“The Quiet Maid,“ an upcoming feature film that was funded by a non-fungible token drop, just secured a global sales deal.
The film, created by Spanish director Miguel Fuas, has been purchased by Filmsharks, an Ibero-American entertainment firm. It was sold at Iberseries — a film industry conference held in Madrid.
Last year, the social satire called “Calladita” gained traction at film festivals around the world, which culminated in it winning a $100,000 award from Steven Soderbergh (director of Ocean’s Eleven) at the Sundance Film Festival. The money came from Decentralized Pictures, a fund created to help promising filmmakers fund projects through non-traditional methods. It was also picked up by the streaming service Max.
The 15-minute short, which tells the story of a maid in Columbia working for a wealthy family on the coast of Catalonia, was leveraged by Faus to sell NFT Passes to raise money for a feature-length film about the same story. The NFTs granted holders access to behind-the-scenes footage, as well as a share in a portion of the film’s eventual earnings. The drop successfully raised $750,000.
Faus, who is a first-time feature director, was elated by the success of the blockchain-based funding model. However, now that the global rights have been sold for the full-length film, he said “the film has to find its audience… independently of how it came to exist.”
The film will make its premier at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in Estonia, which runs from November 3rd to 19th of this year.
Web3 Is Shaking up the Film Industry
News that “The Quiet Maid,” a full-length film funded by NFT sales, has secured a global sales deal is a big deal for the film industry. At a time when Hollywood takes fewer creative risks, the ability for creators to fund films in an increasingly competitive and one-dimensional market is critical for the future of the industry. And from the looks of things, Web3 could be here to save the day.
At Rarity Sniper, we’ve written several articles about Web3 infiltrating the film industry. Here are some of the top headlines from this year:
- Spike Lee to Launch NFTs to Help Fund Filmmakers
- Movieplex & Cinema Libre Partner For NFT Films
- Tribeca Film Festival to Sell VIP Passes as NFTs
- Slamdance Film Festival Embraces Blockchain Funded Project
- NounsDAO Approves Proposal for Full-Length NFT Film
- ‘Godzilla x King Kong’ Film Company Files Web3 Trademarks
Furthermore, top movie studios including Paramount, Sony, and Warner Brothers have been investing time and energy in Web3. As time goes on, we expect these investments to increase.
Whether or not “The Quiet Maid” is a hit with the public, as director Miguel Faus noted, will depend on other factors, such as the quality and creativity of the film itself. But the fact the film was fully funded by an NFT drop is a win in itself. To learn more about NFTs in film, check out our most recent article: Could NFTs Transform the Film Industry?