In our Winter print edition, Alicia Van Couvering wrote five short case studies of films raising production financing in innovative ways. One was Kentucker Audley’s Open Five, and now the film is finished and premiering tonight as the Opening Film of the 13th Memphis Film Festival. In addition to premiering for the Memphis audience, the film will also be streaming free for a limited time at Audley’s site. (Loyal readers will also remember that Audley was one of our “25 New Faces” of 2007.

From the press release:

Open Five is described as a blend of “reality and fiction” and follows the story of Jake, a struggling musician, and his sidekick Kentucker, a maker of “poor” films, and what happens when two NYC girls venture down to Memphis for a long weekend visit.

In Van Couvering’s piece, she wrote about not only the crowdsourcing campaign used to raise funds but also the importance of local events:

In addition to the online site, Audley and Case planned a local fundraiser. “We didn’t want to just throw a party and hope people show up, so we decided to give it a name – ‘Love Letter to Memphis.’ We invited local bands and set up a silent auction with work from local artists and vendors that had been donated, including a recording session at Ardent Studios and Elvis memorabilia. Then we asked people to ‘write a love letter to Memphis,’ which we thought we’d post on the website or just pin up at the event, and people actually took that part a lot more seriously than we thought they would.” In addition to accepting cash and checks, they also set up laptops so people could donate through the online site at the event itself.

Update: Here is the film.

Open Five from Paper Moon Films on Vimeo.