Cross Media Challenge
The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) and the Sheffield International Documentary Festival are pleased to issue a call for proposals for the second Cross Media Challenge.
The Cross Media Challenge is a co-production competition for innovative, interactive, socially engaged content with applications for mobile and broadband. It will award one producer a £5,000 co-production development deal with the award-winning NFB.
The 2008 challenge is based around an environmental theme and projects must be documentary based. Three semi-finalists will be invited to present their projects at a panel session during Doc/Fest 2008 and the winner will be announced at our DigiDocs 360 program.
To find out more about DigiDocs 360, click here.
The winner of the 2007 Cross Media Challenge was My Dangerous Loverboy, an interactive web and mobile site that raises awareness of global sex trafficking and creates a virtual community for at-risk young girls.
Grant Keir, the project’s producer, says: “Winning the NFB pitching session opened up real industry interest in My Dangerous Loverboy. We were able to secure matching finance from the screen agency Northern Film and Media and our Canadian producing partner also won some extra development cash for the project. Annette Clark, a producer at NFB, is providing invaluable help to us in its development. We have just completed a short drama film and are now preparing to pitch a worked up proposal for production finance. None of this would have been possible without the fantastic platform afforded to us by Sheffield Doc/Fest.”
Deadline for entries is 10 October, 2008. See www.nfb.ca/crossmediachallenge for details on how to apply.
About the Challenge
Inspired by the NFB’s legendary Challenge for Change programme of community filmmaking, today’s NFB is adapting the adage of "think globally, act locally" to develop socially engaged media projects relating to issues such as the protection of the environment (global warming), health care, human rights, poverty and violence against women.
How can we inspire an exchange of story-telling practices among diverse communities? How can we foster a national dialogue on issues that have local roots by the creative use of media? How can we unleash creative talents of marginal voices and communities and make them heard?
We are interested in documentary projects that use the versatility, mobility and borderless nature of new platforms to enable communities to talk to each other.