Production has started on The Birdwatcher, a micro-budget feature film from director and producer Siobhan Devine and writer and producer Roslyn Muir.

Cameras rolled on the project following a successful Indiegogo crowd sourcing campaign, which brought in just over $14,000 – above and beyond the filmmaker’s original fundraising goal of $9,000.

The film tells a story of a single mother who is diagnosed with cancer, who then decides to seek out her estranged birth mother. The subject matter of the film, along with a strong social media presence, helped make the fundraising campaign for the film particularly successful, Devine told Playback Daily.

“I think people really connected with us and the project because of that,” Devine said.

In addition to the funds raised by the campaign, the film received financing from Telefilm. The project also won the Women in the Director’ Chair Feature Film Award at the Vancouver International Women in Film festival last year, which provides winners with $120,000 of in-kind industry services and a rental package from the Creative Women Workshops Association.

The cash budget for the film is about $110,000, Devine said, adding that many people are also volunteering their time to work on The Birdwatcher.

The film will shoot in Vancouver and North Vancouver over three weeks. The Birdwatcher stars Camille Sullivan, Gabrielle Rose, Garwin Sanford, Matreya Fedor and Jakob Davies. Alexandra Raffe and Carol Whiteman are the executive producers on The Birdwatcher.