“There and Back” Shows Funding Isn’t Just for Tech

One of the goals for our second year of PHX Startup Week was to increase the variety and types of content throughout the week. That’s when I heard about “There and Back.” I couldn’t wait to add it to the schedule. “There and Back” is a family road trip drama unprecedented in its all-Arizona entrepreneurial origins. The film will make its first public presentation of the cast, crew and investors at PHX Startup Week. They will discuss the incredibly unlikely story of how the audacious dream to make this upcoming movie became a reality. After producer-director Marcus De Leon’s two-year odyssey in search of “un-Hollywood” financing, “There and Back” became the first-ever Arizona movie fully funded by Arizona Angel investors.  Tucson’s Desert Angels stepped in to fund the film, making it the first film entirely produced in Arizona through a private equity investment offering. This is Marcus’s sixth feature film and his first away from Hollywood. He approached the project with the goal to work with emerging all-Arizona talent on both sides of the camera – and he succeeded. Production covered over 3,000 wild miles over the course of two unforgettable months, and includes cast and crew from all three of Arizona’s public universities. “There and Back” will be hosting a specialty session during PHX Startup Week titled, “Startup Filmmaking: How We Financed and Produced “There and Back”, a 2016 Feature Film”. The session will feature in-person appearances by the stars of the film, lead angel investors and some of…
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