Raj Panikkar sez, "We're screening a film called 'At Home By Myself… With You' (directed by Kris Booth, starring Kristin Booth – no relation) at The Royal in Toronto this week. The unique thing about the film is how we raised the financing to shoot. Quite literally, we campaigned for people to contribute their loose pocket change. The strategy took off, partly through an active Facebook and Twitter presence and also frequent video blogs detailing the contributions. By the time we shot the film, we had raised $42,000 (admittedly, one person's pocket change is occasionally another's small fortune – but it did really begin with 15 cents, 43 cents, a dollar 12, etc.) One might be led to assume that with a limited budget, there'd be a matching limitation on production quality. But the film looks gorgeous (Telefilm Canada came on board at the very end to help fund a pro finish), and reviews and comments have been great. We were reviewed by all the major papers in Toronto: The Sun, NOW, The Star, The Post, etc.
The film plays at The Royal for the rest of the week, and then gets its TV debut right away on TMN and Movie Central, plus a DVD release on April 6th."
(Thanks, Raj!)
(Disclosure: Raj's mother, Bev, taught me to read)
