Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation and PUMA.Creative Announce PUMA.Creative Catalyst Award Winners for First Quarter 2011

PUMA.Creative Catalyst Award Winners First Quarter 2011

Armenia Wants a Piece of the North Pole, and the South Pole Too
Director: Vardan Hovhannisyan (Armenia)
Using the humorous device of two Armenian comedians’ claim to the poles, this film will highlight the absurd lengths to which nations go in the service of greed. North and South Poles—melting ice, scarce resources, fierce competition of big nations. Armenia wants in…

Black Out
Director: Eva Weber (Germany)
This evocative and poignant documentary shows how children reconcile their daily lives in one of the world’s poorest countries with their desire to learn. Every day during exam season, as the sun sets over Conakry, Guinea, hundreds of school students begin heading to the airport, searching for electricity.

Cal Summits
Director: Luis Ilizarbe (Peru)
‘Cal Summits’ follows Eduardo Gold and his local villagers as they attempt to paint the now snow-free mountain caps of Peru white to reflect the light and combat climate change. After beating cancer Eduardo Gold formed ‘Peru Glaciers’, an NGO which, in 2009, won one of the twenty prizes in the World Banks ‘100 Ideas to save the planet’.

The E-Team
Directors: Katy Chevigny & Ross Kauffman (USA)
‘The E-Team’ follows three key members of the intrepid Human Rights Watch Emergency Team as they go about their high stakes investigative work on the front lines of international human rights abuses.

The Last Song
Director: Katia Paradis (Canada)
'The Last Song' is the tale of ordinary mothers who, one day, for a matter of life of death, turn themselves into composers. The film tells the story of the Garifuna women of Central America who have been passing on their threatened oral traditions for more than 200 years.

Laureates
Director: Kenneth Gyang (Nigeria)
‘Laureates’ is a visual odyssey of the thirteen Nobel laureates Africa has produced from 1960 to 2010. From the suburbs of Lagos, Accra, Cairo, Nairobi and Johannesburg, African youths relive the quest for a safe and peaceful world in a creative juxtaposition between merit, excellence and diverse continental and global realities.

Shattered Pieces of Peace
Director: Nonhlanhla Dlamini (Swaziland)
Having publicly condemned her daughters sexuality, mother Sharon is forced to grapple love for a child who could face the death penalty with her own intense homophobia. Her daughter, a mother of two whose name means Peace, has been arrested and charged with the murder of her female partner.

Speed Sisters
Director: Geoffrey Smith (Australia)
‘Speed Sisters’ follows an all women driving team who are not just racing for the thrill; they are out to show that Palestine is as diverse and dynamic as anywhere.
In a country where movement is heavily restricted, motor racing has become hugely popular.

We Are Many
Director: Amir Amirani (Iran)
‘We Are Many’ is a film that aims to harness the passion and political energy of the anti-war movement as a force for good in giving people a voice. The film will do this through the story of the biggest peace march in human history. On 15 February 2003, in over 800 cities around the world, 30 million people protested against the planned invasion of Iraq.

What’s Going On?
Director: Penny Woolcock (UK)
‘What’s Going On?’ is a film that follows gangs of young men as they stab and shoot each other for straying into the wrong postcode. But now, two gang leaders want to make peace. Will they succeed or fail?

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Media Contacts

Luke Moody, Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation, luke@britdoc.org
Danielle Marcus, PUMAVision, danielle.marcus@puma.com

Editors Notes

PUMA.Creative Catalyst Awards

40 PUMA.Creative Catalyst Awards for documentary film are awarded annually of up to 5,000 Euros each. Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation, in consultation with PUMA.Creative, makes the quarterly award selection from open submissions. For more information please visit: www.britdoc.org/puma

PUMAVision

At PUMA, we believe that our position as the creative leader in Sportlifestyle gives us the opportunity and the responsibility to contribute to a better world for the generations to come. A better world in our vision—PUMAVision—would be safer, more peaceful, and more creative than the world we know today. The 4Keys is the tool we have developed to help us stay true to PUMAVision, and we use it by constantly asking ourselves if we are being Fair, Honest, Positive, and Creative in everything we do.

We believe that by staying true to our values, inspiring the passion and talent of our people, working in sustainable, innovative ways, and doing our best to be Fair, Honest, Positive, and Creative, we will keep on making the products our customers love, and at the same time bring that vision of a better world a little closer every day. PUMAVision looks ahead to a world that is safer, more peaceful and more creative for the generations to come. Through the programs of PUMA.Safe (focusing on environmental and social issues), PUMA.Peace (supporting global peace) and PUMA.Creative (supporting artists and creative organizations), we are providing real and practical expressions of this vision. For more information, please visit http://vision.puma.com

Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation

The Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation is a not-for-profit sponsored by Channel 4 Television and supported by a number of Foundations both in the UK and the USA. Since 2005, our mission has been to build a creatively ambitious and diverse future for documentary. We do this by creating brilliant films and engaging new partners to ensure that those films have lasting global impact.

The Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation has in its first five years, co-funded and produced over sixty documentaries—films that have won audience awards at Sundance, Berlin, Tribeca and Edinburgh Film Festivals, played at SXSW, Berlin, Toronto and London Film Festivals. Titles include: ‘Afghan Star’, ‘The End of The Line’, ‘We Are Together’, ‘The Yes Men Fix The World.’ The resulting films that have been shown around the world on C4, Arte, HBO and released by EMI, Dogwoof and Warners in cinemas and on DVD.

In addition to our UK Production Fund, The Foundation recently announced a new major partnership with PUMA.Creative which includes a new International Development Fund open to filmmakers all over the world, and the PUMA.Creative Impact Award—an annual prize honouring the documentary film which has created the most significant social impact. For more information please visit www.britdoc.org