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MAPPLETHORPE - a biopic film starring Matt Smith

Support a film about Robert Mapplethorpe directed/produced by Ondi Timoner, produced by Eliza Dushku

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MAPPLETHORPE - a biopic film starring Matt Smith

MAPPLETHORPE - a biopic film starring Matt Smith

MAPPLETHORPE - a biopic film starring Matt Smith

MAPPLETHORPE - a biopic film starring Matt Smith

MAPPLETHORPE - a biopic film starring Matt Smith

Support a film about Robert Mapplethorpe directed/produced by Ondi Timoner, produced by Eliza Dushku

Support a film about Robert Mapplethorpe directed/produced by Ondi Timoner, produced by Eliza Dushku

Support a film about Robert Mapplethorpe directed/produced by Ondi Timoner, produced by Eliza Dushku

Support a film about Robert Mapplethorpe directed/produced by Ondi Timoner, produced by Eliza Dushku

Eliza Dushku
Eliza Dushku
Eliza Dushku
Eliza Dushku
1 Campaign |
New York, United States
$114,914 USD 736 backers
114% of $100,000 Flexible Goal Flexible Goal
Choose your Perk
Mapplethorpe Lover

Mapplethorpe Lover

$5 USD
Est. Shipping
June 2018
45 claimed
Mapplethorpe Digital Download

Mapplethorpe Digital Download

$20 USD
Est. Shipping
April 2019
97 out of 300 of claimed
Leather Cuff

Leather Cuff

$25 USD
Est. Shipping
September 2018
14 claimed
Mapplethorpe Tote Bag

Mapplethorpe Tote Bag

$35 USD
Est. Shipping
September 2018
7 claimed
Mapplethorpe Poster

Mapplethorpe Poster

$40 USD
Est. Shipping
July 2018
4 claimed
Studded Leather Cuff

Studded Leather Cuff

$49 USD
Est. Shipping
September 2018
42 claimed
Leather Tie

Leather Tie

$59 USD
Est. Shipping
September 2018
5 claimed
Leather Vinyl Platter Mat

Leather Vinyl Platter Mat

$69 USD
Est. Shipping
September 2018
3 out of 20 of claimed
Special Thank You Credit

Special Thank You Credit

$1,000 USD
Est. Shipping
April 2019
16 out of 25 of claimed
Mapplethorpe DVD/Blu-ray
sold out

Mapplethorpe DVD/Blu-ray

$30 USD
Est. Shipping
April 2019
150 out of 150 of claimed
Eliza Dushku Follows YOU On IG
sold out

Eliza Dushku Follows YOU On IG

$75 USD
Est. Shipping
May 2018
50 out of 50 of claimed
Thank You Video From Eliza D.
sold out

Thank You Video From Eliza D.

$250 USD
Est. Shipping
June 2018
10 out of 10 of claimed
VIP Tribeca Premiere Screening
sold out

VIP Tribeca Premiere Screening

$2,500 USD
Est. Shipping
April 2018
1 out of 1 of claimed
Overview
Thanks to YOU, we have reached our minimum goal of $100,000 and that will help us finish the post-production for Mapplethorpe. Thank you so much! However, we are still raising more funds to cover the costs of the festival circuit and marketing. Join us, Matt Smith, Ondi Timoner, and the rest of our amazing team and support the independent biopic feature film about one of the most controversial photographers in American history - Robert Mapplethorpe.

Mapplethorpe is a biographical feature film about the iconic artist and cultural iconoclast, American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.  Famous for his highly stylized black and white photography, his work featured an array of subjects including celebrity portraits, male and female nudes, self-portraits, and images of flowers. His most controversial work is that of the underground BDSM scene in the late 1960s and early 1970s New York City. The homoeroticism of this work fuelled a national debate over the public funding of controversial art. The biopic chronicles his journey as an artist growing up in 1950’s Queens, New York.  He relentlessly pursued a career in fine art, gaining recognition as one of the world's most important photographers.  Robert Mapplethorpe died of AIDS at the age of 42 leaving a legacy that has waited three decades for the telling on film.

All Mapplethorpe Works © Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Used by permission.

Our journey has been one of collaboration and determination, finding the right people for the team, and crystallizing a vision that could inspire the kind of investment necessary to do Robert’s story justice.  We produced the film independent of a major studio, giving us the freedom to tell the story right.  We want to continue on this path and finish the film without any compromises.

