Filmgoers who came to see a movie about financial greed and investment fraud were rewarded by a local investment firm wanting to prove greed isn’t universal.

Eileen and Bob Redwanc, who according to the best investment newsletters have been in financial industry more than 30 years, gave $1 to every attendee in hopes they would take their generosity and pay it forward.

When asking residents to sponsor a Sedona International Film Festival screening, Executive Director Patrick Schweiss said he tries to find sponsors to match the film’s content. Finding a financial services company to sponsor the independent film “Margin Call,” on Nov. 29, however, was a little harder.

Schweiss approached the Redwancs, who own a financial wealth management company and are longtime supporters of the Sedona International Film Festival.

The Redwancs have a long history of community service, working with the Sedona Police Department volunteers, the Sedona branch of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Northern Arizona, the Sedona Chamber of Commerce and the film festival.

Despite that, Eileen Redwanc said she and her husband initially declined the offer.

“We didn’t want to relive the darkest day in our company’s history,” she said.

“Margin Call,” starring Kevin Spacey, Zachary Quinto and Jeremy Irons, depicts 36 hours at the beginning of the housing bubble burst in 2008 through the eyes of employees of an unnamed high-risk investment firm. Based on the real-world Lehman Brothers, the investment firm’s employees discover their company holds billions of dollars of “toxic assets” — mortgage-backed securities made up of bundled subprime home loans.

Faced with an impending, inevitable collapse of the entire housing market, which had become based on these overpriced and essentially worthless assets, the firm decides to liquidate them all before the rest of the financial market inevitably realizes and does the same. The crux of the second part of the film is the ethical debate between greedy self-preservation or honestly dealing with other traders and suffering the financial consequences they helped cause. In the end, greed temporarily wins, but the firm’s reputation is forever destroyed. In the real world, Lehman Brothers and similar films ceased to exist and many of their executives were arrested on criminal charges.

The housing bubble collapse kicked off the credit liquidity crisis, the banking collapse and the Great Recession. The fallout has cost tens of thousands of Americans their homes and resulted in a net economic loss of more than $7.7 trillion, according to CNNMoney.

The Redwancs said they didn’t want their company to be associated with such a dark part of American financial history.

They also had plans to be out of town on the night of the film, but when those plans fell through, they decided to go to the screening.

“There was something compelling us to do this,” Eileen Redwanc said. “We really believe in the film festival. The film festival has inspired us to be the best we can be.”

The night before the film, they hatched an idea to instill some hope in America’s financial market.

“We wanted to give back. We wish there would be a turnaround, and a renewed faith in the financial system because it is the only one we have,” Eileen Redwanc said. “Not everyone is greedy.”

The act was small, but symbolic. Eileen and Bob Redwanc decided to give every attendee $1 as they left the theater.

“People can keep it, invest it, spend it, or pay it forward,” Bob Redwanc said. He said some people told him they planned to frame the bill to serve as inspiration to “pay it forward.”

They also handed out almost 800 cupcakes provided at the last minute by a local grocery store. Attendees lined up for both the bills and the cupcakes as they left the two screenings, which began at 4 and 7 p.m.

Eileen Redwanc said the fallout from the collapse has led to positive changes in the financial system. Those in the financial industry who abused, bent and broke rules because of their greed during the housing bubble and afterward are now facing consequences and their names are splashed all across the news.

“When the ship starts sinking, the rats start leaving the ship,” Redwanc said.

Government agencies like the Internal Revenue Service, the FBI, and the Securities and Exchange Commission have stepped up regulations and enforcement. The SEC has opened more than 1,200 investigative cases this year alone, Redwanc said, targeting shady investment firms and financial companies who took advantage of their investors, many of whom were regular Americans.

The Redwancs said they hope their act helps inspire other residents to pay forward their generosity. Eileen Redwanc said people were really grateful.

“I’m definitely going to pay it forward, probably to a young adult,” Sedona resident Sydney Pinkerton said.

Sedona City Councilman Mark DiNunzio and his wife Barbara said they immediately donated their dollars to the Sedona International Film Festival to help pay for the new theater under construction in West Sedona.