The Quiet Maid (Calladita) [2023] : The First European Feature Fiction Film Ever That Was Funded with NFTs! (And It’s A Good Watch)

^{Original picture was from Miguel Faus status on X.}

This satirical drama film written and directed by Spanish filmmaker Miguel Faus in his debut was released in November 2023 at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (Estonian: Pimedate Ööde Filmifestival), which is an annual film festival held since 1997 in Estonia's capital city, Tallinn. At the 2024 Raindance Film Festival, lead actress Paula Grimaldo was awarded Best Performance In A Debut for the film, where it was also nominated for the Best Debut Feature and Best Debut Director awards.

The Quiet Maid (TQM) was also screened at the 27th Málaga Film Festival (March 1-10, 2024). In early 2025, the 17th Gaudí Awards (January 18, 2025) have nominated TQM for the Best New Director and Best Adapted Screenplay categories. The film is also nominated for the Best New Director category at the 39th Goya Awards, which are scheduled to be held on February 8 this year.

TQM was originally a 15-minute short film written and directed by Miguel Faus and released in 2020. The short film titled Calladita won various awards at international film festivals, including at the Palm Springs International ShortFest, the success of which encouraged Miguel Faus to develop the short film into a more complex and in-depth story in feature film format so he came out with The Quiet Maid.

Ocean's Eleven director Steven Soderbergh was involved in the film's completion by presenting a Finishing Funds Award and accompanying $100,000 for the film's completion at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2023, after learning of Faus' difficulties in raising funds. Soderbergh also acted as an advisor to the production team during the post-production stage. Soderbergh's involvement must have boosted film enthusiasts' hopes for TQM.

^{Created with Adobe Photoshop 2021.}

During the production period, Faus found funding difficulties, he found rejection from all parties - except in the end, Soderbergh with the finishing funds - for his debut feature film proposal. He then tried the blockchain way, by selling digital art from a fifteen minute version of Calladita in form of NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens). The Spanish director then raised $750,000 from more than 600 digital art collections sold, so to speak, that “the movie was co-funded by 600 collectors from around the world”.

The digital art collectors were promised behind-the-scenes access to the production process. In addition, they were also given a level of control over a share of the movie's future earnings. Perhaps, it was something like this, made possible by DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) technology that led to the huge success of Faus' fundraising.

Nftnow.com calls the successful production of the film making its debut appearance at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival “a triumph for Faus and his team and a significant milestone for the Web3 community, as Calladita will be the first NFT-funded feature film to screen publicly.”

The NFT collection is called Calladita, after the name of the short movie. Calladita consists of 2400 NFTs grouped into 4 Tiers. Some items of Calladita NFTs can be seen on OpenSea, at this link. Below is an image of one of Calladita's NFTs named Calladita Tier 1 - Still #1026 which can be seen here on OpenSea, currently owned by an OpenSea account holder under the name of innertia. Innertia obtained it as one of 20 items from an account named straybits on December 30, 2022 as seen in the transaction details on Etherscan at this link.

^{As seen here.}

TQM tells the story of Ana ( portrayed by Paula Grimaldo), a Colombian immigrant who works as a maid for an upper-class family in Costa Brava, Catalonia, northeastern Spain. The film vividly depicts class differences and social inequality through Ana's point of view. As the title suggests, Ana goes about her work quietly, bearing witness to the lavish lifestyle and internal dramas of this wealthy family as well as the behavior of the employer's children with their friends - who also come from wealthy families - who often visit. Ana doesn't care much for them although she always hears about the young boys talking to her in a sexually harassing manner. Her determination to help her family financially, especially for her younger sister who is still in school, keeps her going.