The Cheer Ambassadors starts Kickstarter campaign

Aiming toward a wide theatrical release, The Cheer Ambassadors, the documentary about scrappy Thai cheerleaders who overcame the odds to win world championships, has started a campaign on Kickstarter to raise $19,999 to pay for post-production work and marketing.

With a deadline of July 7, they have $13,415. If the "all-or-nothing" goal isn't reached, all the money will be refunded to the donors.

Here's more details from a press release:

“When we started this film, we knew we would eventually utilize Kickstarter’s innovative platform. However it’s only just now that we have had time to launch the campaign. We were lucky to receive some initial donations from people who believed in the project, and we funded the rest by being extremely frugal in the ways we spent money and used credit cards.”, said Jason W. Best, the film’s executive producer, who is also known for spearheading the campaign to legalize equity and debt-based crowdfund investing.

“The film is basically done; it has been making the rounds in film festivals and recently won Best Documentary at the 60N Os Festival in Norway. However, we still want to complete a Dolby surround-sound mix, do professional color correction, and we need to raise lots of money to fund marketing and advertising”, added Luke Cassady-Dorion, the film’s director.

Thapanont (Tae) Phithakrattanayothin, former assistant coach and the film’s production manager added, “I spent 16 years of my life training with this team and then another one and a half years helping to produce the film, and my biggest fear is that it will only be able to be seen by a few hundred people in festivals. I’m honored that people around the world are moved by our story, and want to make sure that as many people see it as possible. Raising money to pay for marketing will allow this to happen.”

Head on over to the Kickstarter page and see how you can become an associate producer.