Director Linda Yellen opens up about the Kickstarter campaign attempting to release the late-actor's final film.
Dennis Hopper’s final film, The Last Film Festival, is nearly complete -- but it needs help your help.
Five years after the actor died of prostate cancer at the age of 74, Emmy award-winning director Linda Yellen is turning to Kickstarter to raise $90,000 -- they have raised over $47,000 with 17 days to go -- in order to put the final edits on the film and release it publicly to fans.
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But for Yellen and the film’s cast, including Jacqueline Bisset, Katrina Bowden, Chris Kattan, Leelee Sobieski, and Donnell Rawlings, it’s more than a film. It’s about Hopper’s legacy. “Dennis was such a maverick and independent spirit,” Yellen tells ETonline and this Kickstarter campaign is in keeping with that mentality.
While there was never any hesitation about releasing The Last Film Festival, it was about doing it correctly. Following his death, Yellen says that people offered money to finish the project in order to capitalize on his death, potentially compromising the spirit of the project.
Now, as the anniversary of his death approaches, there’s a certain distance that has allowed Yellen to finish the film.
“I would like the closure,” she admits.
“The pain has gone away from those horrible images of him wasting away,” Yellen says of Hopper’s final days after he completed the initial filming on the movie. “We can put that in the background.”
And she wants fans, new and old, to see him for what he was: “As funny, witty, and sexy -- and a man who loved the movies.”
With the help of strangers, she just may be able
to do that.
Find out how to contribute at Kickstarter.com.