Wild Parrots Distribution
The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill is a production of Pelican Media, a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization, and is directed by Judy Irving, a Sundance-and-Emmy-Award-winning filmmaker whose credits include Dark Circle, a nonfiction feature about the nuclear industry, and 19 Arrests, No Convictions, about a man who “escapes” from Alcatraz by swimming in the Bay. Ms. Irving received a Masters in Film and Broadcasting from Stanford University and is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her movies are distributed internationally to theatres, television, and non-theatrical outlets.
The film's festival launch in 2004 coincided with the Harmony/Random House publication of Mark Bittner's 300-page nonfiction memoir, The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill—A Love Story...With Wings. Pelican Media and Random House coordinated publicity for the two projects, mentioning the book in the film credits and the film on the book jacket. Film festival screenings in San Francisco, Ashland, and elsewhere engendered word-of-mouth and reviews, which helped secure theatrical distribution. In particular, the sold-out screenings at the San Francisco International Film Festival led to offers from two theatrical distributors, and in 2005, Shadow Distribution released the film to theatres in 35mm.
The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill played in over 500 cities nationwide, and is now among the top 30 highest-grossing theatrical documentaries. It is the 4th most popular documentary about animals, after March of the Penguins, Winged Migration, and Grizzly Man. Critical response has been overwhelmingly positive. (See rottentomatoes.com for film reviews.) The film has also played internationally on television—Latin America, Canada, Sweden, Thailand, even Al-Jazeera—and in theatres in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. In 2006 New Video/Docurama released the DVD, which contains the 83-minute feature film plus 90 minutes of Bonus Features.
In 2007 Wild Parrots was broadcast on the national public television series, Independent Lens, and received its highest ratings. In October, 2008, a double-disc Collector's Edition DVD was released by New Video. Also this year, the film became available on iTunes and Netflix, in addition to Pelican Media's web store, Amazon, Blockbuster, etc. Word-of-mouth has helped the film tremendously throughout its distribution, as more and more people discover its timeless story and tell their friends.