Kickstarter: best innovation for independent filmmakers since the digital camera?

We all know that digital cameras revolutionized the art of filmmaking, paving the way for extremely low budget productions and removing certain economic barriers for filmmakers/filmmaking. Mainstream directors even took up digital filmmaking for the advantages in mobility and cost. But what sort of innovation will come next that will further democratize the art of filmmaking? I don't mean to sound teleological here and make the argument that everyone will someday be a filmmaker (But is this not true? With cameras on cell phones, etc.?), but it does seem to be a direction the art is currently taking. I've blogged about alternative methods of distribution previously, and now the same (or similar members) of the group I was referring to before have started a Kickstarter project.

Kickstarter allows anyone to fund a project by contributing any amount of money, from a dollar to a hundred dollars. Often, this comes with some sort of material 'thank you' for the contributor (a t-shirt, for example). It also comes with the idea that one is taking part in the project by virtue of funding it, which is, I think, part of the website's rhetoric. Though, you could treat the site as an online store and 'browse' for purchases (if the projects succeed). Anyway, the point is that it allows funding to come from a multitude of small investors, simultaneously creating an audience and a backer for a project.

The project I've posted here is not breaking ground by using this site for filmmaking. In fact, 'film' is listed as one of the categories of projects you can fund on the homepage of www.kickstarter.com. I've searched 'film' on Kickstarter.com just now, and the search result came up with 866 projects. The project budgets range from $1,000 to $10,000, but I assume they could go higher. Here's the kicker though: these $10,000 projects are being funded! In the world of filmmaking, $10,000 is an insanely small budget of course, but for independents who start with nothing but (perhaps) a digital camera and a story, $10,000 makes a huge difference.

For many of the film projects, donating a certain amount gets you a DVD. So, the website essentially allows one to sell their film before it has been made, but without the need for a producer or distributer. I'd like to hear more about this experience from filmmakers who have tried using Kickstarter.com before. If you have, please comment and let me know how your experience with the website/funding went.

Also, take a look at Keep it Cinematic, a project that blurs the line between narrative filmmaking and music videos (an interesting project, because music in film usually operates to destabilize the narrative). Looks like an exciting project! Also, The Keaton Collective is an excellent band, so if you want to get started with Kickstarter.com, you can't go wrong with a $10 pledge to get their CD.

An Artist on Ideas I Like

Deleuze and Guattari are fairly well known for being liked by artists as well as academics. So, to help show that academia is not an isolated sphere, here is an excellent piece of writing by filmmaker Donal Foreman on many of the ideas I find most valuable from Deleuze and Guattari: http://donalforeman.com/writing/artandpolitics.html

US Premiere of En attendant Godard

US Premiere of En attendant Godard is coming up. August 12 at the Northwest Film Forum. Click here for more info on the screening. I'll be there, possibly with a few words.

And a sexy picture of director William Brown at work to spice things up!

Mohsen Makhmalbaf at St Andrews for Screening of Salaam Cinema

Mohsen Makhmalbaf recently visited St Andrews (with Marzieh Meshkini - so it was a double director billing) for a screening and discussion of his film Salaam Cinema. I wrote up an event report for the journal Wide Screen. Instead of reposting anything, I'll just leave a link: you can read about Makhmalbaf at St Andrews here.

En attendant Godard: Interview and Trailer

I previously posted a review of William Brown's new film En attendant Godard after seeing it at a screening in St. Andrews. Recently, Brown's film has screened at the CPH PIX film festival in Copenhagen. Festival organizers caught up with the director and some of his cast and crew for a short interview, in which Brown talks about his brush with Godard. For those of you who haven't seen the film, this is an exciting but ephemeral moment where it seems as if Godard will finally be revealed on film after thoroughly reveling in his textual manifestations. The interview reveals what I hoped to be true: Godard actually was present during the filming of this scene - but is Brown's refusal to film Godard up close a result of his humility, or a subtle flourish to the end of his film?



If you haven't seen En attendant Godard, here is the trailer:

Intercessors and Bahman Ghobadi's 'No One Knows About Persian Cats'

Bahman Ghobadi has been referred to by some as a 'rural filmmaker' because of films such as A Time for Drunken Horses, Marooned in Iraq, Turtles Can Fly, and Half-Moon, which take place along the Iran-Iraq border. These films are indeed quite rural, but what these people seem to miss is that he is a Kurd and he is making films about Kurdish peoples. Despite the fact that Kurds make up 12-15 percent of the population of Iran, many of the Kurds who inhabit northwestern Iran live in rural and even nomadic conditions because little money is spent on infrastructure (roads, electricity) for this region. Throughout history, the Kurds have been used as pawns in various struggles by neighboring countries in order to destabilize regions and gain political advantage. As a result, Iran carefully restricts displays of Kurdish nationalism and culture, fearing that these will result in a secessionist movement. Ghobadi is not a 'rural filmmaker,' but a filmmaker attempting to revitalize the Kurdish community and culture, as he does with the underground music scene in his latest film.

