Call for Entries: Shark Island Development Labs

Documentary filmmakers have been invited to apply for the Shark Island Development Labs, a 12-month program with investments of up to $25,000 per project.

Executive Director of Shark Island Institute, Malinda Wink says: “With Good Pitch Australia, we showed how documentary films can be a powerful platform to inform public consciousness, shift behaviour and lead policy change. The investment from the Shark Island Institute takes all that we have learned one step further. The Labs will be supporting independent Australian documentary filmmakers to find new ways to explore the difficult and urgent stories of our time”.

Executive Chair of Shark Island Institute, Ian Darling AO, says: “We see this as an extension of our Good Pitch Australia model which represented a high return on social capital for the philanthropic community. We understand the need to invest in early stage story development for Australian documentary filmmakers. Through our collaboration with industry leaders both in Australia and abroad, the Labs will seek filmmakers and projects with an ambition to reach and inspire their audiences about critical issues that shape the national agenda.”

Five teams will be selected each year to receive ongoing mentoring and support through a combination of residential story-telling workshops, one-on-one meetings and industry sessions. The Labs are designed to hone the teams’ skills as independent story-tellers and social impact filmmakers. The Shark Island Development Labs are led by the Shark Island Institute in collaboration with an extraordinary network of global and local industry leaders.

The Shark Island Institute represents a continuation of founder Ian Darling’s long-term strategic investment in documentary storytelling in Australia – including the establishment of Documentary Australia Foundation (DAF) in 2008 and Good Pitch Australia in 2014 in partnership with DAF, Doc Society (formerly BRITDOC) and the Sundance Film Program. Between 2014 – 2016, Good Pitch Australia raised more than $14 million in philanthropic grants for the selected 19 social impact documentaries and their impact campaigns.

The Shark Island Development Labs are designed for feature documentary projects that are in early stage story development. The Shark Island Institute team, headed by Ian Darling and the newly appointed Executive Director of Shark Island Institute, Malinda Wink, is committed to the discovery and support of Australian filmmakers and have a preference for projects that don’t yet have broadcast, distributor or EP attachment. The Shark Island Institute will work with each team to optimise both distribution and potential for social impact for each project.

 

Applications close Sunday 6th May
www.sharkisland.com.au