Last year saw the first ever recipients of the Tribeca Film Institute new media fund. Four to eight non-fiction projects are funded between $50,000 and $100,000 as well as mentoring and peer support for producers. The projects funded were a diverse collection of nonfiction transmedia works, including i-Docs keynote Jigar Mehta and his project 18 Days in Egypt. Eight months later and the projects are in varying stages, read on to find out more..
The Interrupters builds on the momentum of the feature documentary by the same name and is a collection of powerfully moving stories of “violence interrupters” who protect their Chicago communities from the violence they themselves once employed.
Using popcorn.js, the ‘Shrine Sequence’ – the first completed are of the site – features stories around the topic of the shrines to those killed in the area. As these stories progress, related content is streamed along the side, which if clicked, pauses the doc and gives the opportunity to view extra context such as maps, news stories, photos and other videos. Other aspects that will be added by summer 2012, include ‘webisodes’ – A series of interactive web stories will highlight a particular issue that connects to the violence on the streets of Chicago, showcasing specific Interrupters in action and ‘Living Shrines’ – Surviving through memories, victims are honored by friends and loved ones in this virtual realm that brings to light the scale of violence in our urban communities. This incredible project provides not only solidarity, but practical help and resources.
The Interrupters: Shrine Sequence
Map Your World was inspired by the feature documentary The Revolutionary Optimists, which follows “The Daredevils,” a group of youth in one of Kolkata’s most notorious squatter’s colonies, who have made a dramatic improvement in the health of their community, a place that cannot even be found on the map. The Daredevils undertook to make their own map of their colony, and have been painstakingly tracking and collecting data around health issues that impact them – water, sanitation, and infectious diseases. In ten years, they have made dramatic improvement in their area: they’ve turned a trash dump into a soccer field, lobbied for electricity, and decreased diarrhea and malaria rates in their neighbourhood.
What Map Your World have done, is to aid this existing project with technology, in particular Google maps, databases and the most prolific technology in India: the mobile phone. To find out more, watch the video below:
The Tillman Story Interactive Edition is based around the existing documentary on the same subject. Awarded $50,000 by the Tribeca Fund, the finished site will allow users to dig deeper into the story of Pat Tillman, exploring documents, related content, in-depth interviews and content that didn’t make the final cut of the film.
Directed by Amir Bar-Lev, an American-Israeli film director, producer and writer from Berkeley, California, the aim of the site and the documentary is to help bring justice and accountability in the Tillman case. Click here to watch the pitch for the interactive site and see the original documentary trailer below:
Submissions for the 2012 fund open on December 5th, to find out more about the Tribeca New Media Fund, click here.