This is where YOU come in!  

After a successful raise at the beginning of 2017, we completed production on Mapplethorpe in August and are honored to announce that we will be premiering the film at Tribeca Film Festival in April 2018! 

The team behind Mapplethorpe includes a spectrum of incredibly talented people working to make a great film on blood, sweat, and tears. Meet our amazing cast and crew below.

ONDI TIMONER has the rare distinction of winning the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival twice - for her 2004 documentary, DIG!, about the collision of art & commerce through the star-crossed rivalry between two bands, and her 2009 top prize-winner, WE LIVE IN PUBLIC, about Internet visionary Josh Harris. Both films were acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York for their permanent collection. Her other award-winning features include The Nature of the Beast, Join Us, COOL IT and BRAND: A Second Coming, which opened SXSW in 2015.

ELIZA DUSHKU made her acting debut in 1992 at age ten in That Night and has since starred in over 25 films including True Lies, Bring It On, Wrong Turn, City by the Sea, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.  On television, Eliza starred as Faith on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, and in her own series Tru Calling, followed by Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse which she co-produced.  Eliza has worked extensively in Africa and throughout the world, serving not-for-profit missions including one founded by her family, a Uganda based NGO, THRIVEGulu (THRIVEGulu.org).

NATHANIEL DUSHKU  produced and directed Dear Albania, a travel documentary about his father’s homeland (APT, Netflix, Amazon).  He is currently developing a television adaptation of the book series The Black Company with IM Global.  Nate recently headlined a campaign to acquire a film scanner in partnership with the Albanian Cinema Project and the National Film Archive of Albania allowing for the preservation and digitization of film shot in Albania and Eastern Europe both during and previous to communist era cinema.

RICHARD J. BOSNER produced the politically-charged true story Fruitvale Station starring Octavia Spencer and Michael B. Jordan which received the Sundance Film Festival U.S. Grand Jury Prize in the Dramatic category and the Sundance Audience Award, U.S. Dramatic, presented by Acura along with 44 nominations/wins during the 2013 Awards Season. Bosner recently produced The Wannabe starring Patricia Arquette, with Executive Producers, Dean Devlin and Martin Scorsese.

MIKKO ALANNE  is a screenwriter, showrunner, and documentary filmmaker based in Los
Angeles. He most recently created and was the showrunner for the National Geographic
Channel's global event series THE LONG ROAD HOME, based on the New York Times bestseller by Martha Raddatz. Mikko previously adapted Bill Roorbach’s acclaimed coming of age novel LIFE AMONG GIANTS at HBO and Chelsea Cain’s worldwide best-selling thriller series HEARTSICK at FX.

NANCY SCHREIBER, ASC is an award-winning cinematographer who has filmed countless features, including Folk Hero & Funny Guy, directed by Jeff Grace, which premiered in competition at Tribeca, 2016, starring Alex Karpovsky, Wyatt Russell, David Cross and Melanie Lynskey. Three new narrative films are about to be released, Mapplethope, for director Ondi Timoner, Moving Parts for director Emilie Upczak, and Kepler’s Dream for director Amy Glazer. Schreiber’s work in television was recently seen on ABC’s The Family with Joan Allen and Alison Pill, and the FX show, Better Things, staring Pamela Adlon, produced by Louie C.K. She also was the Director of Photography on the series, The Comeback, with Lisa Kudrow, and numerous pilots including USA's In Plain Sight.

TOM BROECKER is an Emmy-award winning costume designer. Currently, he is the costume designer for Saturday Night Live (since 1994) and Flesh and Bone (Starz). He was also the costume designer for NBC's 30 Rock. Other TV credits include House of Cards (Netflix), the first season of The Comeback and the second of season of In Treatment for HBO, The Big C (Showtime), The Beautiful Life on the CW and the pilot of Castle on ABC.

JONAH MARKOWITZ is a Production Designer, Writer, and Director. After studying film production at Emerson College Boston, film theory at FAMU in Prague and art history in The Netherlands, Jonah worked in development at Disney and Sony studios before beginning his design and directing work in film and television.  With a passion for period pieces, his recent design credits include the forthcoming Mapplethorpe, Netflix’s A Futile And Stupid Gesture, and The Diary of A Teenage Girl. Markowitz also designed the Chinese-Market action film Hollywood Adventures as well as the Sundance Jury & Audience Award winning film Quinceañera. Recently, Markowitz moved into television, designing 2 seasons of and directing on HBOs anthology series Room 104. 

