Filmmaker and musician Ilya Naishuller generated a lot of buzz with his 2013 short film Bad Motherf–ker (Warning: May be NSFW due to violence), which followed its protagonist’s escape from an office building through crowds of armed guards and the rooftop pursuit of a man carrying a mysterious, glowing device, all chronicled via first-person perspective. The five-minute film — which also served as a music video for Naishuller’s band, Biting Elbows — has been viewed more than 23 million times so far, and now the filmmaker/musician has leveraged its success into a feature-length POV film that he’s looking to secure additional funding to complete.
The feature, titled Hardcore, is described as follows:
HARDCORE is a modern, action Sci-Fi story about HENRY, a newly resurrected cyborg who must save his wife/creator ESTELLE (Haley Bennet) from the clutches of a psychotic tyrant with telekinetic powers, AKAN (Danila Kozlovsky), and his army of mercenaries. Fighting alongside Henry is JIMMY (Sharlto Copley), who is Henry’s only hope to make it through the day. Hardcore takes place over the course of one day, in Moscow, Russia and it’s all shot in the same style as BAD MOTHERFUCKER to be released in cinemas worldwide.
Yes, that’s District 9 star Sharlto Copley who co-stars in the film, and apparently the feature has finished principal photography thanks to the support of producer Timur Bekmambetov, the director of Night Watch and Wanted. Now, Naishuller is hoping to crowd-fund the post-production stage of the project, and has set up a page on IndiGogo to solicit support.
You can watch the introductory fundraising video below:
While the feature’s potential is pretty compelling on its own, the fundraising campaign has some unique awards for contributors, too. Among the “perks” are some of the smashed (read: non-functional) GoPro cameras used to create the film signed by the cast and director, as well as one of the “Adventure Mask” face-mounted camera rigs created for the project.
Naishuller has also provided a sneak peek at Hardcore via a rough clip from the film that features Copley(embedded below), and the poster for the project:
