Good Pitch, a forum that connects documentary filmmakers with relevant partners around leading social and environmental issues, is coming to Kenya for the first time on 8th October 2016. The Kenya edition will be in partnership with Docubox, a documentary film fund based in Nairobi.
Good Pitch will be hosted at the Kenya National Theatre on October 8th where key film projects will be showcased. 6 film projects, which were chosen from applications from all over Africa, will be showcased at the event. The filmmaking teams will pitch to a roundtable of nine participants from across civil society and to an audience of 250 people. The roundtable participants change for each project, ensuring that we always match the right films to the right partners. After the event, there will be a private, two-hour Good Pitch Post Pitch Summit of 15-20 persons per film project.
Good Pitch is run by BRITDOC in partnership with Ford Foundation and the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program. To attend the event, apply here.
Below are the film projects that will be featured at Good Pitch Kenya
1. KISILU: BEFORE THE FLOOD now – THANK YOU FOR THE RAIN ~ Director; Julia Dahr, Kenya, Norway
Over the last five years Kisilu, a smallholder, has used his camera to capture the life of his family, his village and the impacts of extreme weather. He has filmed floods, droughts and storms but also the more human impacts – his kids are sent home from school when he can’t pay the fees; men are moving to towns in search for jobs; and relations within his family become more and more strained. But Kisilu refuses to give up – instead he finds himself on the biggest political journey of his life. Travelling to Paris to present his footage as evidence to delegates at the UN Climate Talks, his video diaries take on a remarkable new meaning. Amid the murky cut and thrust of politics at COP21, ‘the biggest environmental show on earth’, Kisilu sheds a powerful new light on the climate justice movement and the people who lead us.
2. THE LETTER ~ Director; Maia von Lekow & Chris King, Kenya / Australia
The Letter takes us deep into Kenya’s southern Coast Province, to explore the region’s growing problem of violence against elderly people. Accused and condemned as witches, more than twenty elderly people are being killed every month in these communities. But the witchcraft is being used as a cover-up for countless disputes over land and resources. With the discovery of large deposits of rare earth minerals, property developers and resource explorers eye these ancient lands and tension is rising. With flames being fanned by religious hatred and deep historical injustice which threaten to overwhelm, we follow one family who are fighting to stay together and save their grandmother who is the next to be branded as a witch.
3. TURKANA: RACE FOR RESOURCES ~ Director; Jackie Lebo, Kenya
A forgotten desert community grapples with the consequences of a big oil find on their land. Will the promised development be what they’ve always wanted and must they lose their traditional way of life? From the community elders looking for answers and a place at the table, to the young environmentalist campaigning for social justice, to the oil man, who is convinced that this geological find can bring the progress and investment that the region has been desperately waiting for. Turkana: Race for Resources observes the battle for the soul and the future of Kenya’s great Northern desert country.
4. TRUTH ~ Director; Pete Murimi, Kenya
What’s the true cost of living a life that’s true? In Kenya, like much of Africa, gay people aren’t even allowed to think about falling in love. Most of our story is set in the sprawling slums of Nairobi, where our protagonist, a father of two and a gay sports player, lives with his lover. It’s a far cry from the kind of life his conservative rural parents imagined for him. An “aspiring politician” and anti-gay crusader, is used to bending the truth, in his quest for political relevance – something that’s hard to attain when you come from the slums. The politician’s ambitions to push for a “stone the gays law” are at odds with this gay man’s desire to live a truthful life, free of discrimination. What will this desire for TRUTH cost him, in the end?
5. IN THE LAND OF MILK AND HONEY ~ Director; Aliki Saragas, South Africa
After a massacre by the South African police shakes the foundations of the poverty stricken mining community of Marikana, two uneducated unemployed grandmothers, Primrose Sonti and Thumeka Magwangqana resolve to rise up and organise. They form a community organisation Sikhala Sonke (We-Cry-Together) to advocate for economic and social justice. Growing in determination, Primrose joins the new opposition political party the Economic Freedom Fighters, that promises the disenfranchised poor land and jobs. When sheer determination unexpectedly lands her a seat in post-Apartheid South African parliament, Primrose will have a life changing move to Cape Town. Meanwhile Thumeka picks up the reigns of Sikhala Sonke in Marikana, and together with a legal advocacy team, lodges a landmark complaint against the World Bank for its investment in Lonmin Platinum Mine. A study of friendship and of leadership and the battle for social justice in modern South Africa, how will these two women make their voices heard to affect real change?
6. SURVIVORS ~ Director; Arthur Pratt, Sierra Leone
Through the lens of Sierra Leonean filmmakers, Survivors presents a heart-connected portrait of the Ebola outbreak, exploring the complexity of the epidemic and the socio-political turmoil that lies in its wake. The film chronicles the remarkable stories of the Sierra Leonean first responders – including an ambulance driver and a nurse, during what is now widely regarded as the most acute public health crisis of the modern era. It is a revealing the story of the local heroes who helped bring the epidemic under control.