I was just blown away at the audience reaction to How Love Won: The Fight for Marriage Equality in Minnesota. We screened the documentary for about 150 of our Kickstarter backers and people laughed, cried and cheered (in all the right spots, too!) The film received a long standing ovation. I am so happy you like it!
If you missed the screening, here is the big news: we’re submitting it to the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival, also known as MSPIFF (April 7-23) and the South By Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference in Austin, TX (March 11-19). We’re also submitting it to several other major film festivals.
Since this is a Minnesota-made film about a Minnesota story, I’ve been told it has a pretty good chance of being accepted to the MSPIFF. No guarantees, but a good chance.
It’s a different story at SXSW and other major film festivals. Thousands of films are submitted to these festivals every year and only a small number are accepted. However, I’ve been encouraged by other filmmakers who have seen How Love Won and assure me it has a chance to crack these festival lineups. If it did, that would give it higher visibility and a possible shot at wider theatrical distribution. That means more people would see the work you helped fund.
How You Can Help
Because this will be seen in theaters where people pay to see it, I have to get a theatrical license for some of the music that is used in How Love Won. That’s going to cost about $3,900. There are other costs — including festival fees and making promotional trailers. To defray most of these expenses, The UpTake is launching a drive to raise $6,000 to distribute the film.
If you want others to see this documentary, and you can help us out with a tax-deductible donation, please send a check made out to the The UpTake Institute (indicate in the memo line that it’s for the documentary How Love Won) to:
The UpTake Institute
1043 Grand Avenue, Suite 354
Saint Paul, MN 55105
We’re trying to raise most (or all) of this money through direct donations instead of having to use Kickstarter or other online systems that take a percentage of the donation. That way, your money will go further.
There are other ways to help. If you attended the screening and you liked what you saw please post your thoughts to our new FaceBook page www.facebook.com/howlovewon and like the page. You can also follow our new twitter account @howlovewon at www.twitter.com/howlovewon and bookmark our new web url www.howlovewon.com. Right now that url forwards to our Kickstarter website, but soon there will be a new site with news about the documentary.
If you were promised a DVD or t-shirt for supporting the movie, I haven’t forgotten. They are in the works.