On Tuesday, Kickstarter announced that it is dubbing 2016 the “Year of the Trailer.” The crowdfunding giant declared in a blog post:
“Each month, the Film team will curate three to five new campaigns from some of our favorite filmmakers. But not for new feature films — for trailers. Some will be for actual films that the director intends to make someday. Others will just be trailers for trailers’ sake: exciting, out-there ideas that might not work quite as well in another medium.
“Our goal is to give our community an opportunity to experiment, to make small-scale work and build audiences outside of the bigger, longer-form projects they might be working on. The budgets will be small, but the ideas will be huge; the run times short, but the benefits long-term. We think it’s going to be fun, and we hope you’ll consider supporting a few of these trailers — or launching a trailer of your own!”
Kickstarter decided to “kick off” the “Year of the Trailer” by looking back at four campaigns from Sundance Film Festival alumni, all live on the platform.
1. And Then She Is the Darkness (Jennifer Reeder)
“An outcast teenager finds a book of spells in her coma-stricken mother’s belongings. As she and her stepsister explore the spells, they begin to fall deeper and deeper into witchcraft — and each other.”
2. Soothsayer (Trevor Anderson & Fish Griwkowsky)
“Weaving together elements of documentary, fantasy, storytelling, and performance, this sprawling Russian triptych braids together three stories: a family legend, a painter’s vision, and an epic fairy tale.”
3. We Were the Wilder Ones (Kenny Riches)
“A Western set in Riches’ home state of Utah, drawing inspiration from a family photo album.”
4. Wreck Negative (Brumby Boylston)
“Set in 1989 on an alternative timeline where the Western U.S. expansion never happened, an American Indian girl sets out to save her father’s horse from the outlaws who stole it.”