From the filmmakers, details below on a Kickstarter campaign for a much-deserved upcoming feature-length documentary on the late, great Maya Angelou – what will be the very first of its kind!
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We have financed the Maya Angelou Documentary with grants and out of our own pockets until now. Our Kickstarter goal represents the remaining cost of getting this film to the finish line.
If we are not able to rally all of the support we need through this campaign, we won’t be able to broadcast on PBS in 2016 as planned.
The Maya Angelou Documentary
The Maya Angelou Documentary is the first documentary about Dr. Maya Angelou. As friends from Dr. Angelou’s inner circle, we have been granted remarkable and unmatched access to Dr. Angelou’s life. After years of working on this film, we are honored to present her incredible journey to the rest of the world. Dr. Angelou has become a global symbol of peace, humility, and freedom–– but parts of her story are not well known. The Maya Angelou Documentary will reflect on how the events of history, culture, and the arts shaped Dr. Angelou’s life and how she, in turn, helped shape our own worldview through her autobiographical literature and activism. We hope to shed light on the untold aspects of her life and to educate audiences about her story.
About the documentary
We will examine Dr. Angelou’s remarkable life––from her birth in 1928 to her passing in May of 2014––which spanned the Jim Crow South, the Civil Rights, the Women’s, and Art Movements, along with her impact on celebrity and mainstream popular culture. Our team filmed Dr. Angelou at the Smithsonian Institution in April of 2014 when her portrait was unveiled for the National Portrait Gallery and at the 2014 Women2Women Conference in Atlanta, amongst other momentous events. We last interviewed Dr. Angelou in January of 2014.
Why now
This is a documentary for those who miss Dr. Angelou’s voice, and for future generations who need to hear her impactful words. Help us memorialize Dr. Angelou––her work, her life, her legacy. We are also in a logistical time crunch to finish the documentary for its broadcast premiere on the PBS series American Masters. With a story so vast and varied, there are tremendous archival licensing rights costs for images and footage that we need to account for. In addition, we need to finish the final edits, plus mixing, and color correction.
For more, click here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/692700038/the-maya-angelou-documentary.
The goal is to raise $150,000 in the next 30 days. Thus far, close to $25,000 has been contributed, so there’s still a long way to go. But there’s time.
Check out the *pitch* video below, and underneath, the project’s Kickstarter widget:
