I sat in on my first-ever funding pitch forum yesterday afternoon. Producers and directors with projects that already have some funding in place are pre-selected by the TDF programmers to pitch to a panel of international commissioning editors (or some version of CE). 30 projects are pitched over 2 days and some 500 folks observe the whole process. I can’t say how many actually wind up completing their package this way, but most seemed happy with the interest generated by the process.

Sandi Dubowski, who pitched his new project on Wednesday, said that the forum is really just the starting point for discussions but that it was a useful and positive experience. It was definitely friendly and everyone seemed interested in the projects and sometimes the CE’s said “We’re in!” – all in all, a much more gentlemanly sport than I was expecting. I was happy to see the work in progress for some of my favorite filmmakers, Peter Raymont (a Toronto-based doc maker) and Louis Alvarez and Andrew Kolker. I’m sure these guys who are industry veterans would get their funding anyhow, but it was kind of gratifying to see them go through the process. Great day!