NFT Funded Film Wins Top Prize At Sundance

On Jan 29, 2023

An NFT-funded film, Calladita, has won the top prize at the Sundance film festival. The movie, directed by Miguel Faus, tells the story of Ana and “explores themes of class differences and injustice from a profound and sophisticated perspective, moving away from easy clichés and caricatures.”

Calladita is a Film3 type of movie that employs decentralized technologies to free and empower independent artists. In this case, Faus and his team financed the movie using NFTs, and by winning the Andrews/Bernard Award, it’s a dream come true.

The award was established in April of last year by Steven Soderbergh, a renown filmmaker, and Decentralized Pictures. To encourage independent filmmaking talent, he committed $300,000 in completion funds for notable English-language films and shorts, with the NFT-funded film, Calladita, representing the first film to win the award.

Speaking to Decrypt, Faus notes that Film3 represents the future of independent cinema and is the reason the movie exists. The award presented on Saturday had Faus beaming. He took to Twitter to express his joy, thanking the Decentralized Pictures Foundation, his entire team, and the more than 500 individuals who believed in his idea and bought the NFTs.

Legend Steven Soderbergh just gave us a Completion Funds award for our film CALLADITA at Sundance.
HUGE thanks to @DCP_Foundation, our whole cast & crew, and the 500+ degens that made this film possible. pic.twitter.com/Br8DFmlAzc
— miguel faus.eth 🎥 CALLADITA FILM (@miguelfaus) January 21, 2023

Decentralized Pictures is a non-profit organization that seeks to discover new and innovative filmmaking talent. The platform allows filmmakers to submit movie pitches by paying a submission fee in FILMCredits (FILM), its native token. Then, platform users get to vote on which ideas receive funding from grants.

According to Leo Matchett, cofounder of Decentralized Pictures, blockchain technology doesn’t only allow the platform to “fairly and transparently determine who deserves the financing the most, but also has this incentivized behavior mechanism built into it.”

What Does The Future Hold For Film3 After NFT Funded Film Calladita Won Top Prize?

That said, funding movies using NFTs represents a new frontier for filmmaking. So far, the likes of Spike Lee and Kevin Smith have utilized them to finance films and drive engagement. At a time when most people see NFTs as nothing more than speculative assets, maybe this is the kind of use case required to prompt mass adoption. Now it’s possible for fans to fund the next blockbuster and own a piece of its success.

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*All investment/financial opinions expressed by NFT Plazas are from the personal research and experience of our site moderators and are intended as educational material only. Individuals are required to fully research any product prior to making any kind of investment.

Basil is an avid fan of blockchain technology and all its innovations, and he is passionate about sharing this narrative with his audience. He has spent over five years in the crypto space, specializing in research and creating Web3 content for various media outlets around the globe. His work has been published on top websites such as NFT Plazas, usethebitcoin.com, European Blockchain Convention, and many others. When not thinking about disruptive technologies, Basil is busy exploring the outdoors.