You probably haven't heard of the short documentary Inocente. That isn't surprising. However, it won the Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject) at last year's Oscar ceremony. This was the first time that a crowd sourced film was awarded an Academy Award. Sure, several had been nominated before, but Inocente was the first one to take home the prize. The film was the real story of a 15 year old homeless girl who aspires to be an artist. Inocente might be alone in winning the Academy Award, but numerous independent films have been funded through crowd sourcing. Kickstarter alone managed to fund 17 films 10% of the total number at the Sundance Film Festival in 2013. Speaking specifically about Inocente, it was funded through Kickstarter having originally asked for $50,000. It just snuck past the total, gaining $52, 527 in donations split across 294 backers four of which donated more than $2,500. This isn't of course the biggest film funding effort, which we'll get onto later in this list.
