Telefilm Canada PITCH THIS!

Telefilm Canada PITCH THIS! returned to the Toronto International Film Festival for its twelfth consecutive year in 2011!

Congratulations to Ngardy Conteh, Walter Forsyth and Allan Tong, the winners of this year's Telefilm Canada PITCH THIS! competition for their project Leone Stars.

Six participant teams had six minutes to pitch their feature film idea to a live audience of over 200 industry professionals. The winners, selected by a jury of international industry experts, were awarded $10,000 CAD from Telefilm Canada to develop the project further. Both dramatic and documentary feature ideas were eligible.

Applications for 2012 Telefilm Canada PITCH THIS! will be available in March.

Ennis Esmer hosted PITCH THIS! for the fourth consecutive year. Having just wrapped up a gig this summer as co-host of Wipeout Canada, he is currently working on season 3 of CTV's The Listener, and can soon be seen in recurring roles on new CTV series Highland Gardens, HBO Canada's The Transporter, and Covert Affairs on Showcase.

The 2011 Telefilm Canada PITCH THIS! finalists were:

Breaking the Band
Watch this pitch

When Ben and Cheryl move in upstairs from the worst, loudest band in the world, they realize their only option is to go undercover and destroy them from within.

	John Christou John is a producer and owner of Prospector Films. His recent credits include File Under Miscellaneous, The Colony, Up The Yangtze!, Les Grands Penseurs and Sorry, Rabbi.
	Mark Slutsky Mark is a Montreal director, screenwriter and journalist. His credits include Peepers, The Fruit Hunters, Breaking the Band and his new short Sorry, Rabbi, premiering at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival.
	Aisling Chin-Yee Aisling is a film and new media producer. Her credits include The Colour of Beauty, Three Mothers and Sorry, Rabbi. She is currently producing several features with Prospector Films.

Leone Stars
Watch this pitch

Surviving war, poverty and prejudice the Sierra Leone amputee soccer team dreams of victory at the 2012 world championships. Can victims become champions?

	Walter Forsyth Walter was born and lives in Halifax. He has produced several short films including LSD 25, Boyclops, Tell Me, There’s a Flower in My Pedal, and the YouTube hit How to Be Alone. Long-form documentaries include CUBERS and After Frank. Walter is a 2009 Talent Lab alumnus and finalist of the 2010 RBC Emerging Filmmakers Competition.
	Ngardy Conteh As a Sierra Leonean-Canadian, Ngardy always wants to tell stories of the African Diaspora. As a director she has achieved this with Soldiers for the Streets (NFB/CBC Newsworld) and Literature Alive (Bravo!). She is also an accomplished video editor working on television shows for Bravo!, Space, CTV and AUX.
	Allan Tong Allan’s I Want To Be A Desi 1 & 2, and Grange Avenue have captured festival awards and have been broadcast on CBC and Bravo. He apprenticed at the NFB, has programmed for several Toronto festivals, been a producer at two documentary companies and is a respected film journalist.

The Lost Woods
Watch this pitch

Channeling films like Labyrinth and Time Bandits, The Lost Woods follows a head-in-the-clouds suburban boy who discovers a secret world where fairy-tales are real.

	Sean Wainsteim The survivor of one art school and one airplane crash, Sean continually develops and explores narrative projects in film, animation, music videos, commercials, docs, TV and experimental-interactive sculptures. Sean loves world travel and really great storytelling. At the 2011 MuchMusic Video Awards Sean won Director of the Year.
	Plato Fountidakis With credits including X-Men, Max Payne and Splice, internationally acclaimed Martial Arts Champion Plato is an entrepreneurial film, TV, and media producer with over 18 years experience. Trained in Asia, he’s regarded for Stunt/Fight Coordination and Action Direction. Plato also developed one of Canada’s first Motion Capture facilities.

Pinweight
Watch this pitch

A hot-headed Muslim tomboy and a quiet Hindu cleaning lady strike an unlikely friendship over their shared dream of becoming champion fighters in a country that considers female boxing a sacrilege.

	Lynne Kamm As a filmmaker who's hell bent to stay in shape, Lynne has accidentally carved a niche in sports-themed movies. She pens internationally for film, television and animation. Lynne is a Canadian Film Centre graduate, a Praxis Fellow, Berlinale Script Clinic invitee, a Slamdance Screenplay award recipient, and has been shortlisted for the Academy's Nicholl Fellowship.
	Rahnuma Panthaky Rahnuma’s selected credits include the BBC’s State Within, Street Time, DaVinci’s Inquest, Flashpoint, Plague City, and Missing. Rahnuma’s worked opposite Alfred Molina, Chris O’Donnell (Ridley Scott’s The Company), Jon Voigt (Jasper Texas) and Ving Rhames (Kojak) amongst others. She’s produced the world premiere of Four Chapters and is creator of the pilot Way Past Curfew.
	Marc Almon Marc’s first feature Bye Bye Blackbird recently completed principal photography. His short films have screened at over forty film festivals and have aired on CBC, Global, BBC, Bravo! and the Sundance Channel. Marc is a Genie Award nominee, an NSI Drama Prize winner, and a graduate of the Canadian Film Centre.

The Marksman
Watch this pitch

A young fishmonger obsessed with winning over a hunter’s daughter desperately tries to prove himself as a marksman by turning to enchanted bullets that develop a will of their own.

Stephen Dunn Stephen is a 22-year-old award-winning filmmaker from St. John’s, Newfoundland. Dunn is a Talent Lab Alumnus and recent winner of two awards at the 2010 RBC Emerging Filmmakers Competition for his film, Swallowed. Dunn’s films have screened at the Cannes, Toronto, Miami, Atlantic, and St. John’s International Film Festivals. Most recently, Dunn’s motivational TED Talk Lecture, Redefining Magic, was featured at a TEDx event last November.

Dillon McManamy Dillon is an award-winning emerging filmmaker from Toronto, Canada, and the recent recipient of the 2011 Universal Studios Canada Scholarship in Filmmaking. He has specialized in screenwriting, art direction and cinematography at Ryerson University’s School of Image Arts, where his work was recognized with IATSE 873’s Gordon Eldridge Memorial Award.

The Multiple Selves of Hannah Maynard
Watch this pitch

This interpretive biopic highlights the eccentric genius of 19th century Canadian Surrealist photographer Hannah Maynard. Following a number of deaths in her family she developed a surreal vision, a world obsessed with children and death but also with the possibilities of duality and the infinity.

Elizabeth Lazebnik Elizabeth made six short films including the short version of The Multiple Selves of Hannah Maynard, The Patient and Belonging (which screened at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival). She is currently enrolled in the MFA program in Film Production at York University and is working on two feature length films.

Supported by: