Duke Roth Simon’s ‘Unbelievable but True’
Crowd Funding Experience
By Ellen Selby
Based on a true story, writer/director Duke Roth Simon’s feature film project
Debal-Uncrowned Underdogs explores the dark and dangerous world of an
underground drug cartel in Pakistan. The previously untold story takes place in
Roth's home city of Karachi, and is a labour of love that he's been working on
and researching for over 2 years.
Although he's received a lot of positive response when pitching the film over the
years, Roth struggled to source the financial support he needed in order to make
the idea a reality. In fact, if you take a look at Debal’s indiegogo crowdfunding
campaign set up on Raindance’s partner page, it would appear that that project is
still yet to raise a single dime.
However, in an unexpected twist of fate it was this very campaign that caught the
attention of a private investor within one week of going live and secured Roth and
his team the entire budget for the film.
A success story that proves how hard work, determination, practice and the use of
social media really can pay off, Debal’s recent crowdfunding triumph had all of us in
the Raindance office desperate to know more. Lucky for us, Roth was delighted to
tell me more about his experiences with this project when I was fortunate enough to
be put in touch with him a couple of weeks ago.
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