Filmmaker Reaches A Socially Conscious Audience With Help Of FilmRaise...

By Meg Heckman

Photographer Lekha Singh describes herself as an “impact junkie,” so it’s no surprise that she wanted her latest film to reach a large and socially conscious audience.

Singh spent seven years creating “Beyond Right and Wrong,” a documentary that profiles people seeking reconciliation, not revenge, in the aftermath of tremendous violence. The narrative is a powerful examination of forgiveness, but it’s not the kind of big-budget blockbuster traditional theaters typically want to show.

So Singh approached nonprofit consultant Lindsay Hadley for help and, before long, they sketched out a plan to use a combination of charitable donations, social media and community events to promote the movie and encourage viewers to support related causes. The result is a distribution platform called FilmRaise, and it has the potential to change the dynamics of this kind of filmmaking in the years to come.

“Social impact filmmakers struggle to get their film out. It’s really tough,” said Hadley, CEO of the Utah-based Hadley Impact Consulting. “This model is helping the film go to people who are like-minded and care about these issues.”

“Beyond Right and Wrong” is the first project distributed through FilmRaise, but Hadley says films about the environment and other complex social issues will soon follow.

Here’s how FilmRaise works: Hadley recruits charities with missions that align with the topics addressed by a film and then amasses a pot of money from donors willing to contribute to those causes. In exchange for free access to the film, viewers choose their favorite charity — but those viewers don’t open their wallets. Instead, their votes determine how the money is distributed.

For “Beyond Right and Wrong,” Hadley SECURED $500,000 in donations and partnered with roughly two dozen charities working on issues related to forgiveness and reconciliation — including the Malala Fund, the Nelson Mandela Foundation, and the Utah Refugee Center.

As of a few weeks ago, about 15,000 people had watched online, and many more have seen the film at events around the world. The hour-long documentary chronicles people who suffered terrible losses because of violence in Northern Ireland, Rwanda and Israel. The circumstances of each tragedy differ, but they share the common goal of choosing a path other than revenge.

Jean-Baptiste Ntakirutimana sought out the man who killed his mother during the Rwandan genocide. Robi Damelin’s son died in the Israeli-Palestine conflict and now runs an organization that facilitates reconciliation between Israeli and Palestinian families who have lost loved ones. And Jo Berry explains to viewers how she met Pat Magee, the man who orchestrated the bombing that killed her father, who was an MP in British Parliament.

Berry and Magee have been speaking publicly about their experience for years, but “Beyond Right and Wrong” has helped them place their story in a broader context.

“It’s everyone in their own way turning the trauma around and doing something positive,” Berry said. “It’s saying no, I’m not going to CONTINUE the cycle of violence. I’m going to do something peaceful.”

Everyone involved in the project has been surprised by how deeply audiences are affected by the film. Hadley has heard from people who watched the movie and were inspired to contact an estranged family member or revisit old traumas. Singh hears similar stories, too.

“People are using it for marriage counseling, people are using it in hospice, people are using it in the military,” Singh said. “All these ways I never could have imagined using this film.”

http://ivoh.org/filmraise/