CALL FOR PITCHES

Benefits: None
Schedule: Flexible
Location: Regional Field 

Overview

The Center of Puerto Rican Studies (CENTRO) will award $15,000 to five producers to participate in Rooted + Relational Social Documentary Lab to each produce one of five episodes for the next season of the Emmy Award-Winning TV show Puerto Rican Voices. Puerto Rican Voices is an investigative documentary TV series produced by CENTRO, which focuses on stories that highlight the social issues of Puerto Ricans in the diaspora and their connection to the archipelago. The series airs on CUNY-TV and then gets published on our YouTube channel. For this new season, we are focusing our series on stories of placement and displacement of the Puerto Rican diaspora; with a focus on well-known diasporic communities, recently established diasporic communities, and  returning migrants to Puerto Rico. 

What We Are Looking For
Season 6 of Puerto Rican Voices is looking for pitches that center stories of Puerto Rican and diasporican placement, displacement, and migration in communities across the US and return migration to Puerto Rico. Examples include:

• Histories and new issues in historic diasporic communities 
• Stories and community efforts in lesser-known diasporic communities 
• Formation of new diasporic communities across and beyond the United States
• Gentrification, dispossession, and environmental battles in diasporic communities
• Rematriation and Return Migration to Puerto Rico 
• Sexiles and LGBTQIA political, social, and economic displacement
• Mutual aid efforts, communal practices, support systems, and solidarity projects in the diaspora 
• Creative individual or collective practices that bolster cultural preservation and transformation
• Historical preservation, archive development, or public memorialization projects
• Local and diasporic foodways, food justice, and food geographies in the context of shared and co-constituted communities  
• Stories about place, land, bodies, and race
• Internal displacements, new migrations, and cultural exclusion or erasure in Puerto Rico

Potential projects must include the following five pillars:

1. Story: The episode must have a clear narrative arc with a well defined investigative angle. We are looking for compelling stories that drive the subject or theme of the documentary episode, and are connected to the season at large. The final product should be accessible to a general audience. 
2. Unique perspective or angle: The stories must have a unique perspective or angle about the theme or topic being proposed. Show us how you are bringing an original perspective and research as a filmmaker. The pitch should ask or propose questions that have not been asked and decenter traditional approaches. 
3. Historical Context: The project must look at the larger historical context of the featured community, including but not limited to: issues of colonialism, labor, migration, geography, gender, housing, education, etc. How are you framing this complex story/history for the non-expert viewer? 
4. Interconnections: Projects must be developed through a critical lens that considers the interconnections present in the communities or participants to be centered; should show agency, foreground undertold stories, and complicate the ways we think about certain issues, groups, individuals, or communities. 
5. Representational ethics: The proposed project and creative team must demonstrate understanding of the lived experiences of the participants and communities; prioritizing first-hand knowledge and exercising curiosity to explore new dimensions of the issues presented in a non-extractive way.

Eligibility

• Open to all but applicants must demonstrate a close relationship to Puerto Rico or the Puerto Rican diaspora and its histories
• Applicants must have directed or produced at least one 20+ minute documentary short-film
• Project and budget proposal and must demonstrate the producer’s ability to deliver the episode

Duties & Responsibilities of Selected Producers:
General

• Propose and execute an episode following the Season 6 PRV guidelines
• Select their team members for their episode (DOP, Sound person, etc)
• Manage episode budget on the field
• Communicate and report progress with the Series Producer/Showrunner 
• Collect likeness and location releases and coordinate film permissions
• Follow Puerto Rican Voices Series workflows on Asana (our project management tool)

Pre-Production

• Participate with a cohort of filmmakers as part of Centro’s Social Documentary Lab
• Attend workshops provided by Centro to learn about our Archives, Data Team and other resources at Centro
• Work with the series producer to develop a production plan for their episode
• Coordinate interviews, and b-roll shots 

Production, Post-Production 

• Direct the shooting in the field and conduct interviews
• Gather clearances, behind the scenes photographs, and video files
• Media manage and DIT to ensure proper backup of files and delivery of footage to Centro for editing 
• Review footage with editors
• Share the list for locators, lower-thirds, credit of their episode with Series Producer
• Participate in cohort meetings to watch the episodes and enact feedback
• Enact notes and deliver along with editors the video cuts delivered by filmmakers: rough cut, fine cut, final cut
• Work with the series producers to finalize and package all materials ready for distribution
• Participate in the promotional efforts and public presentations of the Series

Timeframe

• Applications due by June 1, 2025
• Fellowship begins August 11, 2025

Services covered by CENTRO
As Series Producer, CENTRO will cover the following services:

• Fact-checking
• Editing
• Audio VO recording pending project needs. 
• Writing support
• Translation
• Graphics
• Basic color/ Sound mix

Requirements to submit proposals
We are looking for documentary filmmakers who can tell investigative stories from a critical point of view and are eager to produce works that can generate a social impact. They must demonstrate comprehension of the cinematic language, and have the capacity to produce to the highest quality standards of a television broadcast. All applicants must demonstrate the capacity to produce and be able to execute their production within a three-month period once pre-production begins. Applicants may submit their proposals in either English or Spanish. Please note the following requirements:

• Complete a documentary-core application and submit before June 1, 2025, at 11:59pm ET You can access the application in the following link: APPLY NOW
• Respond to CENTRO specific questions in the application
• Submit at least two work samples
• Provide CV and biographies of the producers and creative team
• Proposed Budget based on the amount granted. The total budget should include a contingency amount

About Puerto Rican Voices
Puerto Rican Voices is an Emmy award-winning investigative documentary show broadcast on CUNY TV and other digital platforms that delves into the Puerto Rican and Puerto Rican Diaspora current issues. For this 6th season, we will be working on a cohort and collaborative model.

About the Rooted + Relational Social Documentary Lab
The goal of CENTRO Social Documentation Lab is to create a documentary series through a collaborative cohort workshop model that provides a space for independent documentalists to participate in a co-mentorship process. Participants will also have the chance to accompany in the production of new cinematographic content about recent Puerto Rican realities. The workshop proposes to develop documentaries that permits us to imagine new forms of coexistence and unity for Puerto Ricans off the island. The program will consist of five documentalists in residence for a period of six months. Each documentalist will be in charge of researching, and producing one of the episodes of PR Voices.  During this time, participants will be involved in a series of workshops and a lab where they will discuss their project progress with other members of the cohort and Centro Media Team. The group will have two months to carry out the pre-production phase and research for their films, one month for production and 3 months for post-production phase. 

About the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College (CENTRO)
CENTRO is a research institution based at the City University of New York’s (CUNY) Hunter College. Founded in 1973, CENTRO supports interdisciplinary research of the Puerto Rican experience across and beyond the United States. In addition, it functions as the archive of the Puerto Rican diaspora. The Center is composed of researchers, archivists, professors, students, and communicators committed to the investigation and preservation of Puerto Rican history, culture, and memory.