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Alejandro Jodorowsky Launches Kickstarter, Trades “Poetic Money” For Real Money


February 17, 2015 | Prachi Gupta

Unlike his 1975 Dune adaptation that never was, if Alejandro Jodorowsky doesn’t get to make upcoming film, it’s not Hollywood execs he’ll go after — it’s you. The surrealist filmmaker has launched a Kickstarter to partially fund the second installment of his visual autobiography, Endless Poetry. In return for donating, Jodorowsky will give you something he calls “Poetic Money,” the currency of the universe. Or, in his words, “This money can’t be spent on any material goods — only on the poetry of the universe.” $1 U.S. = $1 Poetic. There are a few different types of bills, but here’s a sample:

dinero2_feb17_2015

What else will your investment get you? A follow-up to his 2013 film, The Dance of Reality, taken from his autobiographical book of the same name. Endless Poetry “flashes back to those decisive years in Alejandro Jodorowsky’s youth; years that defined the principle that would reign over his entire life: Poetry,” the campaign explains. Here’s the synopsis:

Leaving his childhood and his native Tocopilla behind, the adolescent Alejandro Jodorowsky follows his parents to Santiago de Chile. Between his lack of self-confidence and the family pressure he is under, Alejandro struggles to express his desires and find his own path. But the flourishing capital, filled with artists and poets offers the perfect setting for him to grow out of his cage. Thinking he’d fit in well, Alejandro’s cousin Ricardo takes the young boy to the home of Veronica and Carmen Cereceda, where puppeteers, dancers, sculptors and painters all live and create together. There, defying all of his old limitations, Alejandro takes the first step on his path to becoming a poet in the Chilean artistic epicenter of the 1940s. Alongside rising poets like Enrique Linh, Nicanor Parra and in the arms of his first love, Stella Diaz, Alejandro’s poetic destiny takes form and a new world unravels … changing his life forever.

The movie’s budget is around $3 million in non-poetic money, $350,000 of which Jodorowsky hopes will come from Kickstarter. The film will be shot this summer and out by February of next year if all goes as planned.