a panel of industry figures. The shortlisted filmmakers will be given support to make their two-minute doc, to be shot on a mobile phone.<\/p>\n
Mindhouse will select the six finalists whose films will form the basis of an Edinburgh TV Festival session featuring the filmmakers and Mindhouse executives, including Theroux.<\/p>\n
The winner will earn a six-month, exclusive development period with Mindhouse working with the company\u2019s creative team to develop projects and pitch them to commissioners as well as free access to the festival for the shortlist and winners.<\/p>\n
Prime Video will also offer the winner a bespoke, 12-month program of mentoring and training, overseen by Fozia Khan, Amazon Studios’ U.K. unscripted executive, to help them further their career goals.<\/p>\n
Theroux said: \u201cI am very excited to be part of this initiative. For me, one of the best parts of launching Mindhouse is being involved behind the scenes with new talent who can tell fresh stories in different and exciting ways. To paraphrase Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon<\/em>, I\u2019m getting old for this shit, and my knees aren\u2019t what they once were. We need to safeguard the future of irreverent and intelligent on-camera reporting by bringing up the next generation of presenters.”<\/p>\n Campbell Glennie, managing director of the Edinburgh TV Festival and TV Foundation, said: \u201cThe TV Foundation is all about reaching out to, and discovering, new talent and showcasing that working in TV can be a career for anyone. Our schemes aim to ensure those who work in TV are as diverse as those watching it and in this initiative, spearheaded by the force of nature that is Louis Theroux, is a natural extension to our activity to find the industry leaders of tomorrow. We thank Louis, Mindhouse, Amazon Prime Video and TCN for teaming up with us to make this happen. The session at the festival itself is going to be a must-watch for talent-spotters everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDocumentary filmmaking in the U.K. is world-class, so we\u2019re excited to be helping unearth the future generation of filmmaking talent, and mentoring and training them to help propel them to the next level in their career,\u201d said Khan.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re really excited to be working with Mindhouse to offer budding journalistic talent the chance to be front and center presenting their own ideas,\u201d said Fraser Ayres of TriForce Creative Network. \u201cIt\u2019s such a great opportunity to accelerate the winners\u2019 careers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The TV Foundation\u2014the umbrella charity of the Edinburgh TV Festival, brought to you by YouTube and Screen Scotland\u2014is teaming up with Louis Theroux to launch a new documentary talent search.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":350,"featured_media":16480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[3962,3963],"class_list":["post-16479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-top-stories","tag-edinburgh-tv-festival","tag-louis-theroux","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\n