The Asian Pitch to commission four documentaries

Three ABU Members have selected four regional documentary projects to commission after a successful run of their regional pitching event, The Asian Pitch.

NHK-Japan, Singapore’s MediaCorp and KBS-Korea have selected Sorrowgacy by director Ishani K Dutta of India, Defector by Lee Kil Do of South Korea, Sanitary Towels Inc. by Akanksha Sood of India and Wheatfield Sailors by Huo Ning of Taiwan.

The Asian Pitch is an initiative through which the three public broadcasters give independent directors who live and work in Asia an opportunity to tell original stories about the region. It is aimed at creating new high definition documentaries and finding new talent in Asia. Previous documentaries have all received international recognition for creative and production excellence.

Now in its sixth year, The Asian Pitch is the only pitch where the winning directors will receive full funding for their documentary production and where the productions are assured to be broadcast in Japan, Singapore, and South Korea the next year.

The Asian Pitch also announced their plan to expand to include Taiwanese public broadcaster PTS, starting next year.

About 100 proposals were submitted between January and April 2012 from countries including China, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, and Thailand. Nine of the entries were short-listed, and the directors were flown to Singapore to pitch their stories to a panel of executive producers from NHK, MediaCorp and KBS.