WESTDOC Selects PitchFest Finalists

LOS ANGELES: The final 12 participants have been selected to take part in WESTDOC’s PitchFest 2010, where documentary and reality producers can present new works-in-progress directly to funders and network development executives.

WESTDOC takes place September 13 to 15 in Santa Monica. PitchFest takes place on the final day, September 15. During the event, 12 finalists will pitch their projects in front of a live audience for a potential acquisition, licensing or co-production funding. The pitch will include at least three minutes, and no more than eight minutes, each of video and verbal pitching. The best pitch of day, voted on by the audience, will be awarded the WESTDOC Pitcher Award. The Gilbert Group at Bank of America Merrill Lynch is sponsoring the event with $7,500 in cash prizes for the winners.

The 12 finalists are All American Aviators (Rob Hartz), Cost of Construction (Jordan Ehrlich), Eye of the Storm (Maureen Muldaur), Home Cooking Show (Suzan Beraza), Indie Game: The Movie (James Swirsky), Job Hunters (Betty Sullivan), License to Pimp (Dawn Valadez), Nature Nurtures Autism (Josh Hansbrough), Surviving Earth (Diane Douglas), Trash Dance (Andrew Garrison), Visionary States (Jonathan Berman) and Xmas Without China (Tom Xia). The pitches of the 12 finalists will be evaluated publicly by a 15-member panel of entertainment executives, including Elisabeth Jane Browde, Travel Channel; Dave Davis, Oregon Public Broadcasting; Nicole DeFusco, The Sundance Channel; Marc Etkind, Animal Planet; Laura Fleury, A&E; Jen Levy, Bravo; Charles Nordlander, History Channel; Sue Norton, Lonely Planet; Richard Saiz, ITVS; Bridget Whalen, National Geographic Channel; and Brent Zacky, TLC.  The remaining panelists will be announced at a later date.

"The quality of the applicants’ new projects was definitely very high this year, and narrowing the field down to a dozen PitchFest participants was extremely difficult,” said Chuck Braverman, Academy Award-nominated producer/director and co-founder of WESTDOC. “The range of titles and interests is staggering. The subjects ranged from strippers to aviators to job hunters, and the projects include series, one offs and everything in between.”

“It’s gratifying to see so many talented producers and industry executives wanting to participate in the PitchFest competition again this year,” added Richard Propper, the distribution executive and managing partner of WESTDOC. “It should be a very competitive event, as well as an extremely valuable experience for the audience to watch how these pitches are scrutinized by our distinguished panel of entertainment executives.”