Harbor Fund has raised $15 million from 82 donors since it launched two years ago, an average of $250,000 each. About $10 million of that has gone to 22 film and TV projects, according to Variety.
The Utah-based nonprofit investment group connects filmmakers with wealthy backers who want socially minded work made. Chris Pine, Oscar Isaac and Sarah Silverman are among the actors using it. Co-founder and chief executive Lindsay Hadley put the aim bluntly: “We want to hijack the most powerful PR engine in the world, which is Hollywood, for good, and we believe that we can do that.”
Funded projects include Pine’s documentary “Evicted” and “By Any Means,” a civil rights era crime thriller starring Mark Wahlberg that Paramount Pictures released on September 4.
Pitches at Sundance Mountain Resort
On June 28, Silverman, Zachary Levi, Matthew Modine, Kristen Schaal, Rhys Darby and Edward James Olmos went to Sundance Mountain Resort for the third annual Harbor Film Forum. The event is invitation-only and runs four days. They pitched projects to high-net-worth guests handpicked by Hadley. Executives from Amazon and Angel Studios attended. The state of Utah was title sponsor.
Modine pitched “The Splendid Thing,” which he wrote and will direct, with John Cleese, Liam Neeson, Vanessa Redgrave and Eddie Izzard starring. He is scouting locations in Italy. “I’m out of pocket on everything right now,” he said. “I’ve even said I will defer my salary to get the film made.”
Olmos brought “Valley of the Heart,” written by Luis Valdez and budgeted at $41 million. It follows secret lovers, one Japanese-American and one Mexican-American, whose lives are torn apart by Pearl Harbor. “This is not simply a period film,” Olmos said. “It’s a deeply human love story about endurance, identity, sacrifice and hope.”
Schaal, Darby and producer Rosie Carnahan-Darby pitched “Wool Kings,” a comedy about two feuding New Zealand sheep farmers. The script is finished and the trio wants development money. Schaal said agents and the usual studio route both went nowhere. “A good idea for a movie is met with blank stares,” she said. She read the Harbor invitation several times. “It is like Willy Wonka,” she said.
Darby left optimistic after pitching “Wool Kings” and another project, “Gordon’s Girl.” “Funders have approached us and asked me how much we are looking for,” he said. “I didn’t know what to say, $4,000, $40,000, or $40 million. I just kind of stood there.”
Not Participant 2.0
Variety ties the interest in patrons to Hollywood consolidation, which it says has meant less risk and less variety at studios and streamers. Jeff Skoll shut down Participant in 2024.
Hadley rejects the comparison. Participant ran as a studio with more than a hundred employees, he said, and its hits never covered the overhead. Harbor only invests. “Even if we had a billion dollars in this fund one day, we would never have more than 10 full-time employees,” he said. The goal now is $100 million over the next two years. The advisory board includes filmmaker Patty Jenkins and Mark Burnett.
Geralyn Dreyfous, co-founder of the documentary equity fund Impact Partners, has paired documentary makers with patrons for two decades. She said independent cinema is “very vulnerable” and that the forum’s participants want to work outside the studios and streamers.
Utah’s Office of Economic Development said the state’s film industry has generated more than $736 million over the past decade.
