The 2013 Academy Awards were something of a coming-out party for crowdfunded films: three crowdfunded films were nominated for awards. One of those films, Buzkashi Boys, has a Canadian connection: Montreal artists get a financial kick out of crowd funding. And one of those films, Inocente, won the Oscar for Best Documentary Short. So we have evidence that crowdfunded films can be both commercially and critically viable projects.
In a new-to-me publication (actually released in August 2012), the Canada Media Fund commissioned Nordicity to create an excellent report entitled Crowdfunding in a Canadian Context: Exploring the Potential of Crowdfunding in the Creative Content Industries. Packed with information (who knew there were more than ten Canadian crowdfunding platforms?), market trends and food for thought, the CMF/Nordicity is an invaluable resource for surveying the Canadian crowdfunding landscape.