Shiloh Tumo Washington '22 Wins 'The Pitch' at Chicago International Film Festival
Filmmaker Shiloh Tumo Washington ’22 hit a major career milestone this season, securing $275,000 in production resources for his feature film “A Terrible Sound” while also celebrating the festival screening of his short “Bailey’s Blues” at the annual Chicago International Film Festival.
How a Pitch Turned Into a Payoff
As his film “Bailey’s Blues” screened on Chicago’s North Side during the festival, Washington was downtown at the Chicago Cultural Center competing at a festival event called “The Pitch at Industry Days.” There, Washington and collaborator Fabiola Auxila ’14 presented, or pitched, their concept for the yet-to-be-made film “A Terrible Sound” to a panel of judges. The goal: To win $275,000 worth of production support and consulting services for the film.
These resources would enable the project, which Washington has written and plans to direct, to jump off the page and into production.
“It was like everything kind of culminated in that moment,” he says.
Preparation Pays Off
For Washington, The Pitch was the end-product of the festival’s CIX: Lab, a series of workshops where Washington, Auxila, and fellow filmmakers focused on script development, directing, producing and pre-production, and pitching. Participants also enjoyed year-long consultations with a creative advisor.
On the day of The Pitch, Washington and his peers presented their projects in front of a live audience as well as three industry-insider judges: Producer Gabriel Mayers, who champions original, locally rooted stories and has produced festival-recognized films including "A Different Man" and "Mad Bills to Pay"; Christina Oh, an Academy Award–nominated producer known for "Okja," "The Last Black Man in San Francisco,” and the Oscar-winning "Minari," currently co-lead of Steven Yeun’s Celadon Pictures; and Luke Rodgers, an Emmy- and Tony-winning producer whose recent projects include "Magazine Dreams," "Rob Peace," Hulu’s "Legacy: The True Story of the LA Lakers," and the Tony-winning "Stereophonic."
“Speaking in public isn’t my favorite thing to do,” Washington says. “But we prepared for it for over a year. We knew the story and how best to immerse the judges in our world.”
After deliberation, the judges named “A Terrible Sound” the winning project.
“It was a surreal moment,” Washington says. “We were stressing so hard over the pitch and then suddenly, it was over. We’d spent a year preparing for those seven minutes, and now we actually had the resources to make the film.”
From Short to Feature: A Story With Chicago Roots
Written and to be directed by Washington , “A Terrible Sound” follows an innovative jazz pianist who moves up to Chicago in 1959 from a small, midwestern town and soon finds himself “en vogue,” in love, and with a new addiction.
Washington’s interest in jazz, archival footage, and historical storytelling fueled both film projects “Bailey’s Blues” and “A Terrible Sound.”
“I’d go on YouTube and see these low-res jazz performances and wonder: Who filmed this? What was that experience like for the musicians?” he says.
A Columbia Collaboration
Washington credits his parents, who both attended Columbia, for shaping his voice as an artist and Columbia for refining it.
“Being in a school like Columbia really helped with my creative edge,” he says. “Without it, I’m not sure I would have thought film was as much of a possibility, or as much of a life-changing way to say what I need to say.”
Columbia also proved invaluable to Washington for finding creative collaborators.
“I want to say like 90 percent of the people who were on the crew of “Bailey’s Blues” were from Columbia,” Washington says, noting the contributions of Auxila, cinematographer Corey Joon Clark ‘23, and first assistant camera Stefhanie Arreguin ‘22.
Washington also remains closely connected to his Columbia faculty mentors Ron Falzone and Ted Hardin as well as Karla Fuller, whose Black Film History course deeply influenced him.
“It helped me realize how much the form can vary and how I can take control of my own voice in a different kind of way,” he says.
As he continues revising the script for “A Terrible Sound” and advancing the project toward production, Washington draws motivation from the intensely collaborative nature of artistic development found in both music and filmmaking.
“Although there are periods of intense private study and practice, the musician — like the filmmaker — needs other people to realize and test their ideas,” Washington says. “Just because the work isn’t very visible to the audience doesn’t mean it hasn’t occurred.”