U.S.-Spanish Documentary Feature ‘Bull Run’ Raises Finance in 24 Hours Using Token Funding (EXCLUSIVE)
Films can take years to finance, but for the filmmaking team behind the documentary feature “Bull Run,” the production was fully financed within 24 hours of launching the idea to a group of private investors.
Then the money landed in their crypto currency wallet. Filming proper begins on Monday.
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“We did the presentation on the Thursday. We gave the information to the people. On the Monday, there was the sale. Within two hours, we had half of the budget. And less than one day later it was sold out,” explained co-producer Juanjo Moscardó Rius of Spain’s Cosabona Films.
Los Angeles-based The Immigrant is producing. Camila Jiménez Villa and Silvana Aguirre’s shingle is backed by Fremantle.
Shooting starts in Valencia with plans to film in Madrid and in several Spanish-speaking countries, including Venezuela, Argentina and El Salvador, director Ana Ramón Rubio told Variety.
It all began, she said, when she discovered a passion for crypto currencies, during a personal crisis in the lockdown. Rubio found her way to her producers and fellow crypto fans, and a team was soon created.
Not only is the financing unusual. So is the doc-feature’s angle – comedy. “My father is a classical economist and he didn’t approve at all of my interest and said it’s a Ponzi scheme,” she said.
Rubio has been filming her journey into crypto over the past two years so some of the material is already in place.
Courtesy: The Immigrant
“We are not trying to explain to people how crypto works. This follows Ana’s personal journey into crypto, a world filled with financing pros,” said Jiménez Villa.
“Bull Run” is the second feature film from Rubio. She won best documentary for “Almost Ghosts” at the Arizona Intl. Film Festival.
Through “Bull Run,” the team will show how blockchain will enable new models of financing, production and distribution of content.
“We do believe this might be the very first film that is produced through tokenization,” Rius told Variety. “It’s a very new way to finance.”
Added Jiménez Villa: “It’s a healthy budget for a doc-feature. We didn’t even have the time to get it to the public because it was financed within a couple of hours.”
“For a director to be able to start so quickly is amazing,” said Rubio. “Usually it takes years.”
“A lot of projects went away in the pandemic,” said Rubio. “Crypto was a savior to me. I was having a big existential crisis.”
The film is divided into different sections. “Ana has been filming herself and is the subject of the doc-feature filmed over two years,” explained Jiménez Villa. “She’s a Trojan Horse into a world that is so cryptic but she makes it tangible for people.”
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