UPDATE: Eugene Martin received a $20,000 Work-In-Progress Grant from the Sundance Documentary Grant Fund that he will use to finish the documentary.
Eugene Martin, assistant professor of radio, television and film, was selected to present a trailer and answer questions about his documentary in progress during the Tribeca Film Festival this spring.
From more than 230 applications worldwide, Martin’s project on the Anderson Monarchs Girls Soccer Club of Philadelphia was one of eight selected for The Good Pitch@Tribeca. The collaboration between the Sundance Institute and the United Kingdom’s public television provider, Channel 4 in London, brings together foundations, entrepreneurs, broadcasters and other media professionals to expand the resources and the impact of social-issue documentary.
“It’s a wonderful way to announce your film before it’s finished and start building an audience,” says Martin, who will donate a percentage of his documentary’s profits to the Monarchs’ players fund. The soccer club that formed in 1998 with eight girls is today an athletic, mentoring and tutoring organization with nearly 100 members.
Martin’s partners on the documentary include the composer of the film’s score, Mario Grigorov, composer for Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire; and the film’s supervising editor, Samuel D. Pollard, who worked on Spike Lee’s When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts.
Watch a preview of the Anderson Monarchs movie >>