Louis Theroux teams up with TriForce and Amazon to find the next documentary star!
TriForce Creative Network have joined forces with Louis Theroux’s company Mindhouse, Amazon Studios and The TV Foundation (the charity arm of the Edinburgh TV Festival) to launch ‘Looking for Louis’. Building on the success of our previous WriterSlam partnerships with Amazon, this time we’re looking for budding journalists and documentary makers who think they could be the next Louis Theroux.
We’re looking for exciting documentary ideas, with the filmmaker front and centre as the on screen talent. Whether your idea is about telling a story we’ve never seen on TV before, or whether it’s simply a universal story told by a different voice, we want to hear from you. We’re looking for talent who represent the society that we live in, and who will offer different perspectives, experiences and opinions.
You might have never worked in TV before but spend all your spare time making YouTube and TikTok content, or you might be a budding broadcast journalist looking for an opportunity to present your own documentary, or just someone with a great idea who’s confident in front of a camera! If you live in the UK, and you’ve got a great idea for a 2 minute documentary, we want to hear it.
All you need to do is send in a one page pitch about your documentary idea.
Competition Details
We’re asking people to fill in a short form on the TriForce Creative Network website and attach a one page pitch of an idea for a 2 minute micro-documentary. 10 people will then be selected by a panel put together by Mindhouse, Edinburgh TV Festival Fest and Amazon, who will be asked to make their 2 minute doc, shot on their mobile phone. All 10 shortlisted filmmakers will be given financial support to make sure they can deliver their film.
Louis Theroux will watch the films and select 6 filmmakers to go through to the Edinburgh TV Festival online final. Their films will be showcased online to the Edinburgh TV Festival audience during the session and Louis will then announce the winner.
They will win a six-month, exclusive option with Mindhouse. They will work together with Mindhouse’s creative team to develop projects and pitch them to commissioners with the aim of winning commissions in that time that will be executive produced by Mindhouse and authored or presented by the talent.
Amazon Studios will offer the winner a bespoke 12 month programme of mentoring and training to help them achieve their career goals.
Theroux said: “I am very excited to be part of this initiative. For me, one of the best parts of launching Mindhouse is being involved behind the scenes with new talent who can tell fresh stories in different and exciting ways. To paraphrase Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon, I’m getting old for this shit, and my knees aren’t what they once were. We need to safeguard the future of irreverent and intelligent on-camera reporting by bringing up the next generation of presenters.”
“Documentary filmmaking in the UK is world class, so we’re excited to be helping unearth the future generation of filmmaking talent, and mentoring and training them to help propel them to the next level in their career,” said Fozia Khan, UK Unscripted Executive at Amazon Studios.
“We’re really excited to be working with Mindhouse to offer budding journalistic talent the chance to be front and centre presenting their own ideas,” said Fraser Ayres of TriForce Creative Network. “It’s such a great opportunity to accelerate the winners’ careers.”
The competition is open to residents of the UK only.
Submissions are open from 10:00am on Wednesday 14 July – 11:59pm Tuesday 27 July.
For more information on how to submit, click here to go the Looking for Louis page.