Filmmaker Jerry Rothwell Receives First Annual Sundance Institute | TED Prize Filmmaker Award Rothwell awarded $125,000 to create Documentary Film about TED Prize Winner Sugata MitraPosted Jun 11, 2013
Los Angeles, CA Sundance Institute and TED, the nonprofit known for ideas worth spreading, announced that filmmaker Jerry Rothwell has been selected to receive the first-ever Sundance Institute | TED Prize Filmmaker Award the centerpiece of which is a grant of $125,000 to make a documentary film about the 2013 TED Prize winner Sugata Mitra and his wish, A School in the Cloud. The prize was awarded during the TEDGlobal 2013 Conference, taking place June 10 to 14, 2013 in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Selected from a highly competitive pool of outstanding global submissions, the UK-based Rothwell and his producers Al Morrow and Dan Demissie proposed a film, Like Whirlwinds, that will look at the development of Mitra's latest and most ambitious project, A School in the Cloud. The school is a learning lab in India that taps into children's innate curiosity and instinct to teach each other. Told from the perspectives of impoverished Indian children who speak no English and have little-to-no access to education, a retired school teacher in the UK who teaches and mentors these young people via the internet, and low-income students in Gateshead, England, who represent a new front in Mitra's visionary educational experiment, Rothwell's film asks the questions: is our current model for educating children an obsolete remnant of a bygone era?
Keri Putnam, Executive Director of Sundance Institute, said, We congratulate Jerry Rothwell and his team as they begin an exciting journey to bring to life the extraordinary vision of Sugata Mitra's large-scale collaborative project, providing a record of his work and an inspiring way for audiences to engage with the ideas behind it.
The Sundance Institute | TED Prize Filmmaker Award will be offered each year to one filmmaker to document the winner of the annual TED Prize, awarded each year to an individual with a world-changing wish.
Mitra, the recipient of the 2013 TED Prize, wished to create the School in the Cloud as an extension of his famous 1999 hole in the wall experiment. The experiment showed him that children, when left alone, can effectively teach themselves. From this and further research, Mitra developed the concept of SOLEs (Self Organized Learning Environments), which embraces a process where educators ask the kids big questions, leading them on intellectual journeys rather than asking them to just memorize facts.
With the TED Prize, Mitra has developed a SOLE toolkit for others to tap into this method and is creating the School in the Cloud: a learning environment that is overseen entirely by a global network of mediators. These mediators are retired teachers who Skype in through the Cloud. The school, and a series of labs to be built across India and the UK, will serve as both education and research centers to further explore self-directed learning globally.
We are thrilled to award Jerry Rothwell the first ever Sundance Institute | TED Prize Filmmaker Award, and are eager to see the vision he brings to document Sugata Mitra's TED Prize wish, said Lara Stein, Director of the TED Prize. Like the TED Prize itself, the Sundance Institute | TED Prize award unites artists, innovators, and thought leaders with a vision for spurring global change. Sugata's wish to build a School in the Cloud will have an important impact, and Jerry Rothwell's work will ensure his story is told beautifully, originally and authentically.
Rothwell is a seasoned documentary filmmaker, working globally, whose work includes the award-winning feature docs, Donor Unknown, Heavy Load, and Deep Water. His most recent film is Town of Runners, which was supported by the Sundance Documentary Film Program and Fund (DFP), is currently featured as part of Sundance Institute's FILM FORWARD, an international touring program.
Envisioned by Cara Mertes, outgoing Director, Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program, and managed with Richard Ray Perez, Producer, Creative Partnerships, Sundance Institute Documentary Film, the initiative seeks to increase resources for innovative non-fiction storytelling. Applications submitted from around the world were reviewed by Sundance Institute staff, TED and advisory committee members Jacklyn Jackie Bezos, president and co-founder of the Bezos Family Foundation; Jesse Dylan, Creative Director & CEO of Wondros; and filmmaker Mira Nair.
For more information about Sugata Mitra, winner of the annual TED Prize, and filmmaker Jerry Rothwell visit www.ted.com/prize.
Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program and Fund
The Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program and Fund provides year-round support to nonfiction filmmakers worldwide. The program advances innovative nonfiction storytelling about a broad range of contemporary social issues, and promotes the exhibition of documentary films to audiences. Through the Sundance Documentary Fund, the Documentary Edit and Story Labs, Composers + Documentary Lab, Creative Producing Lab, as well as the Sundance Film Festival, the Sundance Creative Producing Summit and a variety of international partnerships and initiatives, the program provides a unique, global resource for contemporary independent documentary film. www.sundance.org/documentary
Sundance Institute
Founded by Robert Redford in 1981, Sundance Institute is a global, nonprofit cultural organization dedicated to nurturing artistic expression in film and theater, and to supporting intercultural dialogue between artists and audiences. The Institute promotes independent storytelling to unite, inform and inspire, regardless of geo-political, social, religious or cultural differences. Interna
