Innovation from Heidiland: how fans funded a ‘silly movie’

Mad Heidi is set in a dystopian Switzerland that has fallen under the fascist rule of an evil cheese tyrant. / Swissploitation Films Gmbh

Mad Heidi, a splatter comedy in which the Swiss literature icon Heidi engages in a bloody war against cheese fascists, was released online on December 8. The producers hope to shake up the old-fashioned film industry with an unconventional distribution model.

It was a pretty good start for Mad Heidi. Movie fans who had filled the theatre at the Zurich Film Festival last September reacted thunderously to the cheesy jokes and the scenes where a grown-up Heidi mows down her enemies. After the screening, the cast and creators were greeted onstage with a burst of applause.

In addition to featuring in the official film selection at Zurich, Mad Heidi has screened at over 20 international film festivals. It won the Audience Award at the Brussels International Fantastic Film FestivalExternal link (BIFFF) last August, one of the world’s three major fantastic film festivals, which showcase highly entertaining features from a variety of genres, including science fiction, fantasy, horror, action, and suspense.

A successful crowdfunding campaign

The movie is set in a dystopian Switzerland that has fallen under the fascist rule of an evil cheese tyrant. The grown-up Heidi goes on a mission to liberate her motherland from the dictator.

This first-ever “Swissploitation” film project began in 2017. Industry veterans Tero Kaukomaa (Iron Sky), Valentin Greutert (Paradise War: The Story of Bruno Manser), and the Swiss director Johannes Hartmann have created an innovative business model for financing and distributing the film that they hope will become a template for small productions.

Exploitation films

An exploitation film is usually defined as a low-budget film, or B-movie, that seeks to make a quick profit by “exploiting” sensational, shocking or taboo subjects or trends (for example, violence, perversion, drugs or sex).

Often provoking physical reactions in the audience such as lust (sexploitation) or disgust, they have also been said to exploit the desire of audiences for guilty pleasures.

No subject is off limits, so countless subgenres have emerged, such as Ozploitation (Mad Max), carsploitation (Tarantino’s Death Proof was a homage) or sharksploitation (Jaws). In the United States, blaxploitation (films made with black actors for black audiences in a black environment, such as Shaft) flourished in the 1970s.

Heidi, the Swiss icon, was the perfect vehicle to help them achieve their dream. The storyline and production model caused a buzz when the teaser movie was first released on its official website in September 2018. Fans of the genre loved both the idea of an adult Heidi fighting a group of fascists and the proposed funding model that would allow them to invest in the project and even get a return on it.

The original goal of the team behind Mad Heidi was to raise CHF2 million ($2.12 million) through crowdfunding to finance shooting and post-production. The plan was to release the film worldwide, but exclusively on the film’s website, in order to skip the need to involve major distribution companies and to avoid piracy.

The crowd investment scheme, which relied on blockchain technology, was launched in September 2020. By April 2021, the producers had reached their financing goal.

How does Mad Heidi crowd investment work?

The team behind Mad Heidi aimed to raise CHF2 million for shooting and post-production by selling 4,000 shares costing CHF500 each.

Transaction records are stored on a blockchain, and profits are automatically returned to investors after the film’s release.

“All contracts are paperless, so there is no need for complicated paperwork,” says Valentin Greutert, the producer of Mad Heidi. The system also ensures transparency of funds, since it is difficult to tamper with from the outside.”

A total of 538 people from 19 countries invested CHF2 million into the project. “Investments have mainly come from Switzerland and Germany but also from Japan, where the Heidi animated series was born,” says Valentin Greutert, the producer of Mad Heidi.

Hiccups along the way

After that, however, not everything went smoothly.

Valentin Greutert. Valentin Greuert

The first casualty was the lead actress. Jessy Moravec, the actor who played Heidi in the teaser movie, left the production in summer 2021 before shooting was to begin. Moravec wanted to devote more time to her film directing and production career.

The bloody storyline also raised a few eyebrows. The climax of the film is a scene in which Heidi, dressed in a traditional Swiss costume, viciously slashes her enemies with a halberd, a medieval two-handed pole weapon. However, the Swiss traditional costume association TrachtenvereinigungExternal link considered the corsage on Heidi’s costume to be “an affront to Swiss tradition”, according to Greutert. “The association even wrote an e-mail to all fabric shops in Switzerland urging them not to sell [any material for making Mad Heidi costumes],” the producer tells SWI swissinfo.ch.

The film was shot in late 2021 at a studio in Bern and a Roman amphitheatre in Martigny, in the southern canton of Valais, over the course of 27 days. That’s an unusually short time for an action film.

“We would normally need at least 40 days for shooting such a film, but we could not do that due to budget constraints,” says Greutert. “But we were blessed with a great crew.”

Filming took place in Switzerland last fall. Because Heidi is very popular in Japan, a half-Japanese/Spanish actor played Clara (third from left). © Swissploitation Films / madheidi.com

Similar projects have failed

Institutional investors, film commissions and public funding organisations usually shy away from hardcore films such as Mad Heidi. Aware of these limitations, the producers bet their chips on a fan-based strategy, while still keeping in mind the many potential pitfalls of this model.

Kaukomaa’s 2012 film Iron Sky was a successful example of crowdfunding. The idea of Nazis from outer space invading Earth tickled the hearts of B-movie fans, and the film quickly raised €‎1 million (CHF990,000).

However, the outcome was a bitter disappointment for investors. The film failed financially due to a flawed distribution strategy that led to massive piracy. A sequel was delayed because of a copyright lawsuitExternal link, and its Blu-ray discs, offered as a perk to investors, were never delivered. Ultimately, the production company filed for bankruptcy in 2020External link.

One investor, who did not want their name published, told SWI swissinfo.ch: “I was more disappointed by the insincere attitude of the producers – who were not willing to disclose information to investors about what was going on – than by the low returns.”

Some movie fans voiced their concerns on Facebook and Twitter about Kaukomaa taking part in Mad Heidi when the crowdfunding campaign was launched. Kaukomaa, however, withdrew from the project a year and a half ago due to differences of opinion, and is not involved in any decision-making or financing of the production, according to Greutert.

“This Mad Heidi investment is based on trust and credibility,” he says. “We kept our promise: we finished shooting and delivered the film as planned. We are proud of that.”

Together with fans

Despite the plan to release Mad Heidi exclusively on the internet, cinema companies took note of the buzz surrounding the film. Fans already fired up by an ad campaign on social media also wanted to see it in the theatres.

“That’s why we agreed to show the film in local theatres in Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Spain for only a two-week window before its online release,” says Greutert. “We also hired a specialist to prevent piracy as much as possible.”

Investors will automatically receive a so-called shared revenue (net revenue after the deduction of operating costs) once the film goes online. Greutert did not want to say how much profit they expect at this stage but adds “there was a very wide interest at the film festivals. I have been in film production for 20 years and I can tell from my experience [that] Mad Heidi will fly.”

Greutert stresses the good relationship between the producers and the investors.

“They loved this ride with us,” he says. Since the very beginning of the project, the production team created a remarkable social media community, keeping close contact not just with investors but also with a wide fanbase. The fans even helped the creators find shooting locations and costumes.

“For many of them, the behind-the-scenes of film production is something they would not normally know about,” says Greutert. “They were happy to be a part of this special journey.”

Greutert is also convinced that “our times really need silly movies.”

“Climate change, the war, Covid pandemic: in these depressing times, silliness can save the world.”

Edited by Mark Livingston. English-language editing by Geraldine Wong Sak Hoi