Ellen Windemuth executive produced Craig Foster‘s beautiful film MY OCTOPUS TEACHER, a new Netflix release. She describes the years’ long journey of her friend, South African wildlife filmmaker Craig Foster as he recovers his mental health by swimming in the icy kelp forests of Cape Town’s False Bay. Ellen tells how her company Off the …
France Télévisions is France’s multi-channel public broadcaster, buying 1,900 hours of documentaries / year. For a Sunny Side Meet the Executive presentation, Catherine Alvaresse shared France Télévisions’ vision. Watch my informative and exclusive conversation with Catherine Alvaresse: FRANCE TÉLÉVISIONS: CATHERINE ALVARESSE Recorded June 15, 2020 Overview What is the big picture for France Télévisions? Describe …
Channel 4 is Britain’s youth-targeted, edgy broadcast network.: What is C4’s unscripted strategy? What do they want? What are examples of recent hits? What does C4 pay for programs? For a Sunny Side Meet the Executive session, Fatima Salaria shared Channel 4’s vision and programming priorities. Fatima announced today that she is departing C4 to …
It was standing-room-only at the East Village premiere that I attended for The Woman Who Loves Giraffes. The Q&A that followed resembled a celebrity speaking tour: the star in the spotlight was the sparkling 87-year old, Anne Innis Dagg. This Canadian feature combines several of my favorite genres: Archive-based History Wildlife Science Plus a bit …
Sue Dando has been the head of The Nature of Things, CBC Television’s flagship documentary science and nature series, for seven years. The strand is one of the most successful television series in the world: it is now heading into its 59th season. Sue shared her strategy and commissioning process at Sunny Side’s Science-themed Meet The …
by Robin McGahey: This past week, I had the incredible opportunity to attend the 3rd annual Nature Environment Wildlife Filmmakers Congress (NEWF) in Durban, South Africa. Fearlessly led by Noel Kok and his partner Pragna, the theme was #Partnership. I arrived unsure of what to expect, and left feeling awe, inspiration, drive, and hope for …
UNITED SKATES is an exceptional feature documentary that combines pure and often hilarious entertainment with a hard-hitting expose of how race and class force their crushing ways into the most innocent American pastimes — even roller-skating. For this case study, which is published with Sunny Side of the Doc, I spoke with the co-producer / …
My highlight for MIPDoc 2019 was moderating the panel with ZDF Enterprises’ Ralf Rueckauer and Off The Fence CEO Ellen Windemuth. The topic was ZDF-E’s acquisition of OTF, the leading independent factual distributor. OTF also celebrated its 25th anniversary at Cannes. We explored the parties’ motivations for the acquisition at this time of great change …