First Cut 2017 winner announced at Sheffield Documentary Festival

14 June 2017

Channel 4’s Factual Team have awarded Tom Green the prestigious First Cut pitch prize at the 2017 Sheffield Documentary Festival. He has won a 1x60 First Cut commission, a one month paid development, a mentorship with an indie and a weeks training at the National Film and Television School on a course of their choice.

Tom Green’s film delved into the contrasting world of 60 year old florist who has a secret life running a swingers website.

Five finalists were chosen from over 70 applicants. They were given an identical brief: to shoot and edit a three minute film This Is My Place. It was up to them to interpret this brief and to demonstrate their directorial talent. Each had to present their idea in front of a panel of judges as well as a huge audience. They had 10 minutes - one minute to introduce themselves, three minutes to play their short film and five minutes to answer questions from the judging team.

The First Cut strand has been running for over ten years and is considered a fantastic opportunity for new talent. The competition is open to those who are not at entry level, but have spent some time in the industry working at AP/Producer level, but not yet made their own single hour for a terrestrial channel.

Last year’s winner Ross Bolidai has spent six months being mentored by Dan Reed at Amos and is now casting contributors for his first film set in a sleep clinic. Other directors of First Cut include Marcus Plowright who made the critically acclaimed Muslim Drag Queens who has since directed American High School (for Swan Films) and is now directing a longitudinal piece about social mobility and gifted children for the BBC.

Madonna Benjamin, Commissioning Editor said of Tom's film 'It was engaging, offered up some strong scenes and was very successful in the way it was structured.'

The judging panel from Channel 4 included Commissioning Editor, Madonna Benjamin and Executive Producer, Rita Daniels. Alongside them were Dan Reed (Founder of Amos Films) whose credits include The Paedophile Hunter and Three Days of Terror and Liesel Evans (Director of Programmes at Century Films) who has exec produced BAFTA nominated series Kids on the Edge

NOTES TO EDITOR:

 

Commissioning Editors: Madonna Benjamin & Rita Daniels