DON'T MESS WITH THE FUNGI is a 3 minute proof of concept for a feature film written by Holly Hunter and directed by Keelan Betts. The film follows a young lesbian couple as they have to clean up one of their grandmother's house after her death only to realise that the house is filled with killer fungi. 

This film is unapologetically queer and sits in the increasing library of queer genre cinema that is being picked up and noticed by queer film festivals around the world, and this is where I feel like it needs to be seen and sold. We believe as a team that a queer film festival audience would pick up the subtext of the film's message, one about diversity, a story of queer rebellion and what our main paranormal antagonist subtextually refers to when talking about the queer experience.

I want to also reach out to get more mainstream attention for the project and send press releases to some mainstream horror blogs like Bloody Disgusting, Dredd Central to see if they can create some editorial content on their websites. This will drive up traffic to the crowdfunding page and result in more donations for the project. This will need to be done with the consultation of someone who knows the ins and outs of publicity, which the team will be able to find thanks to my networks with different publicists from film festivals. We also want to reach out to influencers who are in the indie horror scene, who might be able to donate a social media post and help our team get the word out. People like Jed Sheppard (who directed Host for Shudder), Actor Ben Baur and writer and director Michael Varrati are known in the queer community for working on gay projects. That would be a start.

To turn the proof of concept into a feature, I want to use Kickstarter. The reason is that I want to use an internationally renowned platform that is mainly known to Americans, as that's where a lot of our press will be going to. This will also help them feel comfortable that they are giving money towards a platform they trust and hopefully filmmakers they trust. To get access funding we will pitch the film at 37degrees South and look to get development funding from Screen Australia. For post-production funding, I will endeavour to get completion funding from Queer Screen which helps the project with any last funds to help us with post-production or marketing.

Horror especially has become a feature as there is an already established for queer horror and the commercial and critical relevance of the genre as a lot of the films that won Sundance awards this year went films that were in the horror genre.

Our distribution plan will be absolutely dependent on how the film turns out, but we want to maximise this as a queer film. Taking it to film festivals, like Mardi Gras Film Festival, Frameline, Outfest, Newfest, MQFF and also mainstream festivals like SXSW (especially their midnight section).

Once the film festival distribution is done, we will sell the film rights to Shudder, as there is brand alignment as they are the horror streaming service, especially as they have just picked up the rights to Sissy, the Australian queer horror film, and We believe our audience would love films like Sissy, a new Australian Lesbian Horror film, which has screened at SXSW, is screening in Sydney, and will most likely because of its success and a top-billed cast including Aisha Dee (The Bold Type). So we hope that they will love Fungi as well. 
You can get a screener by just emailing me by clicking the contact us page.