Independent producer-director Aldona Watts is on the brink of realizing a project that has been her dream for the past seven years. Land Of Songs is a feature documentary film about the last in a long line of traditional folk singers with ancient roots in a small Lithuanian village: a group of sprightly elderly women, called the močiutės (or "little grandmas"). To raise funds for production costs, Watts has launched a campaign on Kickstarter.com, a popular crowd source fundraising platform for creative projects. With the močiutės’ health declining, and her fundraising deadline fast approaching, Watts has no time to waste.
Kickstarter operates on an "all or nothing" policy: each campaign has a fixed fundraising goal and a set duration. If the goal is not met during this window, the project receives no funds. Rewards are offered to contributors at various price points. Watts is offering her backers DVDs of the finished film, special copies of the soundtrack, personalized “video postcards,” and more. She is keeping the budget for this independent production as small as possible, but she says that the story she has to tell is priceless. “I also know that it has to be told now, before it’s too late,” says Watts in her pitch video on Kickstarter.com.
It all started seven years ago, when Watts visited friends in a region of Lithuania called Dainava or “The Land of Songs,” known for its rich tradition of folk singing. Watts’ friends invited their neighbors from the village, the močiutės, over to sing. Watts was deeply moved by their beautiful songs. They ranged from the personal to the political, and displayed remnants of Lithuania’s pagan past, well-preserved despite centuries of war and occupation.
Watts’ own grandmother had recently passed away, and she regretted never recording her tales of survival as a teen fleeing war-torn Lithuania. When Watts saw the močiutės sing that night, she felt she had been given another chance. She resolved to make a film about them. Seven years later, with a little help, she will finally be able to do this.
The močiutės, now in their eighties, have been singing together since girlhood. Today only five remain of a group that once numbered twelve. Each of the five remaining močiutės have suffered serious health problems in recent months. The objective of Land Of Songs is not only to preserve the precious songs of the močiutės, but to show them as living, breathing stories, deeply rooted in the context of the village.
If successfully funded, Watts plans to begin shooting Land Of Songs on location in July 2012. The fundraising window for Land Of Songs closes Tuesday, 10 July. To learn more about the project, readers can visit the Land Of Songs project page here:
www.kickstarter.com/projects/landofsongs/land-of-songs-dainava
