My friend Elena is running a campaign on Kickstarter to help fund her film The Illusionists, a feature-length documentary about the commodification of the body and the marketing of unattainable beauty around the world.

In the style of Inside Job, Food Inc. and The Corporation, The Illusionists takes the pursuit of the body beautiful - a subject often framed in personal terms - and puts it in historical and commercial context. Such political approaches to body image tend not to go down well with the people holding the purse strings, says Elena, which is why she has decided to go to her community for funding instead. She writes:

The more I worked on “The Illusionists,” the better I understood why media companies and TV stations resist similar projects: they are afraid of scaring off advertisers, and push filmmakers to make “personal,” lighter films on the subject. It happened in my case and I refused. That’s why I’m running a fundraising campaign on Kickstarter.com: so that I can be completely candid about these topics and do them justice.

Where I am a word nerd Elena is a filmmaker, and the video I’ve posted above does more justice to her ideas than I can do in writing (without expending thousands of words on the subject, at any rate). Go watch it - and consider donating to the campaign. She’s 40% funded already, but in order to keep the pledges already received, she needs to reach her full $33,000 goal by August 5.

Click here to learn more about the film or to donate.