Free The Cowboy aims to take Damn Right I'm a Cowboy - a documentary about The Hillbilly Hoot Radio Show - to the Down Under Berlin Film Festival in Berlin, Germany in September 2014.

After four heady years of shooting and two years of editing, a working draft of this feature-length documentary was a sell-out, foot-stomping, standing ovation, roaring success at the Adelaide Film Festival. It was a great night. Paul Clarke (ABC Arts / Rage) calling it 'the greatest example of people creating music I've ever seen', and scheduled it for TV.

Here's a short trailer to tell you what the doco is all about -  real people making music!
But, despite great reviews (see way below) and three screenings on ABC-TV, Damn Right I'm a Cowboy can't be shown anywhere at present because it is currently locked up on music copyright problems. That's because the artists on this community radio show occasionally stray from home-written material to sing some old standards and past hits, and even a few seconds of this copyright music on film costs a lot of money.

The good news? The majority of the music is actually cleared, largely because it's local- given to the project for free. And some of the licensed music has also cleared- over $16,000 so far from our own resources and kind friends.

Play these original tracks from the doco- you'll get the idea...
The bad news is that the rest of the songs in Damn Right I'm a Cowboy will cost about $22,000 to clear before we can screen it in Berlin- not a lot of money in the film business, but for us it's devastating. That's where you come in. Join the Free The Cowboy project and help us get this inspirational documentary into the world by contributing a small amount. We've got just one month.

Too much information? Probably! So, for now, check out Movie Trailer above, listen to the music videos and check out the Rewards. And spread the word- the posse has formed, we're intent on sending the Cowboy to Berlin and sharing this bundle of joy with the rest of the world. Thank you for reading. May the horse be with you!

Bonus Reward!

How else can you help?

At this stage we have 14 songs still to clear- songs that were sung by people like you just warming up, or trying out ideas on community radio. Clearance for movie rights on this licenced music range between $300 (for 13 seconds of an Australian song) to a thousand for three minutes of a classic, ex-hit. 

Some companies and artists are being very generous (thank you - you know who you are!) and ALL the local singers gave their work for free but, adding it all up at present, we have just over a month to find around $22,000 to completely clear the movie for the Downunder Berlin Film Festival screening on Sept 12, and onwards. That soon? Yeah- Help!

Time is our biggest enemy -  we were chosen at short notice for this amazing Film Festival, our first overseas recognition, and need to make the contributing artists happy as soon as possible. Please spread the word- facebook, Twitter, whatever. Spreading the word to twenty more people is likely to be more valuable than contributing $20 (but leave the money too!)

The other big obstacle? The fact that not one funding body - state or national, arts or film-based - has been able to find funds to help us put the finishing touch to our years of work, despite its proven track record and potential international sales from this exposure. Often this is due to funding guidelines which mitigate against the self-starter- a fault of policy which means we keep falling between the cracks but such discouragement of good ol' JFDI initiative is a little sad.