Are you familiar with the concept of crowd-funding? Wikipedia says it "describes the collective cooperation, attention and trust by people who network and pool their money and other resources together, usually via the Internet, to support efforts initiated by other people or organisations." It's become an increasingly popular way to raise funds for creative endeavours, especially in the not-for-profit sector, so here at WIFT we're always interested to see how people are using it to make films.
In this instance, filmmaker Estephan Wagner has emailed to tell us about a new crowd-funding campaign for the climate change documentary Vanishing Worlds, which tells the story of those most affected by climate change, and is currently in the process of filming. The film will be taking three families, three locations and three forced migrations: Alaska, where a Yup'Ik Eskimo village is sinking into the melting permafrost it was built on; an island community in eastern India, whose embankments can no longer contain the sea, resulting in the irreversible loss of land; rural villagers in northern China, who are inescapably losing their agricultural land to the encroaching desert. All three communities are now starting the journey of their forced relocation.
For the moment, you can find out more about the documentary and hw to lend your support on the Facebook page. (And it might also give you some ideas about how to use crowd-funding to support your own projects.)