Acclaimed and prolific filmmaker Steven Andrew Soderbergh names the NFT-funded film ‘Calladita’ by director Miguel Faus as the winner of the Andrews/Bernard Award.
The Andrews/Bernard award launched by Steven Soderbergh and the Decentralized Pictures grants $300,000 in finishing funds for notable English-language films and shorts for up to three filmmakers.
The film synopsis of Calladita: “In a summer mansion in the Costa Brava, a young domestic worker has to serve two rich kids while she looks for her own way to have fun.”
Director Miguel Faus stated “This movie started as a crazy idea in my mind that maybe I could fund my first feature through an NFT collection, and a few months later, thanks to 500 degens on the internet who believed in us and minted our NFTs, we got to make the movie. To have it now awarded by a legend of independent cinema like Steven is a dream come true.”
Faus continued by saying he believes that “Film3 is the future of independent cinema and is the reason “Calladita” exists.”
Decentralized Pictures, a blockchain-based platform where filmmakers can submit movie pitches and pay a submission fee in the project’s native token, FILMCredits, was launched in 2021 by Mike Musante, producers Roman Coppola and Matchett, and with $50,000 in documentary funding from The Gotham Film & Media Institute.
Soderbergh funded the $300,000 grant for the Decentralized Pictures network in April 2022 as he was eager to test the viability of blockchain film finance.
Last June, legendary filmmaker Spike Lee stated that using NFTs to fund films is “bringing more democracy to filmmaking,” while speaking at the NFT.NYC conference. When asked if he’d fund his own project with NFT sales, Lee replied, “Maybe down the line, but not right now.”
Also Read: ‘Infinite Machine’, an NFT-Backed Movie by Versus x Decentraland x Lumiere
