There’s a Big Leg in Your Future
Besides That, Here’s an Update on “The Worst Movie Ever Made”

NEWS | WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11 | BY FUSION STAFF WRITER, RUDOLFO CARRILLO

Coming up with creative funding for student film projects has been a preoccupation—an avocation really—of American college film nerds since time immemorial. Just ask Martin Scorsese or Roger Corman next time you're traveling through film-land.

The addition of social media to this or that undergraduate funding palette has only added to the possibilities that get discussed before, during, and after a film is made. According to the folks we talked to at the UNM Film School, crowdfunding is currently the most-used method of getting there from here. Students use Indiegogo and similar platforms to help transform their visions into cinematic reality.

For two undergrads enrolled in UNM’s film program, the entire concept of funding and using crowdfunding and social media to bring in the bucks has become an exercise that not only questions the current system, but also provides a compelling alternative—an act of resistance that reaffirms the importance of film and of community, in the times we are currently crawling through.

Joseph Greenberg and Natanael Aguilar are part of the next generation of Lobo filmmakers. They’re intense, funny, and observant. Those qualities, above many others, planted the seed in a filmic field, where it has grown to become “The Worst Film Ever Made.”

That’s a meta-reference, if you’re interested in that sort of thing. Plainly said, it means that the title of their fundraiser is also the title of their film, and a self-aware, self-deprecating reference to themselves as artists and filmmakers.

This week marks an important turning point in the continuing process that embodies “The Worst Film Ever Made.” Fundraising efforts for the project—which include making a low-budget experimental film epic and a financial commitment to FUSION—go until the end of the day on Saturday, February 15, 2026.

So far the project has yielded more than $3,000, with each contributor being given an opportunity to contribute to the film in one creative way or another. This is a final push, these words a document that speaks to art, commitment, and community, all inflected through the spirit of Dadaism and embodied via a large leg rising from the ground on the FUSION campus.

Here’s what Greenberg and Aguilar told us about the leg, the project, and the community.

Rudy Carrillo: Let’s start at the beginning; fill me in on the deets.

Joey Greenberg: This whole thing started out as a joke. That’s one of my favorite aspects of the project. We were at a picnic [last summer] talking about how ridiculous it is, kinda, to do crowdfunding for your films. We were seeing thirty per day, Kickstarter and Indiegogo projects. The indie film cultural space is filled with them and they’re kinda a pain in the ass.

Part of our reaction to that was imagining a process where contributors got to control the film more than they should by getting access to the filmmaking as a reward for their financial support. They could add a frame, for instance, crazy ideas like that. At some point, we decided to just do it, as an experimental thing, and give any profits we made to a non-profit of our choosing.

Natanael Aguilar: It did start as a satirical idea where we interpreted the indie film scene in Albuquerque; it’s much more than just a satirical project or a satirical film. Of course, we are poking at the indie film scene, but we love that scene. We’ve put a lot of our passion and creativity into that scene.

And people get that, and you’ve been successful, am I right?

Natanael Aguilar: Right now, we’ve been able to fundraise $3.2 thousand dollars. To me, that success is evidence of a supportive community. This is a passion project between me and Joey, but our number one goal is to give life to our support of the community, especially institutions that play a key role in nurturing the arts in Albuquerque.

The whole thing with different contributors, collage, Dada, a leg coming out of the floor in the midst of a vibrant arts community… When you were brainstorming, did you all think about the bigger picture and how it would all come together?

Joey Greenberg: I think, for me, the creative aspects of the project is that it is unique. I’ve never heard of someone in the film industry doing something like this, where contributors get direct input into the creative process of the directors. You get to contribute a frame for a dollar; for $50 dollars, you can write a line of dialogue. For $500, you can be an executive producer.

I get it, I think. You’re making cinematic transgression seem really alluring, asking the audience to play along, to help deconstruct and remake the entire creative process?

I feel like we are treading new ground. It’s fun.

Besides the plata, are you excited by the artistic nature of the contributors that you’ve engaged with so far?

Natanael Aguilar: It’s wonderful to see all the people that have donated. A lot of people in the community are putting their trust into our future, our work. Early on, our goals were modest. We really worked to make this a community-based, citywide event.

Joey Greenberg: We’re hopeful that most of it is going directly to FUSION. That’s always been our main objective. We’re aiming at under $1,000 for the actual film, with the rest going to FUSION. That’s a great cause, and it’s so cool because we get to interact with the local film community while supporting an organization that has really come through for the local arts scene.

What’s up with the giant leg? 

Joey Greenberg: We wanted to get people off of their phones, away from social media. That was really important to us, and it was a thing within the crowdfunding process that we wanted to change. To me, there’s a part of those experiences that doesn’t feel real… we’re asking people for money for this sort of out-there, risky project, so we wanted something tangible, something visceral to help people understand that we are real, as artists we exist in the real world. The leg is a wacky, attention-grabbing collage that will captivate people so that they will investigate more about our project.

Natanael Aguilar: Visitors to the leg can also participate by signing the leg or making marks on it. There’s a pen attached to the display. People have written saucy things; we encourage that!

Now you’re talking! Hey, what’s next?

Natanael Aguilar: Well, these next two days are our final push before fundraising ends on Saturday, [February 15] at 11:59 PM. We’re very hopeful that the social media assault we're working on today will give us further momentum. You can let people know that our fundraiser can be accessed at Dust Wave’s site.

Joey Greenberg: We’re not going to start writing until after Saturday, when we can begin to take a close look at the contributions and proposals. Once that’s all done, we’ll most likely have the beginnings of “The Worst Movie Ever Made.”