In a bid to showcase the utility of NFT’s in cinema, the team behind Mounia Meddour’s (“Papicha”) Rome-premiering film “Houria” is launching a limited impact NFT collection.
Meddour’s follow up to her Cesar-winning feature debut “Papicha,” “Houria” is still playing in theaters in France and was recently boarded by “CODA” Star Troy Kotsur who is now executive producer on the movie. Kotsur made history last year as the first Deaf man to take home an acting award at the Oscars.
The initiative, which is being engineered by the film’s producers Ink Connection and High Sea, as well as the banners MADworld and Lumiere, will allow for the creation of a series of NFT’s focusing on “Houria”‘s central themes — sign language and dance. Powered by blockchain technology, a portion of the NFT proceeds will be donated to the Paris-based non-profit org Femmes Sourdes Citoyennes et Solidaires (United Deaf Women Citizens).
Meddour’s film tells the story of Houria, a gifted dancer with dreams of joining the Algerian National Ballet. To make ends meet, she bets in clandestine fights overnight. However after winning a final, Houria is violently assaulted by a man determined to get his money back. When she wakes up in a hospital, she no longer is able to speak and will certainly never dance again. Refusing to abandon her dream, she throws herself, heart and soul, into her physical recovery and meets at a rehab center other women damaged by life. Houria resolves to help them transcend their wounded bodies and stand tall by teaching them how to dance through a choreography inspired by sign language.
The FSCS, founded in 2003, has been fighting for the rights of deaf women and has set up some campaigns to raise awareness against domestic violence.
MADWomen, a Web3 and digital asset banner, has teamed wit Lumiere, a Hong Kong-based meta-market investment firm, to design a new digital collection. Along with benefiting the deaf women’s org, owners of “Houria”‘s NFT’s will get to attend a private event with Meddour and the producers at the upcoming edition of the Cannes Film Festival, ahead of the film’s release in Japan in July.
“Blockchain technology with NFT has been able to empower women around the world to use technology to create new intellectual assets, inspire and support our next generation,” said Kelly Leung, co-founder of MADworld (Multiverse Art Defender) and its affiliate MADwomen.
Leung said MADWomen “thrives to discover many of the unsung heroines in the world, highlighting their success to help inspire a younger generation of women who can be given the digital tools and humanity’s magic to uncover how each one of us holds the talent to prevail in our own way.”
Patrice Poujol and Sélim Oulmekki at Lumiere said they aspired to “support filmmakers, particularly strong female talent with a strong social conscience who can share their vision of peace with the world.” They said they’re also “breaking ground in the way films are now financed, produced and promoted through Web3.” Lumiere previously worked on “Papicha” to “tokenize” direct investment in the film’s equity.
Gregoire Gensollen from The Ink Connection, who played a key role in putting together the digital initiative, said he “couldn’t think of a better association than the FSCS to benefit from Houria’s NFT sales as their courageous mission resonates perfectly with the story of our film.”
Shirley Tong On, who presides over Femmes Sourdes Citoyennes et Solidaires, said “sign language struggles to find the place it merits in our society. Deaf children still don’t have access to a regular education they deserve.”
“However, this language is beautiful and necessary not only for Deaf people but also for people who can’t speak, as portrayed so magnificently in the film,” Tong On continued.
Meddour previously won the 2020 Academy Gold Fellowship Award for Women from the AMPAS, and the Humanitarian Award from the International Press Academy.
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