Montauk Chronicles Creator Seeks Funds for Bigfoot Film

Christopher Garetano, creator of the award-winning documentary Montauk Chronicles, is seeking $20,000 through crowdsourcing to help complete his next project, Bigfoot, which he promises will be the definitive film about the sasquatch mystery.

The filmmaker has been hard at work on Bigfoot since October, 2015, and he’s already released a teaser for the movie, which he reports is about 25 percent complete. The funds Garetano hopes to raise through indiegogo.com would be used to pay for creature costumes, effects and makeup, weapons and pyrotechnics, props, and cast and crew, including an animal wrangler.

“We’re going to do a lot of period pieces,” Garetano says, noting the expense of shooting cinematic-quality scenes, including Teddy Roosevelt‘s story about a man who saw a sasquatch in his 1893 book The Wilderness Hunter, which Roosevelt wrote on Sagamore Hill in Oyster Bay. Garetano plans to film a scene later this year showing the Rough Rider and soon-to-be president writing at Sagamore Hill. “I want to make the audience feel what Roosevelt felt,” the filmmaker says.

He also intends to shoot a high quality recreation of the day in 1967 that Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin filmed their famous Bigfoot footage at Bluff Creek in Del Norte County, California. For many experts, the nearly 50-year-old Patterson–Gimlin film remains the most convincing sasquatch evidence ever produced.

“There’s a very rich history and that’s what I want to tell with this film,” Garetano says, noting that Montauk Chronicles was “made on a shoestring,” and is by all accounts a success. With Bigfoot, he will try to up his game and create something even greater.

And by using crowdsourcing instead of big individual investors, Garetano says he can maintain control over the film and create a truly independent movie. Backers of the film will of course be rewarded, depending on the size of each contribution. Among those rewards, Garetano will be sending out weekly video “set reports” from the various filming locations. He is also offering movie screenings, digital downloads, DVDs, a book about the making of the film and more.

“The only time this history has been presented properly is in books,” Garetano says, explaining that Bigfoot will include the legend’s history, some of the most famous sightings, and then a look at the creature through modern science, experts and evidence. “Nobody has a great movie, and I’m going to make it.”

Watch Garetano’s campaign video, including the Bigfoot teaser below.

To contribute to his film, visit indiegogo.com/projects/bigfoot–3#/.