Spike Lee’s first kickstarter-funded film, Da Sweet Blood Of Jesus, has a new trailer.

Last summer, Spike Lee started a Kickstarter campaign in order to have his fans fund his next film. He went on to raise $1.4 million in the campaign and started filming. The Kickstarter campaign drew some controversy, as Lee clearly did not need his fans to raise money for his movie. Lee defended his decision by pointing to his modest beginnings as a filmmaker, directing movies that no studio would touch and scraping together funding on his own.

“The truth is I’ve been doing KICKSTARTER before there was KICKSTARTER, there was no Internet. Social Media was writing letters, making phone calls, beating the bushes,” Lee wrote on the Kickstarter page.

While there has been much speculation about the film’s subject matter, that has been cleared up a bit with the new trailer and synopsis. Here is a look at the first trailer for Da Sweet Blood Of Jesus:

Also, here is the official synopsis for the film from Lee:

“Spike Lee’s new stylized thriller DA SWEET BLOOD OF JESUS is a new kind of love story. Dr. Hess Green (Stephen Tyrone Williams) becomes cursed by a mysterious ancient Afrian artifact and is overwhelmed with a newfound thirst for blood. He however is not a vampire. Soon after his transformation he enters into a dangerous romance with Ganja Hightower (Zaraah Abrahams) that questions the very nature of love, addiction, sex, and status in our seemingly sophisticated society.”

The trailer for Da Sweet Blood Of Jesus hints at some common themes in Lee’s work, including race relations in America, sex, and religion. It should be interesting to say the least.

Spike Lee’s Da Sweet Blood Of Jesus is the first Kickstarter-funded film by a major studio director. As the trailer states, it will be released in theaters and iTunes on February 13.

[photo credit: reclaimedhome]