Glassworker raises $116,000 on KickStarter

The first hand-drawn animation film from Pakistan, Glassworker, simply steam-rolled its $50,000 funding goal and has now become the highest-funded KickStarter campaign from Pakistan.

Launched by Usman Riaz, a multi-talented young artist from Pakistan, the campaign was for developing a hand-drawn animation film, a beautiful art that is slowly going out of fashion. The film is a coming of age story of a young glassblower, someone who uses a glass-forming technique that involves inflating molten glass into a bubble

Two months ago, Usman, having made his name through his incredible musician skills and by becoming the youngest-ever Ted Global Fellow, finally launched a $50,000 campaign to fund his dream of developing Glassworker with his studio, Mano Animation Studio. Little did he know that the film would go on to make 232% of its funding goal, amounting to a total of $116,000 from a total of 1,053 backers, breaking the record set by Markhor of $107,286 USD.

“I’m just overwhelmed and very grateful to God for everything”, said Usman when asked about his thoughts on the campaign.

Here is a message he posted on the campaign’s page along with the film’s first official poster,
“Thank you to each of our 1053 backers, and all who have helped to make our dream a reality and beyond! It has been such an incredible journey.”

The initial funding goal would have been just enough for the development of Part One of the film, but with more than twice the money at hand, they will be able to develop the second part of the film as well. There will also be some additional goodies like the full orchestral score of part one and a making-of documentary, behind the scenes of the development of the film.