Created by Justin DIllon, the film is a cutting-edge model of “open source activism,” with the goal of ending slavery once and for all. Qui Diaz has an excellent analysis of the social media marketing taking place to promote the film and address the slavery crisis. Additionally, the film’s site explains:

There is a sea of change happening in human rights activism. The world’s issues cannot be solved alone by governments and non-profits, but require community-based participation. As a feature film, CALL+RESPONSE has the unique position of being not only a ground-breaking genre-bending film, but due to the fact that this project was funded completely through donations, it operates as a powerful movement with 100% of profits going to fund global field projects on the front lines of this issue.

There are 27 million people kept captive in slavery today. Go see Call + Response when it hits theaters and decide for yourself how you will address their cry for help.

Massify members (membership is free and anyone can join) are offered a platform to promote themselves and whatever current projects they are involved in, and are also eligible to vote on other users’ film ideas through online competitions in which members vie for financing and distribution from Massify and its partners.

And after granting money to winners of its online competitions, determined by popular user vote, the investors in Massify will maintain a financial interest in the films that originated there, and help produce and bring them to market.

Brett Icahn, Massify’s other founder, said: “Online networks should apply a democratic process to the creation of content, not just the distribution of it,” he said. “The Massify community crowdsources the best ideas, and elects the best actors. It’s more a production network than a social network, because it’s driven by a creative purpose.”

While Massify will face a lot of challenges unique to the film industry, I’d love to see them succeed. Building a community dedicated to creating a wonderful product through a collaborative experience is a powerful tool, and its a model I think more brands and organizations will soon adopt, especially as more tools come into place to better empower audiences.

Before you head to the theater to see Wes Anderson’s new film, The Darjeeling Limited, you might want to see the prologue. For that, you would have had to go to the New York Film Festival last Friday (crap, we knew we should have posted about this last week…) OR iTunes! Yes, you can download the 13-minute short, Hotel Chevalier, which features Jason Schwartzman bedding (off camera) a naked (on-camera) Natalie Portman for free.

According to Variety, Anderson thought that Apple was his best bet if he wanted to get the film seen by a wider audience. “It’s not the most commercial idea in the world to say, ‘There’s another ten minutes you should see, but we’re not sure how,’” Anderson said. The video has since gone viral, landing on other video sites like Google and YouTube (especially the nude scene), so even international viewers can enjoy.

This marketing move taps into an increasing base of online video streamers. According to Advertising.com’s latest Bi-Annual Online VideoStudy, 62 percent of respondents are viewing video online. 36 percent of consumers have increased their consumption of online video since last year, with movie trailers being their second choice of content to news clips. ComScore’s numbers show that nearly 75 percent of U.S. Internet users watched an average of three hours of online video during the month of July, with Americans viewing more than 9 billion videos online.

Watch Hotel Chevalier

Time has a quick story

What movie marketing strategies have been Oscar-worthy this year?