This is the story of an independent filmmaker and his quest to get a blockchain documentary to millions of people globally. The first month took me from a dark editing room to a billionaire dinner in Davos. The next six short paragraphs will take you along for the first chapter of this ride.

The story behind CRYPTOPIA: Bitcoin, Blockchains and the Future of the Internet: Five years after my first documentary, I revisit the big brains and big egos behind Bitcoin and explain the evolution of the blockchain industry and the utopian ideas fueling it. Can this #technology, designed to operate independent of trust and within a decentralized network, really provide a robust alternative to traditional banking and maybe even the #Internet as we know it? Check out the trailer (2:30 minutes): https://youtu.be/M6GgU08rxyg

Flashback: During our Kickstarter campaign we generated around a million social media impressions. Prominent figures like Fred Wilson, Matthew Roszak or Florian Huber as well as 200 others supported our crowdfunding effort which helped us to get a grant from Screen Australia and the German public #broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk. Since then Michael Watchulonis and I have filmed on 4 continents and interviewed some of the biggest and most controversial names of the industry including Laura Shin, Andreas M. Antonopoulos, Vitalik Buterin, Roger Ver, Charlie Lee, Samson Mow, Vinny Lingham, Preethi Kasireddy and Wences Casares.

But here’s the thing. Filmmakers (like any other content creators) need to be entrepreneurs in the digital world. Making content is only one half of the job. In a world of constant distraction and infinite content choices, marketing your content is the real challenge - one that has not been well understood by documentary makers yet.

Iterating the Edit: First, we needed to find product-market-fit. We did this with test screenings throughout Australia and NZ supported by great partners like RMIT Online, Brave New Coin, Independent Reserve, Spark Festival, Nuggets News, Blackbird Ventures and, even more importantly, tiredless community organizers such as Abheeti Pass, Adriana Belotti, Chantelle de la Rey, Pantelis Roussakis, and Karen Cohen. Detailed feedback from the audience has helped us to finetune the film, delete the confusing sequences, improve the entertaining parts and ensure we got everything right.

Finally, we were ready to premiere the ‘final cut’ in Melbourne my home base. With more sponsors including Decred, Blockchain Australia, CoinJar we were able to hire ACMI's beautiful Treasury Theatre. As you can see from this short clip, it’s not only the #crypto nerds and the blockchain startups that enjoyed the film, there were many #professionals from larger organisations in the audience. Yes, the accountants, consultants, and bankers also enjoyed the night. Proof: https://youtu.be/xQur8dtdX58

With this tailwind, we were ready to go global. I packed my bags for a 6-months world tour. First stop: Davos, Switzerland. One of our producers Dr Oliver Krause introduced me to the circles and we were able to show off our trailer and discuss potential screening events all over the world. Was it worth it to spend 6 days and 6000 EUR on #Davos? It’s too early to tell but we've got some nice press coverage.

Thank you for following my big adventure. and for supporting independent filmmakers!

Torsten

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In the next part, I’ll tell you how the big shots at the EUCommission (!) and the folks at a Swiss bank liked the film. And then there’s a big premiere with the tech scene in Berlin and the how the virus might jeopardize my plans …. Stay tuned and follow us on #CryptopiaFilm. You’ll get a free copy of my first documentary when you sign up with your email here: https://cryptopiafilm.com/updates/ And soon we will start the pre-order process of the film too. Stay tuned!

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