Microfinanced art

Filmmaker Ido Fluk found out that going it alone can sometimes be very expensive.

"I went to the Israeli Film Fund and I got very good feedback," Fluk said. "Everyone said they could imagine the film but they all felt something was lacking so they offered to fund a screenplay editor for us. But I just wanted to do it - I didn't want to sit at home and edit it again and again. I felt comfortable with the screenplay and I wanted to go out and film it."

Fluk, who is now filming his first full-length feature, realized that the only way to do this on his terms would be to see to the financing himself. He decided to invest his savings, about NIS 50,000, half the necessary sum. To obtain the remainder he sent out an announcement on Facebook and by email asking for NIS 100 donations to his film in return for a percentage of the profits. Thus far he has succeeded in enlisting more than 200 investors, who have given more than NIS 20,000 total plus an expensive camera.

Fluk, 29, studied film at New York University in Manhattan and has made video-art pieces and experimental films. His final project for NYU in 2005, "Cooking for Richard," won him a prize at the American Ivy Festival for student films and praise from the editor of the French magazine Les Cahiers du cinema.

"I wanted to make films the way I make music," he says, "with the meager means I have at my disposal. When I went to record the album they told me I needed a studio that costs $100 an hour with equipment, with a technician, with a producer and who knows what. I didn't know a lot about music so I just inserted a chat microphone into my laptop and we recorded everything in that way. The problem is that with film you can't record into the laptop in your bedroom the way we do with music."

Director Oren Peli proved this year, though, that it is possible to do exactly that. His blockbuster, "Paranormal Activity," was filmed in his bedroom with the help of a single camera, two actors and a budget of $15,000.

"Yes, it's going in that direction all the time," agrees Fluk, "and what we have in common is that in the end both of us are people who maybe said to ourselves, 'I want to make a film and I am going to do it with what I have.'"

Participating in his film, "It's Never Too Late" are Nony Geffen, Pira Kantor, Dina Blay, Keren Berger and Eyal Rosales. The plot focuses on a young fellow (Geffen) who returns from a long stay abroad and starts working around the country hanging advertisements for a matchmaking service. He travels from one city to another driving his father's old Volvo.

"I felt there was room on the Israeli film scene for a movie like this," Fluk said. "The road film genre is rich and it has a long history, especially in the 1970s in the United States. In Israel there has been less treatment of this genre - there haven't been too many films showing Israel with all its landscapes. I wanted to try to apply this genre in such a small place, where it is impossible really to do a road trip."

Why make an independent film?

"First of all, the aim was to make as small and as inexpensive a film as possible and to use free things, which as far as I am concerned are the landscapes of Israel. I felt that the kind of cinema I want to make depends on the filming and the place where I am and what is happening there. This is a kind of film you can't get across by means of a screenplay you submit to reviewers - you can't describe what happens when you don't know in advance. For example, when we filmed a scene in Yokneam two days ago in which Nony Geffen hangs the posters, suddenly two little girls went up to him and watched. We turned the camera on them and between him and the girls a charming scene developed. In a cinema with a very organized division into shooting days it's hard to do things like that. I think that if they had paid me a million dollars I wouldn't have done anything differently - I wouldn't want another 20 crew people and assistant helpers and generators here."

You have managed to bypass the film funds and this a rare thing for young filmmakers in this country.

"In nearly every genre of art you encounter funding problems. The Internet simply exposes you to a broad audience and suddenly you have possibilities you never had as an artist. Film is a kind of emotional thing that people connect to - there's no reason there shouldn't be more films that the community backs." Were you surprised by the response?

"It warmed our hearts that people took an interest and have decided to be with us. They want to support culture and it's rare that this isn't at the level of movie ticket or a pass to a museum, but rather in an active way."

Do you feel more obligated to your investors because you have received money from them?

"I feel obligated to myself mainly because I've put in a lot more - I invested every penny I had saved in this film. I am in favor of this way of doing things but I don't want it to come across as a hippie community project. It's just a way to make the movie. People enlist and back us and maybe they will also get their money back but ultimately it's my film, which I am making."