On May 9, 2014, Gosnell Movie, a film project about Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell, reached its Indiegogo crowd-funding goal of $2.1 million dollars. Not only did the film project reach its goal (four days early), but as a result it has become Indiegogo’s highest crowdfunding campaign for a movie (telefilm) and the third-highest crowdfunding movie project ever, according to Deadline Hollywood.
Now filmmakers, Phelim McAleer, his wife Ann McElhinney, and Magdalena Segieda, who are well known for such other films as Frack Nation, Not Evil – Just Wrong, and Mine Your Own Business, are trying to reach 30,000 supporters (supporters may donate as little as $1) before the deadline of MIDNIGHT TONIGHT and to achieve the Twitter goal of getting the hashtag #GosnellMovie trending, with a Twitter campaign on tonight between 8-9PM Eastern time. These shows of support will counter completely any claims by the media or Hollywood that there is no demand or interest in such a movie.
A little over a month ago my colleague John Goerke wrote a blog post about the plans to make the Gosnell movie. Partially because of the horrific nature of the crimes of Philadelphia abortionist and partially because of the total lack of mainstream media interest in the criminal trial, filmmakers McAleer, McElhinney, and Segieda decided to tell the story as a TV crime drama to expose the story to viewers all over America.
The filmmakers see Gosnell, who killed thousands of babies in what McAleer called, “a 40-year killing spree,” as the “most prolific serial killer in American history.” McAleer revealed that as a journalist he had “covered crime in Northern Ireland during the Troubles and infiltrated baby buying rings in Vietnam, Indonesia and Cambodia” but he was still stunned by pictures he saw and the evidence he heard at Gosnell’s trial. He was also stunned that the national media “mostly ignored the story.”
A further stunner was soon to befall the filmmakers. In his Fox News op ed McAleer revealed that Kickstarter, the crowdfunder that had funded McAleer, McElhinney, and Segieda’s last movie, Frack Nation, said that the project was unacceptable because the “factual, description of Kermit Gosnell’s 40-year killing spree violated their ‘community guidelines.'” McAleer wrote, “It was clear that Kickstarter had become just another part of the liberal establishment where the truth that challenged their opinions was deemed offensive and unacceptable.” He discovered that “Kickstarter had become just another way to fund and tell the same old liberal stories.”
The filmmakers found a home to raise money for the film at Indiegogo, another crowdfunder. If you are not familiar with the concept, crowdfunders offer projects a chance to raise money through donations on the their website. But the project must make its financial goal within the specified time period in order to receive ANY of the donations. If the goal is not met, the money is returned to the donors.
McAleer, McElhinney, and Segieda provided several updates on Indiegogo, including videos of McElhinney reading portions of the very disturbing Grand Jury report on the crimes of Kermit Gosnell. The project was also supported publically through video messages and tweets from a variety of sources including actors Kevin Sorbo and Nick Searcy, reality television star Sloane Brown, and others.
On May 8, as the deadline seemed uncomfortably close, and the funding goal had not yet been reached, I sent a message to the filmmakers via Twitter: “I am carrying on a great project & cannot go down.” a paraphrase of Nehemiah 6: 3. Gosnell is a great project, a story that must be told, and, as Goerke wrote last month, “With this film project, Christians and people of good will have a chance to remedy the silence surrounding Gosnell and take part in telling a story the nation needs to hear.”
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