In his latest film, No One Knows About Persian Cats, Ghobadi moves out of Kurdistan to make a completely urban film about musicians in Iran – and it may signal the end of his so called 'rural films' with its controversial content (not to mention lack of a production/screening permit), which will likely bar him from returning to Iranian-Kurdistan. While Ghobadi himself claims that he is not a political filmmaker, but a cultural filmmaker, in Iran culture and politics are inseparable. Much like two of his previous films, Marooned in Iraq and Half-Moon, music draws the characters of these films into political situations.

No One Knows About Persian Cats focuses on a number of different political issues in Iran today, including the ban on Western musical genres, the difficulty of obtaining a permit to produce music or hold a concert, and the difficulty of obtaining visas and passports for travel. Perhaps unlike his previous films, No One Knows About Persian Cats is surprisingly upbeat for a film about censorship. While looking at some of the darker sides of censorship – Negar's lyrics stemming from the time she spent in prison, Hichkas's rap addressing poverty and prostitution – the film engages the great vitality of the underground music scene. In both its conclusion and its overall tone, however, it seems Ghobadi is not optimistic about the current situation. Even so, it is worth noting that most of the characters in Ghobadi's film (who are real Iranian musicians) do not want to leave Iran – they would rather stay in Iran and play their music for friends and family, only their inability to do so drives them abroad. Perhaps what makes Ghobadi's film so enjoyable, even if heart-wrenching, is that the lack of optimism is tempered by the musicians' continued dedication to their art.

It is not really news that there is a thriving underground music scene in Iran – see this BBC broadcast from 2005 – and this isn't the fantastic part about Ghobadi's film. The fantastic part about this film is that Ghobadi found these musicians while creating an underground recording of his own and allowed them to tell their own story. The plot may be fictitious, but the characters in No One Knows About Persian Cats are 'intercessors,' stepping between reality and fiction as they are allowed to relay their own lived experience. At times, Ghobadi's film feels a bit 'underground,' partly because of his use of non-professional actors (which he does in many of his films), and partly because the film takes on a documentary-like feel. Rather than being a documentary about the underground music scene, however, the story of No One Knows About Persian Cats emerges out of the real life struggles of these people. In the end, the film makes you realize that this isn't a story that could have happened, it is a story that has happened a thousand times.

Failed Psychotherapy in Shutter Island

Warning: contains spoilers!

Although Shutter Island (2010) was perhaps no more than your average Hollywood thriller, I thought it had some enjoyable, artistically playful moments that contributed to the overall dramatic intention of the film in an interesting way. These moments underlie the ending of the film, which is one I think Felix Guattari would have liked. The scenes I am interested in mainly exist in the form of inexplicable dream sequences, which crop up throughout the film - several images from these sequences can be found here, apologies for not finding my own images as the film isn't out yet! Often, they are indistinguishable from the diagetic reality - an extreme example occurs when 'The Marshall' meets the woman he was supposed to be hunting down, who claims she was a doctor on the island. It is likely that this scene never 'really' happened. And more often these dreams provide an example of what Daniel Frampton might call 'film-thinking' through fantastic scenes/images that do not immediately fit with the linear narrative of the film, but instead start to think their own relations to various elements of the film.

The Marshall's dreams increasingly permeate the film, leading the spectator to conclude his insanity in the crash between delusions and reality. Ultimately, this is also a question posed to The Marshall as well: Are you insane, or not? His caretakers admit that they've been letting, even facilitating, these delusions in an attempt to redirect his violent tendencies. In inhabiting his mind throughout the film, the spectator experiences what The Marshall experiences - in other words, we know exactly the effects of this perpetuation. We are able to experience his experience so exactly, because a single narrative has been imposed upon him through the use of drugs and role play - his 'world' has been chosen for him, and although he may be predisposed to inhabit this mode of Being, his therapists have given him no alternatives. Ultimately, when given an ultimatum, either choose death or return to reality, he chooses to die - stating something along the lines of, "better to die a hero than be insane."

He sees his only options as choosing between death and insanity, and why should he not? He has been kept in a constant state of paranoia throughout the film, where the only fluctuation of his identity has been between two poles: US Marshall and inhabitant of the asylum. For Guattari, this would have been a travesty. At La Borde, Guattari devised a system where patients would take part in the running of the clinic itself. Thus, they would be given different 'roles' to inhabit for a set period of time: for this month, patient A will be our cook, patient B will be our gardener, etc. The goal here was to involve the patients in different discourses/worlds where they might make diverse and positive connections, allowing them to see different ways of Being rather than labeling them 'insane' a priori. Had The Marshall been given the choice, who would he have become? Had his therapists prompted other becomings, other ways of existing, might he have given up on his delusions entirely? We can't say, because the therapists forced his delusions upon him for the sake of pacification. Guattari would have liked the film not for its ending, but for the fact that it reveals the problems with forceful psychotherapy where the patient only exists to be 'cured' - or, perhaps more appropriately: disciplined.