What’s the deal?
No Alternative is an independent documentary about Switzerland’s art maker-spaces that we’ve been working on for the past five years. The film examines the Swiss underground that is powered by freedom of expression and access to local art and affordable culture.
Apart from a small pre-production grant we received in 2010 to buy equipment, we have funded everything ourselves, and dozens of people have supported our project with their time, energy or skills at low/no cost because they believed in it.
But the brutal truth is that making a movie costs money. And as we reach the final stages, we’ve realized there are some hard costs that we simply can’t negotiate or ask a friend to help us with… And that’s why we’re here.
– Where We Filmed –
Geneva, Lausanne, Montreux, Neuchâtel, La Chaux de Fonds, Moutiers, Sierre… we filmed all over French-speaking Switzerland. We went inside ten vastly different alternative art studios and found out what makes them tick, what keeps them up at night and why they do what they do. We dug into their archives. We talked with politicians, city officials, and people old and young alike about what it means to have alternative art and culture in their cities, and ultimately, how alternative spaces (like the ones we visit) are crucial for the health and evolution of local culture.
Why Crowdfunding
We’ve spent the past two years trying to raise funding to finish our film. The amount of bureaucratic hurdles in place is astounding. We thought about giving up at least 592 times. We wrote emails and made phone calls. We applied for grants. We cried. We got angry. We tried another way.
The long and short of it is, there is just no way to do this the industry way unless you run a business making films. We are indie filmmakers making a film about underground art and how it struggles to survive in the face of mainstream, consumerist culture… We’re not in this to get rich (LOL!). We need about $8.5K in hard cash money to get this film done, out the door, and in front of you.
– Budget Situation –
The money raised in this crowdfunding campaign will pay for archive footage rights (which are crazy expensive), on-screen texts/animation, a symbolic payment to our editor (who put in countless hours for which we could never really repay her), music licensing (90% of our music is from indie musicians who allowed us to feature their creations for free… the other 10% is painfully expensive) and DCP exports for cinematic release.
The below charts show our budget breakdown (in Swiss Francs (CHF) as No Alternative is a Swiss production, aka AlternaSuisse in French, the film’s main language).
Where We Are Now/What’s Next
We’re about 95% done with the feature length film (80 minutes) and about 75% done with the TV edit (52 minutes). Our plan is to finish the feature length version before tackling the version for TV broadcast.
The feature length film is being submitted to a dozen film festivals in Switzerland, along with a few international film festivals that revolve around art, alternative culture and/or indie film productions. The film will then be independently released in theaters across Switzerland, in addition to be screened in alternative venues around the country (2019) and in the United States (hit me up if you’d like to screen our film!). Once we’ve finished all the theatrical distribution the TV broadcast version will be released (we’re already in discussion with a two Swiss/European TV stations), and then the film will go to VoD (yes that means, iTunes, Amazon, etc).
More updates to come during our campaign! Kevin’s showreel is below if you want to see some of his past documentary work. Otherwise, stay tuned, let us know if you have any questions and thank you for your support! <3