Welsh Film Makers To Visit 'Dragon's Den' To Pitch Documentary Ideas

Welsh documentary film makers will meet some of the UK’s most influential commissioning editors in a face to face ‘dragon’s den’ scenario.
Eight established documentary film companies have been selected to meet and pitch their potential award winning projects to Greg Sanderson from BBC Storyville strand and Sandra Whipham from More4.
Both are internationally acclaimed and highly prestigious channels for high quality documentary makers from around the world.
The unique opportunity has been arranged through MEDIA Antenna Cymru – part of the European funded network of offices providing support, advice and financial assistance to the film industry.
The pitching opportunities – when companies will ‘sell’ their ideas to a panel of editors in the hope of winning a commission – will follow a two day intensive workshop.
Experts will work with the companies to help them prepare a professional pitch, develop their ideas to ensure they are marketable and maximise their opportunities of success.
The experience will also prepare the companies for two of Europe’s key documentary financing events – the Amsterdam IDFA Forum and Meet Market at the Sheffield Documentary Festival.
The IDFA Forum is Europe’s largest gathering of television commissioning editors and independent documentary producers. The aim is to stimulate co-financing and co-production of new documentaries and enable producers to pitch their project concepts to commissioning editors.
Head of MEDIA Antenna Cymru, Gwion Owain, said: “The fact that these editors have found the time to attend this workshop is indicative of the calibre of work currently being produced in Wales and the reputation of some of our producers.
”It will be a tremendous experience and provide some extremely useful experience for Welsh companies when they attend other major documentary financing events later this year. We have some exceptionally talented documentary film makers in Wales but finding finance for projects requires different skills and this is where we aim to help.”
The workshops take place in Cardiff on Monday July 23 and Tuesday July 24 culminating in the ‘dragon’s den’ pitching event.
(DS/SP)