Sundance Film Festival embraces blockchain and crypto film initiatives

Web3 technologies continue to infiltrate various mainstream industries to bring innovation to old systems. This includes legacy creative fields such as the music industry and, more recently, the film industry.

This year, the Slamdance Film Festival, an oscar-accredited film festival for indie filmmakers, will see the premiere of the new film Fuzzy Head, which received its funding through the blockchain-powered crowdfunding platform Untold.io. 

Ali Aksu, the CEO of Untold.io, told Cointelegraph that filmmakers, like those on Fuzzy Head, could use blockchain technology to democratize their financing process and open up investment opportunities to accredited and unaccredited investors.

“The most important aspect of crypto/blockchain integrations in the film industry will be opening up a new asset class to all kinds of investors via compliant security tokens and increased fan engagement via NFTs.”

Recently, Untold partnered with Dapper Labs to accelerate the technology and allow wider access to its programs. The platform has also supported other notable films, including The Comeback Trail, which features Rober de Niro and Morgan Freeman. 

Related: Bluechip NFT project Moonbirds signs with Hollywood talent agents UTA

This is not the first instance of a film festival seeing crypto and blockchain components in films that are premiering. In 2019 the Filmio blockchain platform attended the legacy Sundance Film Festival to scout projects for its blockchain-based entertainment platform.

Last year, Liquid Media Group announced its first blockchain film streaming with a slate of digital panel presentations during the Sundance festival. The company also presented the impact of nonfungible tokens (NFTs) on filmmakers and their communities.

In 2022, Russel Crowe’s Prizefighter film used NFTs to partly fund its production and became what the director called an “audience-driven film.”

Aksu said that the utilization of blockchain-based tools by legacy directors and major festivals brings visibility to these tools for independent filmmakers who would highly benefit from them.

“These are also great opportunities to create a real community behind revolutionary movements like blockchain.”

Last year, film director Anthony Hopkins sold out an NFT collection based on characters in films he had already released.

Quentin Tarantino also created NFTs based on his ionic film Pulp Fiction. However, he was later involved in a major lawsuit with the film production company over copyright infringement.