To realize the music of Sandgrains, Mirco Buonomo, our sound engineer, met and worked with two Cape Verdeans musicians: To Alves and Ronaldo Espirito Santo, with whom he recorded 3 songs in Cape Verde.
To Alves is a well-known musician of the Cape Verdian panorama; Mirco recorded with him two unreleased songs that the musician wanted to give us as a contribution for the documentary, showing a great sensitivity to the issues covered in Sandgrains. Ronaldo Espirito Santo is a young emergent musician, discovered by Mirco; he was soon interested to collaborate for the project and we hope that this will help his music to make known off from Cape Verde. Both musicians exhibited a strong altruism and spirit of sharing, showing once again the big heart which characterizes the inhabitants of these islands.

The Sandgrains Team has been invited by Pong-Pesca and Associação Caboverdeana to present the project in Lisbon. More than 80 people attended the event and most of them staid on for the traditional Cape Verdean dinner and music. The event ended with a long and felt discussion about the topic of the film and with an invite for us to return to lisbon for the launch of Sandgrains in Portugal. For those with Facebook here is a gallery by the photographer os the hosts.

A special thanks goes to Gonçalo Carvalho, Catarina Grilo for organizing the event, and to Helena Pimentel for her simultaneous translations!

Thanks to all those that came to see the new screener and the photo exhibition by Francesca.

Article in Swedish on crowdfunding by Gabriel Manrique, published in Fria Tidningen on the 7th of February 2012. 

http://www.fria.nu/artikel/91838

Today the 'Sandgrains' project and Matchbox Media Collective are featured in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, Bologna section.
Many thanks to Fernando Pellerano who wrote the article!

Dear friends! Happy new year!
With enthusiasm, we inform you that the first crowdfunding campaign for the documentary 'Sandgrains' ended successfully!

110 donors (including individuals and associations) have contributed 10,833 pounds (12,986 euros), several hundred pounds / euros above our target!

The project also boasts the involvement of roughly 40 people who have contributed through their qualities to the logistics of the project (translators, graphic designers, researchers, people who have opened their homes and hosted the events, people who have cooked and welcomed..)

The 'Sandgrains' project has naturally evolved and expanded. We started with the idea of a documentary, and arrived at something more.

'Sandgrains' and Matchbox Media Collective celebrate today our community of supporters.
The network has grown and new ideas were born, such as the petition to raise awareness on fisheries with WWF.
Moreover, in the coming months, the 'Sandgrains' production will tell the stories of the characters through another medium, photography.
And as always we are open to new contributions, of any kind ...!

This is the victory of crowdsourcing: together we can!

With this newsletter we want to thank everyone who has contributed in an economically difficult period, those who have voluntarily donated their quality and time, and all the people who value independence of thought and storytelling ...

The community of Ribeira da Barca awaits us and we will be with them in 2 days.
We will send you updates and developments on our investigations and stories, and on top you will have the opportunity to understand from the inside the process of documentary production through our and Francesca's blog.

We'll be in contact soon, from the lands of Cesaria and her sodade ...!

Matchbox Media Collective.

Just a few lines to share the latest news before leaving for Cape Verde ...

Thanks to everyone who participated and made ​​the event in Bologna possible, it has been a great success! Some very welcoming friends have opened 3 adjacent houses in the historical center of the city and offered canapés and refreshments to more than one hundred people who attended the two presentations by Matchbox Media and Sandgrains.

The evening brought new ideas and connections and allowed us to crowdfund £1,114 for the production of the documentary! THANKS SO MUCH TO EVERYONE!!

The next day we got some more good news!

Finally, after various meetings, the British NGO 'Global Ocean' donated £1,180 to 'Sandgrains' an amount that will cover the travel and equipments costs of Andrew, our underwater cameraman.

In short, the end of this year is giving us solid hopes regarding the practical possibilities of  crowdsourcing and crowdfunding. At the moment we reached £8,026 and the total target is £10,000, with a total of 88 donors!

There is only one more week to go until the end of our crowdfunding campaign and there are real possibilities to reach the target!

We are asking you all one last effort! Please forward this project to friends and family, share it on social media, or if you can, contribute with a donation!

