Alejandro Jodorowsky, the avant garde filmmaker whose gorgeous vision of Dune was famously never brought to screen, has headed to Kickstarter to find backers for his next movie. Jodorowsky hopes to make a follow up to 2013's The Dance of Reality, which was based on his memories of childhood. This new movie, called Endless Poetry, will also be autobiographical, but it'll follow a slightly older Jodorowsky as he begins to move past childhood and learn how to be a poet. He's looking for $350,000 from Kickstarter to help make the film, which he expects to be completed in February 2016.

"The necessity for expression is more important than the type of film you want to make," Jodorowsky says. "I make a film when I have something I need to express. I don’t think about investors, industries, or commercialization. I just need to express myself."

That's apparently the reason that he's turning to Kickstarter, although it's certainly obfuscating what's actually going on. His Kickstarter notes that Endless Poetry's total budget will be around $3 million, making this Kickstarter — at full funding — a small, small portion of the needed funds. That said, it seems like Jodorowsky is trying to avoid big studios and backers who might take away creative control from him. Asking for help from fans on Kickstarter maybe a way of building toward that final figure, even if it's only a small chunk.

In exchange for backing his project, Jodorowsky plans to give backers what he's calling Poetic Money, which are a series of colorful bills featuring his face and a poem that he wrote about money and wealth. "This money can't be spent on any material goods," the Kickstarter notes, "only on the poetry of the universe." (But who really knows — Bitcoin found value.) Backers can also get all of the usual things that Kickstarter campaigns offer: a poster, your name in the credits, a T-shirt, and so on.

Jodorowsky's most recent film was very well received by critics, so fans should be pretty happy to see that he isn't taking yet another long break between pictures and is already preparing to make a new one. Now is a pretty good time for Jodorowsky to be turning to Kickstarter, too. While Jodorowsky is by no means an unknown filmmaker, he's typically existed far outside of the mainstream. The recent documentary Jodorowsky's Dune helped to change that, however, bringing his work to a wider audience. With a new audience out there, Jodorowsky may well find a fan base willing to fund another project.