Ten producing teams will take to the stage at the third annual PitchBLACK interactive pitching session, a spirited battle of content creators vying for up to $150,000 in funding. The event is part of Black Public Media’s 13-week 360 Incubator+ for broadcast programs, web series and virtual reality projects, a program designed to identify and pipeline quality black content. The PitchBLACK forum will be held on Thursday, April 11, at The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space in Manhattan, hosted by veteran producer Sandra Rattley. Winners will be announced at an awards ceremony on Friday, April 12, at Apella by Alexandria, also in Manhattan.
Based in Harlem, Black Public Media (BPM) is the nation’s only nonprofit dedicated solely to media content about the black experience. Its 360 Incubator+ hones the skills of experienced producers and filmmakers — and their projects. Since mid-January, the participants, or 360 Fellows, have been working intensively under the guidance of mentors in preparation for PitchBLACK, a high-stakes pitching session in front of industry professionals. Representatives from American Documentary Inc. / POV, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Ford Foundation, Foundation for a Just Society, MacArthur Foundation, Sundance Institute, Surdna Foundation, Third World Newsreel, Tribeca Film Institute and Women Make Movies, among others, will attend.
“Each and every one of the projects deserves to be made and seen. The jury is going to have a tough time deciding which projects to support,” said BPM’s Executive Director Leslie Fields-Cruz. “Anyone interested in funding or distributing authentic content about the black experience should be sure to attend PitchBLACK.”
The six projects competing for a license agreement for public media distribution and funding ranging from $50,000 to $150,000 include the broadcast projects The 3,000 Project by Keith McQuirter and LaNora Williams-Clark (mentor Chris Hastings), Changing State by Leola Calzolai-Stewart and Kiley Kraskouskas (mentor Sonia Gonzalez-Martinez), The House I Never Knew by Randall Dottin (mentor Byron Hurt), Commuted by Nailah Jefferson (mentor Yoruba Richen), Listen to My Heartbeat by Nyjia July (mentor Sabrina Schmidt Gordon) and A Love Supreme: Black, Queer and Christian in the South by Katina Parker (mentor Michèle Stephenson). The two digital projects participating are A Good Man, a web short by Michael Fequiere (mentor Joe Brewster) and Heroes of Color, a web series by David Heredia (mentor Kimson Albert).
Two virtual reality projects vying for engagement campaign funding of up to $100,000 are Greenwood Avenue by Ayana Baraka (mentor Rachel Falcone) and Points of View by Alton Glass and Donovan DeBoer (mentor Michael Premo).
Winners will be announced on Friday, April 12, during the PitchBLACK Awards, a benefit supporting the work of Black Public Media that begins at 7 p.m. Stephenson and Brewster of the Rada Film Group will receive the inaugural Trailblazer Award, which recognizes seasoned documentary filmmakers working primarily in public media as a producer, director, writer or editor for more than two decades with a strong track record of mentoring emerging media makers. The winner of the first Nonso Christian Ugbode Digital Media Fund award, named after the organization’s late director of digital initiatives, will also be announced. The 2019 PitchBLACKawards will be held at Apella by Alexandria, 450 E 29th St, New York, New York 10016. Tickets to the event are $100 and can be purchased at https://tinyurl.com/y2pmh7mz.
The 360 Incubator+ was launched in 2014. Past 360 Incubator+ winners include Shukree Tilghman, who has gone on to become a writer and co-producer of the hit NBC television program This Is Us; Garland McLaurin, whose POPS web series premiered on ITVS’ Indie Lens Storycast; and Dominique Taylor, whose Read Awakening premiered in July as a PBS Digital Studio’s Facebook Watch digital miniseries.
The 360 Incubator+ is funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the MacArthur Foundation, the NEA, the New York State Council on the Arts and New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
For more information on BPM, visit www.blackpublicmedia.org or follow the organization on Twitter (@BLKPublicMedia) or Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/BlackPublicMedia).
ABOUT THE HONOREES:
As co-founding member of the Rada Film Group, filmmaker, artist and author Michèle Stephenson pulls from her Panamanian and Haitian roots and international experience as a human rights attorney to tell compelling, deeply personal stories in a variety of media that resonate beyond the margins.
Her work has appeared on a variety of broadcast and web platforms, including PBS, Showtime and MTV. Her most recent film, American Promise, was nominated for three Emmys including Best Documentary and Best News Coverage of a Contemporary Issue. The film also won the Jury Prize at Sundance and was selected for the New York Film Festivals’ Main Slate Program. Stephenson was recently awarded the Chicken & Egg Pictures Filmmaker Breakthrough Award and is a 2016 Guggenheim Fellow. Her current work, Hispaniola, is supported by the likes of the National Film Board of Canada, the MacArthur Foundation, Telefilm Canada, the Ford Foundation and the Sundance Documentary Fund.
Her community engagement accomplishments include the PUMA BritDoc Impact Award for a Film with the Greatest Impact on Society and a Revere Award nomination from the Association of American Publishers; and she is a fellow of Skoll Storytellers of Change. Promises Kept, written with Joe Brewster and Hilary Beard, won an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work.
Producer and director Joe Brewster is a Harvard trained psychiatrist who uses his psychological training as the foundation in approaching the social issues he tackles as an artist and filmmaker.
Brewster and his Rada Film Group co-founder Michèle Stephenson have created stories using installation, narrative, documentary and print mediums that have garnered support from critics and audiences internationally. Brewster is a recipient of fellowships and grants from the Sundance Institute, the Tribeca Film Institute, BAVC, the MacArthur Foundation, and most recently the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation.
He is a Spirit Award and three-time Emmy Award nominee. Brewster’s recent documentary film American Promise was awarded the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Achievement in Filmmaking at Sundance and the African American Film Critics’ Association Award. Brewster’s outreach accomplishments include a Revere Award and the 2013 NAACP Image Award for the best-selling companion book Promises Kept and a BritDoc Prize for developing one of the most innovative outreach campaigns in 2014.
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