u/Iktsuarpoq

I'm a filmmaker, 20+ years in commercial and corporate work. Started developing my first feature a while ago.

When I'm not on set I work as a streaming engineer, and somewhere along the way both careers met in a passion project : a small free site for public domain genre films, horror, noir, pulp scifi. Most of these films exist online but scattered all over the place, usually in terrible rips. I just wanted to give them a proper home and clean them up a bit. I even saw people starting youtube channels in the same niche, so I'm not doing anything new.

It was originally tied to my feature as its own distribution channel but it became its own thing. It runs on donations to stay alive, and maybe one day opening up to other indie filmmakers, even help fund movies. I don't really know yet.

My own feature is attached to a small production company, but like most indie films, that doesn't mean it gets made. The platform kind of outgrew the reason I started it.

So I keep wondering : did anyone else here turn a side project into something bigger than the film that started it ?

Hi filmmakers,

I've been working as editor and director on commercials and corporate for 20+ years, but of course as many of us, I started the journey to make movies, narrative movies (I'm into horror mostly).

I worked on some crowdfunded films. It has worked, but that was 15 years ago.

I wanted to give crowdfunding a shot for my first feature anyway, it has a tiny production company attached, but we can engage a bit more that wouldn't hurt. After all, my master thesis was on alternative production financing, and I wanted to put that to the test. The result, my GoFundMe raised €40.

Not €40,000. Forty euros. (even writing it, it makes me laugh)

I know why. I'm alone, without an existing audience or following. In 2026, crowdfunding without a community behind you is not really crowdfunding. It's paying to market yourself, hoping something sticks.

My thinking: crowdfunding asks for a lot of effort and time, before the campaign and after. So why not offer something real first, so people support something that already exists?

Thanks to some coding skills and streaming knowledge (when I'm not on set, I work as a streaming engineer), I built a free streaming platform instead. Public domain horror, noir, cult oddities. These films exist online but most of the time they're scattered, with bad rips on dead YouTube accounts. I liked the idea of giving them a home, restoring as much as possible while respecting the originals. And to be honest I like coding!

It's free. If people want to support the project, they can. If people like it and want to help fund the film behind it, they can. If not, something real still exists. People are watching films. Nothing is based on a promise.

And if the platform grows, maybe it becomes more. Other filmmakers, other projects.

But the most practical part: my film already has its own distribution channel. One I built and control, even if it means cutting myself off from other distribution deals.

It feels more honest than asking strangers to fund something that doesn't exist yet.

Curious if anyone else has tried something similar, or if you think this model only works for certain types of projects.

The Blood Beast Terror (1968) was produceed by the same studio that made Witchfinder General, but you never hear about this one (I didn't).

Peter Cushing plays a Scotland Yard inspector chasing a giant Death's Head moth that transforms into a beautiful young woman, lures young men to the family manor, and drains them dry. Cushing himself later called it the worst film he ever made, I won't say it's so bad it's good but somehow it is.

I think he was being too hard on it. Yes the moth costume is sackcloth, yes the transformation effects don't work, yes it's slow. But everyone plays it completely straight, like the moth-girl premise is a serious gothic tragedy, and that's exactly what makes it land. The kind of British horror nobody bothers to make anymore.

It's easy to find online if anyone is curious, on Internet Archive or Tubi if anyone wants to watch it. And I now hosting a clean copy on a small thing I'm building, skrean.co alongside other forgotten and cult classic genre films.

Worth 88 minutes if you have a soft spot for British horror that takes itself seriously while being completely ridiculous.