Despite Michael Moore's continued box office success, the majority of documentary filmmakers are increasingly challenged to find their audiences. And as resources for production and distribution steadily decrease, the answer for many is found in creative alliances, such as the Good Pitch, a partnership between the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program and the UK's Channel Four/Brit Doc Foundation.

Launched at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, the Good Pitch was created in response to what Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program Director Cara Mertes sees as a critical need for more and different resources in the sector, and a new focus on audience and impact with long-form documentary storytelling.

For the most recent New York edition with Independent Film Week, eight films in various stages of production and distribution were selected to pitch their plans to invited supporters, including NGOs, foundations, individual donors, and media outlets. Combining all of this year's Good Pitch events, over 1,000 NGO's, foundation, and individual donors have participated, more than 900 films have applied for 24 slots, and almost $1 million dollars worth of new resources have been leveraged.

“Unlike most Hollywood networking gatherings, participants at the Good Pitch are called on to literally put their money where their mouths are, " said Sundance Film Festival Programmer David Courier. Courier attributes part of this unique vibe to the Moderator Jess Search from the Channel4 Foundation. "She leaves no elephants in the room, literally asking funders to cough up the bucks. It’s a win/win for all involved.”

This win was clearly the case for Documentary Lab Fellow and Skoll | Sundance 'Stories of Change' grantee Gayle Ferraro. After three years in production on her film To Catch A Dollar, a portrait of Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Muhammad Yunus and the launch of the micro-lender Grameen Bank America, Ferraro had the spotlight turned on her. Dr. Yunus, also in town to meet with world leaders and activists at the Clinton Global Initiative and at the UN, made his first public appearance with the film as he introduced the Good Pitch audiences to Ferraro's new work and stayed for Ferraro's pitch.

Gayle talked about this culminating experience as she headed back into the edit room to finish her film for a 2010 release.

Insider: Muhammad Yunus has been promoting micro-finance around the world since the 1970s. How did you meet him and decide to make a film about him?

Ferraro: I met Yunus ten years ago when I was making another film in Bangladesh called Sixteen Decisions (about micro-lending in Bangladesh). The film wasn’t really about him but we met anyway and he really liked that film. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 and we happened to meet a few months after that and I broached the subject of making a film. He wasn’t interested!

When he addressed the crowd at the Good Pitch he said, “She made [Sixteen Decisions] and then she started following me!” After a year of “following him," I cut a trailer to show him and he started looking at it in a different way. He agreed to fully participate!

Insider: Yunus is a larger than life figure but he really represents a global movement of people on the ground. Who are the other voices in the film besides Yunus?

Ferraro: There are a lot people working to launch Grameen’s first American branch in Queens, New York. The film highlights Shah Newaz from Bangladesh who’s been working for Yunus for 25 years and is the head of the Queens program and eventually the U.S. program. There is also Alethia, Grameen America’s first employee, who works full-time and goes to school full-time. The film follows the opening of the bank and the lives of the borrowers as well as Yunus’ story.

Yunus’ struggle is convincing people that this can work. He’s often met with, “you gotta be crazy!” He has to raise money to convince the government to give him a banking license to set up savings deposit. It was a creative choice in the film to show how the bank works on the ground and also convey Yunus’ story.

Insider: Micro-finance is a more common lending system outside the United States. What do you hope an American audience will take away from this film?

Ferraro: I hope people leave feeling that we don’t have all the answers. Just because you’ve made some money it doesn’t mean that things are complete. Most people are reevaluating and the film hopefully pushes people to think beyond the current system based solely on collateral. Also, if we tried to build a different kind of community among people who are locked out of financial services it could be a model for the rest of the world and an example that change is possible.

Insider: You’ve followed Yunus to meetings with major world leaders from Nelson Mandela to President Obama. The Good Pitch in New York was the first time Yunus met with the film industry. What does he want filmmakers to know?

Ferraro: He talked about how important it is for filmmakers to be supported. He told them a story about a 60 Minutes piece done in 1987 that followed his team and shot 200 hours of footage for a 14 minute piece. He said they were really getting on his nerves! However, he couldn’t believe how much that one news piece changed things for him and for Grameen.

His message for filmmakers was that it might seem like you’re working forever and you’re not Morley Safer but it so matters that you’re doing this. It’s a powerful thing to hear from a Nobel Laureate.

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Posted Wed, Oct 7 2009 1:49 PM by Sundance Film Festival | News