One of the most exciting events last week at the festival was the One World Media Live Pitch. It was a great session where 5 young filmmakers had been whittled down from a group of 70 to battle it out for the One World Media Live Pitch final grand prize of £2,000!  In front of a prestigious panel of documentary film makers and producers each filmmaker had 5 minutes to pitch their idea and were then grilled by the panel and offered feedback on what they had delivered.

The documentary ideas put forward covered an eclectic range of topics ranging from moustaches in India to punks in Algeria. The panels advice was clear and concise with their main questions including 'how is this universal to all?' and 'what is the story?'. A couple of the pitches were in the early research stages and these were offered guidance on how to develop their ideas fully and told they need to be clear from the story what type of production company they want to take their idea forward when complete.

And the winner was.....With The Punk. They were my favourite and gave an excellent, very confident and energetic pitch.  They had a story mapped out and a taster film to show, which highlighted the feel, emotion and pace of the documentary and how the story would unfold.  The presenters were very engaging and the story had a real life journey to it, relevant storyline and was universally linked to all teenagers rebels.

Fellow Digital Reporter Monique Jarrett caught up with panelist Steve Boulton after the event and also got to grab winners Onyeka Igwe and Sofia Bouzidi to congratulate them on scooping the top prize...

And my favourite bit of advice from the event was from filmmaker Olly Lambert who made Tea Boy of Gaza.  He said that the best documentaries are those that do not hit the message home with a hammer but take the smallest story like the little tea boy from Gaza to show the bigger picture such as the political unrest and war happening around him. That bit of advice I will use well!

Sarah Miles - Words and photos
Digital Reporter

Monique Jarrett - Audio
Digital Reporter