New producer joins Leone Stars filmmaking team

Katarina Soukup has joined the Leone Stars filmmaking team to help directors Allan Tong and Ngardy Conteh produce.  Mattru Media, founded by Ngardy, is producing Leone Stars.  Katarina runs a thriving documentary production company out of Montreal, Catbird Productions, and pitched at last year's Hot Docs Forum.  She brings with her years of experience in documentary producing and much-needed business prowess.  Learn more about Katarina at http://leonestars.blogspot.ca/p/filmmakers.html

Leone Stars to pitch at Hot Docs Forum

 

March 28, 2012, Toronto – Leone Stars has been selected to pitch at the prestigious Forum at the Hot Docs International Documentary Film Festival. 

The documentary is one of 25 projects and one of four Canadian ones that Hot DocHotdocs.ca has chosen from 150 submissions worldwide.  On May 2-3, filmmaking teams will present their films-in-progress to an exclusive audience of international broadcasters, distributors and other documentary buyers.  Teams aim to secure financing and broadcast licenses from the audience.  The Forum is a key market for documentaries in the world.  Admission is by pass only.
 
The Hot Docs Forum will take place on May 2-3, 2012 at Hart House on the University of Toronto campus downtown.  Teams of filmmakers have seven minutes to present their documentaries, followed by eight minutes of moderated roundtable discussion from the audience.

Yesterday's announcement is the latest success for Leone Stars, which was the first-ever documentary to win the coveted Pitch This! competition at the Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto last September, followed by funding from the Sundance Institute as well as fellowships for directors/producers Ngardy Conteh and Allan Tong.

Donate to the LEONE STARS documentary

Donations are welcome to the Leone Stars documentary.
Five percent of funds will literally go into the hands of the amputee soccer players of Sierra Leone when the filmmakers meet them on their periodic shoots.

We're making this film with grants, fundraising like Kickstarter, and our own money.
To date, nobody on the crew has been paid.

As a thank-you, anybody in Canada who donates C$50 or more will receive this t-shirt:

Americans who donate C$60 or more will receive a shirt.
Those living outside North America: C$70 to cover postage costs.

To order: please email leonestarsdoc [at] gmail.com
and state your name, address and shirt size. We have S, M, L, XL.
Expect 4-5 weeks to process your order, since we order shirts in batches.
God bless.

Sundance invites LEONE STARS on fellowship

The Sundance Film Festival has invited Leone Stars directors Allan Tong and Ngardy Conteh to attend its January festival on the Documentary Fellows Program.

The film festival, founded by Robert Redford, runs January 19-29 in Park City, Utah. Leone Stars was one of 10 international docmaking teams (and the only Canadian one) chosen for the DFP. The DFP encourages invited filmmaking teams to network and raise funding for their projects. The fellowship comes on the heels of a Sundance grant to Leone Stars in November.

Among other events, Allan and Gad look forward to attending the premieres of the docs made by Canadians Yung Chang (China Heavyweight) and Jennifer Baichwal (Payback).

Happy New Year!

Two film shoots, TIFF Pitch This, Sundance...
Thank you for supporting the filmmakers of LEONE STARS through a successfully year. Here's to an even better 2012!

December 2011 shoot in Freetown & Bo

Leone Stars directors Allan Tong and Ngardy Conteh with cinematographer Colin Akoon returned to Toronto on Christmas Eve following a two-week shoot in Sierra Leone. Their ever-reliable "fixer" Hash Magona was the fourth member of the crew. The trip to the capital of Freetown plus additional days in the inland city of Bo marks the second voyage by the Leone Stars crew. Other shoots will follow, but for now here are some images of this exciting trip:

Ngardy, Colin & Hash preparing to film from the back of a moving car
winding through downtown streets in Freetown

Colin capturing kids playing the national pastime on Aberdeen Beach,
Freetown at sundown

Allan with Omaru (left) and his teammates in the eastern city of Bo after practice

Shooting B-roll of a pile of garbage burning off the side of the road in downtown Freetown. Sierra Leoneans don't enjoy garbage pick-up, so they burn it, including a TV set in this blaze.

LEONE STARS Win Sundance Doc Grant

Toronto (November 23, 2011) - Leone Stars is the lone Canadian recipient of the Sundance Institute's latest round of feature-length documentary grants. Last night, Sundance announced the 29 filmmaking teams that will receive grants from its Documentary Film Program. The Sundance prize arrives two months after the film's historic Pitch This! victory at TIFF, where Leone Stars became the first documentary to ever win that pitch competition.

Leone Stars follows the amputee soccer players of postwar Sierra Leone as they struggle to reach—and win—the World Amputee Football Championships scheduled to take place in Iran in late-2012. The film is directed by Allan Tong and Ngardy Conteh of Toronto.

Practicing on the beaches of Freetown, March 2011 (photo: Johnny Vong)

Leone Stars is presently in the development stage. With the Sundance and TIFF wins, Conteh and Tong are planning another trip to Sierra Leone, this winter. “I’m trilled that the two most important two festivals in North America have helped us to make the film,” says Conteh. “Our dream of bringing this story to the world is one step closer to a reality thanks to Sundance.”

The Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2012 and since its inception has awarded grants to more than 300 documentary filmmakers in 61 countries.

“For many of these filmmakers, receiving a grant will be just the beginning of our relationship with them," said Cara Mertes, Director of the Sundance DFM Program. “We welcome these filmmakers to our community and look forward to working with them to further support and develop their unique visions."

- 30 -

For further details: http://leonestars.blogspot.com/

Click for the complete Sundance press release.