From storyboarding to scripting to casting to production and post-production, the process of filmmaking can be painstaking and — too often — unrewarding. While gorilla filmmaking tactics have been touted since the rise of John Cassavettes (and more recently by the likes of Robert Rodriguez, whose book Rebel Without a Crew has become a nascent guide on how to produce a film on less to no budget) producing an independent film is far from easy.

Music docs, CGI animated films, avant-shorts, documentaries, features — film projects of all stripes are finding a home on Kickstarter, and one film in particular is in the process doing some big things.

The Woods is a film about a group of friends moving “off the grid” in hopes of starting new lives free of societal constraints. Described as “equal parts Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Disney’s Camp Nowhere,” director Matthew Lessner began principle photography for The Woods in 2008. He traveled to rural Oregon with a dozen friends and shot the film in a cinema verite style, utilizing his companions in every way possible. But as Lessner told the NY Times, “from the outset [we knew] this was not a film that we could get traditional funding for.”

After the film was shot, Lessner, whose short film By Modern Measure screened at Sundance in 2008, was faced with the option of taking out (and maxing out) another credit card, or letting the film sit in the can for an unforeseen period of time. It was the height of the economic crisis and funding for the arts — or anything else for that matter — had all but disappeared. Between editing, color correction, and transfering from film to HD tape (Lessner shot The Woods on Super-16mm film), the cost of completing The Woods was strictly prohibitive. And that’s when Lessner came to Kickstarter. In a short period of time, Lessner successfully raised over $11,000 to complete the film, surpassing his initial goal and giving The Woods an extra push toward finalizing production.

When Kickstarter threw its first film festival last summer, the audience was treated to a premiere of a 20-minute excerpt from The Woods. It was one of the night’s highlights.

Flash forward to yesterday when The Woods was announced as a selection at the Sundance Film Festival in January. This is a major accomplishment for Matthew (congrats!) and a sign of things to come for the film industry. This is a first for Kickstarter, and we certainly hope it won’t be the last. (Fingers-crossed!)

In reflecting on his Kickstarter campaign, Lessner highlighted a key attribute true not only for film projects, but all Kickstarter projects:

“Let yourself and your uniqueness shine through. There might be tendency to appeal to the widest demographic possible, but I think, on the contrary, you should embrace your uniqueness and try to embrace whatever’s unique about you or about [your] project. I think that’s why people are getting excited. In the normal Hollywood system — even in the normal indie funding system — these films would be impossible [to fund]. A lot of these films are trying different things, they’re taking risks. When I see projects that are expressing that, and expressing this level of uniqueness, I can respond.”