For the first time, famed director Spike Lee is releasing a film for everyone to view on the Internet. Lee released his new film, Da Sweet Blood of Jesus, yesterday via Vimeo in an effort to share his hard work with more people.
“Many times, my films have limited release. So if you didn’t live in that area, you had to wait for the DVD release. Now, you can see it with everybody else,” Lee told ESSENCE.com. “As an artist all you can do is put your work out there and let the world get it.”
This latest Spike Lee Joint is a horror-romance film about a man with an addiction to human blood. As if the plot wasn’t already unconventional enough, Lee also used unconventional methods to create this film from start to finish. He raised the majority of the funds to make the feature through a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign. He then put out a call to unknown artists to submit their original songs to be used as the soundtrack for the film.
“It’s a new model. The world is changing. The industry is changing. Technology is here,” Lee said. “We’re tying to reach the audience in anyway we can.”
Da Sweet Blood of Jesus is available for download now at Vimeo.com. It will be released in theaters on February 13.