Pitching YARN at the Nordisk Forum

all good things must come to an end

The other reason for going to Malmo was the pitch the documentary project YARN at the Nordisk Forum. I’m the writer and exec producer, which is directed by Helgi Felixsson, and produced by Heather Millard of Compass Films in Reykjavik. We’ve been developing it for a while, and have our characters, but this was its first formal pitch. Lots of meetings followed the pitch – 15 minutes to present and discuss it with a table of decision makers, in front of an audience – and it was the meetings that were most valuable. Good comments, and a connection with the people who we hope will put some more funding into the project so that we can continue.

It’s about crochet, knitting, and art. A hard film to pitch, but I know it’ll work. There’s no link to the YARN site, because we haven’t made one yet. But now I’ve got the hang of this WordPress thing, I can feel it’s close…

 

By Krishan Arora

I'm an experienced television executive and producer. I started out at the BBC in London, working as assistant producer and director on a variety of documentary and magazine programmes. I then went to France to be one of the first programmers at Arte in Strasbourg when the channel launched in 1992. Returning to London after three years in France, I became Producer and Head of Development for documentary company Antelope. There I produced docs for all British broadcasters, with many co-productions on international subjects including the award-winning feature documentary Srebrenica - A Cry from the Grave, produced for BBC, NPS, PBS, and WDR. After a year developing and producing through my own company Electrify, I rejoined the BBC in 2001 as Commissioning Executive in Factual, commissioning Science, History and Arts documentaries and series from independent producers for all four BBC channels. In 2005 I became the BBC’s Independents Executive, responsible for the BBC’s strategic relationship with the UK independent television production sector across all genres – factual, drama, comedy and entertainment. In mid-2011, I went back to the world of production and consulting, for clients including NHK, Steps International, the Sunny Side markets, French production company Gedeon, and now the Australian broadcaster SBS. Of Indian and German parentage, I'm based between Copenhagen and my native London.