Entering its 15th year, the Banff Television Festival’s International Market Simulation is a must-attend event at the festival and has been transplanted at various programming conferences around the world.

The Market Simulation offers producers the opportunity to pitch their projects to an international audience of programmers, financiers and buyers. Not only do producers get to suss out potential interest, but with ringleader Pat Ferns urging the international broadcasting reps to lay down some cash, anything can happen – including the producers’ dream of landing a development deal on the spot.

Three projects in the drama and entertainment genre will be pitched at this year’s Market Simulation, with an additional three in the documentary, kids’ and educational programming category.

Following are some of the projects stepping up to the pitcher’s mound. . .

‘I want to go to the manager of McDonald’s and get my money back for my Happy Meal because I’m not happy,’ says Sherry Shaw-Froggatt, writer, producer, host and subject of Shrinkage, a humorous one-hour doc about ‘mental illness phobia.’

Budgeted at a mere $130,000, this documentary takes such an irreverent approach to the issue of mental illness, it was accepted to be pitched in the Real Drama and Entertainment category. And as part of the pitch, Shaw-Froggatt will perform a stand-up routine.

Recently diagnosed manic depressive, freelance writer and former ad exec Shaw-Froggatt will take us on a ride inside the closet of the mentally ill, challenging the stigmas surrounding shrinks, lithium and people suffering from depression.

The project will span North America as Shaw-Froggatt will visit the West Edmonton Mall to find out if people really are happier when they shop, will interview people up and down the east and west coasts to see which side is happier, and take us into comedy therapy sessions in Calgary and workshops at the Gesundheitl Institute in West Virginia (founded by Patch Adams).

In the meantime, however, coproducer and director Bobbi Jo Krals is still looking for money for development.

‘It would be great if we could find a distributor who would be willing to put money into the budget in advance,’ she says, adding, ‘we’re going to Banff to find first and second window broadcasters.’

Although she has her eyes set on cbc, tvontario, wtn, hbo and the bbc, she says she’s hoping to have someone on board before Banff.

Shaw-Froggatt’s Montreal-based Esperanto Productions is only two years old. To date it has produced one half-hour documentary, A Calling To Care, about a Canadian nurse in Pakistan, which recently aired on cbc, Vision tv, wtn and scn. The idea for Shrinkage is a direct result of Shaw-Froggatt’s struggle with her own mental illness and came about through a series of e-mails between her and Krals, two longtime friends who have been talking about joining forces for years.