The award-winning team from War of the Worlds: The True Story is at it again, this time showcasing Nellie Bly’s experience of willingly getting herself committed to an infamous insane asylum to expose the abuse, neglect and other atrocities common in the American mental health industry. Their labor of love has already begun with an ambitious campaign to finance the movie through the crowd-funding platform Indiegogo while handling pre-production.
But the team has already shown they are willing to go all-out to produce a world class movie. People’s hidden agendas, the attacks on 9/11 and the untimely release of Steven Spielberg’s version of the story resulted in production for War of the Worlds The True Story, now available in DVD and on demand after competing in the 85 Academy Awards, taking years from start to finish. Few moviemakers have such stamina to guide a production to port through so many obstacles and succeed with a critically acclaimed movie.
You Won Cannes critic, Shawn Francis, became interested after seeing just a teaser of the film on the internet, “What ever it was, it intrigued me on visual merit alone.” After seeing the entire film he elaborated, “Ever since the 1953 movie adaptation of War Of The Worlds there have been numerous other translations of Wells’ novel, even a 1988 short lived TV series, but of all the ones I have seen the only two-yes, only two-I find worthy of repeated viewings is the ’53 film and this new 2013 docudrama.”
Other critics agree the results of their labor of love were breath-taking. Apocalypse Later critic, Hal C F Astell described his viewing experience as, “one of the most fascinating cinematic experiences I’ve encountered.”
The team is bringing the lessons learned on their last major project and their innovative nature to produce 10 Days in a Madhouse. The entire film, from casting to location to scenery and props, is being undertaken with even more care and attention to detail. Running the Indiegogo campaign while meticulously arranging for the fall production of the movie is a unique challenge.
Although film makers are putting their own funds towards production costs, “we are depending on public support to tell Nellie’s story as it should be told,” explained producer Susan Goforth.