Archive notice: This article was originally published on February 22, 2010. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
A feature-film production fuelled by the ideas of internet users and financed by them – that is what the Bitfilm Festival 2010 aims to realise. The idea: filmmakers around the world work together on a feature film; the internet audience votes on which elements appear in the film. The result of this “crowd production” is intended to be a feature-length film in which filmmakers engage with the subject of money in a wide variety of ways under the motto “Money & Me”.
“Everyone has an exciting story to tell about money,” explains Bitfilm Festival director Aaron Koenig. “We look forward to portraits of millionaires and dishwashers, staged films with actors, and animated films that clearly illustrate the complex relationships within the financial system.”
The audience votes online on which short films are selected in the documentary, feature film and animation categories. The most popular films in each category receive prize money from the Hamburg cultural authority. All filmmakers selected for the finished feature film will share in its box-office receipts.
“Money & Me will not be a conventional anthology film,” Koenig emphasises. “We will combine the short films very freely into a new total work of art, with a unified film score connecting the different elements. The filmmakers retain all rights to their original works and grant us the right to mix something completely new from them according to the ‘open-source principle’.”
Financing will be provided through “crowd funding”. From 300 euros, interested parties can purchase so-called film bits, for which they receive a share of the profits and more heavily weighted voting rights.
Submissions are possible until July 31, 2010, at http://www.bitfilm.com/festival. The award winners will be presented in Hamburg at the end of November.
Further links:
- Bitfilm Festival 2010