TFI Abroad: Mexico City Filmmaker Workshop

Our first TFI Latin America Media Arts Fund Filmmaker Workshop in Santiago, Chile set the stage and the parameters for TFI’s on-the-ground mentorship & assistance throughout Latin America. Then a month and a half later, the Sao Paulo workshop—while streamlined and bare-bones—ably improved upon the successes of the Chile-based lab. With two fruitful workshops wrapped up and “in the can,” the goal for the third and last of the series (set in Mexico City) was to deliver a super-sized but focused set of talks, guest speakers and industry participation that would bring each chosen Mexican project into a more competitive standing internationally. Fortunately for us, we were under the much-helpful support of DocsDF, who assisted us in everything from venue preparation and coordinating evening events for the TFI workshop filmmakers, to access to attending industry that could meet with our projects.

While we were unable to extend the workshop past two days in Santiago and Sao Paulo, this time around we collaborated with the DocsDF team to provide additional time to the workshop filmmakers, and thus aid the projects more comprehensively. Throughout the three days, the selected mentors (producer Rodrigo Herranz, filmmaker Hugo Perez and festival programmer Pau Montagud) eloquently conveyed how to construct an effective pitch while also keeping a story’s context—and a project’s needs—clear and reasonable. Because of a late start on the first workshop day, the PITCH 101 session had to be modified to cover all the mentors’ presentations. However, by the time the mentors and filmmakers acclimatized themselves to the workshop content, we were able to have each team “cold pitch” their projects and air-out most of the thematic & artistic concerns that they had.

The first day was capped off by an insightful presentation from Kathleen Lingo of the New York Times' Op Docs, who screened two vignettes for the filmmakers in order to give them background on Op Docs’ profile. We purposefully slotted Kathleen for the end of the day in order for her to get a fresh perspective on each project, and her almost-impeccable Spanish enabled her to connect well with the teams, encouraging them to submit pitches to her. Once she concluded her talk, we attended a screening of Latin Fund-supported doc Elena, followed by a dinner overlooking the beautiful Mexico City skyline.

We kicked off the workshop’s second day on October 30th with a breakfast, inviting Hector Barrios (the inaugural Mexican TFI/Bloomberg Fellow) to join filmmaker Maya Goded and her producer Martha Sosa (2013 Latin Fund grantees) for a casual conversation about both of their supported projects. The mood was inviting, and most workshop teams were able to discuss their works with the guest speakers. After the breakfast, we delved into explaining the application writing process – using Maya’s submission for her Plaza de la Soledad project as a case study—and, overall, the approach to solicit international funding. Afterward, to switch gears and go deeper into each team’s projects, mentor Hugo Perez took the reins and gave his “how to pitch” presentation. His method was refreshingly casual and creative, as he asked the teams to find online news stories to write pitches for and also have them pitch each other’s projects. These exercises freed up the filmmakers to think beyond their films and cohesively present pitches for stories that are not their own. Finally – the last day of the Filmmaker Workshop arrived. In order to maximize the most out of the progress made by the filmmaking teams, the TFI projects participated in DocsDF’s “Docs Forum” and pitched on the third day alongside other filmmakers that took part in separate labs. The TFI projects had the unique distinction to be the only ones to pitch in English, since the very purpose of our Filmmaker Workshop was for each team to perfect their presentation skills and cater to an international market. The five TFI projects were the first to pitch on the morning of the 31st, and they more than excelled in their presentations, crystallizing the main elements of their stories and staying under the seven minute mark. The evidence of their successful pitches was made evident by the forum panelists, as Bruni Burres from Sundance and Kate Townsend from BBC Storyville (among others) consistently spoke up and complimented them on their pitches and projects.   By the final hours, as the filmmaking teams took part in DocsDF’s “one-on-one” meetings, what was most evident about these projects’ progression was their impressive construction of an effective pitch. They were cognizant of the need to deconstruct their stories and focus only on specifics—which they all did. What was most astounding was that the majority of them had never pitched these projects before—and others had never pitched, period!

For us, the reward in and of itself – in this last workshop in Mexico City and the ones in Santiago and Sao Paulo—was to see the filmmakers overcome built-in trepidations. Whether this constant apprehension pertains to a language barrier or a lack of confidence in their artistic visions, these filmmakers moved past those hurdles and saw the great potential in their stories as well as in their ability to connect with a diverse audience.

Felicidades to all of the Mexico City Filmmaker Workshop filmmakers, and muchas gracias to Bloomberg and the entire DocsDF team for the support!

[Photos by Edgar Romero & Jose Rodriguez]