26 years after Gwangju

December 1, 2012 4:58 PM

The crowdsourced film 26 Years opened in first place in Korean movie theaters this weekend. The movie languished in development for four years, before finally being completed by collecting donations online - when fundraising closed on October 20 this year, 21,233 contributors had kicked in 747,790,000 Won (about 690,000 USD). The contributors' names are listed in the movie's ending credits. The movie's controversial subject matter involves a plot to assassinate former S. Korean president Chun Doo-hwan, in reprisal of his role in the Gwangju Massacre of 1980. The movie is based on Korean comics artist 강풀 Kang Full's web comic 26 Years, serialized from April 2006 to October 2006. (Some links in Korean)
posted by needled (6 comments total)

Crowd sourcing is definitely part of the future of movie production and it's a matter of time before we see a blockbuster that's been crowd {sourced, funded, produced, marketed, everything}. There's just too many brilliant and hard working people in the movie business and too much fan enthusiasm and money going around.

Wouldn't you help fund a crowd sourced movie by Lynch, Tarantino, the Coen Brothers or a new and brilliant indie director? What about a cheap short documentary about Mefi produced by other Mefites?

If some Kickstarter projects can take in 10 million USD or 8.5 million USD imagine what an well executed campaign lead by a well-known and respected producer, director or film person could result in. I can easily imagine a great movie idea and solid production team raising tens of millions of dollars when their financiers are millions of fans from all around the globe.

The difficult part seems to be getting the movies out to the people and in their cinemas, media devices and homes because media companies try hard to keep the competition out from their movie distribution ecosystems (cinemas, cable networks, data networks).
posted by Foci for Analysis at 5:44 PM on December 1, 2012 [1 favorite]

I hope it's better than Iron Sky.
I can't imagine what people who crowdfunded that must have thought.

More seriously, I had never heard of the The Kwangju massacre. That makes me sad. I really need to read more about post war South Korea.
posted by Mezentian at 6:01 PM on December 1, 2012

Oh god, Iron Sky was awful. But crowdsourcing experiments are great, even when they produce, um, lackluster results. It's all about learning experiences.

This looks great though. It doesn't appear as though the crowdfunding came with any creative input. Based on the trailer and synopsis, this is a film I wouldn't hesitate to watch. Yay for crowdfuning!

I never open my wallet for any of these endeavors, but I would fund a Lynch-Cronenberg production so hard.
posted by subject_verb_remainder at 7:50 PM on December 1, 2012

This is wonderful, thank you. I wish I read Korean.
posted by toodleydoodley at 5:24 AM on December 2, 2012

The Dramabeans link (2nd link in the post) provides a good background on reasons why the film had to turn to crowdfunding - former president Chun Doo-hwan is still alive, for one thing. Investors kept backing out at the last minute, and there were doubts the film would ever get made. The film was not completely financed through crowdfunding, but it did provide a significant chunk, and the media attention from the crowdfunding effort helped secure the much larger amount of money needed to produce the film.
posted by needled at 8:35 AM on December 2, 2012

I just finished reading the original webcomic (in Korean). It was amazing and tragic. I'm embarrassed that I don't know such a major part of Korean history.
posted by tickingclock at 10:13 PM on December 2, 2012