Los Angeles/ Salt Lake City [Slamdance Festival] , Feb. 08, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Untold.io (https://untold.io/), the first and only FINRA member equity crowdfunding platform focused solely on impact content, is to preview its new film Fuzzy Head at the Slamdance Film Festival this Sunday. Untold announced that it has partnered with easy-to-use wallet Dapper. The partnership helps enable fractionalized ownership of alternative assets in a regulated way.
Fuzzy Head, a surreal psychological thriller directed by Wendy McColm, is premiering at Slamdance film festival, where it was honorarily placed. In Fuzzy Head, Insomnia-ridden Marla is on the run after the murder of her mother. Now, Marla (portrayed by McColm) must confront her everlasting void to find out the truth of what really happened and at last, undo all that's been done. Marla embodies the journey of meeting her child self to rewrite her story.
McColm is acclaimed as a top emerging director. The feature has been described as Terrence Malick meets David Lynch. The team behind the film is composed of notable industry personalities (Alicia Witt, Rain Phoenix, Fred Melamed, Richard Riehle, Frank Oz). Slamdance film festival is dedicated to promoting grassroots productions and has launched industry changing careers, such as Christopher Nolan (Dunkirk) and Rian Johnson (Star Wars: The Last Jedi).
“Having a platform to invest in carefully-vetted entertainment projects with impact-driven agendas that would otherwise not have access to Hollywood screens is a unique opportunity,” said Ali Aksu, CEO of Untold.io. “We are all about using film and entertainment as an educational and healing tool to improve the condition of our world, and we’re grateful to have the added support of Dapper Labs to support exciting indie projects like Fuzzy Head.” Aksu is a serial entrepreneur with two exits at Universal and Netflix in his repertoire.
Untold’s name is its agenda. As an enabler for indie film, it uses two instruments – microfinance and streaming – to fill a gap, helping independent filmmakers to produce untold stories and promote impact. This revolutionizes funding accessibility by democratizing the financing of entertainment projects, opening investment to accredited and unaccredited investors for as low as $100.
Dapper is the easiest way for everyday consumers to get started and feel comfortable in Web3. Created by Dapper Labs, the company behind NBA Top Shot and NFL ALL DAY and the original creator of the Flow blockchain, Dapper provides the safety users need to keep their assets secure as they explore blockchain-based experiences.
Untold champions unconventional, impact-driven content that not only entertains but educates and inspires audiences to solve real-world problems. With a strict vetting process that only accepts major award-winning producers, artists and founders to ensure investors are supporting pre-vetted projects, Untold also prioritizes the SDG/ESG blueprint when it comes to vetting the area of impact for a specific project.
Untold has supported a number of notable films to date.
- The Comeback Trail features Robert DeNiro, Tommy Lee Jones, and Morgan Freeman in an insurance scam they plan in order to save themselves from debt with the mafia.
- Directed by award-winning filmmaker Greg Reitman, KOHOLA tells the story of the environmental crisis of the oceans as seen through the eyes of a humpback whale and her family.
- Winning multiple awards for best director and cinematography at the women’s production event Femme Filmmakers Festival 2022 and other accolades at the International Children Care Film Festival 2022, Down from the Clowds follows a young girl’s love for her father and longing for an intact family life.
- Carter is about awareness and the conflict and solidarity that arises in a family when a young teenager finds out that his older brother is queer.
While film content is usually dictated by the market for mainstream productions, for indie films with offbeat content, funding is an even greater challenge. Nearly half of independent feature films never get a theatrical release, and only 3% of all films turn a profit. If they do, they are almost always supported by mainstream agencies, film festivals, and well known film stars. Untold established a strategic partnership with a sales company, Hollywood Media Bridge, to help independent films find their exit strategy as the production is underway.
While theater closings caused by COVID caused a crisis in the film industry, streaming is turning things around. In the first year of the global pandemic, the demand for streaming grew to one billion subscriptions worldwide. Streaming is good because it cuts costs enough to make small budgets work for arthouse and genre titles. With accessible microfinancing and streaming, Untold is addressing two pivotal enablers for independent film.
As a member of the Council for Inclusive Capitalism, Untold is taking action to promote an inclusive and sustainable economy and has pledged to support free education for independent, impact driven content creators, setting ambitious crowdfunding financing goals of $100M for this group, to 2030. It is also a member of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, an organization that regulates member brokerage firms and exchange markets.
Untold.io intends to accelerate film production by opening up investment opportunities to the broader public. The platform is the only FINRA member funding platform for content that enables investment via Reg CF, providing a simple and cyber-secure way to invest with either credit, ACH, check or wire transfer, and crypto in the near future. Untold also embraces the future of Web3, offering investors a variety of benefits ranging from attendance at film premieres, inclusion in credits, NFT merchandise, and more.
For more information on Untold, visit https://untold.io/.
About Untold.io
UNTOLD is the only SEC-registered investment platform in the media and entertainment industry that allows both accredited and unaccredited investors to invest in mass media (i.e. movies, TV shows, streaming content, etc.). UNTOLD was created to meet the demand for streaming content by connecting investors and producers, allowing them to share the benefits of accelerating the content production cycle. Developed by international film producer, Ali Mahir Aksu, Untold offers simple, cyber-secure, and transparent investment opportunities for both retail and institutional investors via reg cf and reg d.
For more information, visit https://untold.io/.
Dapper Labs Boilerplate
Dapper Labs uses blockchain technology to make web3 experiences easy, safe and fun. Since it was founded in 2018, Dapper Labs has given enthusiasts a real stake in the game by bringing them closer to the brands they love, building engaged and exciting communities for them to contribute to, and producing new pathways for them to become creators themselves. Dapper Labs is the maker of the Dapper Platform – the trusted gateway to digital worlds – as well as officially-licensed digital video collectibles including NBA Top Shot, NFL All Day, UFC Strike and LaLiga Golazos. Notable investors in Dapper Labs include Andreessen Horowitz, Coatue, Union Square Ventures, Venrock, Google Ventures (GV), Samsung, and the founders of Dreamworks, Reddit, Coinbase, Zynga, and AngelList, among others. For more about Dapper Labs’ products and mission, visit dapperlabs.com.
About Slamdance Film Festival
Slamdance is a community, an experience and a statement. Established by a wild bunch of filmmakers who wanted to showcase the unfiltered voice of independent artists, Slamdance is an ongoing experiment that has proven, year after year, when it comes to recognizing talent and launching careers, the independent and grassroots film communities can do it themselves. Slamdance has launched a number of notable careers in the film industry.
MovieMaker has recognized Slamdance as one of the 50 best film festivals, and it is a qualifying festival for the Academy Awards.
For more information, visit: https://slamdance.com
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