Our History
The following year, Participant's debut slate of films, North Country, Syriana, Good Night, And Good Luck and the documentary Murderball, received a total of 11 Academy Award® nominations and one Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for George Clooney’s performance in Syriana. The company's many social action efforts for these films included a program for North Country that provided support for organizations and advocacy efforts, which resulted in the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act.
Participant was responsible for a worldwide phenomenon with its 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth, which went on to win two Academy Awards® for Best Documentary and Best Original Song and become one of the highest-grossing documentaries of all time. Participant's social action campaign directly resulted in more than 28 thousand downloads of our online guide on how to reduce oil dependence, nine countries incorporating An Inconvenient Truth into their curriculum for high school students and the offset of over 106 thousand tons of CO2, and indirectly resulted in four bills on climate change being introduced in Congress. Global warming was now part of the international conversation.
In September 2006, Jim Berk joined Participant as CEO. His role was to take the promising start-up to the next level, expanding the company's reach and brand identity beyond motion pictures into other forms of entertainment, enhancing social action and advocacy capabilities and overseeing all media investments and acquisitions. Working with Participant's President Ricky Strauss, Berk expanded the executive team in the key areas of social action, digital and new media and recruited teams for television production and publishing.
Participant's 2007 films included the documentary Darfur Now, the drama The Kite Runner, and the comedy Charlie Wilson's War. For one of its social action efforts for Darfur Now, Participant co-sponsored a fact-finding mission for NBA player Tracy McGrady that resulted in the athlete's ongoing commitment to support education for Darfurian refugee children, beginning with his underwriting the building of a new school in one of the 12 refugee camps in Chad. For The Kite Runner, Participant teamed with the Afghanistan Relief Organization, the International Rescue Committee, Amnesty International, Relief International, One Laptop Per Child and others to support literacy by rebuilding libraries, training teachers and providing computers and other educational materials for the war-torn nation. For Charlie Wilson's War, Participant allied with the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) to promote initiatives for education and mental and health benefits for veterans.
One of the most successful independent films of 2008 was Participant's critically-acclaimed drama, The Visitor, written and directed by Tom McCarthy (The Station Agent), which earned Richard Jenkins an Academy Award® nomination as Best Actor and McCarthy an Independent Spirit Award for Best Director. For its social action campaign for the film, Participant is co-sponsoring pro-bono workshops around the country offering lawyers training in the representation of immigrants detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at bond hearings.
In 2009, Participant’s films included The Soloist, starring Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey, Jr., along with the highly-acclaimed documentaries Food, Inc. and The Cove.
For The Soloist, Participant’s social action campaign focused on humanizing homelessness and mental illness along with grassroots efforts towards collecting donated food and clothing. Among the initiatives were “Orchestras Feeding America,” a nationwide food drive involving over 250 symphony orchestras from all 50 states; “Feed the Need,” in which nearly 24,000 teenagers raised 1.2 million pounds of food; and “Teens for Jeans,” which collected over 200,000 pairs of jeans for homeless shelters.
Food, Inc. became one of the year’s highest-grossing documentaries, and helped to galvanize public attention to inadequacies in the current food system in the U.S. and their connection to serious health issues such as diabetes and obesity. The film’s marketing campaign benefited tremendously from support from corporations such as Stonyfield, Chipotle, Whole Foods and Kaiser Permanente, while the social action efforts were enhanced by a generous grant from the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation to underwrite a screening program in minority communities. Participant’s first publishing effort, the companion book, Food, Inc. How Industrial Food Is Making Us Sicker, Fatter, and Poorer – And What You Can Do About It, is currently in its eighth printing from PublicAffairs Books.
For The Cove, Participant joined forces with Earth Island Institute and other organizations to develop a mobile and online international letter writing campaign urging the Japanese government to end the annual dolphin slaughter in Taiji. The overwhelming response led to the slaughter being suspended for the current season.
Recently, Participant has entered into a number of business deals that allow the company to expand and increase its output through guaranteed financing and distribution for a slate of films over the next several years, beginning in September 2008 with its $250 million film financing fund with imagination Abu Dhabi and in January 2009 with its non-exclusive worldwide distribution agreement with Summit Entertainment. In February 2009, Participant Media announced an equity investment in Me to We, a Toronto-based social enterprise promoting a socially responsible, globally-focused approach to living for young people who want to help change the world through their daily choices.