Help fund a movie about the Paradise Garage and Larry Levan

Update, May 29: The filmmakers have cancelled the Kickstarter.

With only $16,138 of their $175,000 goal pledged by backers, the film failed to get off the ground – hopefully they will find a generous patron elsewhere.

The historic New York nightclub is the focus of a new film

Jonathan Ullman, director of 2011’s Trouble in the Heights, is making a movie about the Paradise Garage, the famous stomping ground of DJ Larry Levan.

The “scripted feature film” will tell the story of Levan’s rise to fame and follow club owner Michael Brody from his early struggles with the King Street venue to its marathon closing weekend in 1987. “The Paradise Garage was more than a nightclub,” Ullman tells Rolling Stone. “For 10 years it helped shape the musical landscape, providing the soundtrack to an era. It’s a musical legacy that must be preserved for future generations to discover and cherish.”

The filmmakers have put the project on Kickstarter and are looking for $175,000 of funding before June 3. Backers can receive rewards including replica Paradise Garage membership cards, exclusive tracks from the soundtrack, T-shirts and tickets to the wrap party.

Two of Levan’s former assistant DJs, David DePino and Joey Llanos, are backing the film and appear in the video for the project on Kickstarter.

“Last year’s block party drew over 22,000 people, and a good half of them were too young to have ever experienced the Garage,” DePino says. “They didn’t get to live it, but through this movie we can entertain and educate this new generation of fans about what the Garage really was and its impact on music, its history and how DJs today from all over the world are standing on the shoulders of Larry Levan.”

Listen to the five-hour set from that block party and find out more about the movie on Kickstarter. [via RA/Rolling Stone]