Mann

Sconzo

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Filmmaker and actress Jeannie Sconzo is setting out to make a movie called “The Heart Sees no Color,” about the difficulties faced by an interracial couple. But to do it, she’ll need plenty of green.

“I need $50,000,” Sconzo said.

That amount is a bare bones figure for a film, but not easy for a private citizen to raise. Sconzo, a mother of two who lives in Ewing, is counting on many volunteer workers to see it to completion. She hopes to raise the money by attracting sponsors on Kickstarter, a social media fundraising website.

Sconzo decided to make the movie last year, building on a script she started writing in 2008. She was brainstorming with her actor friend Chris Mann, who played politician Councilman Gray on the HBO series The Wire, and the two decided that it would be a great idea to make a movie about an interracial relationship.

And although black and white people dating is not controversial to most Americans in this day and age, Sconzo discovered by talking to interracial couples in her church and social circle, that prejudice is not entirely dead yet.

“I know that my family would not be 100 percent accepting if I suddenly had a black boyfriend,” she said. “My family would have some issues. My grandparents, if they were alive, would have big problems with that. It’s the older generation that tends to be less accepting.”

Sconzo’s last movie courted controversy. “When Beliefs are Questioned” was about a lesbian grappling with her sexuality and religion. Sconzo said she wasn’t able to get that movie into film festivals because the mix of religion and sexual politics proved too volatile.

“The film festivals felt it pushed Christianity more than homosexualit and because of that they said it might be insulting some homosexuals. But the homosexuals I talked to were very open. They said ‘this is what we hear so often, there’s nothing new being presented here.’ They didn’t feel attacked.They were not as defensive as the mainstream film festival people had expected them to be.”

Sconzo learned from that experience in more ways than one. She put $20,000 of her own money into the movie and sold just 12 copies on Amazon.com for a total return of $12 from her investment.

Sconzo is determined not to make that mistake again, and has posted a video on Facebook asking people to support the project on Kickstarter. The way Kickstarter works is that donors pledge money towards a set goal, over a set period of time. In this case, the goal is to rasie $50,000 by March 18.

If the goal is reached, the donations will be paid. If not, then no one pays anything, and Sconzo goes back to the drawing board.

Donors get more than just good karma for their investment, Sconzo said. She is using a fundraising tactic employed by movies like Transformers. For $5,000, scenes will be shot at a local business, and the actors will make a point of praising the goods and services there. For $1,000 a logo will appear on an item of the donor’s choice in the movie.

“We don’t know how far this is going to go,” Sconzo said. “There are many independent films that have gone far. The Blair Witch Project and My Big Fat Greek Wedding were independent movies. Who knew they were going to be huge?”

On the Web: kickstarter.com, and search for “heart sees no color.”