On Friday September 10, the PUMA.Creative  in partnership with Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation announced the first recipients of the newly launched PUMA.Creative Documentary Awards. The first ten recipients of the PUMA.Creative Catalyst Awards and first nineteen PUMA.Creative Mobility Awards for film were announced  at the Good Pitch UK in London. The awards recepients were later honored at the PUMA.Creative and Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation Gala Awards Ceremony held at the Criterion, London.

PUMA.Creative Catalyst Awards for documentary film recognize dedicated service to the arts and honor the achievements of emerging or established documentary filmmakers. This new international documentary development fund is a rapid response fund to support the very best in creative documentary filmmaking, providing strategic and catalytic resources in the early stages of documentary projects, to shoot and edit a film trailer that can function as a tool to demonstrate and accelerate the potential of the filmmakers’ vision. 40 PUMA.Creative Catalyst Awards for documentary film are awarded annually of up to 5,000 Euros each. Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation makes the quarterly award selection, in consultation with PUMA.Creative, from open submissions. The first batch of winners looks especially promising, with subjects from a diverse range of subjects.

To apply please visit www.britdoc.org/puma

Croaked!
Director: Lucy Cooke

The world’s frogs are in a major crisis. Since the 1990’s they have been disappearing at an alarming rate, in many cases quite suddenly and mysteriously. This irreverent film follows frog-loving filmmaker Lucy Cooke uncover the reasons behind this, the biggest mass extinction crisis since the dinosaurs were wiped off the planet. Like the plot of a 70’s B movie she uncovers a deadly fungus derived from the use of toads as pregnancy tests that’s wiping out up to 80% of all amphibians, pesticides that turn male frogs into females, an illegal frog smuggling ring and a trend towards saving celebrity animals rather than preserving global biodiversity.

Dragonslayer
Director: Tristan Patterson
Producer: John Baker

Last year in California banks foreclosed on 632,572 homes. Their swimming pools are all empty. Set against California’s decaying suburban communities in the aftermath of America’s economic collapse, “Dragonslayer” is a documentary portrait of Josh “Skreech” Sandoval, a local pool skating legend trying to find his place in the world with only a backpack, sleeping bag and 20 pairs of sunglasses to his name.

Ham Without Borders
Director: Danielle Schleif

A docu-comedy-clash-of-cultures where European food tradition meets American food security. This documentary follows a Spanish farm steeped in a centuries-old tradition—the creation of the famous Iberian ham made from free-range pigs—as it turns its old school production style on its head in order to get up to USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) standards and thus break into the holy grail of international markets—a country of 300 million potential converts to the church of the black foot ham.

Kasai
Director: Claude Haffner
Producer: Ramadan Suleman

Born in Zaire to a French father and a Congolese mother, Claude Haffner and her brother grew up in Alsace. Her father’s passing in 2000 awakes in Claude a need to reconnect with a family and a continent she no longer knows. She returns to what is now Congo and comes back fulfilled, but also concerned about the future of her home region, plundered by the diamond trade. She embarks on a quest to explore her history, a mission that takes her back to Kasaï, and ultimately to the realization that Kasaï’s and Africa’s solution is the same: A region and a country in control of its destiny.

Look at my India
Director: Pramod Mathur
Executive Producer: Neelima Mathur

Veteran filmmaker Pramod Mathur goes on a journey of discovery with son Varun to re-visit the India he has filmed for decades. To illustrate the chasm between rich and poor, between rural and urban communities in modern India with portraits of his earlier films, to re-visit those communities and see how life in the largest democracy of the world has treated them since he last met them.

Natural Wine for a Happy Life
Director: Philippe Gasnier
Producer: Patrice Nezan

Thierry, Jean-Philippe, Marcel and Françoise are natural winegrowers. They prefer to gather fruits with a freedom that is creative and united rather than to develop a world where wine is a standardized product, flawless and uneventful and where profit seeking prevails. Foiling traditional laws of the market and globalization, they build an original wine system and without concessions, far from the usual standards of the oenology. “Natural Wine for a Happy Life” is a documentary about work, about solidarity, about optimism and the joy of sharing, about the possibility of another world.

Odin’s Ravens Magic
Director: Nick Fenton
Executive Producer: John Best
Executive Producer: Dean O’Connor

Executive Producers: Sigur Ros: Jón Þór (Jónsi) Birgisson, Georg Hólm, Kjartan Sveinsson, Orri Páll Dýrason (Iceland)
The film of “Odin’s Raven’s Magic” is a modern retelling of an ancient Icelandic saga. A visual poem inspired and accompanied by the orchestral piece of the same name written by Sigur Ros. Taken from the Edda (ancient texts of Norse mythology) the poem depicts a stagnant world stripped of it’s gods. Using montage storytelling in the tradition of Soviet silent cinema where musical accompaniment and visual trickery combine to create a unique rhythmic syntax. Solely using archive and found material the film will recycle drama and documentary from its original context allowing new juxtapositions bringing the story to life.

Ping Pong
Director: Hugh Hartford
Producer: Anson Hartford

Pensioners from across the planet compete in the World over 80s Table Tennis Championships in Inner Mongolia. From retirement, care homes, mental and physical health to death and loneliness—8 characters from 4 continents guide us through the life-affirming world of veterans’ athletics.

Teenage
Director: Matt Wolf
Writer: Jon Savage
Producer: Jacqui Edenbrow
Producer: Ben Howe
Based on a groundbreaking book by the seminal punk journalist Jon Savage, “Teenage” is an unconventional historical film about youth culture before 1945—the year the term ‘teenage’ and its popular associations came into being. Mixing period blurring super-8 recreations, a wealth of archival material, historical narration provided by Savage and a contemporary post punk soundtrack.

The Wretched of the Rainbow
Director: Riaan Hendricks
Producer: Neil Brandt

Will South Africa triumph over the second surge of xenophobic attacks its poor want to wage against black foreign nationals? Who will stand up and articulate the honest silent fears carried by a class of South Africans. Who will capture their will to let go of their weapons and embrace peaceful co-existence? This is a story in search of heroes—leaders from the most conflict-ridden areas “affected” by the presence of foreigners. Where with conviction they are engaged in a great battle to capture the heart and minds of their communities as they champion justice for a peaceful co-existence.