Crowdfunding - more than a financing alternative

Artists and promoter of cultural affairs know too well, that public funds are limited. So more and more creatives are looking for alternative financing options. Crowdfunding is one option and offers the possibility to fund a project by the community. Filmmakers, who have a great idea, but want to produce mostly or completely outside of the major film studio system stand to benefit from crowdfunding. And it can do more than just collecting financial resources: the artist has the possibility to generate an audience before release. The community contributes their own content to the realization of the project and the artist may enter into active dialogue.

But crowdfunding is still young in Germany, so how to find this random community that loves films and would like to support independent filmmaking? Most creatives make use of online communities to solicit pledges of small amounts of money from individuals who are typically not professional financiers to fund their project.

By using this communities the filmmaker get an audience as an quality judgement. In classical cultural production gate-keepers decide which films are to be made. The internet offers the opportunity to reach special interest communities which exactly are interested in the subject of a film and no production company, no distributors, no sponsors takes hand in the film-project.

Easier said than done, but there are more and more examples that show: it works!