Good Pitch2 India has today announced the six documentary films that will be presented at the inaugural event on February 4th 2014 in Mumbai.
Good Pitch brings together documentary filmmakers with foundations, NGOs, campaigners, philanthropists, policy makers, brands and media around leading social and environmental issues – to forge coalitions and campaigns that are good for all these partners, good for the films and good for society.
Good Pitch² is a project of The BRITDOC Foundation in partnership with The Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program, supported by the Ford Foundation.
Good Pitch² India is a satellite event organised by Indian Documentary Foundation in partnership with Films Division, Govt of India and Kerala State Chalchitra Academy supported by BRITDOC Foundation. We are grateful for the support by Arambhan Group .
IDF’s Director Sophy Sivaraman said, “We are so excited about the selection of films for our first event. All the stories are compelling and feature issues that are of huge importance in India, such as social justice, the security of women, access to health and education and statelessness.”
Debanjan Sengupta, director of Border Within Border added “we feel extremely honoured and excited to know that our documentary project Border within Border has been selected as one of only 6 projects.”
Each of the filmmaking teams will have just 7 minutes to pitch their film and associated outreach campaign. Afterwards Kiran Rao the moderator leads a feedback session from participants from interested organizations around the roundtable who have been specially selected, and a larger group of dozens more from the floor. A good pitch will lead to new sources of funding, and access to mass membership, research and experts, archives and lobbying.
In preparation for the pitch, the filmmakers will work with the Good Pitch team in workshops in October ad February. In the 8 years of Good Pitch’s existence, 2100 organisations from 30 countries have attended an event. More than $11m dollars have been leveraged, and more than 70 campaigns launched to support the films.
THE SIX FILMS
Driving with Selvi by Elisa Paloschi
Set in the South Indian state of Karnataka, Driving With Selvi tells the story of a young woman who overcomes life-threatening obstacles and defies strict patriarchal traditions by escaping the abusive marriage she was forced into as a young girl to become Karnataka’s first female taxi driver.
This character driven story highlights the challenges that the disempowered female population in India face. While it offers this glimpse into a world of poverty, prejudice and desperate circumstances, the film exposes the humanity behind the stereotypes associated with marginalized people.
Love Commandos by Miriam Lyons
The Love Commandos use guerrilla tactics to rescue young women from being murdered by their families and help them marry the men they truly love. Enraged by India’s failure to protect lovers and emboldened to do so themselves, what started as a group of friends is rapidly becoming a national movement. This is their story.
Fireflies in the Abyss by Chandrasekhar Reddy
10 year old Sooraj, works in a ‘rat-hole’. The ‘rat-hole’ mines in the Jaintia Hills (North-east India) are narrow strips of coal deposits requiring children to descend down steep, sheer chutes and burrow into narrow horizontal tunnels to scratch coal out of hard rock, armed with nothing more than a pickaxe and a head torch. In these hostile pits, every day is a game of death. While Sooraj was born into the life of the coal mines, he cherishes a hope of breaking away to a better life, by going to school.
Border within Border by Debanjan Sengupta and Subhadeep Ghosh
Abandoned by the states, Kofur (42), an illiterate brick-maker, doesn’t belong to any nation. Both India and Bangladesh deny him an identity and the most fundamental human rights of citizenship.
Born in one of world’s last stateless lands along Indo-Bangladesh border, Kofur’s enclave community are caught in limbo, compelled to live the life of eternal foreigners in perpetual fear of trespassing into foreign territory, for past 66 years. Long deprived of a meaningful and dignified human existence, a people’s movement is brewing up across the enclaves in demand of citizenship and democracy.
We the People by Soniya Kirpalani
April 2010 UAE – 17 Indians were sentenced to death for murdering 1 man. They would have ended up as statistics, but for their families who pushed local media and Rights Lawyers into pressured both governments into a fair trial. Following few family members through the trial, reveals how corruption and poverty mires the lives of Indian migrant workers, who end up enslaved overseas. Shadowing defence teams, reveals there are 1700 more migrant workers locked behind UAE’s jails, 200 on death row- most without representation. As the trial proceeds we uncovers a plot spearheaded by Indian political groups that compromises’ the lives of 17men marking them ‘Guilty’ forever.
Rooting for Roona by Pavitra Chalam
Rooting for Roona is a documentary that fights for the health of the Indian child and captures the incredible story of Baby Roona Begum – an 18 month old girl born in a neglected corner of north-eastern India. Roona suffers from Hydrocephalus, a birth defect caused by a build-up of fluid in the brain leading to massive swelling of the head. Her parents Abdul and Fatema lead a hand-to-mouth existence. Roona’s mother says “I don’t want any one to suffer like we did. This story needs to be told.” Rooting for Roona is a film about struggle, survival and hope. It fights for the health of the Indian child and is a call to action to invest in the future of the most important part of our world – the Child.
