Fund your film. Keep your vision.
Documentary, narrative, animation, or short. Raise the budget to finish your film without giving up creative control, and build an audience that shows up long after the credits roll.
Why filmmakers crowdfund on Kickstarter
Traditional financing means trading away control and the relationship with your audience. Kickstarter is the alternative built around the filmmaker.
Creative control and independence
Studio and investor financing often comes with strings: script rewrites, cast changes, cuts that alter your vision. Fund your film on Kickstarter and you answer only to the backers who already believe in the project.
A built-in audience and community
A successful campaign turns passive viewers into active stakeholders. Backers become your loudest advocates, sharing the project, championing it at festivals, and showing up for your premiere.
Real market validation
Proving a community will pay for your film before it exists is invaluable proof of concept. Use it to attract larger investors, distributors, and festival programmers who want evidence of audience demand.
Direct relationships with your fans
Unlike traditional distribution, where the studio owns the customer, Kickstarter lets you own your audience's contact information. Build a mailing list, engage fans during production, and market your next film directly.
More than funding. A launch partner.
Kickstarter is a funding and launch platform, with a marketing engine built in. Here's what comes with launching your film here.
Fund and launch
A trusted platform to take a film from idea to fully funded, with the budget to finish it your way.
Campaign partnership
Hands-on guidance from the Film team on goals, timelines, rewards, and outreach strategy.
Press and promotion
Amplification, festival ties, and open calls that build momentum around your launch moment.
Community tools
Backer surveys, updates, and resources to keep your supporters with you from pledge to premiere.
Films funded by their audience
Films funded on Kickstarter have earned 3 Academy Award wins from 18 nominations, 100+ Sundance selections, and 100+ SXSW premieres, including Matthew A. Cherry's Oscar-winning Hair Love.
The Apprentice
When the drama starring Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong hit distribution roadblocks and legal threats, the filmmakers turned to their audience to defend it and get it into theaters. Backers funded the release more than 4x over.
LightSail
Bill Nye and The Planetary Society asked the public to fund a solar-sailing spacecraft and the story of its mission. The community didn't just back the project, they helped send it to space.
Everything you need to plan your campaign
Start with the essentials. The Film team's guides and stories cover how to prepare, launch, and finish a successful film campaign.
Funding Your Short Film: An SXSW Masterclass
Industry veterans reveal expert strategies for securing funding for your short film, from crowdfunding to grants and private investors. One of the top-attended panels at SXSW.
Watch on YouTube
The Modern Filmmaker's Guide to Crowdfunding
A practical walkthrough on planning, launching, and running a crowdfunding campaign for your film.
Watch on YouTubeGetting started: how to run a film campaign
Fees, taxes, timelines, fiscal sponsors, and who actually backs your film. The Film team's guide to everything before you launch.
Read moreAfter your campaign ends
Fulfilment, backer updates, and turning a funded campaign into a finished film and a lasting audience.
Read moreFilm stories, case studies, and open calls
Sundance and SXSW premieres, Long Story Short for shorts, and lessons from filmmakers who funded here.
Read moreLet's connect.
Tell us about the film you're developing and our Film team will reach out to talk through how to bring it to life.
Tell us about your film