In the meantime, we wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

When we were organizing the Matchbox House Exhibition Party, we got in contact with Daniele Rugo, director of London Last Days, and invited him to showcase the trailer. After this, Daniele proposed to publish an article about Matchbox and Sandgrains on MUBI's Garage, an online cinema and community for people who love film. 

Garage is a specific branch within the MUBI site that exists to curate and showcase media created by emerging filmmakers. Here is the full article written by our wonderful Richard Webb.

Back in June, Just Do It producer Lauren Simpson met the team from Sandgrains as they presented their project at the Crowdfunding Pitch (coming a close second) at Sheffield Doc/Fest.

Since then, the project has developed in leaps and bounds and the team of Just Do It has joined in supporting it.

Read here the full article.

Francesca Tosarelli and Jordie Montevecchi went to Italy to attend a live crowdfunding event at Fattoria Walden where they introduced the work of Matchbox Media Collective to a specially invited Italian audience.

A magnificent buffet was organized for the more than 80 people attending the event and we discussed the concept of crowdfunding and new ways of creating content.

Thanks to to the work of Dario, Dagmar, Peppe, Giuseppina, Jenny, Judith and Julia we we managed to raise over 1000 euros!

Photographers, graphic designers, filmmakers, animators, painters: are you interested to exhibit your project at MatchboxMedia’s event?

click here to check out the last exhibition:
http://matchboxmedia.org/gallery/album/view/id/186

... This time the focus will be mainly on crowdfunded projects, but any other work is also welcome.
We are based in London and work from the creative area of Dalston, in a special 3 floor house with a nice garden. It will be a house exhibition party!

This is the program:
Friday 28th of October, 8 Camerton Close, Hackney London, UK. E8 3TB
from 7pm to 4am > exhibition time
Cinema/Exhibition/Beats/Posh Cocktails

... We give the chance to exhibit art on our walls and to show your works on our screen installations!
And if you have friends and contacts that might be interested please feel free to forward them this open call!

(If you don’t live in London Matchboxmedia can host you during the weekend at our place

Please, send your proposal to mail@matchboxmedia.org before the 7th of October 2011. We'll contact the artists by the 8th to notify our selection.

More info about the Collective: www.matchboxmedia.org
Our current crowdfunded project can be seen at www.sandgrains.matchboxmedia.org

Sheffield Doc/Fest and Shooting People teamed up to present By Popular Demand: Crowdfunding Your Films Panel at the BAFTA Rushes Soho Shorts: Short Filmmakers' Market.

The panel focused on how to raise funds, create a social impact, engaging communities, and what this means for film funding and business-building in the future.

Jordie Montevecchi, co-director of Sandgrains was one of the filmmakers that was on the panel to speak about how to raise money and awareness from crowd/fans/audiences/frien​ds. A discussion to find out why crowdfunding matters beyond film from those using it for music, other arts funding, activism and social impact. In three flash half-hour discussions we’ll survey the practical uses of crowdfunding and how arts funding, media and society are changing right now through the wisdom/madness of crowds.

here is an article on the event by Mike Chapman on Front Row Reviews.

present on the panel:
Michael Troughton - CEO of We Fund
Gregory Vincent - CEO of Sponsume
Jordie Montevecchi - Director of 'Sandgrains'
Richard Shaw - Producer of 'How to Start a Revolution'
Heather Leach - Director of 'Dancing with Hugo Boss'
Moderator Helen Jack for Shooting People

Back in London after an intense week of networking and documentaries.

We arrived second at Sheffield Doc/Fest Crowdfunding Pitch, thanks to all of you!
The online vote for Sandgrains was massive (187 votes!), but due to previously unknown rules, the present audience carried more weight.

Thank you all for voting! It showed how much support we have!
We now believe that we can have the film ready to screen at next years festival!

The panel

Today we are finally launching Sandgrains' website, fine-tuned and ready to go!
We managed to finish the site also in italian, the first of a series of languages we want to translate the page to.

This documentary is Matchbox Media Collective's first project applying the innovative approach of crowdfunding and crowdsourcing!

Discover the crowdsourcing section or check out our funding strategy and budget, read about the characters and locations or the film's background, meet the team and look up the production company. And to know more about the project, check out the whole plan.

Here is the flyer that Lorenzo Dzieduszycki made for the launch, thanks a lot!!!