Netflix has unveiled six filmmakers who will receive funding and professional support to make a short documentary as winners of the third year of the Netflix Documentary Talent Fund.
“Following a rigorous application process and thousands of applications, a shortlist of 12 filmmaking teams from across the U.K. and Ireland were invited to Netflix’s U.K. headquarters to pitch in front of a panel of industry experts this month,” the streamer said. They were asked to pitch ideas inspired by the prompt, “you’re never gonna believe this…”
Here are the winners, unveiled on Thursday.
David Chabeaux & Owen Tooth – Band
A Middle-England factory worker leads a bizarre Marching Band cult down a hilariously dark spiral of obsession.
Lisa Smith & Jack Lilleywhite – Angry Bird
After a life-changing crash Romani banger racer Georgie, aka ‘Angry Bird,’ is stripped of the space that once empowered her. Determined to become champion, she is forced to confront her ethnic identity as the only woman on the track.
Eilidh Munro & Isabella Bassett – The Herring Queen
A teenage girl is crowned The Herring Queen in a tiny Scottish fishing village’s beauty pageant as a community holds onto the past and the world faces a sea change.
Imoje Aikhoje – Divided We Stand
The doc explores the U.K.’s rise in far-right extremism through a dialogue between a black activist and a former Neo Nazi.
Ailill Martin & Peter Kilmartin – The Good Farmer and the Failed Son
A drag queen prepares to inherit the family farm.
Maya Avidov & Savannah James-Bayly – Crimes of Collage
This is the story of a bold artistic prank that transformed stolen library books into provocative collages, led to a six-month prison sentence for theft and vandalism, and continues to leave an artistic legacy over 60 years later.
Each team will be supported by Netflix to produce a short doc between 8-12 minutes long with a budget of £30,000 ($37,710) each. The films will be released on Netflix’s YouTube channel in the summer.
The teams will get bootcamp training from experts at Netflix who will coach and host workshops covering creative, HR and production.
Netflix’s Kate Townsend led a team of industry professionals in forming the judging panel to select the final teams. They included Aloke Devichand (head of documentaries, Mindhouse); Andy Mundy Castle (director, White Nanny Black Child, and founder, DocHearts); Anna Higgs (chair, BAFTA Film Committee); Danny Moltrasi (senior shorts programmer at Raindance); Bao Nguyen (director, The Greatest Night in Pop); Felicity Morris (director, Tinder Swindler and American Nightmare); Lyttanya Shannon (director, Sweet Bobby); Nicky Varley (head of production, Curious Film), and Zainab Ali Khan (commissioning team, original documentaries, Netflix).
“The competition was fiercer than ever this year and we were so inspired by the filmmakers we met on pitch day – so much so that we have decided to fund six films this year, rather than five,” said Townsend. “Ideas flooded in from all over the U.K. and Ireland and we’ve loved hearing all of these remarkable and entertaining stories. We’re confident that we’ve found some of the most exciting and talented upcoming filmmakers in the industry.”
Over the first two years of the Netflix doc fund, 15 short films were produced. Iranian Yellow Pages, made by Anna Snowball and Abolfazl Talooni, and Black Stroke, a film by Olivia Smart, were shortlisted for best documentary short at this year’s Grierson Awards, while Love Languages, directed by Jason Osborne, made last year’s BAFTA Longlist for British Short Film.
