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While Web3 has yet to catch on outside of the cryptocurrency space, the burgeoning Film3 category had a big moment in the spotlight in Park City, Utah, on Saturday when “Calladita,” a new film from director Miguel Faus, was the first winner of the Andrews/Bernard Prize.
Established by acclaimed director Steven Soderbergh and the Decentralized Pictures platform, the three-part prize provides a total of $300,000 in post-production funding for notable feature films and shorts, for up to three filmmakers. Faus, the first winner, received a check for $100,000.
“Winning this award from Steven Soderbergh is a dream come true for me and the entire Calladita team and community,” said Faus Decryptand adds that he believes Film3 is the future of independent cinema and is the reason why “Calladita” exists.
“Calladita” is a portrait of the Catalan bourgeoisie, with a mixture of realism and satire.
“The film touches on themes of class difference and injustice from a deep and sophisticated perspective, moving away from simple clichés and caricatures,” Faus wrote in the film’s description.
Unlike traditional films, the team behind ‘Calladita’ financed the film using NFTs. This practice took off in 2021 and 2022, as other filmmakers, including iconic directors Spike Lee and Kevin Smith, turned to digital collectibles to fund films and drive engagement.
“This film started as a crazy idea in my mind that I might be able to finance my first film through an NFT collection, and a few months later, thanks to 500 geniuses on the internet who believed in us and created our NFTs, we had to make the movie,” Faus said. “To have it now awarded by a legend of independent cinema like Steven is a dream come true.”
With NFTs, film productions can create unique digital assets and sell them to collectors, investors and fans. Now, instead of just buying a ticket, movie lovers can own a piece of digital movie history while directly funding the next Hollywood blockbuster.
“What blockchain allows us to do is not only fairly and transparently determine who is most deserving of the funding we offer,” said Decentralized Pictures co-founder Leo Matchett during a panel discussion at the Film3 on the Mountain event, held in conjunction with the Sundance Film Festival. “But it also has this incentivized behavior mechanism built in.”
Joining Matchett for the panel discussion, moderated by Decrypt Studios’ Alanna Roazzi-Laforet, were fellow Decentralized Pictures co-founders Mike Musante and Rebecca Barkin, president of Neal Stephenson’s metaverse company Lamina1.
“The use of tokens goes back to how you get people to vote,” Musante said. “How do you get them to take the time to review the projects? So we created a token that is an incentive to get people to vote.”
Launched in summer 2021 by Mike Musante and producers Roman Coppola and Matchett, with a $50,000 documentary funding award from The Gotham Film & Media Institute, Decentralized Pictures is a blockchain-based platform where filmmakers can submit film pitches, pay a submission fee in the project’s native token, FILMCredits (FILM).
In April 2022, Soderbergh funded the $300,000 grant on the Decentralized Pictures platform. At the launch, Soderbergh said IndieWire that he was interested in seeing if blockchain film financing could really work. For “Calladita” it did. NFT sales brought the film about $750,000 so far, not including the $100,000 it just received in post-production funding from DCP.
While the world may not be ready to buy a monkey JPEG, the idea of directly funding and supporting their favorite creators could be the spark that launches a Web3 and Film3 revolution, creating a direct connection between filmmakers and their audiences.
Editor’s note: January 24 at At 8 a.m. EST, this article was updated to reflect that Faus won only the first portion of the total $300,000 film prize.
