Thursday, November 28, 2013

Another year of being on sale with very few sales

Just a quick update in the final quarter of 2013 to say that the film is still very much in the red. The odd DVD sale and streaming rental has produced just a few dollars since the last update in 2012. That's when we pointed out that having your movie offered for sale at websites like Amazon or Walmart does not mean it is being sold.

Andrew Young being assaulted during a night march to the
historic Slave Market in St. Augustine, Florida, 1964
The financial net worth of the project is still less than zero, meaning that if even if we gave away the rights to the movie they would come with debts to be paid. Of course, the positive reports we get from time to time, submitted by people who have seen the film, support our continued belief that the project was 100% worthwhile. And we will be forever thankful to all who helped make the film a reality.

We do know that every February the film gets screened in many classrooms around the country--usually in violation of copyright law, but hey, we're not going to report anybody--so that thousands of kids get to see what non-violent struggle is really like: black and white people taking a beating without fighting back. That was the brilliant strategy that won the passage of the first civil rights act, 50 years ago this year.

Policeman cattle prods a white student "sitting in" to protest segregation
and support civil rights in St. Augustine, Florida, 1964