Amid the high-budget films nominated for Oscars this year was a Kickstarter-backed documentary with humble financial beginnings. The creators of Period. End of Sentence. first turned to the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter in 2016 to raise $45,000 to make the project, and the contributions from the 358 backers paid off big time: Period won Best Documentary Short at Sunday’s Academy Awards.
Surprisingly, Period. End of Sentence. wasn’t even the first Kickstarter-funded film to snag an Oscar nod. Since 2011, 15 Oscar-nominated films have been funded through Kickstarter.
The first Kickstarter-funded to win an Oscar was 2012’s Inocente, which took home the coveted Best Documentary Short statuette. That project raised more than $52,000 from 294 backers. “[Kickstarter is] a great outlet for films, especially for documentaries,” Inocente co-director Sean Fine told journalists backstage after winning in 2013.
Over the past decade, filmmakers have raked in more than $428M in Kickstarter pledges for over 70,230 independent films, features, documentaries, shorts, and web series. More than 26,000 of those projects reached their required goal and were deemed “successfully funded.”
