For the first edition of The Pitch in 2025, we had the pleasure of speaking with Anna Bressanin, a Senior Editor at BBC Video. The BBC, of course, doesn’t need much of an introduction; as the UK’s leading media platform, it has been broadcasting to the world for over 100 years and operates 50 foreign news bureaus globally. The outlet champions short documentaries through its platform, BBC Video, previously known as BBC Reel, where Anna served as the US Editor. During our conversation, Anna shares her most cherished projects and reflects on her experiences as a commissioner as we discuss what makes for a winning pitch.

The Essentials:

• Platform: BBC Video

• Senior Editor: Anna Bressanin

• Content Type: Editorial

• Editorial Themes: Travel, culture, history, science

• Ideal Video Format: Short documentaries, hosted or non-hosted

• Pitches/Submissions Considered? Currently taking pitches for The SpeciaList

• Where to submit: Email Anna Bressanin with your pitch

Kate Villevoye: Hi, Anna! Could you please introduce yourself to our VC readers?

Anna Bressanin: I am a senior editor at BBC Video, based in New York. I studied in Germany and I worked in France before moving to the US. I've been at the BBC for 14 years now, starting as a video journalist, working in the field with a little backpack — then I moved from News to Magazine, which features culture, travel, history, science; this kind of slower news. And we also do a lot of collaboration with TV and with other parts of the BBC.

In 2018 BBC Reel was created; it’s a platform totally dedicated to short documentaries and videos. I was leading a New York team of journalists and producers and we would run it together with our colleagues in London. We would have a new story every day, so we would commission a lot of stories from around the world. And we built a network of about 75 to 100 freelancers. Sometimes the ideas would come from our teams, sometimes the ideas would come from the freelancers, and we would shape them together, even when the idea would come from the freelancers — there was always a lot of input either from me as a commissioner or from somebody else in the team.

KV: What were some of your findings from your time as a producer/commissioner at BBC Reel?

AB: That it's really important to listen. From the point of view of a commissioning editor, I would receive pitches from people that didn’t know our publications so well, or come from a completely different part of the world that I might not know, and so the emails were not always coming in in a straightforward format where you're like, “Okay, this is a perfect story for us.” So you have to look closely, to see if there is something in there that can be the spark for something that actually feeds your editorial goals. And on the other side, I feel like the best freelancers are the ones who are able to look at your publication and understand what you are looking for, and then send you something that matches the editorial strategy — and if it doesn’t fit the first time, they would pick up on that and send you something else that does. It's like trying to create a match between two people who don't know each other, come from different experiences, and with different knowledge. So I think the key point there was listening, being able to understand that this is where we could meet. This is where something great can happen.

KV: Right — don't just shoot in the dark and hope for the best. Commissioners also only have so much time, so being very specific about how you go about pitching to them?

AB: Yeah, and also, if you get feedback, build on that. Build up instead of going backwards.

KV: It’s a shame BBC Reel’s commissions had to come to a halt — it brought such a wealth of great short docs. Does it leave you concerned about the future of short doc programming overall?

AB: My personal opinion, as a consumer, is one of an optimist. It's true that we are competing for eyeballs, but it's also true that people are watching much more in general. I think the future looks bright for people that create content and that think originally, and especially people that do great journalism. Even with AI on the rise; I don’t think the real “aha” moment in research or an investigation can be replicated by a machine. So, actually, it's an exciting time for people that are creative, or that are very experienced, very talented, or just have an original way of thinking.

KV: We love an optimist. Going back to your time as a producer for BBC Reel, were there any pitches that you received or productions you got to work on that have really stuck with you?

AB: Oh, wow, so many. You develop relationships and you see how people grow and how their work becomes more and more ambitious and how the creative process is always collaborative. For instance, Irina Sedunova: she is a Russian filmmaker who sent in a pitch, and we worked together for several years. I sent her to the coldest Arctic city in Russia, which was a former mining town and it had a history as the largest Gulag in the USSR. It became a three-episode story. It was a story that combined this excellent access — “I'm going to take you to a place that you as a viewer, most likely wouldn't go” — with this fascinating history behind it. So we worked with archival to cover the story of this mining town that was built in a place where human conditions are beastly, but at some point, I think in the 60’s, a lot of people went there to experience this economic boom. There was amazing archival of this flourishing town and then the dark side of history and even the story of a family that was affected by it, and she interviewed a survivor. It was really fascinating.

KV: I look forward to watching these! What other stories did you love working on?

AB: There was another very unique story from South America by Juan Francisco Riumalló that I like. It takes place in a town with two volcanoes; I think here, the wonder of nature coupled with the local knowledge and the sensitivity to the people living there made this so great.

Some of these pieces are from almost three years ago and people are still obsessed with them — that's the beauty of it living on YouTube, and the beauty of these evergreen stories that are linked to important topics of our times. They are not necessarily about what happened yesterday or today. More recently, there’s a multimedia piece on the Mappa Mundi I wrote and filmed with Davide Pompejano and Morgan Maugeri of Pomona Pictures in Italy — it just won a Lowell Thomas Award. Also worth a mention I think, are Why French men pee on the street and The unlikely fate of three Russian defectors in the US.

KV: For our VC readers eager to submit short doc stories to the BBC, do you know whether there are still opportunities for filmmakers to pitch?

AB: I am currently the Executive Producer for a new digital show that you can see online, called The SpeciaList. A specialist, an expert in some field, gives us a list of niche travel suggestions for a destination. For instance, we just completed an episode where a leading underwater archaeologist of the Mediterranean takes us on an underwater archaeology boat, and he gives us a list of five underwater sites that you can see. It features sunken cities and a 500-year old shipwreck. So it's a travel show, but travel in the sense of culture and inspiration and beauty and history. This is a short premium series — I'm doing 11 episodes, and I've already done four that you can see online. But I'm looking for ideas for the last three. So this is a very small opportunity, but if a great idea comes around, I’d be open to hearing about it.

KV: That’s great. I’m also curious, more generally, what advice you would want to share with filmmakers looking to pitch their ideas.

AB: You need to have something that is really new and original and strong. And actually, I feel like what I would most certainly do is get people together. I used to be a freelancer before joining the BBC, and I think that the moment when things started falling into place was when I started working with my colleague that then became the DP for most of my projects, and he's still one of my best friends. Know what your talent is; maybe you're more of a producer or a journalist, or maybe you're more of a visual person, or maybe you have a great intuition for what makes a good story — and then put together people to create a team. I think that's the most important. Find your people. You’ll also have more fun and you grow personally and professionally.

KV: What do you consider a successful project at the BBC?

AB: We look at stats all the time, so you could say success is in numbers, but for me personally, it's when we really manage to tell a story that wasn’t there before, and that is changing people's perceptions. That surprises me. I always hope it will surprise people and bring a little bit of light to the world. When people succeed at that through this collaborative project, or sometimes when they’ve managed to even get a project off the ground — because sometimes it's hard for creative people to always come up with ideas and always be making a living from it.

KV: Yes — there's an aspect to our work that's extremely enjoyable, the one where we get to interact with the world, we get to ask so many questions, we get to learn all the time. But filmmaking, especially on a freelance basis, can also often feel like moving mountains. So when a project comes to see the light of day, it’s important to celebrate that!

AB: Yeah. And also, the joy of finding the right way to tell a story — when you manage to find the right words, the right editing, the right person. I think the true joy is the moment where you nail that.

Have an idea for The Pitch? Send Kate a note directly!

Rough Cut Magazine is VC's digital mag for and by industry thought leaders, doc filmmakers, and video journalists across the world.