More from my interview with Sarah R. Lotfi, writer/ director of Menschen:
Kathryn Gould: What is your background in filmmaking?
Sarah R. Lotfi: I have been in love with filmmaking as long as I can remember. As a kid I watched making of specials whenever I could, I studied film theory and production in college. I'm probably most known as a national finalist in the Student Academy Awards for my other WWII film The Last Bogatyr (2009). I've been a writer/director on more than one occasion for my other shorts that have gone to festivals like Tudor Rose (2008) and Waking Eyes (2011). I've interned in Los Angeles on HBO's Cinema Veritae (2011) through the Emmy Foundation, and been story logger for ABC's Celebrity Wife Swap among my production work.
KG: Why did you choose Indiegogo over other crowdsourcing sites? What has been your experience with it so far? What exactly are the funds you're trying to raise going to be used for?
SRL: Indiegogo claims they are the largest international crowdfunding site to date. You hear a lot about Kickstarter, but the stakes are high: it's literally all or nothing. With Indiegogo there is a flexible funding option which allows you to collect what you do raise...an option like that helps keep the momentum going on a production like ours. Also with the alliance with our fiscal sponsor Fractured Atlas, Indiegogo then becomes a crowdfunding platform that is tax deductible for our backers. It's a great way to give back to the giver. This is our third campaign for Menschen this way, our strategy has been to ask for support at different stages of the production and report back the progress.
This campaign now is just for festival applications. We want to reach people with this film and unfortunately it takes money to get it out there. Entry fees, promotional materials and shipping add up very quickly. We've done our homework targeting over 50 festivals around the world...how many we're actually able to submit to is entirely dependent on us reaching our goal on Indiegogo. We have just 11 days left and a long ways still to raise the $5,585 we need to take off with Menschen.
Read the final installment of the interview tomorrow.
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