DRESDEN 1957 Financial Report

In this post I'd like to share a report on our finances for DRESDEN 1957. We're at about the halfway point and have invested about $230,000 to date. As we work to raise the remaining funds needed to complete this film, I wanted to provide a snapshot of what we've accomplished so far, and a projection of what what we'll need going forward.

We started work on Dresden 1957 in June 2023. In 2024 we ran a successful crowdfunding campaign, which raised $78,000. That allowed us complete principal photography, which means the bulk of what we need to film is “in the can.” In the chart below you can see the total expenses for the two previous years, and an estimate for the current year, 2025.

This chart shows a breakdown of our costs in 2024

The grey areas represent our own investment, a combination of time and hard costs, such as equipment or legal services. The actual total for 2025 will depend on whether we raise enough money to properly start post-production.

In the next chart you can see how the expenses breakdown by category.

You can see how the different workloads change as we move forward with the film. For example, Research, shown in orange, is a really big part of the work in the early going of a documentary project. We'll probably be researching until the very end, but obviously, the amount of time spent in this area will decline with each year.

“Production” (in light blue) means filming, including preparing and testing the equipment, going out to shoot interviews or locations, and then organizing the footage afterwards. Almost half of the total investment in 2024 was production - and that was only possible because of our crowdfunding supporters.

The “production” component in 2025 actually refers to post-production - editing. As I've mentioned, whether we can get to that will depend on this next round of fundraising.

Funding the the next phase

We still need to raise at least $200,000 to complete DRESDEN 1957. We hope that a lot of that will come from organizations and businesses, but we will still need support from individuals.

Let's say we were able to raise that money over the next 12 months, here’s that would look like going forward:

This chart includes a second crowdfunding campaign (in light green). We don't won't take this step lightly, but if we want to start postproduction this year, we'll need something to kickstart our fundraising. Once we have a minimum amount in the bank, say $60,000, we'll have enough cushion, to quit other work and return full-time to this project. Traditional fundraising (businesses and organizations) will continue.

We aren’t unique; funding is a challenge for almost every documentary filmmaker, especially nowadays. But we have some urgency when it comes to the people in this film -we want them to see their story told.

And it’s not just for them: workers are still dying on the job and their families still go through this terrible experience alone - because as a society, we don’t yet know how to recognize workplace tragedies. And beyond that, it's about us as Canadians, discovering our own hidden history.

I can’t tell you how eager we are to get back to work on this film! And there is hope: Even though we have not officially started a new crowdfunding campaign, some wonderful people have been making contributions, so we do have a small head start. If you'd like to be one of them, you can make a contribution here.

Thank you for your interest and support!

Eric