Filmmaker Elena Rossini has written asking my support for a fundraising effort for a new film about the marketing of unrealistic and unattainable beauty ideals to women. She asked me to let you know about the plans for the film and seek donations to make this project a reality. I’m more than happy to do so – a film like this is more than overdue and so necessary to help address the global epidemic of body hatred and expose an industry that both creates this self-loathing then trades on it for profit. Filmmaker Elena writes:
THE ILLUSIONISTS is a feature-length documentary about the commodification of the body and the marketing of unattainable beauty around the world. The film will explore the influence that corporations have on our perceptions of ourselves, showing how mass media, advertising, and several industries manipulate people’s insecurities about their bodies for profit.
The ultimate goal of THE ILLUSIONISTS is to make viewers more empowered consumers of media, ideally enabling them to think about their bodies differently, and to appreciate them for what they can experience instead of how they look.
There are amazing experts already lined up for the interviews, including author & filmmaker Jean Kilbourne (best known for her iconic film series “Killing Us Softly”), psychotherapist Susie Orbach (best known for her books “Fat is a Feminist Issue” and “Bodies”), and Jenn Pozner (author of “Reality Bites Back”; she was recently featured in the New Yorker and on NPR). I’m also planning to interview some prominent authors, magazine editors, psychologists and photographers for a total of 30 experts in 7 different countries.
I hope you can help me spread the word about the campaign. Kickstarter is an amazing fundraising platform but they have a catch: their method is “all or nothing”. If I am even a dollar short of the funding goal by August 5th, I will lose all the pledges (credit card payments are charged only if a campaign is successful). On Kickstarter, we are offering people pre-sales of the film and various other gifts as rewards for donations. Through the generous donations of friends and fans we have already reached 50 percent of our goal in two weeks. But the road ahead is still really long….
Take a look at the trailer for the film and you’ll see how important this project is. I hope you’ll see the worth of investing in this project.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvohN493i4o[/youtube]
