Hi Flushers!
As we dive head first into 2016 we wanted to take the time to say a big THANK YOU for all of your support in the past year. We made incredible progress and we could not have done it without you!!! As a gesture of our gratitude and desire to keep you up to date, we would love to share with you our highlights of 2015.
JAN/FEB: Big Sky Festival
We were picked out of hundreds of projects to pitch at the Doc Pitch Fest at Big Sky Film Festival in Montana.
The Big Sky Documentary Film Festival has become the largest cinema event in Montana and the premiere venue for non-fiction film in the American West. The festival draws an audience of 20,000 and receives over 1400 film entries from every corner of the globe.
We pitched to a panel of industry funders and broadcasters. Previous years have included panelist from such broadcasters/funders as the BBC Storyville, POV, ITVS, CNN, Sundance Doc Fund,and Participant Media.
We got amazing critical feedback on Flush Revolution that we applied in the coming months.
EARLY SPRING: New Investors & Research
We brought two new investors on board and raised $25k for filming in Singapore. Both investors are PhDed professors at UC Berkley and USC who believe in the power of our message.
We also continued research into other characters and possible story lines for Mr. Toilet.
MAY- JUNE: Planning for Production Singapore
During this period our team was planning for production in Singapore, getting visas, finding camera people locally, coordinating with our lead character Mr. Toilet and much more!
We also spent a great deal of this time applying to grants. In 2015 we applied to 12 grants from prestigious foundations and institutes, each an average of 15 pages long!!!
JULY- AUG: Filming in Singapore
This past summer we took a trip across the globe to Singapore to understand the backdrop of Mr. Toilet’s life. We had full access to his organization (The World Toilet Organization), its staff, partners, his family, business partners and Singaporean government officials.
We captured hours of the man behind the toilet revolution and got to do a fun photo shoot too 🙂
SEPT: Kickstarter Prep and Social Media
In Septmeber we launched a great deal of our social media pages (follow us now!) and prepared for crowd funding through the platform Kickstarter.
OCT- NOV: Awarded Chicken & Egg Diversity Fellowship
Our amazing director Lily Zepeda was awarded the Chicken & Egg Diversity Fellowship and was flown to New York to participate in Doc NYC. There she networked with incredible award-winning documentarians, listened to panels on filming, fundraising and distribution, and celebrated World Toilet Day on November 19th.
NOV-DEC: Successful Kickstarter!
We closed out the year strong by raising $45k in our Kickstarter campaign. Kickstarter was so impressed by our project that we were chosen as a staff pick and were featured as the project of the day.
Over 300 people donated to the campaign and the following organizations gave a shit about us:
PSI
Skoll Foundation
Water for People
Chicken & Egg
United Nations
Global Poverty
The Girl Effect
Charity Water
Concern Worldwide
The Harnisch Foundation
2016: Looking Forward
In 2016 we plan to film Mr. Toilet’s next mission working with India’s Prime Minister Modi to solve the country’s massive sanitation crisis. We have 30 percent more to film and then we will bury our heads to edit this incredible film to share with all of you.
We cannot tell you how much your support means to us. Thank you and here’s to an exciting and promising year ahead!
– The Flush Team
