Blue Ant Media has launched a request for proposals (RFP) initiative in partnership with the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival, the Reelworld Film Festival and Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival.

The media company is seeking pitches from Indigenous and racialized producers for their linear channel T+E and FAST channel HauntTV, with a focus on paranormal series. The company is looking for projects that are either episodic or stunt programming, but with the potential of growing into a long-running series. The target audience is women between the ages of 25 to 54.

The projects selected for the initiative will receive a paid Canada Media Fund development phase. Blue Ant executives Julie Chang, EVP, business strategy and coproductions, global media, and Sam Linton, VP, production and development, global media, will meet with producers and creatives either virtually or in-person at the partner festivals to provide further details.

Chang tells Playback Daily that part of her role is to look at how Blue Ant “can invest in projects in different ways,” and notes that the company has been looking at development funding for racialized producers to help build a pathway for them to achieve a greenlight.

According to Chang, Blue Ant has dedicated $30,000 toward the initiative overall, allocating up to $10,000 in grants per festival. Producers selected for the initiative will own the copyright to any production and development materials, Chang adds.

“As a woman of colour, I have a first-hand understanding of the challenges and barriers of entry into our industry, which is why it’s so important to help bolster independent productions and bring diverse stories and new perspectives to our screens,” says Chang.

Linton says the request for paranormal content stems from the fact that it performs well on their T+E and HauntTV platforms. Among the top-performing titles are Haunted Hospitals (Sphere Media) or Eli Roth Presents: A Ghost Ruined My Life (Cream Productions).

“I’ve been working and greenlighting shows in this genre for 10 years, and I’m excited to collaborate with creatives who can offer a different lens on the paranormal,” says Linton, adding that there are no set goals in terms of bringing a project to greenlight or the budget level they’re looking for. “In a perfect world, we would love it if one of these projects was greenlit, but I would also like to look at this development phase as a real opportunity to work with new voices,” she says.

Linton will be at imagineNATIVE in Toronto on Wednesday (Oct. 18) for in-person meetings. Both Linton and Chang will take part in virtual meetings at Reelworld on Nov. 7, then will hold in-person meetings at Reel Asian on Nov. 14. The final pitch deadline is Nov. 17.

Image courtesy of Blue Ant Media