Filmmaker Michael Culyba launches Kickstarter campaign for KEEPER OF TIME, a documentary exploring the history of horology, mechanical watchmaking and time itself

Tourbillon Film Works, LLC, an independent production company based in New York, has launched an online crowd-funding campaign on Kickstarter to raise $100,000 in 35 days for its new film currently in production called KEEPER OF TIME, a feature-length documentary produced and directed by Michael Culyba.

Keeper of Time explores the history of horology, mechanical watchmaking and the very concept of time itself. With interviews from top horological experts and the finest watchmakers in the world, it delves into the world of timekeeping by examining the planets and stars above, the astonishing engineering of mechanical watches, the sophisticated atomic clocks that keep our modern world running and much, much more. All the while, the film contemplates the theoretical and physiological notions of time, aging and human mortality.

Keeper of Time makes whirlwind stops around the world at such locations as the F.P. Journe Workshop in Geneva, Switzerland, the Royal Observatory Museum in Greenwich, London, the U.S. Naval Observatory where the atomic clocks for GPS navigation are located in Washington, D.C., the Grand Central Terminal Tiffany Tower Clock and Concourse Clock in New York City and many more. Painstakingly captured on camera, the film is peppered with meticulous close-up shots of exceptional mechanical watches, wheels and all, designed and built by the world’s most master craftsmen.

Featuring a who’s who from cutting-edge scholars in the fields of molecular biology, quantum physics and philosophy, the film includes interviews with master watchmakers François-Paul Journe, Max Büsser and Roger W. Smith, along with Ben Clymer, the CEO and Founder Hodinkee Magazine, Dr. Demetrios Matsakis, Chief Scientist of Time Services, U.S. Naval Observatory, Dr. Patrizia Tavella, Director of Time Department, International Bureau of Weights and Measures and several others.

Keeper of Time is co-produced by Emmy award-winning film and television editor Shelby Siegel (The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst), who is also the film’s supervising editor. The director of photography is Ben Wolf (Obit). Watchmaker Nicholas Manousos, President of the Horological Society of New York and Technical Editor for the online watch magazine Hodinkee, serves as the film’s horological consultant.

Michael Culyba has been editing documentary films in New York City for over 16 years. Some of his credits include Dixie Chicks: Shut Up & Sing (Toronto International Film Festival 2006), Gary Hustwit’s Urbanized (Toronto International Film Festival 2011), Running from Crazy (Sundance Film Festival 2013) and My Own Man produced by Edward Norton (TriBeCa Film Festival 2014). Most recently he edited two-time Oscar winning director Barbara Kopple’s film This is Everything: Gigi Gorgeous, which premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Keeper of Time is Culyba’s directorial debut.

The Kickstarter campaign will feature an array of exclusive rewards. Working with New York graphic designers Small Stuff, the campaign is offering a limited edition film poster featuring a diagram by world renowned watchmaker Roger W. Smith, a set of three working wall clocks handmade in Germany, and an originally designed paper sundial to be printed at home and folded to tell time in the northern hemisphere.

The Kickstarter campaign is also offering rewards from the famed watchmakers featured in the film: a private tour of RGM Watch Co. with watchmaker Roland Murphy, copies of MB&F’s magazine Parallel Worlds signed by radical watchmaker Maximilian Büsser, and F.P. Journe’s exclusive VIP version of the book Sonnerie Souveraine – Grande Sonnerie, signed by famed watchmaker François-Paul Journe. Also available is merchandise from the popular online watch magazine Hodinkee and Vol.1 & 2 of their print magazine autographed by Ben Clymer (Hodinkee Founder & CEO) and Jack Forster (Hodinkee Editor-In-Chief).

Keeper of Time is slated for completion by October 2019.