Filmmakers Sara Landas, Holli Rae
launch a Kickstarter campaign to finish
their transformative documentary to empower womankind
Have you ever met someone who inspired you?
Someone whose very presence made you feel a surge
of motivation, strength or courage?
Filmmakers Sara Landas and Holli Rae discovered that kind of inspiration in each other. In the summer of 2012 the pair set off on a remarkable journey across America, traveling over ten thousand miles spanning thirty-one states in an inspiringly-decorated, vegetable-oil powered school bus. Landas and Rae were strapped for cash but armed with a camera and a goal—to meet and interview some of America’s little known, but extremely empowering women for what they dubbed—The Goddess Project.The pair interviewed a variety of women ranging from healers, to doctors, to horseback riding fire spinners, discovering that although women follow different paths, their fears and goals are very similar.
“We had the idea to film these women and share all these beautiful stories we weren’t seeing in the media,” Rae said.Focusing interview questions on themes of healing and overcoming obstacles, when asked about their favorite subjects, the filmmakers had difficulty naming just one.
“We got that question a lot on the road,” Landas said. “Every time we answered with, ‘The last woman we interviewed, because each woman was so beautiful and unique in their own way.'”Help came unexpectedly from another like-minded woman, Eve Ensler, who reached out through twitter. Ensler’s organization, One Billion Rising, eventually sponsored Rae and Landas to help finish their trip.
Six months, three hundred hours of footage and over one hundred interviews later, the pair returned home to California. The filmmakers are now looking to raise $50,000 dollars to finance the post-production of the film.
When asked about what motivates them to finish The Goddess Project, Rae told MariaShriver.com that, “When we met each other we each felt so supported by another woman. We want other women to feel that support too.” Landas added that she hopes the film “shows a wider range of role models for women, allowing emerging generations to see that you don’t have to be confined to one path.”’The Goddess Project must reach their $50,000 goal by August 22, 2014 in order to finish the film. To learn more about the project, readers can visit the film’s Kickstarter page here:
-Daniel JenksMariaShriver.com
