Tethered to the Ether Film Festival Support

Support Tethered to the Ether by helping us raise money for submission fees as we apply to film festivals around the world!

Minnesota-based artist and filmmaker Michael Thomsen's self-funded feature film, Tethered to the Ether, is officially on the international film festival circuit! However, we're at the very beginning of a long road. Film festivals are highly competitive and the submission fees for each fest can range from a few dollars to over $100. As you can imagine, it adds up quickly!

We bootstrapped the first round of submission fees ourselves, and though acceptance results come back throughout the year based on each festival's deadline, we're pleased to say we've already been accepted to three festivals and were awarded "Best Experimental Feature Film" from the Hallucinea Film Festival in Paris, France. We're off to an AMAZING start!

Our first round of submissions (which we started working on in December) was relatively experimental. The film itself is experimental in its creation and concept. Finding its niche in the wide world of cinema is both a process and a journey.

We went for a strategic combo of horror festivals, experimental and arthouse fests, general indie festivals and industry-focused awards competitions. In other words, throwing it at a few different walls to see what sticks and making connections along the way!

Our second round of submissions will be a little more focused, based on the first round -- and that's where you come in. For us to really get this project out into the world, we need to raise more money for submission fees and other festival promotional expenses.

YOUR FUNDING SUPPORT WILL HELP US:

Our first goal is to get as many eyes on TTTE as we can. Have it travel the world. Honor the 8 years of work that so many people put into it. And of course, eventually get it distributed and streaming somewhere!

The final goal is to gain enough attention and appreciation for Thomsen's work to find legitimate funding and true industry support for him to produce another film on a higher level.

Tethered to the Ether is assemblage artist and filmmaker Michael Thomsen’s biggest and most intricate work of art yet — a moving collage filled with beautiful blink-and-you’ll-miss-it details, decadent vignettes, handmade props, masks and miniature sets, camera-in-camera Easter eggs and so much more.

Self-funded on a micro-budget and made over the course of 8 years, Thomsen’s psychological arthouse horror film is a highly visual work of art as well as a narrative-driven story, loosely inspired by Thomsen’s real life experiences as a resident in a mental health facility in the 1980s.

Tethered to the Ether spins a dark, mesmerizing tale that’s as psychologically nerve wracking as it is beautifully surreal. Director M. Thomsen’s distinctive style as a Baroque contemporary assemblage sculptor is central to the film’s production design aesthetic, with dozens of incredible abandoned locations shot guerrilla-style, and a haunting, hypnotic score composed by Thomsen himself, with additional musical interludes by Mike Gunther, Nico V. Isotalo, and Waveless.

Released from a mental health facility after recovering from a tragic accident, Tulip Lenoux lives in a purgatorial state between the natural world and dream world. Bound to her dead lover through a suicide pact gone wrong, Tulip’s semi-lucid daily wanderings and mind-bending fever dreams are clouded by trauma, obsession, heartbreak, and unanswered questions regarding the missing body of her lost love. Meanwhile, dark forces are at work when Tulip unwittingly stumbles into the cult-like world of the Roma Key Club and its henchmen, with concurrent storylines of necromancy, supernatural procreation, personal limbo, and practical magic.

Starring Clare Hoogesteger, Mike Gunther, John Tribbett, Nico V. Isotalo, and Martin Stolen.

Follow us on Instagram to learn more and follow along on our festival journey: @tetheredtotheetherfilmn