Are Film Festivals Indie-Friendly Any More?
With Sundance behind us and Tribeca, Toronto and Cannes approaching quickly, we're entering the heart of film festival season. Time was, film festivals were a venue for independent filmmakers to show off their chops to an audience of professionals -- a chance to bring their work mainstream and find a modicum of success in such a brutal industry.
But for the past several years, this year being no exception, the buzz has all been focused on mainstream stars. At Sundance the big draws were Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind, which needed no further publicity given Gondry's credentials and the film's billing, and In Bruges, driven by A-listers Colin Farrel and Brendan Gleeson. At AFI Dallas much attention has been paid to Josh Brolin, the No Country for Old Men star whose short film X also played at South by Southwest. Even high-profile festivals like Cannes now tout the premieres of blockbusters like Indiana Jones in their lineup.
Do you think film festivals have become too Hollywood, or are they still accessible to independent filmmakers? Are festivals still valuable in showcasing independent films?
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No, they are not Indie-Friendly! Almost all of them are driven by politics - how many celebrities can we get to show up and show their new $50 million movies.
We made a modest independent feature a couple years ago and were foolish enough to submit to many major festivals. We made some contacts and learned that certain festivals don't even watch the submissions - they remove the check and throw the rest away, because their line-up is determined by exactly the method mentioned above.
I can't say they're all crooked - but the fact is that "Independent Film" doesn't mean what it used to - it means a budget at least six, usually seven figures, and the little guy who sells his car to make a movie just can't get it seen, whether it has merit or not.
In case anyone's interested, our movie is called Night Sounds and you can watch our trailer at www.sickrosefilms.com.
So Matt, what's the solution? The Internet? How do indie-filmmakers go about showing their work to a legitimate audience?
Do you think there's hope of the indies taking back the festivals, or is it at this point a lost cause?
The internet is great for reaching all kinds of people that would otherwise never hear of you. The issue with the Internet-based film festival organizations and festivals is that they are heavily focused on youtube-style shorts and skits, and/or they're in it solely for profit. People surfing the internet don't want to watch a feature or even extended short - we want instant gratification in two-minute bursts.
I hope that there's hope! New festivals are sprouting up all the time, it's just so hard to tell which ones are worthwhile and which aren't. Regardless, the people that independent filmmakers want to see their movies aren't going to those festivals - they're going to the top 5 to network.
There are even local & national coalitions, support groups, alliances of indie filmmakers, but we have found that these often end up as frustrated filmmakers spinning their wheels and talking at each other. A lot of organizations make big claims about getting movies seen - and they all charge money without guaranteeing results.
"Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for," to quote Mr. Smith. Even if we have to shoot one all-nighter at a time, we won't give up on filming. We are about ready to give up on festivals, though.
I agree that the potential of the Internet can be outweighed by the public's lack of appetite for content that's longer than 2 minutes -- a quandary to be sure.
But I think sites like Hulu, which deliver full-length content with quite a bit of success, could be an invaluable tool. Let's say you were to take a technology like Pandora, which recommends new content based on your searches and your ratings, and pair it with a content provider like Hulu.
That way, if I were to search for a movie I like, I would get a list of independent films along that same genre. I think that would be a great way to reach a general public, and you might even find hollywood execs using it to find new talent for a project...
These same executives are supposedly exploring the lists that screenwriter's websites post too (and charge good money for), searching for new talent. Unfortunately, they don't have time for anything besides a logline and a title, although there are exceptions.
I think the sad truth may also be that the viewing public doesn't have a great amount of interest in most independent film - unless it stars Robert Redford and is available at Blockbuster (which I don't really consider "independent").
Maybe the Indie Films need to reach even more publicly accessible sources. Maybe they need to be on OnDemand and Netflix. Either way, each film need a champion, a sponsor, someone already on the inside to make it grow. It's a Catch-22; to break through, you have to be on the other side already, unless you're damn talented AND damn lucky.
The filmmakers who believe that they can post their movie somewhere, and a month later the Weinstein company is going to call up, should prepare for disappointment.