Congratulations to Re-Take Oakland filmmaker, Pallavi Somusetty, for winning the $40,000 DocPitch 2023 Jury Award for her film, Coach Emily. Presented by DocLands Documentary Film Festival, DocPitch is an invitation for North American based filmmakers to submit their unfinished feature-length documentary projects currently in early to late stages of production. A jury selected five filmmaking teams to present a verbal pitch and a three-to-five minute trailer.
Coach Emily is a feature documentary that follows Emily Taylor, an Oakland-based Black and queer rock climbing coach, as she battles systemic racism in her professional and personal life. Through her Brown Girls Climbing program, Emily trains young girls of color, including her own daughter, as they resist discrimination in the climbing world and work to define themselves in the outdoors.