Distribution strategist Peter Broderick, whose articles on microbudget filmmaking were foundational in the early days of this magazine, publishes a weekly newsletter that is a must-read for anyone tracking the independent film industry. A recent edition, his report on Sundance 2023 documentary sales, has prompted discussion and clarified important current trends in non-fiction acquisitions. This report is reprinted with his permission. Sign up for Broderick’s newsletter here. — Editor “Every independent filmmaker should learn the lessons of Sundance. This year’s festival revealed critically important developments in the indie ecosystem.” Let’s start with the same two sentences that began my Special Report […]

On January 26th 2021 my film, LIKE, a feminist noir thriller, debuted on Apple TV, Amazon Prime and others. It has been a long and winding road just to get to the end of the beginning. Part 1 of my article, published in July, details my voyage into the opaque world of film distribution and the ever-evolving influence of streaming, which had for years been diminishing independent film theatrical box office. But then, of course, live audiences were near-obliterated when COVID-19 lockdowns shuttered theaters. In other words, the theatrical exhibition experience was all but gone until who knows when. I […]

A number of people in the independent film world have been saying lately, “DIY is dead” — more specifically, that do-it-yourself (DIY) distribution and marketing is dead, that it’s no longer useful or practical. As a filmmaker and distribution consultant who has been accused of being a proponent of DIY, I thought it important to respond to this claim because it can be harmful to our community in a variety of ways. DIY is a concept, a philosophy, a prime motivator. It’s a phrase with a lot of historical power and roots in the punk rock movement of the 1970s, […]

You’ve made an independent film and you’d like to get it out into the world. Unfortunately, unless you’re already a “name” director with an established track record or your film has played at top festivals, there’s no clear route to getting distribution. In recent years as the traditional distribution model has shifted, the future of film distribution has been murky. But at a Portland Film Festival panel devoted to distribution, Drafthouse Films chief operating officer James Shapiro declared that “We have finally arrived at a place where we know what the future will look like, at least for the immediate […]

There are many new distribution options for the independent producer. The old media includes theatrical, broadcast/cable, home video; new media’s alphabet soup includes TVOD, SVOD, AVOD, EST, PPV, streaming and nontraditional theatrical. As new distribution channels develop, new distribution companies emerge. But not all distributors are effective in all mediums and markets. Just as you would not expect Netflix or Vimeo to release your work theatrically (Netflix’s recent self-originated productions to the contrary), you would not expect Gathr and Tugg to broadcast or cablecast your work. As a consequence of all these new distribution channels and the splitting up of […]

BitTorrent has been flirting with creators for a little while now, releasing Thom Yorke’s Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes to the tune of $20 million in sales, as well as a free supplement to The Act of Killing, which was downloaded by 3.5 million in a month alone. Leave it to iconoclastic comedian David Cross then to push the envelope and digitally release his debut Hits for a pay what you wish pricetag. The film will also be available on iTunes, likely for the $14.99+ standard, but Cross is putting his stock in the erasure of the middleman, encouraging audiences to “decide how much tickets cost and…pay […]

Following this week’s Sundance announcements, I linked in my newsletter to two articles I wrote back in 2009: “So You Didn’t Get into Sundance” and “Letter from the Future.” This first is a consoling “what to do next” kind of piece, and the second is an only partly tongue-in-cheek riff on alternative ways to approach festival distribution. The latter owes a lot of Jon Reiss, who in articles written for Filmmaker and elsewhere has advocated for making your festival premiere your premiere and to make a DIY distribution your plan A, not some hastily considered fallback plan when a big […]

The most notable moment of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival arguably occurred over 6,000 miles away from downtown Manhattan in the Virunga National Park, in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Two days before Orlando von Einsiedel premiered his film Virunga — a stunning documentary about the park and rangers’ attempts to protect its wildlife from poachers, civil war, and a billion-dollar oil company — park director Emmanuel de Merode was ambushed and shot while driving alone in his car. He survived the ordeal and has returned to work, but the moment highlighted the issues the film explores, primarily environmental […]

The title Years of Living Dangerously could just as easily refer to the time its creators spent producing the recent series, and it has indeed been a busy few years for the journalists-turned-film producers Joel Bach and David Gelber. The pair left their posts at 60 Minutes several years ago to pursue a passion project, a long-form documentary on global warming. The result was a nine-part series that aired on Showtime this spring and, last week, took home the Emmy for the best nonfiction series, beating out Fox’s fantastic, much-lauded series Cosmos. Now the team is gearing up for phase two of the release, a DVD […]

A moving, informed tale dealing with one man’s struggle with mental illness, Jono Oliver’s debut feature Home is graced with both heart and street smarts. The film tells the tale of Jack, an outpatient hoping to leave his group home, reunite with his son, and manage life on his own. Adversity comes from both his illness but also the day-to-day realities of life in New York. Indeed, Oliver’s great achievement is to make Jack’s reality an entirely palpable one while not sugarcoating the issues of his affliction. In a film with strong performances thorughout, Jack is wonderfully played by Gbenga […]