Filmmakers will have a chance to develop themselves and be recognised when Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival (TTFF), in conjunction with RBC Royal Bank, hosts RBC Focus: Filmmakers Immersion. This Immersion is an intensive four-day development programme culminating in a competitive pitch session with a prize of TT$20,000 for one winner. Now running for the second year, RBC Focus is a development programme for ten selected Caribbean filmmakers. The focal point of the programme this year will be on documentary filmmaking. The Caribbean filmmakers, who will be selected, are working in the documentary field and will have the opportunity to learn from film professionals. Focus is open to emerging Caribbean filmmakers (citizens of Caribbean countries living and working in the Caribbean) who have completed at least one documentary film (short or feature-length) but not more than two features.
Filmmakers urged to apply for Immersion programme
Date:
Fri, 2012-06-29
Special attention will include group discussions and exercises on a range of documentary filmmaking techniques and strategies, opening participants to the creative possibilities of the art form. Each filmmaker will enter Focus with a concept for a feature-length documentary film and in the course of the programme develop a detailed treatment. At the end of Focus, the top five participants as determined by the facilitators, will pitch their projects to a jury at a public event during the TTFF/12 (19 September–02 October). The participant with the best project and pitch will win a cash prize. The facilitators for Focus are two internationally respected film-industry professionals: Jamaican-American filmmaker and teacher Alrick Brown, and documentary story consultant Fernanda Rossi, born and raised in Buenos Aires and based in New York for the past 17 years. Brown is the writer and director of the award-winning feature Kinyarwanda (2011) and producer of the acclaimed documentary Death of Two Sons (2006). Among the many documentaries Rossi has consulted on are the Academy Award-nominated The Garden (2009) and Recycled Life (2007). Her signature presentations have been given to over 40 organisations in over a dozen countries.
Local filmmaker Michael Mooleedhar was part of the Focus programme last year. “Last year’s Filmmakers Immersion was an intense three days. The entire group worked and improved our film treatments to be as clear as possible for out pitch. “The instructors, Fina Torres and Damon D’Oliveira, where always reminding us of the truth and essence of the project. If the story were true to us it would be true to an audience.” Mooleedhar said his experience was very helpful and helped him refine his stories so that his themes are as clear as possible. All applicants must submit a maximum five-minute excerpt of a documentary film project on DVD, stating their role(s) on the film (writer and/or director and/or producer). Applicants must also submit their résumé and a cover letter stating, in 100 words or less, the concept of the project they would be bringing to Focus and what makes it unique. Participants will be determined based on the strength of all three of these items.
Applications should be sent via mail or delivered in person to:
• Jonathan Ali, Editorial Director, trinidad + tobago film festival, 199 Belmont Circular Road, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.
• The deadline for applications is July 13, 2012. Successful applicants will be notified by July 31.
• Submitted materials will not be returned.
• Please send all queries to [email protected]
• For more information visit: http://www.ttfilmfestival.com/2012/05/call-for-applications-focus-filmmakers-immersion-2012/
