Alexander Glazunov, author of many nature and local history documentaries, uses the power of online fundraising to make a film that unveils the truth hidden among discrepant and sometimes frightening facts about six thousand years old rock engravings found on the wild coast of Lake Onega.
St. Petersburg, Russia, May 27, 2015 – Experienced traveler and amateur documentary film maker Alexander Glazunov has brought himself to start a public Internet campaign to raise funds for his new film, The Great Mystery of Onega Petroglyphs, a documentary about ancient rock engravings located in the wilderness of Russian North. Being an unprecedented thing in Russia this international crowdfunding campaign is going to test readiness of the world community of travelers and all adventurous people to join efforts for converting a multitude of discrepant facts into an integral picture of the culture of mysterious people who lived about 6 thousand years ago.
The amount to raise is amazingly small – it is only $1,500. This is how Alexander explains this:
“It is very common in Russia that amateur filmmakers do everything at their own cost and their work never gets completely repaid. So this is mostly a hobby rather than a source of income. I’ve made all my films without any support and some of them are available to everyone for free on YouTube. And I am going to proceed the same way. Believe me, you can do a lot by spending your own time and receiving help from your friends if you make them some favors in return. However, this time I can’t avoid spending a certain amount of real money, that’s why I’ve started this campaign. And this is actually a good chance to see how supportive the world community can be.”
The rock engravings, or petroglyphs, that are the subject of the film, are located on the east coast of Lake Onega in a very hard-to-reach area away from civilization. They were found in 1848, and since then there have been several attempts made to interpret their meaning, which resulted in a lot of controversy and created some fantastic rumors. In his film, Alexander is going to carefully analyze available facts and tell a plausible version of what these ancient artifact are and what they meant to their creators.
If Alexander’s campaign succeeds, he is going to make his film available to everyone for free. “This will be the best way to show my appreciation to the people who have proved with their contributions that crowdfunding works across borders.” – Alexander says.
The dénouement of the intrigue will happen in less than four weeks, when the crowdfunding campaign ends. If Alexander raises the required amount he will continue working on the film. If not – all hopes will be put on ice until better times.
The film will be shot on the scenic east coast of Lake Onega, among beautiful northern nature. The release is planned to January 2016. To learn more about the film, readers can visit the project’s pitch page here: www.indiegogo.com
About Alexander Glazunov:
Alexander Glazunov works at an IT company, but most of his free time he spends on travelling through wild nature and making documentaries about nature and local history. In his films he combines showing scenic nature views with telling stories about various events related to the places he is travelling through.
2 Readers Commented
Join discussionIt’s very interesting!
I’ve always wondered how did people make these images? Granite is quite hard to carve.
At different times and in different places different tools were used. In this particular case the images were hollowed out with other rocks, usually quartz.