Kickstarter Hopes to Do It Again at the Oscars

Kickstarter is hoping for another reason to celebrate Sunday night.

For the fifth straight year, a Kickstarter-backed documentary film is up for an Academy Award. This year, it’s “Finding Vivian Maier,” a feature documentary exploring the life of the secretive street photographer whose work became widely renowned following her death in 2009.

In 2013, “Inocente” became the first, and so far only, Kickstarter-backed film to win an Oscar, for best documentary short film.

This year’s nomination seems to cement a few things. First, it’s no longer a surprise to see a Kickstarter-backed film among the nominees. In fact, it’ll be more surprising next year if there isn’t one. In total, eight Kickstarter-backed projects have received nominations since 2011.

It also underscores how important Kickstarter has become in the world of documentary film making. Almost 16,700 “film and video” projects have been funded through the crowdfunding service, according to the website. More than 200 of those films, including “Finding Vivian Maier,” raised more than $100,000.

You can see the trailer for “Finding Vivian Maier” below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er8-Vq__cRE

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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