White Pine Pictures takes $40,000 prize for best film pitch at Hot Docs

Toronto's White Pine Pictures has been awarded the first $40,000 grant for best Canadian film pitch at this year's Toronto Documentary Forum (TDF).

The forum, an international marketplace for the documentary industry, was held at the Hot Docs Festival in Toronto. The new pitch award was part of the Canwest-Hot Docs Fund, created last year to increase the quantity and quality of Canadian documentaries.

Contenders were selected by a group of industry professionals. They had 15 minutes to present their pitches of documentaries they are planning or working on to assembled financiers on Wednesday and Thursday.

The winning entry, pitched by White Pine Pictures and titled The Team, takes place in Kenya in the wake of the country's 2007 election violence. The storyline revolves around efforts to produce a television soap opera series about a fictional soccer team in the hopes that the popular art form will achieve transformative social change.

White Pine Pictures is backed by Ottawa-born Peter Raymont, who produced documentaries such as Shake Hands With the Devil and Triage: Dr. James Orbinski's Humanitarian Dilemma. Raymont made the pitch along with director Patrick Reed.

Another TDF inaugural award, the first Observer Award, recognized the project that most appealed to TDF "observers," which include producers, distributors and other industry professionals.

It was given to Britain's Met Film Productions for its pitch for Town of Runners. The documentary will follow young athletes from the rural Ethiopian town of Bekoji as they move from school track to national competition, and from childhood to adulthood.

The observers passed the hat and pulled in about $900 for the award, plus another $500 from Montreal's EyeSteelFilm.

Town of Runners producer Al Morrow and director/writer Jerry Rothwell said the money will be used to purchase a motorcycle for the track coach in the film to assist in his training of marathon runners.

The Hot Docs festival's awards will be presented Friday evening.