Isabelle Stead

Isabelle Stead is the producer of “Son of Babylon,” a film that was developed at the Sundance Institute Labs and screened at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. Isabelle is using Kickstarter to raise funding to release the film in the U.S. in 2013

Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat, please put a penny in the old Kickstarter hat…

In an effort to ensure that our film Son of Babylon is widely accessible to the general public in America, Mohamed Al Daradji (Director) and I have decided to release Son of Babylon ourselves – with the help of Sundance Institute and Kickstarter.

Son of Babylon is the story of a grandmother and grandson that go in search for the boy’s missing father in post-2003 Iraq. The powerful humanitarian message at the heart of the film has brought to life the issue of Iraq’s missing people, and it’s really important for us that this film has a nationwide release in America—2013 will mark the 10-year anniversary of the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

This film bears our hearts and souls through it – it took us 3 years to fund, 6 months to film, 6 months in post-production, and 2 years to promote at over 150 festivals. It’s so far been released in 25 countries (even Iraq!), and it would be a shame if Americans didn’t also have the opportunity to see and experience this film.

It’s an arduous task for us to raise £40,000 (nearly $65,000) in just 30 days, but if we all take part in this challenge, we will achieve it.

To ensure the distribution is a success, we will first premiere and screen the film for a week in New York, and then roll out to other cities such as Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, Chicago, San Francisco, Salt Lake, Nashville and Dearborn, among others.

With this Kickstarter campaign we want to inspire other filmmakers to take on their own distribution, and if this project is a success we will do all we can to help others do the same. If you could donate that would be great, but if not, a quick mention of the campaign on your website, newsletter, Facebook page, or a Tweet would be the best present we could ask for this Christmas.

Wishing you and your family Happy Holidays,

Isabelle