Our Story

Hello, I’m Matthew Kulvicki a Director and Producer who recently won 9 Telly Awards and received multiple Webby nominations and honors for creating innovative series and animations consumed by millions worldwide. I was the Director of Photography for Showtime and served as Producer and Director of Photography for The History Channel, BET, and Smithsonian. Now, I am working with an amazing team on a live action feature and we need your help. 

Chilltown is a scary movie with a big heart. Like any great story, it’s a dance of hope and fear. In my opinion, storytelling is the greatest tool of identification so that has become my mission. Chilltown is an odyssey of transformation. We will join a group of beautifully broken people as they overcome insurmountable odds and discover that the battle with our demons never ends, so you should never – ever – do battle alone. Storytelling is the best tool we have for identifying with each other, so my hope is that audiences will see themselves in it.

Our Indiegogo campaign is designed to build on previous donations and our existing professional volunteer team. We are confidently moving forward with the production, but have not reached the funding level necessary to ensure our film has all the actors, crew, equipment, and supplies to make it as special as we know it can be.

With your help, we will make something that no one has ever seen before. We need your enthusiasm and trust. I hope what we share in this campaign drives you to join our team.

What We Need To Make Chilltown.

We are raising $250,000 for the production of the film. The funding will pay the crew outside the expert volunteer team we already have as well as pay for more equipment and fees. We will hire the crew members listed below for the 24-day shoot:

1st Assistant Cameraperson, Assistant Director, Production Manager, Costume Designer, Electricians/Grips, Prop Master, Hair & Makeup, Production Assistants (5).

Funding will also be used for actors, for the construction of a few small sets, furniture, props, special effects, lenses, additional lighting, two picture vehicles, extras, and feeding everyone. 

We Need Backers!

We need people who want to get this film shot and completed at the highest standards so it can be distributed to large audiences. If you become a Backer you can make that possible.

Plan B.

If we don’t reach our goal of $250,000 we will have to reduce the budgets of the departments or consolidate some departments. That said, we will move ahead and shoot the film. Onward!

The Current Status of Chilltown

Where We Are Now.

1. Screenplay is complete and copyrighted.
2. We received a grant from the Jersey City Arts Council and the city is helping us acquire film permits and obtain general support from the community.
3. We have internally raised more than $150,000 already for the production which is a great start.
4. We have professional volunteer key crew members including a Cinematographer, Production Designer, Sound Mixer, Casting Director, Visual Effects Supervisor, Locations Manager and many more local volunteers.
5. We have been donated a 13,000 square-foot facility to be an office, holding for cast and crew, and sometime studio for the duration of the production.
6. We have a SAG agreement and great SAG actors already auditioning for parts in the film.
7. We have approximately 40% of our filming locations already donated to us.
8. We will begin filming on July 22nd and shoot for 24 days.

Your Impact

What you can be a part of.

• As I prepared this Indiegogo campaign, I regularly checked my motives for daring to share a story like this. As an artist who works on the diseases of despair at an academic foundation, as a court appointed advocate for foster children, and as a sober person for the past eight years, I see a void in telling the inside story of how some get out. The film will be a striking collision of neo-realism and horror. Chilltown will be thrilling, tender and uncompromisingly authentic, featuring true characters on a dizzying, time traveling journey set in a world of real peril – with a real monster. (Story synopsis at bottom)

• Set in a place, Jersey City (Chilltown), with a threat, Walking Clothes, the film breaks the protagonist into four characters whose stories span eighty years. The audience identifies with the protagonist, one being, through four characters who are united by their location and bound by the phantom’s threat. Unrealistically absurd, terrifying, and divine moments channel the power of identification across vast differences in character and time. Chilltown drags the audience far from their reality, shakes them, then returns them home in a four-part tale of resurrection.

• We have been developing this film for years. We were never rushed, but now is the time to act. At this moment, we have everything we need minus some funding. “Oh, you just need money?!?!” The answer is YES. I realize how silly that may sound, but our funding goal isn’t higher because of lots and lots of preparation. We love this film and there are already more than 20 of us contributing in different ways to make it happen. 

Risks & Challenges to Making a Movie.

Anything can happen over the course of a film production. There are the “Happy Accidents” that no one planned that become the best parts of a movie and sometimes there are disasters. An actor can get lost, a location can burn down, a global pandemic can happen. Anything and everything is possible so we must be able to adapt to changing conditions. The best way to do that is with an exhaustive plan. To have back ups for our back ups. I have learned over the years that a goal without a plan is just a wish.

That said, if our best laid plans don’t work we have another resource: imagination. There is a solution to every problem if you can allow for new ideas. Problem solving is one of, if not the greatest skill a director can have. I have faced countless production challenges myself and I can also count on the knowledge and experience of my team. Our film is about not going it alone and that will be how the film will come together. It will be made with trust, experience and fellowship.

Our production budget is low considering what we are trying to achieve and that is a challenge. Making any film, especially an independent one is very risky. We cannot guarantee the outcome of this endeavor, but I CAN guarantee that Chilltown gets made and has a good chance to be special as it deserves to be. 

Join CHILL”TEAM”.

If you can’t contribute that doesn’t mean you can’t help us fulfill our little dream.

• Please get the word out by making some noise about our campaign!
• Use the Indiegogo share tools!
• If you are in or near Jersey City July 22-August 17th you can volunteer!