The competitive swimming documentary “The Water is my Sky” has officially hit its $50,000 goal on Kickstarter today, just a week before the campaign ends.
“Words cannot properly describe the emotions we all are feeling now that we have surpassed our Kickstarter goal of $50,000,” director Brian Tremml told SwimSwam via e-mail. “We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our supporters who have helped us reach this milestone. In launching this campaign, we were hoping to make a statement regarding our faith in the swimming community, and they more than delivered. We could not be happier to produce a film for such a caring fan base.”
The film will explore the world of elite competitive swimming in the past, present and future. The Kickstarter campaign lists 2000 Olympic bronze medalist Tom Wilkins as its main character for the past section, and 2012 Olympian and current Michigan Wolverine Connor Jaeger as its “present” subject. The film will also feature a number of up-and-coming talents from the club and high school scene.
Tremml himself is a former collegiate swimmer at the University of Iowa, and is now pursuing his dual passions of swimming and film-making by creating a documentary about the world SwimSwam readers intimately know and love.
“Now that we have secured this portion of our funding, major planning for the next few months of our production will begin,” Tremml said. “We plan on traveling to as many competitions as we can throughout the summer season, all the while continuing to edit all of the collected footage as we go. We will also continue to recruit as many talented individuals to our team with the hopes of making the best film possible. We really feel like we are onto something special here and we have a great opportunity to shine a very big spotlight on our great sport.”
The film broke $50,000 just one day after an anonymous donor pledged to match up to $1000 worth of donations. The surge from that pledge helped push the film to its goal.