See the full list of credits from Mapplethorpe's IMDB page.

We brought this film to the finish line, and now we want to give an opportunity to Robert’s and our community to make this movie their own. The funds raised through this Indiegogo campaign will go primarily towards music licensing, visual FX and our increasing festival expenses. We also need funds to go towards editing, audio mixing, color correction, titles, credits, film scanning, deliverables, marketing and all the people involved in these processes. 

Our two main challenges are that music licensing and finishing a period film with visual effects and polish is very expensive.  We still want every single moment of this movie to be perfect which is almost impossible on an indie budget shooting in New York City on film.  However, we are determined to surround the incredible acting and cinematography with a soundtrack and visuals that it deserves.  Every dollar we raise through this campaign is going directly towards the budget. 

The more we raise the better the film will be - it's that simple!

 

 

THANK YOU! We have now reached our minimum goal of $100,000 and that will help us finish the post-production for Mapplethorpe. However, we are still raising more funds to cover the costs of the festival circuit and marketing. Thanks to you, we will be able to attend couple US festivals but we have been invited abroad AND would like to be able to begin to bring Mapplethorpe to festivals worldwide. The more we raise on Indiegogo, the more festivals we can enter and attend. The more festivals we attend, the more of you will get to see the movie ahead of a commercial release. Mapplethorpe is in demand worldwide and you can help us achieve our goal of bringing the film to the widest audience possible!

You get to be a part of an amazing film and support the art of indie filmmaking!  If that's not quite enough, we've created a wide range of perks for you to choose from.  Most of the perks here are very limited and won't be available anywhere else - EVER!  See some of our favorite perks below and the full list of perks on the right side of the page. We will also release more perks during the course of this campaign, so stay tuned!

For this campaign, we have partnered up with an amazing Finnish neckwear and accessory brand called gTIE. We love them because they dare to be different and they offer cool alternatives to traditional men’s ties and women’s accessories. The creative genius behind the brand Jenni Ahtiainen, has a reputation as one of the most innovative and creative designers in the Finnish fashion scene. She is a visionary amongst the people who think for themselves and an idealist who belongs with those who question all authority. She worships unchained innovation, kind-hearted roughness, and right-minded attitude. Everybody can copy and be someone else, but gTIE is for those who dare to be original. We can't think of a better-suited partner to represent Mapplethorpe.  Each piece is handmade in Finland using high-quality materials. Here are some of the amazing leather merchandise she has created for the campaign:

This leather cuff is inspired by Robert Mapplethorpe and exclusively designed by gTIE for this campaign. The cuff has the @MAPPLETHORPEMOVIE logo printed on it but you can choose to wear it either on the outside or the inside as cuff is turnable. Each cuff is handmade in Finland using high-quality matte leather. You can easily adjust the size (one size fits all).

This studded leather cuff is designed for edgier backers who want to stand out a bit more. The cuff is adjustable and one size fits all. 

This skinny Leather Tie is inspired by the tie Robert Mapplethorpe himself used to wear. The tie is designed by gTie and is exclusive to the Backers in our Indiegogo campaign. You can choose from a red (like Robert's was) or a black tie. 

We also have a big selection of props and clothing that appear in "Mapplethorpe" and were used either by Matt Smith or other members of the cast.  All props and costumes come with a letter of authenticity signed by Eliza Dushku. See all available perks from the right side of the page. 

We also have options for you to see the film. You can get a digital download, DVD, or Blu-ray. Or if you can't wait for the official release and want to see the movie in style, you can join us at the Tribeca Film Festival!

Robert Mapplethorpe was born to a conservative Floral Park, Queens family in 1946. He spent much of his young adult life drawing and figuring out how to escape the rigid lifestyle and hopes of his parents. He eventually made it to the big city, forming lifelong bonds with other artists, rupturing the safe bubble of art that pervaded American culture of the time, and documenting an emergent homosexual culture that was nearly destroyed by AIDS.

His vast, provocative, and powerful body of work has established him as one of the most important artists of the twentieth century. Today Mapplethorpe is represented by galleries in North and South America and Europe and his work can be found in the collections of major museums around the world. Beyond the art and historical and social significance of his work, his legacy lives on through the work of the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. He established the Foundation in 1988 to promote photography, to support museums that exhibit photographic art, and to fund medical research in the fight against AIDS and HIV. 

The storytelling opens a window into the soul of a primordial art culture in New York. You will feel the texture of the times and view this incredible artist’s journey through that lens. We hope to celebrate an enigmatic figure who continues to give back to us and the arts, in spite of being claimed by the AIDS plague. We examine Robert’s connection to family, friends, and lovers and his consumption with the quest for beauty and perfection in his art. The price paid was enormous. The legacy that remains is undeniable. You can help us continue to celebrate Robert's work and to raise awareness to the issues that were important to him by supporting this film.

 

All Mapplethorpe Works © Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Used by permission.  

Sharing this opus with you is a way for Robert’s narrative film to be offered to the world. His story represents a unique individual, yet touches all of us. Our hope is that we can reach as many people with Robert’s story as possible. In these times, we need heroes and anti-heroes that remind us that telling the truth, whether it be through art or any other medium, can change the world for the better, forever.

The mission of our Indiegogo campaign is to raise funds against the increasing post-production costs in preparation for the festival circuit.  The mission is also to engage with our fans and foster a community in celebrating Robert Mapplethorpe’s story and remembering that art must not be silenced.  As indie filmmakers, Indiegogo provides an amazing platform to accomplish both.

During the past decade, our journey has been one of collaboration and determination, finding the right people for the team, and crystallizing a vision that could inspire the kind of investment necessary to do Robert’s story justice. We were able to complete production on Mapplethorpe in August of 2017 and since then we have been in post-production.  We finally have a movie and we cannot wait for you to see the final film.

 

If you do not have the means to make a donation, you can still help by sharing this campaign with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or any other means of communication.

Like our page on Facebook and follow us on twitter, and Instagram.

Email a link to this campaign to your friends and family: www.igg.me/at/mapplethorpe

Use the Indiegogo share tools at the top of the page!

The official hashtag for the film is #MapplethorpeMovie

We are relying on the passion of people like you to cross the finish line so we invite you to join team Mapplethorpe. Thank you!

For press inquiries, please contact Adam Kersh at Brigade Marketing: adam@brigademarketing.com 

For campaign/perk related inquiries, please contact: mapplethorpeindiegogo@gmail.com

When will this movie be released?
The world premiere of Mapplethorpe will be on April 22nd at Tribeca Film Festival in New York followed by two additional screening on April 22nd and 23rd, but we don't have an official release date for the movie yet except that we estimate the general release to be in 2019. When we have more info, we will inform the Backers. This schedule also affects the delivery time for the Digital Download, DVD and Blu-rays.

What will be the rating of the movie?
The movie is unrated at the moment as that is done through a rating board. The movie contains some mature content and we are trying to get it to an R, but that is not certain yet. 

What are "Behind the scenes updates"?
We will be sending you occasional updates through Indiegogo and/or email about the film and keep you posted as we embark on the festival circuit this year and the general release of the film in 2019. 

When will I receive my perks?
Check the delivery times from the perk descriptions. If the schedules change we will update all Backers as soon as possible. 

Will you deliver to my country?
We deliver anywhere in the world, so yes :)

Can I buy two or more perks at the same time?
Unfortunately, Indiegogo does not have a shopping cart to buy many items at the same time. However, there is no limit to how many perks you can buy (unless there is a limit on a specific perk) but you do need to make all purchases individually. 

Am I going to be able to buy these perk items after the campaign has ended / anywhere else?
Apart from a few items (digital download, DVD/Bluray mainly), the perks are chosen and created exclusively for this campaign and will NOT be available after the campaign is over and they are not sold anywhere else. All costumes and props are one of a kind. 

Where can I find information on the perks, campaign, the film etc. after the campaign? 
Make sure to bookmark our Indiegogo page as we will use it to keep posting updates about our campaign and perks. You can also follow Mapplethorpe on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to ensure you will get the latest information. 

Who is running the Indiegogo campaign?
The Indiegogo campaign is run by Eliza and Nate Dushku in collaboration with Spaceboy Crowdfunding Agency.
 
Please contact this address if you have any more questions: mapplethorpeindiegogo@gmail.com

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