What Is The Pitch?

With the goal of spotlighting and supporting high quality work from Chicago and the Midwest, The Pitch at Industry Days invites filmmakers through the CIX: Lab program with narrative features in late stage development to apply for this opportunity to present their projects in front of a virtual audience and a panel of online industry judges.

The winning project will receive an awards package of in-kind services from Chicago-area production facilities and organizations—to include consultation, production, and post-production services.

Past award-winning projects have been invited to the Tribeca Film Institute All Access Fellowship, IFP New York’s 2016 Project Forum Film Slate No Borders program and Tribeca Film Institute’s TFI Network. Signature Move (The Pitch 2015 Honorable Mention) had its world premiere at SXSW and closed a distribution deal with Amazon Video Direct’s Film Festival Stars program. Other recent Pitch projects include Knives and Skin (2019 Berlinale premiere) and Once Upon a River (2019 Bentonville Film Festival premiere).

For questions about The Pitch, please email industry@chicagofilmfestival.com.

Award-winning multi-hyphenate filmmaker TOMMY OLIVER is also the Founder & CEO of Confluential Films, a production company and financier devoted to championing authentic, commercial, and culturally specific stories, and Black Love, a brand and media company dedicated to building community, conversation, and content around things that Black people love. Oliver’s recent films include The Perfect Find (Netflix), starring Gabrielle Union, Keith Powers, and Gina Torres; three Sundance 2023 narrative films, Fancy Dance (Apple TV+), starring Lily Gladstone and Isabel Deroy-Olson; Young. Wild. Free. (BET+), starring Algee Smith, Sanaa Lathan, and Mike Epps; and To Live And Die And Live, starring Omari Harwick and Cory Hardrict, as well as the Oscar-shortlisted, Spirit Awards and Emmy-nominated and Sundance Documentary Grand Jury Prize winner Going To Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project (HBO). Oliver’s past projects include AFI Fest Audience Award-winner Juice Wrld: Into The Abyss and the critically acclaimed HBO documentary 40 Years A Prisoner, both of which he directed, produced, shot, and edited, as well as the Sony thriller The Perfect Guy, which he produced and opened No. 1 in the U.S.; the groundbreaking docuseries Black Love, which he created and executive produced along with his wife, Codie Elaine Oliver; the Sundance and AFI Fest Audience Award winner Kinyarwanda, which he produced and Roger Ebert ranked as the No. 6 film in his top 10 of 2011; and Lionsgate’s critically acclaimed indie film 1982, which he wrote, directed, produced, and edited. Upcoming projects include Hamlet, starring Riz Ahmed, and Goons, starring Michael Rainey Jr and Chloe Bailey.

NINA YANG BONGIOVI is a BAFTA-nominated, award-winning film producer known to have launched some of the most lauded auteur filmmakers’ careers, like Ryan Coogler, Chloe Zhao, Boots Riley, and Rebecca Hall through their feature directorial debuts. Nina continues to champion and build within narratives of color to shift the Hollywood landscape for underrepresented stories. She is a member of The Academy’s (AMPAS) Producers Branch, national board member for the Producers Guild, and is the Associate Chair at USC School of Cinematic Arts’ Peter Stark Producing MFA program. Notably, Nina was awarded by Variety the Creative Impact Award in Producing in 2023.

ANIKAH McLAREN serves as the Head of Film for Higher Ground, Barack & Michelle Obama’s production company. Since its 2018 founding, the company has produced award winning and commercial films such as Leave the World Behind, Rustin, American Factory, Fatherhood, and Worth. Prior to joining Higher Ground, Anikah served as the Executive Vice President of Narrative Film at Participant, was Senior Vice President of Production at Fox Searchlight Pictures, and had stints at Universal Pictures, Focus Features, and Miramax. She was an Executive Producer on Judas and the Black Messiah and the Chicago-made We Grown Now. McLaren received a BA in English from The George Washington University and lives in Los Angeles.