We’re so excited that BIG JOY: The Adventures of James Broughton is getting such wonderful responses from audiences and reviewers. In the course of a few short months we world premiered at SXSW, won best documentary at Florida Film Festival, The Reel Northwest Award at Seattle International Film Festival, and finished in the top 10 for the documentary audience award at Tribeca. We’ve screened as far away as Hong Kong and as close to home as the Castro theater in San Francisco.
In fact we just won honorable mention for “Outstanding Documentary” at Frameline!
We’ve decided to “follow our own weird” in our distribution process, and use multiple inspiring means of getting the film and the BIG JOY message out to the world. This is our FINAL Kickstarter campaign, and we look forward to working with you to spread the joy.
We are looking for funding for DIY distribution so that we can connect the masses to the genius that is James Broughton. While running a single week in NY can cost as much as $50k, we are relying on grassroots and a hybrid theatrical distribution model to keep costs low and audience engagement high. Nonetheless there are expenses to incur: to book theaters, print posters, do publicity, have multiple exhibition copies, etc.
This film has been about blazing our own path from the beginning. With the help of great partners along the way like IFP and Northwest Film Forum, we have shown there is an audience for this queer literary indie film icon. All the money raised will go directly into the release of the film where we will arrange for poetry readings, special Q &A’s, and celebrations. For our international audiences, you are part of the process too. We want the film to reach the world and our Kickstarter DVD’s and Digital Streaming will not be regionally encoded.
“Big Joy: The Adventures of James Broughton” is a documentary about embracing your passions and becoming the person of your dreams, disguised as an inspiring biopic about pioneering filmmaker and poet James Broughton.
If Broughton were still alive today he would be 100 years old in November. He continues to live on thanks to the works of his contemporaries like Jack Kerouac, Gus van Sant, Keith Hennessy and Armistead Maupin, but with your help we can makes his legacy live beyond his centennial. And who doesn’t want to help a 100-year-old man spring back to life (Non zombie, of course)?
Please help us get Broughton’s message of “Adventure Not Predicament” out to the world!